Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Brothers and sisters, I come from the Church on the Rock and I bring you these books— pamphlets, flyers —these revelations designed to bless each and every individual which shall read them seven straight days, seven days in a row. As of today, there are 916 confirmations of blessings, 916 people who had received glowing gifts from the hand of Christ. Just last night a woman phoned me, Brother Foot, I thank you. Christ reached out his hands and turned my rags to gold raiments. I won the lottery after reading your book seven straight days and seven days in a row. Sister, I said to her, All who believe in Christ shall hit the jackpot. There are no number runners fleeter of foot than the winged angels in our Father’s heaven.

God sent his only son to save man. Praise be to his only son, our Lord Saviour Christ. The burned man rattled his cup. Please give what you can. Read these Scriptures seven straight days, seven days in a row.

Gracie removed a dollar from her purse. Dropped it into the hot tin cup. Keep your book, she said. She never rode the train again.

HER SIXTH CITY WINTER, Sam and Dave arrived from Houston — on a fleeing locomotive — in summer’s clothing, and made all Englewood sweat from their sinful Houston heat. Daily they galloped from bar to bar, lounge to lounge, liquor store to liquor store; sundown, they posed against afterglow on corners, watching cars cruise down Church Street—

I gotta get me a car, Dave said.

The way you drive, Sam said. Huh.

What’s wrong wit the way I drive?

You don’t know? Sam shook his head.

I gotta get me a car.

— and rested at night, collapsed in the bug-ridden pastures of nasty women’s beds.

TWO YEARS LATER, Sam and Dave got sent up the river for stealing hogs from the factory, dressing the hog up like a man in a long coat and Dobb, leaning its legs over their shoulders and holding it up between them, Come on, Wheatstraw, you drunk fool, know you ain’t sposed to drink on the job. But of course, two years after that, after the arms of justice had released them, they needed a place to stay and crowded into the one-room apartment with Beulah, Sheila, and Gracie, Sam and Dave sleeping beneath the kitchen table on the red-and-white-checkered oilcloth — Damn, you niggas, Beulah said, get out from under my tablecloth. People gotta eat on it. Enough to spoil yo appetite— the same checkered oilcloth where, later, in the house here on Liberty Island, John would beat Lucifer and Dallas (his pig’s snout level with the board, as if this could improve his concentration) at chess, and still later, whip the pants off the boys, Hatch and Jesus, til Hatch mastered the game, beating John and Lucifer for their spare dollars. Wasn’t a week before every devil-may-care man on Church Street cussed their names.

You niggas need some work, Beulah said.

Them two Jones boys — Sheila began.

Lucifer, Gracie said. And John. The one wit those brown eyes.

Why you worried bout em? Sam wanted to know. You mus like them brown eyes.

— got jobs washing windows. In Central. Good money too.

Now, what we need with work? Sam said.

Tell her, uncle. We had plenty work in the joint.

Well, Beulah said, why don’t yall go back there and press some license plates.

License plates? Woman, I worked in the infirmary. And he assisted me. Sam hooked his thumb at Dave, who sat stretched back in the wooden chair, leg hooked over the arm.

Look, I don’t care if you—

Don’t say it, Sam said. Beulah, you know I know you. Don’t say it.

Beulah gave him a hard look.

Look, woman. Get it straight. We ain’t workin fo no chump change.

And we ain’t luggin round that kid no more. Dave flicked a nod at Cookie. Like to break my back. Shit, silks ain’t serve me no hard labor. Jus a straight sentence.

Yeah, Sam said. We ain’t her daddy.

And we ain’t gon pretend.

Sides — Sam smoothed his conk with the palm of his hand, followed its movement of waves, wet leaves — we fin to light out fo California and see R.L. Surprise visit.

Yeah. Surprise visit.

The only way you lazy niggas get to California is if it come to you.

That’s mighty fine wit me, Beulah. Mighty fine. But I ain’t luggin round that two-hundred-pound baby no mo. Sam hooked his thumb at Cookie, who sat crooked and twisted in the wooden wheelchair — the one that Gracie, years later, stuffed in the pantry, beyond Hatch’s and Jesus’s curious reach, the toddlers mistaking it for a rocking chair — body both tense and limp, legs smooth, round and slack as ropes, tiny feet motion-ignorant on the running board. Nothing straight about her, even with the leather belt holding up her waist, face lax, mouth open, completely relaxed, or tired perhaps, just tired. Only her eyes moved, watching you come in and out of the room, blank and unblinking, dead fish stare.

Got that right, Dave said.

I was so glad to get shut of them niggas when they went off to the service, Beulah said. War didn’t change them none. Always askin, beggin, Sister, how bout lettin me hold some change. Then Dave go, Aw, Sam, don’t ask her. She cheaper than Jack Benny. Sam and Dave worry me so that sometimes I wish they’d never come back from Bataan. Buried there wit all them Japs.

Beulah worked nights — spring and summer — so she could attend baseball games during the day — That Paige, oh that Paige; his curveball hum like a Roadster — and Sheila worked nights so she could watch Cookie during the day. When you returned from work, you and Sheila would lift Cookie down the three flights of stairs — a trip someone would make for seventeen years until your gains ebbed away and Cookie drowned in a sea of pneumonia — so you could take Cookie strolling in the park. You took her there every day, through lazy snow or sun slanting with wind. Circle Park was beautiful then, fields of red and yellow and pink roses, fields wide as the moon. The sky large, white, clear: a huge drop of milk. The grass neat. The hedges trimmed. Wind in the air. The iron streetlamps free of rust and the stems so brown and tall, and the lantern so wide and green, you mistook them for trees. And you circled the lanes, palms firm-gripping the handlebars of the wheelchair — hanging on the course of your life. The stroll was just that easy; a single movement, a slight turn of the handlebars, returned you to the apartment door stoop. You removed the keys from your purse.

Why, Miss Gracie. John watched her with those brown eyes. You need some help gettin Cookie back upstairs?

Yeah, Miss Gracie, Dallas echoed. You need some help gettin Cookie back upstairs?

John stood there, hat in hand, head bowed, thin waves of hair shining, the cut of his eyes directed where the hat brim would be, stood there, before a spillage of leaves on the vestibule doorsteps.

Thank you, boys.

John and Dallas slipped out of their blazers— no, Dallas wearin that old funky nasty pea coat —folded them neatly over their shoulders, and stooped like stretcher carriers, hands positioned on the wheelchair. Okay, John said. On the count of three. One. Two. Three. John and Dallas lifted Cookie in the air and carried her up the stairs, never missing a breath, their heels tapping cutting rhythm. Set her down — Cookie slobbered a smile — and stood waiting before the front doors, watching Gracie.

Yall want something to drink?

Yes’m.

Yes’m.

Have a seat. They did as Gracie ordered. She got them cool lemonade in Beulah’s mason jars. John tilted his head back and drained his jar, throat working. Dallas did the same. John watched her — she thought of herself, how her skin gleamed like black milk — feet several inches above the floor. He was so small and Dallas so large that Gracie expected John to hop in Dallas’s lap like a ventriloquist dummy. But he watched her. She assumed the men wanted a tip. Took two quarters from her purse and pushed it into their hands.