Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

A red light halted him. He rubbed his throat. His voice hurt from the song. He pulled the sandwiches, greasy, slippery, from the paper bag. Took healthy bites. Damn. Is there any taste in egg white? Green put him back in motion. He rarely slept at night free of jackals, tail-whipping him, biting his chest, tugging his dick, clamping a tight bottle-cap anus over his mouth, or laying a heavy cloud of farts above his bed. Jackals at night and jackals in the day. He ate in large bites. The food was warm and slow and solid inside him. He felt it hang in his guts, bats in a cave. His stomach shook loose and steady around it.

A man flapped on the corner (VV and Second streets). Breathed vapors of yellow ribbon. Miniature flags (cloth) — small enough to deck midget coffins — waved in the free air. Miniature flags (plastic) — American, African (the red, black, and green), Puerto Rican (or Mexican?) — buzzed in his hair. At the next corner, a flyer red-beckoned from a lamppost: DO YOU WANT TO DIE OVERSEAS? A hand had scrawled in black marker beneath it, Niger Go Back to Afreeca. Punk, learn to spell first. I ain’t gon fight in no war. Not like Uncle John and Lucifer. Sam and Dave.

Did yall have fun?

Fun? Nephew, did we have fun?

Fun? Man, them silks is something else.

The lockstep life. The snap of servile salutes. Butts upended for the company chaplain. Let God’s winged horse root in you. Let the thunder of his hooves become your beating heart. Jackal shit. Pure jackal shit. Not for me. Hey, no sand bunny ever called me nigger. Still, many fools out here eager to throw themselves under the hooves of the beast.

If they was so bad, how’d they make it through the army?

Same way they made it through Houston, Beulah said. If Dave could tell one lie, Sam could tell two.

But didn’t the army —

No. Them niggas steals off the truth. Steal a meat bone from a dog.

The memory chased its own tail.

Be patient, Beulah said, cause what is hot today will be cold in the end.

He took more bites. The sound of his sticky chewing seemed to come from somewhere outside himself. He felt under the constant gaze of the sun’s watchful face. Like a ray, it fell everywhere. Red. His eyes roamed the street, tiny bicycle wheels. He ate and walked. Some jackals paraded up and down the street — yes, paraded, proud-flying their colorful flea collars — while others rushed to catch the El. Pulses thumping, Hatch finished the sandwiches a moment before he arrived at the El’s steps. He took them slowly, one by one. Seated in a cramped booth — an outhouse was bigger — the ticket agent took Hatch’s money and slipped him a transfer with the evident sense of exercising a well-earned right. Dumb bastard. What did the agent know? Hatch knew. The El ran its orbit around the city, making stops here in Central, in Eddyland to the west, Kings in the east, South Lincoln, North Park — all the city’s five boxes. Careful of his book, he removed a neatly folded Kleenex square from his back pocket and wiped his greasy hands on it. He dropped the soiled tissue into the foul depths of a garbage can. He watched the still logs of the rails. How heavy were they? How much did each weigh? How many men did it take to — A jackal leaned in near to him. And another. His legs found clean space. He kept his toes well behind the yellow line before him.

What’d you feel?

Nothing, Sam said. But I could taste the rails. Iron. Blood.

Life happens in a flash. As a boy, he’d read that humans have lead in the bloodstream, had believed the tracks might snatch him— call him, a steel mother commanding the child inside after a day of play — like a magnet. Now he knew, the speed, the momentum could suck you up.

He was not part. Lucifer had gone off to meet Uncle John. And he was not part. Lucifer knew how close he was to Uncle John. Uncle John surely knew. Why hadn’t Lucifer awakened him? Why hadn’t Uncle John invited him? Come along and be part. Why?

A STRONG SMELL OF FRESHNESS AND EARTH pushed through the open window. Gracie saw green among the gray. Lula Mae had left for New Mexico on a day like this. Rose above the strong-limbed earth and roared off into the great yellow world. It must have been spring, for the onions were the first vegetables to fill the air with aroma, their hollow stems poking black blades through the soil. Last spring, Lula Mae had returned. That is, she had come here to the city. (By bus? train? No, the plane.) Came to attend a ceremony honoring her grandson. White and timeless. Gracie watched her, wondering, How long? How long has it been? When had she last seen Lula Mae? Years ago at Beulah’s house in Decatur? Or Big Judy’s funeral in Fulton? Ceremony done, she flew back. Came and went. Came and went.

Then in the fall— before or after Thanksgiving? you no longer remember —Sheila had phoned her in the wee hours of the morning. Gracie, Sheila said, Lula Mae have cancer. The words echoed in the receiver. I jus called Beulah.

You called Beulah?

We better get down there right away. Porsha said she’ll buy us plane tickets. Sheila hung up.

Gracie and Sheila caught the first plane smoking and flew to West Memphis. Sheila filled in the details. The hospital had released Lula Mae. She had already begun chemotherapy and shark cartilege treatments. She never spent an unguarded moment; women from her church’s Senior Citizens Club provided, made sure she wanted for nothing.

The clouds outside the window were frozen swirls of thick white like cake frosting. Gracie couldn’t remember the last time she’d visited West Memphis. Perhaps she’d gone with her sister and their sons on one of their childhood summer trips. Yes, that was it, to the best of her recollection. She shut her eyes and sought to retrieve some specific image or moment from her last trip, and seeking found none. Lula Mae was no welcome guest in her thoughts. And for this reason she had refused to travel to West Memphis. If only she could put some healthy mileage between herself and Sheila’s know-it-all face.

Lula Mae’s house and yard remained unchanged in reality and memory. The silver (spray-painted) garden chairs curiously in their element on the mowed grass. Blue sky visible at breaks in the rows of tall peach, pear, and apple trees. Trees that curved a horseshoe around the sides and back of the house. The little house (Lula Mae called it), a trailer propped up on cinder blocks that you reached down two splintery planks stretching from three cement back porch steps, always white and clean in the sun. And the house itself, green and white with the same stone porch. Gracie’s old key still fit the front door.

Sheila, is that you? From her pillow-propped position on the bed, Lula Mae reached up and gave Sheila a forceful embrace. Sheila. They hugged long. Gracie stood at the bed smiling. She held her smile until she felt her face pulling out of shape.

Lula Mae released Sheila, then gazed with twinkling eyes at Gracie’s face. Gracie bent for her hug. Pulled Lula Mae close, carefully, not knowing how touch might trigger pain. Lula Mae was equally lax. Must have used up all of her energy on Sheila’s hug, for Gracie barely felt the two child hands that briefly pinched her back.

Yall came right away.

We came right away.

I can’t believe it. Lula Mae wiped away her tears with bare colorless hands, wiping hastily without regard to her appearance. Tear stains crisscrossed with the shadows under her eyes and nose cast by the bedroom lamp and streaks of face powder. Her shrunken wig seemed too small for her head, hardly capable of hiding the patched gray. Gracie stepped back and almost stumbled.