Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Rats, he said.

Vile, she said. Vile. She turned her eyes away.

He chuckled. For a long time he watched the water and said nothing. You know what?

What?

Dave, that sonofabitch remember everything. You know what he told me?

What?

Dave, well he told me that him and Sam drove out there to California to pay R.L. a visit.

Don’t believe nothing Dave says.

So they visit him, thinking that ole pretty R.L. was fast enough to keep one foot ahead of the fast life. No, Dave said. That wasn’t the case. Caught. His whole world tied up, tied up in Christmas tape.

Gracie listened with greedy ears.

All scarred up.

Scars?

Yep. His arms.

Gracie said nothing.

So Dave said. So there was ole pretty R.L. all pretty and fancied up and ditty-bopping down the street out there in pretty California and noddin so bad he couldn keep his hat on.

TAR LAKE MOVED with laser swiftness. Babies swam, raising their legs like powerful oars, the rush of their bodies parting the rushing water. Black riders came in off the lake beckoning for her red toes. New waves rose wildly, their height massed against the horizon, against the city. She could hear a battle far off, thunder and shouting. She could smell the ride of sin. Babies ran up trees, black squirrels. Shall two know the same in their knowing? All her life, she had believed that no two were closer than she and John. He had brought her into the world and she him. Entire with each other. Now she knew, their lives had never really touched. She was alive without equal.

She starts for the house in the serene extinction of light at sunset. The ground grows lighter and her feet move to meet it in the air. John passes up the white, wide walk, flight bag in hand. He looks at her with his marksman eyes. Touches her on the face and hands. She opens her mouth to speak, but he sends an answering smile before she can form the question.

The house receives them. Light, creaking, a house of twigs, a bird’s nest. The floor rises under her feet. Rolls and pitches, rocks, a spray of witch’s feathers. She sinks back, wet, weak and trembling, head expanding, the carpet moving under her feet. Pushes herself up to try again.

DEATHROW STANDS in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria holding his penis.

Why are you holding it? she asks.

I thought it was my shadow.

THE PARTIAL VIEW can reveal the strongest colors of the whole. North Park quilted in deep green through the window. Cloudy trees arching high in air. Huge bird nests built like penthouse apartments in tall treetops. She thinks she can see all the way to Red Hook. Buildings small, red, and hard in the distance. Fossils.

Red flickered in her eyes. Candle flame memories of Deathrow. She thought of herself, there (Memphis, West Memphis, Fulton, Houston, the South) and here, as holding on to him. She concocted scenarios where they would meet again. So certain that he would return to her on her return to the city.

Should she even be thinking about love now that Lula Mae was gone? And how should she feel about Lula Mae’s death? How had it changed her? Did it diminish her life or increase it? She greased her hands with Vaseline and slid them prayer-fashion into the Lazarus 1 patent pending, thinking that she might have gained the power to levitate.

She had not.

She cleaned her hands, grease-free. Pressed a button on a mummy-shaped remote control and popped on her bubbled black TV, bright sight and sound. A drive-by shooting, the flood, the storm overseas. Hammered cadences ripped at her as masked and camouflaged entities transformed the desert into a huge movie set. Scaffolding, prefabricated structures, false fronts, precise machines. Rockets springing up over the horizon like toy snakes released from a can. Ah, here was a possibility. Perhaps Deathrow had been drafted — Do they still draft young men? — and stamped into a soldier.

With the television for company, she flipped through her stack of unopened mail. Bills, announcements, invitations, catalogues, and more of the same. A glossy postcard glowed like a priceless tempting jewel.

Decided on Bahamas instead. The water is green. The sand is pink. I’m chillin. Enjoying conch fritters. Fried plantains. Strawberry daiquiris tall as mountains. Yum. Yum. And riding John Canoe at every opportunity. Need I say more?

Nia

The postcard caused Porsha to remember the two letters she had found in Lula Mae’s lil house. She opened her purse and searched through the contents. Receipt for the plane tickets. Boarding passes. Reverend Blunt’s business card. (She put it aside for safekeeping. You never know. It might come in handy someday.) Funeral program. (Some extra copies for friends.) Rusty horseshoes. (She would need to mount them above the doorways for good luck.)

Finally the two envelopes. Why had she kept them for herself, not revealed them to anyone else, secretly lifted them from the shoebox and slipped them down her dress and between her breasts like a thief?

She quickly removed the letter from the first envelope. (The spine had been neatly cut with a knife or opener.) The envelope was stained and faded but the letter was not, the sheet of blue-lined notebook paper whiter than white after all the years.

Dear Mamma:

Having many things to write unto you, the story of a man is lost and the story of his image loses a little interest every time it’s retold. So I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full and the story complete.

I have many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen. I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face.

Greet the kin by name.

Yours.

The second envelope was much heavier than the first. She examined every detail before opening it. Size. Shape. Texture. Color. Two spots on the triangular flap. Like eyes. (Could it be watching me? He be watching me?) R.L.’s tears? His spit?

She removed the letter from the envelope. Fine stationery. Several folded pages — as many folds as a navigation chart — all unnumbered, no heading, no subscription.

Brothers here, brothers there. Often did I think of the inhabitants of the deep much happier than myself.

Words shimmered and wavered. Folded, collapsed into one another.

To give an account of all I’ve saw, a thousand tongues would be insufficient; so please excuse my humble hand. Resolve as one may to keep to the main road, some bypaths have an enticement not readily to be understood.

She stared as if staring would restore the words to sight.

Though I am not present before you, my story wears an honest face. In the time of our fathers, writing was the voice of an absent person, and that absence bespoke another voice, the only voice.

She told herself out loud, How am I sposed to read this?

Read my little tale with reverence. Today, as I write it, all is quiet within me. You can see by my penmanship that I am not scribbling as I usually do. I’m not blessed like you. You could always write a pretty hand.

For a moment, she imagined that the letter was written to her.

All my life I’ve been absorbing bits of people around me. I have had business and conversation with wise folk, churchmen, laymen, fools and the like.

Her fingers dream moist on the paper.

It should be easy to follow the thread of my story.

The moist pages move with wave rhythm in her fingers.

The seams show.

Words lift on light wings and settle like colorful butterflies on common objects in the room.

Nobody can write their own life to the full end of it unless they can write it after they are dead. Some other must always judge us.