Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Sam never could drive for shit, Dave said. I know. We runnin buddies for years. Never could drive. But he insist on drivin with that wood leg. We drivin down to see Beulah. John loaned me the car and I loaned it to Sam. Cause he beg me the whole night. Nephew, Sam said, after all I done done for you. You can’t let me drive? And he kept on beggin. Sheila say, If you let him drive this car, you better let me out on the side of the road. And you know how Gracie is. She read me from the Bible. Sam keep at me. Nephew this and nephew that. I let him drive. Sheila don’t get out. And Gracie don’t open her Bible. Drove along fine for a mile or two. Then it happened. One, two, three. Faster than you can snap yo fingers. They couldn separate the teeth from the glass.

She faced him. When you talk to her?

Last night.

How she doin?

Same ole.

Sheila shook her head.

She—

Hush.

Hello, Inez?

Jesus. How are you, baby?

This Hatch.

Oh.

How you doin?

Terrible.

How’s George?

A long pause. Fine.

Well, I want to come and see you.

Don’t come. You know I’m sick.

But —

There ain’t nothin good out here.

I’m gonna come see you.

You’ll understand someday when you old.

Be there tomorrow morning. Bout nine.

Don’t come so early.

Okay.

If you gon come, come on then.

I will.

Bring Jesus. Bye.

Well tell her I said hi.

I will.

Get you some breakfast before you leave.

I will. Hatch was already in the kitchen. Aunt Jemima’s face floated up from the oatmeal box. Steam lifted from Lucifer’s untouched nest of hawk-eyed grits. Hawk grits soar to the nest of your ribs. Toast floated on steaming coffee.

And some meat. You need meat. One day you’ll see. Your body need meat in the mornin.

Little chance of that. Okay. Hatch drew open the refrigerator. Cold rushed out. Throat working, he guzzled some apple cider, straight from the jar. Hope she didn’t see that. Held the edges of a toast slice and moved the butter knife in rhythmic strokes. Took a few slices of toast and some scrambled eggs and made two sandwiches. He eyed the ham on the bright white plate. Leave that man’s pork right here on the table. Take a pitchfork and feed the devils pork. Didn’t Christ put demons in a herd of swine? Ain’t the pig a graft between a rat, a cat, and a dog? Stuffed the sandwiches into a paper bag and stepped out into the screaming morning.

Second Street. Deep Second, Uncle John called it. Edgewater. Woodlawn long gone. South Shore too. An axis of distance. Hatch suffered a furnace of sky. The sun’s still yellow wheel. Birds winged high in a windless sky, their voices — yes, voices, high above in the blue-red arch — circling, circling — like explorers — new terrain. The air poked sharp, threading the lungs. A trumpet to the blood. Strange. Cause no wind. Unusual, here in this city of one big lake (Tar Lake) that lifted a hawk from the icy nest of its waters and flapped you in the wind of its cold feathers (stalactites of feathers, dripping winter year-round) — this lake imitating ocean. Like a traveler who had not seen land for months, he saw the world with new eyes. All the colors vivid. Saw two black lines of birds — red-tipped beaks, beaks dipped in inkwells — stiff on two black lines of telephone wire. Trees in green leaf. Brown blazers of barks covering their trunks— And tracks. Networking through the bark; the seed must absorb water to rehydrate; Sheila’s green thumb had impressed this lesson, in the middle of his forehead — and brown sleeves of bark enveloping their skinny limbs.

A radio coughed on the horizon. Hatch tugged his horseshoe earlobe.

Hello my friend

Sky, so happy to see you again

Do you know, Brother

What the wind’s blowing down

Have you seen, baby

A million million peoples coming right on down

The song retracted from Hatch’s ear. Jimi. They bustin Jimi. The radio gurgled, cleared music from its throat. In the chambers of his mind, Hatch busted a rhyme.

This is Genuine Draft

Master of all sorts of darts and arts and crafts

Back again my friend

So wipe the suds from your mouth and wipe on a sin grin

Dropping science and my mix ain’t thin

Friend, I can chemistry you again and again

I view the colored heart from close range

And get mo strange than a Col trane and another thang

Stakes snakes states skates shakes

Wobbling and snaking making crooked trails and trailin flakes

Brakes and grapes and drapes and crates

It’s my aim to take

Yes, My my my my my

Just me myself and I

Sharp as Shaft as tack

Here to kick the facts about how

the decks are stacked and whacked

Slice you up and put you down

Like toast in the toaster twelve miles underground

I’m a hardcore worker to the bone the bone

Got more rocks than Fred Flintstone

But even a rock man got wages to pay to the biblical pages

Victim to them skeezers like Eve

time way back befo the ages

I’m tellin you, bro, my girl got me goin through laboring stages

Cleaned me out, pay me coolie wages

Called me on a Monday another day another dolla

She say yo homeboy what’s up I bought you nother flea collar

Come over quick let me see if it fit yo little ass

Shriveled up bastard, yo money last long as passed gas

You see what I mean, flip?

Thought I was captain of my ship

But she slapped me down a tip

Unctuous bitch got me losing my grip

He trimmed his tongue. Unctuous? Check that. The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meat. Cause the whole language resembles the body of a trained athlete where every muscle, every sinew, is developed into full play. One day my ear will take me far. Hatch’s tongue rolled in his mouth, the pea in the whistle.

Slipping and sliding right down her manhole

I’m all covered with shit, black sheep lost from the fold

Loud spit flooded his song. No, smells ambushed his nose. Smell like dried doo-doo on a doggy day. Realization barked in. Packs of unleashed jackals — all dyed in the same flaming color of spring (summerlike) heat — trotted in ducklike lines, sniffing out somewhere they might nuzzle their greedy snouts. Sunlight glared on their white shirts. Their clothing said blood. At the next corner, more jackals lay in wait. Wet dripping tongues tasting the day. Chiseled white fangs hungering to bite off the feeding hand. Sic em, boy! Paws shaking in tune to color and noise. Every time Jack looks in yo face, he sees a mirror of his crime. And though he stacks the plates of grace, he ain’t never done no time. The best way to take jackals to your heart is to get as far away from them as possible. But Hatch had nowhere to run. He timed his movements against the rhythm of the street. Their ears caught the beat of his feet. These sound-sensitive jackals, red ears like sharp twitching flames. Red-tailed jackals blazing off to buy some coal or get their ashes hauled. Pure products from the deep red doghouse. It must not be hot, that one can burn in it forever and never burn up. Their mouths moved, but silence came out — a wordless gap — for their words rusted together in one red voice. Hatch pushed forcefully through them, a river in the middle of a red sea. Where had they come from? Who’d dreamed them? A handful of light in his palm. Then a wild pitch spinning black out —The thought cooled off in a hot breeze. What Spin say on his record? A burned goose laid the golden egg of civilization.