Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

LULA MAE SUFFERED A SPELL OF COUGHING before going to sleep. Gracie and Sheila settled themselves in chairs, unspeaking, and kept vigil through the night. And that night carried into more nights over days then months. The first week of every month, Gracie traveled by plane to West Memphis for a bedside visit. Sheila went every second week, Gracie returning as Sheila was leaving, Sheila returning as Gracie was leaving. Sometimes they waved at the airport.

FOLKS SAY, if you stand on the corner of Church and Sixty-third Street, you will eventually see all the people you have ever known or met, so when Gracie first came to the city, she stood there, hoping Ivory Beach would pass by. She would beat the devil out of Ivory Beach. She saw, smelled, and felt the feverish rush of the city. But the wicked offers of men drove her from the corner after an hour of watching and waiting. The next day, she returned. And the next. It was this corner that taught her the life of evil. One day she saw a low, cloudy flutter of pigeons. She felt teeth on her behind. She made it to the solitude of her bathroom, removed her panties and checked herself in the full-length mirror, where she saw tiny marks, like a fork’s indentation. She sat down on the toilet.

The rush of water relieved her of the day’s filthy offers. She felt something clamp on to her behind. A baby held her buttocks in its gripped teeth.

A HOUSTON WONDER, Daddy Larry’s three-legged cat ran faster than a dog wit six legs.

Gracie, Sheila said, catch that cat.

I’m tryin.

Can’t you run no faster?

You, Sheila. You, Gracie. The stone of Ivory Beach’s voice plopped at their feet. You girls stop aggravatin that cat.

Yes’m.

Don’t yall have nothing better to do? Where that boy? Ivory Beach watched them, short and round, from her long-legged stool, a baby in a high chair. Her fat black face yielded a set of thin white teeth. Cat got yo tongue?

No, ma’m.

Where that boy wit them green eyes?

He walk to town.

Wit who?

Our kinfolks.

Nap, Dave, and Sam would sneak to the farm and steal apples, then take R.L., that boy with them green eyes, that boy that ain’t a McShan like his two sisters, ditch-swimming.

Yo kinfolks?

Yes’m.

How come you let him go to town? Ain’t yall older?

No, ma’m. He oldest.

Still, ain’t yall sposed to be watching him? Ivory Beach knocked Gracie upside her head so hard that her thoughts rattled …

Don’t, Sheila said. You hit her again, take the devil and his crew to get me offa you.

Ivory Beach watched her, unspeaking.

Why, Miss Sheila. What you doin here?

Came to pay you a visit.

After all these years?

I waited.

Don’t you look at me like that. You was an evil cuss. Should be grateful that I raised you.

The next day, they found buckets of tick-red water in the barn.

Sho look funny, Gracie said.

Stink too.

Red river.

Nawl.

Paint.

Larry, when you gon git that paint?

Next time I go to town.

Now, you been sayin that right near fo ten days.

And I might say it fo ten mo.

Larry McShan!

Looka here, woman —

Don’t I deserve some spectful kindness? I, yo wife.

White folks the only one wit red barns.

Might be po, but this place don’t have to look like the ground of no pigsty.

The firewood should fit the cookin.

Nawl, stupid. Blood.

You a lie.

That’s Daddy Larry’s blood.

Gracie said nothing. Both she and Sheila knew about the unseen world preached to Ivory Beach since the cradle — this woman from the backwoods swamps. Each night, the woman drank steaming horse tea. God knows what else she did. Who could tell the extent of her powers? Daddy Larry if anybody. He owned a tobacco patch — a real patch too, a few quilt squares — and Ivory Beach tended it. She rolled him fresh cigarettes, but he unrolled them and chewed the tobacco for snuff, a rusty coffee can serving as his spit cup.

What we gon do? Tell R.L.?

Nawl. You seen him kissin that heifer.

Here, Miss Ivory Beach. Here some sugar fo you.

Daddy Larry die?

He ain’t dead yet.

Cause if he did die, then Lula Mae—

Or she make us hers.

The next Sunday after church, Daddy Larry gave Sam and his three nephews, R.L., Dave, and Nap, a nickel each to red-paint the barn.

You boys been stealin my apples? Ivory Beach said. Everyone still called her by her maiden name. She made the best applesauce in Chickasaw County.

You needs to start you an applesauce business, R.L. said.

Cookin run in my family. My mamma the one invented Coca-Cola. She sold the recipe to a white man in Virginny. Fool run in my family too.

Miss Ivory Beach, Gracie said.

Ivory Beach looked at her, saying nothing. You boys been stealin my preserves?

No, ma’m.

What yall doin?

Workin.

Paintin yo barn.

Miss Ivory Beach, Gracie said, Daddy Larry gave them a nickel apiece.

Anybody speakin to you?

No, ma’m.

You, boy wit the green eyes.

His name R.L., Daddy Larry said. Robert Lee Harris.

Don’tcha try to eat that nickel. Eats up everything else round here.

R.L. raised his toothpick arms high above his head, sucked air in and poked his chest out, then jackknifed. He walked on his hands.

Boy, stop that.

Git down here wit me, Miss Ivory Beach, R.L. said.

What? Why I ain’t never heard such foolishness.

R.L. snapped his rubber-band legs and landed back on his heels. He smacked dust from his hands. He put two twig arms on Ivory Beach’s shoulders, making prisoners of her head and neck.

Boy, what you doin? Let me go. Small butterfly hands fluttered up to the locked arms, but too late. R.L. planted a kiss on her cheek, lips purple on the black flesh, a living coin.

There! There you some sugar.

He ain’t die in no Eldorado. I know that for a fact.

Nawl, them crackas killed him jus like they killed Nap.

Jus like they woulda killed Sam and Dave. If they had caught them.

Yall, hush, Sheila said. Hush. Ain’t nobody killed R.L. Ain’t nobody killed Nap. Accidents.

You younguns better learn some respect. Why, Lula Mae light outa town like she killed somebody. And I seen the devil hound on her trail. Aint no leash in Texas gonna hold it.

She ain’t go to no Texas. New Mexico.

Texas, New Mexico — ain’t no difference. Still the South. And a sin is a sin. She looked at Gracie. See, it’s all in the bloodline. Good breedin shows.

The blue sky burst into yellow, thin, like Ivory Beach’s chicken neck. She always had plenty of chores to give work to R.L.’s idle mind. Cleaning up the horse shit. Sorting the good peas from the bad peas. Plucking hair from the hanging hog on hog-killing day. Shucking corn.

R.L., Sam said, that lady got you doin lady’s work.

Damn her dirty draws.

Double damn them.

Yeah. I feel like I been rode hard then put in wet, R.L. said.

To get to Brazil, he woulda had to come back this way, cause California —

Porsha, hush.

What business a nigga got playin cowboy?

Don’t know but I ain’t a bit surprised he became a cowboy.

Damn them three rascals, Beulah said. White folks be damned if they didn’t lynch em. Some colored folks love cracka mo than corn bread but not them three rascals. All I know is I get a call from Dave sayin that they gotta spirit outa town. R.L. had run off to California.

I thought he went out there to find his father? Mr. Harris?