Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

The hog runs for the mouth of the tunnel, three-toed feet slipping on the tracks like a woman in high heels.

He surges and plunges, a windmill, all legs and arms, snatching his feet up almost before they touch the ground. The hog spins on one leg — the chubby shank, the monkey-wrench calf — brings the other high in a wide arc, and catches him on the side of the head — the temple, right? the church at both sides of your head — then, hollow pain, like someone knocking a pipe bowl against a table’s edge. The old roundhouse kick. Hog knows its licks and flicks.

He has to guard against the hands — paws? — the narrow fingers in-grown perfect for the old eye gouge.

He sees an opening. Drop-kicks the hog in the balls. (Know my flicks, too.) Son of a bitch, the hog says, hands over his balls, Adam holding the fig leaf.

They are tangled between the rails — which one is the third, the hot jolt of raw electricity? — rolling, two contestants in a mud-wrestling match. The hog stinks bad — pickle juice? — and is covered with scratchy, stubbly skin, three-day-old beard over the whole week of its body. It tickles. He locks his teeth onto the hog’s tonguelike ear. (Wait, raw pork is bad for you.) Hog considers returning the favor, but it is dignified, the low blow beneath him. These humans …

He brings the butcher knife — the knife, how could he have forgotten it? — into view. Hog-squeals. He drives the knife between the second and third chins, a clean blow. He can feel a weapon on the hog, just as he knows it has a navel. What makes it moo — grunt? — oink? So that’s why they called it —

A grind of gears— a lawn mower? a car? — started beneath the small high window above the bed filled with books stacked like sandbags. Hatch’s early-morning skin felt the old mattress — he slept in the same old iron bed he’d had all his life; each night, the coiled springs kept squeaking even after he lay still — but the contours and niches did not fit his bones. Somebody’s been sleeping in my bed. His feet dangled over the edge, awaiting the hangman’s ax. He swung his legs from beneath the covers, rooted his feet on the floor, pushed his torso up, and sat on the bed’s edge, leaning forward, chin resting on the pyramid of his fingers. His sleep muscles tightened trying to hold on to the heat and color of the dream. The shit that can crowd your sleep. Sleep slowly pulled its two black wings from over his face. Silver teased his vision. A dogtag bright-dangled from his neck. He squeezed its motion in his fist. It was perforated down the middle, like a salt cracker, so — Lucifer had explained when he gave it to him many years ago — that strong hands could snap it in two, half of the tag marking the body and the other half, the grave. He checked the bed for dampness. Early-morning voices and traffic sounds rolled over him. He had never been one to take all the nightmare images from the evening news into his sleep. Why now?

The previous night he’d had trouble sleeping. A jackal had thrashed its tail repeatedly against his chest. He had defended himself with a motion he remembered but his body couldn’t perform. Turned on the bulb beneath the hooded lamp. Sat on the bed edge, then moved over to the chair before the window, shade drawn. Small light teased the room, pale, from a streetlamp. And the darkness beyond, full of the city’s sounds. Then a tin-trickle of rain. He sat that way until a washed-out sky and a swollen sun drenched the windows with golden light. Fingers of dawn pulled him back into sleep, into dream.

A recurring feeling. Above: sun — choking up his skin’s natural oils. He thinks. Pulls up clumps of grass from a mental pasture, a black concentration of thought-force, chewing a blade or two to cut free thoughts. The sap of resilient spring. The sun eats its last shadow for the day. Night falls boulder-heavy, heavy drape to drop over the day, cloak to shelter you. A lizard scuttles green. Curled, the lizard curves around the circle’s inside. Grunts and silence. Silence and grunts.

The shade blew steadily in the window with a rasping sound. The mattress and springs coughed dry. The sun stood small in the empty morning sky. Rays of light spread wide, like the early-morning legs of a man above his toilet, pissing yellow.

He screwed his guitar in tune. Played a few invisible notes. His fingers refused the strings. Why? He showered and dressed, quickly. Pulled a book, Myths of a Mestizo Continent, from the half-bubble chamber of his drop-leaf desk. A gooseneck lamp junkie-nodded over the wooden desktop. Once, the brass desk lock had hidden all his important belongings — magazines, books, his songs, poems, rhymes, and letters— Yes, letters. Damn. I’ve wrote Elsa poems, songs, rhymes; still she ain’t mine; should I try letters? Elsa. Elsa —from the eyes of others. Especially Sheila’s nosy eyes. He would not tell his mother Sheila about his hard night. She’d already applied remedies to lighten up his sleep: put a doormat before his portal so the spirits could rest their shoes; sat a glass of water on the mat to quench the thirst of their long journey from there to here; and tacked a Scripture above the inner door— Just in case these evil spirits —BLOOD SAVE ME. She had a theory: his posters — Bruce, Jimi, Bird, Trane, Jack J., Joe L., the honored dead whose names popped and blinked from these paper gravestones rooted to the walls — had attracted restless spirits. The dead call us to remember.

The carpeted stairs creaked softly as he came down. Sheila stood framed in the open bathroom door, eyes dead set in the mirror. One hand hidden inside a Parisian washcloth — a pot mitten, a hand puppet — a souvenir from the Shipcos. A long monologue of soap and silence. Hot light flamed her taffy-colored skin. Reddened her skirt — diaphanous, flowing (flaming creases, rippling) in heat-blinding white — and matching pumps. Her hair sprawled a black uncombed shawl about her shoulders — like her aunt Beulah’s hair — not the usual ponytail. The air steamed from her recent bath, the smell of scented soap and powder — musk? opium? honey? — and her labored breathing. She picked up — with hands callused by the rhythm of work, skeletal hands, the skin sail-tight, hands the Shipcos (and others before them) had molded for her through thirty-five years of bronzed labor, hands that carried fine-papered books from the Shipco residence ( They ain’t gon miss them. They got plenty more ) to here — a brush from the porcelain sink edge.

Good morning, she said.

Good morning. Lucifer already gon to work?

Your father went with John.

Uncle John?

Sheila nodded.

Hatch had not seen or heard from John in over a month. Nor had Inez seen or heard from him. Gracie relayed Hatch’s messages to him, but he had yet to respond. Which had prompted Hatch to take the train ride out to Eddyland and try John’s extra set of house keys; John (or someone) had changed the locks. Why ain’t he called?

He didn’t say. The light is different where she stands from the light that surrounds him.

What you mean Lucifer went with him?

Your father sposed to meet John at Union Station. John’s going out of town for a few days.

Why?

I didn’t get all that. Lucifer rushed off in such a hurry.

Is something wrong?

I know bout much as you do.

Where Uncle John goin?

Do I look like John?

Hatch thought it over. He was not part. Neither Uncle John nor Lucifer wanted him to be part. Hidden rendezvous. Well, he said. Catch you later. I’m going to go see Inez.

One hand swam — a dolphin — along the white sink. Dived into a low glass of clear water. Brought teeth to the surface. Drowned dentures. Clean. Applemeat-white. Slapped them into her mouth. When a stranger or visitor caught her off guard, she would hide her toothless mouth (gums and more gums) with her hand and speak through her fingers. This embarrassing ritual would cause Hatch to shrivel, fade, then flare up in silent, unexpressed anger.