Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Keylo, Freeze said, you got no class.

Freeze, you know I’m a dog.

Yeah. Sniffin a bitch’s ass.

No Face burped some laughs.

Tell one of them stories.

Later for that, Jesus said.

Nawl, tell one.

You really want to hear one?

Straight up.

Word.

All ears.

Aw ight. Why not? Once upon a time, this nigga went to this bitch’s house. Her daddy come to the do. The nigga be like, I come to see your daughter Sally. The father let him in. Sally roll into the room.

Roll? Keylo hunkered down to listen.

Yeah, in a wheelchair. See, she ain’t have no legs. Got nubs up to here. Jesus put the edges of his hands at the knees.

Damn. Head bent in listening.

Check it.

And she ain’t have no arms. Nubs. Right here. Jesus put the edge of his hand at his elbow.

Shit.

What kind of bitch …

And she had this special wheelchair and all she had to do was throw her hips like this. Jesus demonstrated.

Oh, I see. One of them. Big-booty bitch.

Mad back.

Word.

Lumpin.

So the father say, Yall gon out in the backyard and talk. So the nigga and the crippled bitch go out. So he start kickin it to her. And she get hot, but she ain’t never been fucked before. How you gon fuck a bitch with nubs? So the nigga see this clothesline stretched across the backyard. He gets an idea. He grabs two clothespins, then he takes the bitch out of the chair and pins one nub arm to the line, then pins the other nub arm to the line. He props an old wood barrel under her butt. Then he bump her from the back.

Damn!

Word!

Bumped that crippled bitch!

After he nut, he zip up his pants. Then he be like, See ya. Her father come out and find her three hours later. Pinned to the clothesline.

Laughter bounces around the court. Jesus is deep into it too, rejoicing from the gut.

And he left her like that?

Word.

Cold-blooded.

Hanging on the clothesline.

Word.

Heart.

But, nigga — Keylo shoved No Face’s head back — that wasn’t no joke.

You don’t know me from Adam. I ain’t said nothing bout no joke. I said a lie.

Bitch, stop lyin. Keylo stuck a big eyedropper into the forty and suctioned up liquid into the tube. When the dropper was full, he craned back his head, poked the dropper in his mouth, and squeezed liquid from the flooded ball at the dropper’s end.

Funny story, Freeze said. He took Jesus’s shoulders into the circle of his arm. Jesus saw that his own feet were no longer touching the ground. He bobbed in the air, bobbed in the circle of Freeze’s sweat-warm arm. He could stay here, forever, and hang. Hang. Freeze released his shoulders. Anchorless now, Jesus concentrated, concentrated so as not to float away. Freeze walked a few steps, then turned to Jesus’s trailing eyes. Keylo, he said, go to the sto fo me.

Damn, Freeze. I wanna check out another one of them jokes. Lies. Stories.

Me too, No Face said.

Gon on, Jesus. Bust another one.

Yeah. Bust another one.

Stop repeatin after me, bitch.

Keylo, go to the sto fo me. Buy me a … he nodded at Keylo’s forty.

What about them stories?

Later for that.

Come on, Freeze.

Keylo.

Damn. Keylo tail-wagged off to the store — no, walking like an antelope, lifting hoof from knee.

And buy Jesus one too.

No, thanks, Jesus said. I’m straight. He fluttered his feathers.

No Face, go with him. Make sure he don’t get lost.

Aw, Freeze. But I wanna hear—

No Face.

Damn. Hey, Keylo, wait up. No Face trotted off. Jesus watched him grow smaller and disappear.

A pigeon skimmed the earth in flight, then headed toward the sky, and the sky breathed it in.

Freeze worked his arms through his T-shirt, and covered his bare chest and back. Pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pants pocket. Shook the pack until one cigarette eased its length, extended, like a radio antenna. Want a square?

No, Jesus said. I quit smokin.

Wish I could quit. Freeze pulled the antenna from the pack, tapped it against the back of his hand, then stuck it in his mouth. Using his thumbnail, he flamed a match. Where yo daddy?

What? Jesus said.

I said, where yo daddy?

My daddy? Jesus stood in a mass of tobacco smoke.

Yeah.

Jesus breathed in the silence. You don’t know me.

Freeze watched the lit cigarette end. Where yo daddy?

Hey, you don’t know me. Why you askin bout my daddy?

We got something to settle.

You must mean somebody else. He don’t even know you.

He stole a bird from me.

Sound strikes what skin is meant to shield. Jesus wobbles. What?

He stole a bird from me.

A trapdoor shuts inside Jesus’s chest. A bird?

Yes.

My daddy? Jesus fingers his chest, points to his heart.

Yeah. His name John, ain’t it?

Nawl.

His name ain’t John?

Yeah.

John ain’t yo father?

Nawl.

Who yo father?

Jesus looked into the sky. Thinking: I get it. No Face told you. Yall running a game. He laughed.

You think that’s funny?

Jesus drank Freeze’s milk-white eyes. No.

Ain’t John yo father? John Jones?

Yeah, he my father. So, what up?

Like I said. Freeze took a drag on the cigarette. Exhaled through his nose, dragonlike. He stole a bird from me. Light lay in four colors on his face.

You serious?

Freeze said nothing.

Jesus shook his head. Fingered the words in his mind, measured them, searched for color and sense. When did he steal it?

Freeze smoked the square down to the butt. Does it matter? He crushed the butt under his heel.

John know you?

Know me good enough to steal from me. Know me good enough to steal from me then run off and hide like a lil bitch.

Jesus let truth move inside him, let himself move around inside it.

So now you know.

Yes.

And you believe?

Yes.

Good. So then you know. Know what I need you to do. So then you know that I need you to—

I know, Jesus said. I know.

You know?

I know. And I will.

You will?

Yes. Yes I will. Yes, I’ll do it.

You can always choose—

Wait, Jesus said. He halted Freeze’s words with his palms. Pushed them back. Wait. Feet carried him away. He didn’t want to hear any more. No reason to. No reason, will, or desire. He walked, putting time and distance between himself and Freeze’s request, command, mission. Maybe Freeze did know John. Maybe. And maybe John had stolen from him. No surprise there. John was a thief. Water-slick. Easy in, easy out. And John was forever desperate, light, seeking to add some weight to his pockets. But would he accept any color or shape of pay? God marked every sparrow, Gracie said. Every sparrow. Gravity, Jesus carried the thought inside. Raised it. High. Descended down the spit-mottled steps of the subway.

THE TRAIN LEAVES AT TEN. John held two pieces of luggage — a suitcase and a flight bag — muscled out in each hand. Runs express. A ten-hour ride. Call you as soon as I get there tonight.

John’s promise was like money in the bank. Gracie could count on it. In thirty years he had never missed a call.

You heard from Jesus?

Gracie heard nails in his voice. No. She recalled the day John tied Jesus’s shellacked baby booties to his rearview mirror, the hanging boots running when the red Eldorado kicked into motion.

That boy slippin. If he keep it up, he be six feet deep.

I guess so. She carried two images of Jesus. The last thing she saw of him, Christmas Day on his way out her door, the black circle stitched dead center to the back of his red winter jacket, still and watchful a sinful black eye, clean and clear, smooth as the back of his bald head. And the first (minutes after his red birth), the empty cave of his bawling mouth challenging her to enter.