Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Nice work if you can get it. John spoke into his hands. Manicured nails. White, round and smooth like ten tiny eggs. Squeeze them eagles til they say uncle. He looked directly at Lucifer, or so it seemed. Sunlight played against the lenses, obscuring the eyes beneath. On what exactly were the lenses focused? Lucifer’s eyes? His forehead? Perhaps John knew the old trick of watching someone’s forehead instead of their eyes.

Sometimes Lucifer thought he could see right through John’s brown eyes, jack-o’-lantern eyes lighted from deep within by private suns. Once in their childhood house on T Street — a long narrow rectangular structure like a cereal box knocked flat, one of those shoebox houses that soldiers squeezed into after the war — Lucifer entered the bedroom that John and he shared and found John sitting on the floor, head bent, face twisted over his raised bent knees, working his jaws vigorously.

John looked up, put his eyes on Lucifer. The flames blew out. Lu, why. John flicked his lashes in the spring summerlike light. What’s up?

Nothing. Lucifer didn’t know what else to say. He would never forget the unconcealed look on John’s face, the eyes. John’s eyes opened themselves. Lucifer entered, walking corridors and rooms, and more rooms and more corridors.

For as long as Lucifer could remember, women had been drawn to John’s tobacco-brown eyes, the taste, the smell. John had sung women in three cities and two countries. Fought off the women who wanted the eyes, and fought off the bullying men who saw weakness in his short body. Ripe eyes. Ripe, till a fertilizer of herb or taste shrunk them to the size of watermelon seeds and he came home at three in the morning, if he came home at all, and filled the bedroom with his alcohol-coated snoring. Yes, back in the old days, in the basement apartment days on Church Street.

Those were his eyes in the old days. For the last ten years, John had worn round spectacles, twin clear moons. The spectacles had changed the eyes. You could no longer tell the color. Now, the two of them sat at a bright table amid a mass of sleeping shadows — figures at the other tables cut about with shade — and Lucifer noticed something new in John’s eyes. A good deal more in the eyes than had been there last Christmas, and even more than last Thanksgiving.

How’s the cab business? Lucifer said.

John’s eyes flew to Lucifer’s face. Lucifer had last seen John about a month ago when John had paid him an unexpected night visit.

Lucifer, remember how I was tellin you bout the cab business?

Yeah. Lucifer couldn’t forget. All John had talked about since Thanksgiving.

Well, it’s rollin. I jus need some capital.

Don’t we all.

The bank turned down my loan request.

Lucifer said nothing. Night made mirrors of the windows. He looked in these mirrors, gaining time for thought. Sorry to hear that.

But, guess what.

Lucifer was afraid to ask.

This guy at the dispatch bought a car for sixty bucks at one of those government auctions. He sold it for six hundred dollars. Six hundred dollars. Can you believe that? Now, if I could buy six cars a month and sell those six, I could pull in six thousand dollars. Six thousand dollars a month.

It can’t be that easy.

And in a few months, I could buy a whole fleet of cabs. It jus can’t be that easy.

It is.

Lucifer thought a moment. So you came here to tell me that?

What you mean? Man, we brothers.

It’s just that—

You think Porsha might want to get in on this? She has money.

She’s got a little saved. But her condo costs a fortune. Her car note. Clothes. Plane tickets. And she gives a lot of her money to that church.

That’s why I didn’t call her. John stretched forward the length of his neck to bring his mouth closer to Lucifer and give his words more force. You should get in on this!

Me?

See — John worked his smile — if you invest four or five thousand—

I ain’t got no money. Sorry.

John’s expression did not change.

Why don’t you ask Spin? Or Spokesman?

John said nothing.

Or the Sterns? The Shipcos?

Them tightfisted Jews?

Don’t hurt to ask.

Depends on how you look at it.

Well, I wish I could help.

Don’t worry about it.

LUCIFER HAD NOT SEEN or spoken to John since that night. John had stopped attending the Saturday basketball games where he and Lucifer had officiated together at Red Hook. Lucifer called John’s home, but John never answered the phone. Lucifer left messages with the dispatcher and Gracie and (even) with Inez. John never responded.

Junior, why ain’t you called?

Inez, this Lucifer.

Why you ain’t been to see me?

I’m comin soon. How you doin? You heard from John?

Junior, when you comin to see me?

Lucifer took the long train ride to Eddyland— dusty trees and dense foliage hiding faded bungalows and crumbling courtyard buildings; backyards crammed with chickens moving in small crooked shapes of white and yellow; auto yards and factories gift-wrapped in concertina wire —where John lived. His keys — one of John’s extra sets — couldn’t turn the locks. Lucifer tried the next day and the next. John never answered the door.

SLOW JOHN SAID. Business is real slow. He laughed. He didn’t stop. The drinks were starting to work, Lucifer’s gin and tonic, and John’s Jack Daniel’s with water. John’s third? fourth? It was to his taste today, though the old fire in John’s blood had cooled. His heart no longer burned for firewater, the strong cheap stuff.

The drinking made Lucifer remember Sam’s funeral, with John and Dave leading Beulah up to Sam’s casket, each holding on to one frail arm, holding her up, Beulah weightless under her heavy, gravity-commanding black hat. Sam, I wish I had been there with you. If I could trade places with you. Mamma told me to keep watch. Be yo brother’s keeper and yo sister’s keeper. And keep watch. Pallbearers Lucifer, John, Dave, and Dallas lowered the silver-railed coffin into the ready grave. They purchased a few pints of 40 Acres Gin (John’s favorite that night because it was Dave’s favorite) and looked right into the night, moving. They stooped in the mouth of a rotten building, tasting smoky piss.

Let’s drive down to Decatur, Dave said.

Why? Ain’t nobody down there. Beulah here. You blind? Didn’t we jus leave her at—

Let’s drive down for ourselves.

Good idea, John said, agreeing to what he had disagreed with the moment before. Let Lucifer drive.

Lucifer took the wheel, though it was John’s car (the red Eldorado?), using both hands, driving slowly and carefully, eyes tuned to the road’s music. The music was smooth and slow and allowed his eyes relaxed sights. Manteno State Mental Hospital, a white castle in the distance, where many bloods rested their rusted armor after rotating back to the world. The old dog-food factory where many bloods found jobs. Cornfields, yellow-green arms stretching for the yawning sky. A rooster red-spinning on a farmhouse roof. His inner eyes kept returning him to Sam’s coffin — his inner eyes penetrated metal, flesh and time — Pappa Simmons’s bronze coffin blanketed with pink carnations and fully guaranteed not to let in any moisture for at least fifty years. Inez had spent a good penny. He felt the double weight on his foot, pressing down hard on the accelerator, strength he never knew he had, squashing it, a bug under his heel. He sunk out of himself. Drove the Dave-John way. Fast and dangerous. The car rocked in a loud rush of air. Allowed him quick spotted looks. His hands grew slippery on the wheel and every curve in the road slowed him down. He stopped the car, tires crying. Turned the wheel over to Dave or John. He didn’t remember which. Dave and John took naturally to fast driving. That’s why Dave can turn the bottle cap on a wine bottle so easy, Beulah said. John pulled off the highway, taking the back roads safe from observation, the car red-flying — swaying with only the loosest connection to the road — past instants of trees, quick spaces of yellow fields, black-spinning shapes, pieces of white moon scattered on the Kankakee River, and a motionless sky. The four tossed gin, talk, and song, back and forth like a volleyball.