Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Gawd put reason in the head like the stars and planets in heaven!

Yes he did!

He put the passion in the heart and the heart in the chest like angels in the air!

The congregation stamped their feet.

He put worldliness in the kidneys, worldliness in the intestines, and worldliness in the abdomen like he put man on the earth.

The organ hit a heavy beat.

But the Good Book call chillun a gift from the Lord, huh!

The church grew suddenly hot. Porsha crossed her legs and her skirt stretched, revealing smooth brown thighs. She drew her skirt down like a shade. Her breasts shifted about in her blouse. She could feel her insides kicking out, kicking with guiltless violence, furious at the cramped heat. Then the church started to rock, tossed, a hot biscuit in cool hands.

Years have rolled on, and tens of thousands have been borne on streams of blood and tears to the shores of eternity. Years have—

Porsha felt the rocking increase steadily around her, gearing up, preparation.

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

A wave rose from her stomach to her lips. Rafters arrowed into the black sky. Water came.

STRONG-BLOODED, he quickens to the challenge. Rears back against the sharp veil. Constricts. Thickens. Cuts deeper. His throat swells. Once twice three times thicker than each cord of the veil. Forces his soft dry tongue — the tongue of a parched traveler — through hard dry teeth. Lashes along his body, lines, red paths that cut in all directions. And up above, way up, beyond and through the starlight-fine—

Sharp horns curve through the drawn curtain. He wakes with a sour taste in his mouth, like metal. Hot steel pokes from his pajama fly. He raises himself to the bed edge and sits in thin sharp light, he and the bed one. The pillowcases and sheets clean and new and scented with the fragrance of fresh powder. (Sometime last night before he’d retired, Sheila had entered his room and changed the linen.) The sheet smell, the early morning quiet, and the green trees waiting outside the window bring back West Memphis. Movement plays at the edge of his vision. He looks up to discover a mobile spinning in silent space. Half-moons tracking new half-moons, turning new sickles of light. A long apple peel that spirals the round rhythm of Elsa’s walk. Turns Elsa’s hot image over and over in his stewed skull.

A mobile? Where had it come from? Sheila had placed it there. That was the only possible answer.

He washed and dressed quickly. Left his room and filled the hall with his voice. Sheila! Sheila! No answer. He banged on her closed bedroom door, banged against blind wood behind which Sheila and Lucifer shared their bed. Sheila! Sheila!

He hurried downstairs to the kitchen, almost expecting to find Lucifer standing above the round table. Expecting to see him drink his coffee in six scorching swallows, jam four slices of toast down his throat then rush out the house.

Sheila! He waited. Let the words carry. Sheila! Sheila!

White paper beckoned to him from the refrigerator door:

I went to Inez. Be back later.

Make you some breakfast.

Mom

Damn!

He returned to his room, stuffed a carefully chosen assortment of compact discs, cassettes, and books into Mr. Pulliam’s green army bag, and quit the house.

Knife-edged. Everything sharp, brilliant in the light. Cooler than yesterday. But less breeze. The air soft under hurrying clouds. (Hard to believe this the city of icy lake wind.) Birds drew heavy lines on the sky and the sky swayed with their loud noisy weight. A bird broke the line and dropped, stunned to the porch. Deceived, it had flown into the porch window that held the sky’s reflection. Damn. He wanted to kick the red bloody thing but his shoes refused. His feet required motion.

A radio whined on the horizon.

Have you heard

The rumors the wind’s blowin round

Tewenty thousand miles up in the shy

Something’s going down

Get out of your grave

Dance in the street

Get up and go, learn more than you know

Practice what you preach —

Somebody’s bustin Jimi, he said. Somebody’s bustin Jimi.

He danced, marched to the beat, both asleep and awake. (John said that grunts learned to snooze between footfalls.)

He had sat up most of the night and watched dawn define the city with disconcerting swiftness. Sat, wavering between one plan and the next, his thoughts like loose shots. In the morning, he would ride out to Eddyland to see if John’s cab was parked in his driveway. Check the garage. Break into it if he had to. An image floated up and remained like stagnant water in his memory: Jesus’s teeth marks in the leather dashboard of John’s gold Park Avenue. The shape of anger and absence. He would ride to Union Station and talk to T-Bone. Better yet, he would return to Red Hook and—

He tries to recall the plan now, a course of action as sure and certain as a man-made river. That river had dried up and evaporated in his sleep. He can see and feel it around him, ticker tape on cool city wind. In the city today, everything is new: hotels, clubs, restaurants, stores, and the buildings that house them, streets and the markers that name them. New. He can find few spots he knew only a few days ago. He remembers the city small and unreal inside the small square window, like a miniature model of itself. He remembers slow descending circles.

The roar of the engine brought a hot flush of relief. He was leaving Memphis, the South, for good. The plane taxied. Pure speed. The rush of takeoff. Try as he might, he could not help grinning broadly, broad as the plane’s wingspan. Pure speed and the plane lifting into the air. He kept his open eyes trained out the small square window. Amazing how the large world shrinks in seconds. The plane found its altitude, leveled off, settled, cruised. Its shadow rippled over the white clouds like a black twin. A plane in flight offers the illusion of stationary life. You don’t see motion. Your body feels it. And when you do see the motion, you act under the illusion that the plane flies slowly. White and distant, the sky moves and remains. This surprising lesson flew home with him.

Memphis last night and the city this morning. He had few facts but many feelings. There remained no trace of the former wish to see and save. The old desire like an early dream from distant centuries. No will to pursue and no fear of being pursued. Faith and intuition were both useless. What was left? A sense of flying longing. John had sailed off the edge of the world. Lucifer and Jesus had followed him. Not the smallest part of their existence reached him this morning.

ABU PEERED THROUGH THE ANGLE OF OPEN DOOR with yellow eyes, eyes topaz from the smoke of Boy Scout campfires.

Damn, nigga. Why yo eyes so yellow?

What? Abu rubbed them, his round belly bouncing once, twice.

You still sleep or somethin?

Nawl. I was — Smokin some weed?

Ain’t had none in a while. So you back in town?

Nawl. I’m still gone.

Funny. Real funny.

We got in last night.

Good. Abu looked like he wanted to say more. He didn’t.

So, what’s up?

Oh, same ole. Hey, you know the concert still on?

What?

Spin.

Word?

Abu nodded.

Man, I had forgot all about that.

They canceled it last night because of the flood. Now it’s tonight.

Word?

Word. They even added an act. Klanfeds. That country rap crew.

So you got the tickets?

Right here. Abu patted his shirt pocket.

My nigga.

On point.

How much I owe you?

Abu told him. He gladly paid it.

He followed Abu down the hall. His mind moved. He wanted to ask, You heard anything? — meaning You heard anything about John, Lucifer, Jesus? Wanted to ask but how could he? For all he knew, Abu was none the wiser. He had to keep it that way.