Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

I shot this sapper from a tree. Bull’s-eye. The center of the forehead from a distance of four hundred yards.

Wow.

And at Fort Campbell, I’d done pretty good on the range.

Hatch watched the high sun, the last of a brassy day. He sat and watched and thought. Copilot.

You heard him before? Uncle John said.

Who?

Who? The silk you gonna see, that’s who.

Yeah. Well, I gotta coupla his albums. And he’s done a lot of music for war films. Bombs. Machine guns. Helicopters. You know, sound effects.

Oh yeah. Well, how come I ain’t never heard of him?

He ain’t rich and famous like Spin.

You know Spin. He gon make his market.

Jus like you, Uncle John.

Jus like me.

Hatch and Uncle John tossed the laugh between them.

Don’t you be banging your head against no walls.

What?

Ain’t that what they do at these concerts?

Uncle John, you got it all wrong.

I wasn’t born yesterday. Uncle John put his foot on the gas. The engine roared into life.

Nawl, you’ll be born tomorrow.

There it is. His voice slid beneath the engine’s growl and resurfaced. He was not wasting words tonight. A raw deal. He had gotten a raw deal. Inez. Gracie. John’s Recovery Room. The Funky Four Corners Garage. He had had his share of downfall. A raw deal. Such is your luck. Such you are called to see. And let it come rough or smooth, you must surely bear it. Uncle John had taken it all and was ready for more. Cabdrivers need razor-thin instincts, given the con artists, thieves, and gangstas who’d shoot you in the back of the head for fun. Alert observers whose survival depends upon knowing people, knowing exactly how much to give and how little to take.

Never pick up a pregnant woman. They think they don’t have to pay. Like it’s some honor to bring another crumb snatcher into the world.

They drove down the highway drowning in steamy evening sunlight, the shut windows vibrating from the air conditioner’s hum. Beneath the cool noise, Hatch thought he heard rings of laughter from surrounding cars. Uncle John kept one eye on the road and one on the speedometer, trying to keep the cab within the legal limit. The cab went on, smooth and swift, powerful. Uncle John’s palm light on the steering wheel, almost hovering above it, bird on a limb. The cab seemed to bring out the tenderness, fast but smooth, unlike the big old bullying Uncle John cars that elbowed other vehicles out of the lanes. Uncle John would whip the car in and out of traffic, bearing down upon other cars until they slewed aside with brakes squealing. He would shoot across intersections, speed up at the sight of a slow pedestrian, speed out of the city onto the highway, the engine screaming, the lights of the other cars falling fast behind, spinning in the distance, flying saucers.

How come you don’t drive the way you used to?

You get old, you slow down. I ain’t as quick. The reflexes. Uncle John flexed a wrist motion.

The sky turned, white light washing to the red of daybreak and sunset. The sun raced down the sky and the moon raced up. That suddenly. Fallen light lingered, the road lit as if by distant fires. Bright enough for Hatch to decipher silver letters:

OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER

THAN THEY APPEAR

Darkness dissolved the glare on Uncle John’s face. His eyes enlarged behind the spectacles. He clicked on the searching beams of the headlights. The streetlamps popped on one after another, a string of firecrackers. They rode in silence, wrist-deep in shadow, white lines caught in the headlights’ gleams.

Do niggas really be jumpin from the plane wit two cans of Schlitz beer? Tall boys?

Uncle John grinned. Lucifer tell you that?

Do they be screamin Geronimo?

I don’t know.

Why not?

I never jumped.

What?

I never jumped.

What you mean?

See, we weren’t airborne.

But—

We were air mobile. No paratroopin. Uncle John laughed at some memory.

Ah, Uncle John, why you holdin out on me?

Average army stuff.

Hatch said nothing.

Sorry.

Hatch let the silence seep in. Uncle John was in the reach of his life. He saw him in the same eyes that he saw Jimi. Nothing could hold him like his uncle’s words. Uncle John had returned from the war and settled like fine dust on his surroundings. The army ain’t no place for a black man, right, Uncle John?

Uncle John looked at Hatch across the wheel. Well, lot of guys I was over there with have sons that enlisted. I mean, these sons in the service now.

Man. The headlights lifted and bored ahead into the tunnel. They brainwashed or what?

Uncle John laughed. Not exactly.

What you mean?

Figure it out. You the thinker.

Jus like you lunatics, always speakin in code.

There it is.

There it is.

Uncle John said nothing for a while. Ain’t you never thought about it?

What?

Why the military took the both of us, why they took both of Inez’s sons?

I don’t understand.

You know that the military is only sposed to take one?

Hatch didn’t know.

That they sposed to leave one for the mother? You know that’s why they don’t draft the only son?

Yes.

Well, why did they take both of us, why did they take both me and Lucifer?

They drafted yall.

But how could they? Didn’t I jus say—

Look, Uncle John. Jus what are you tryin to say?

Think about it.

Hatch rocked in his seat. Rocked. Stopped. You jokin, Uncle John. You jokin, right?

It’s not important.

You jokin, right?

Uncle John said nothing.

You gotta be jokin. I know you jokin. Huh. Why would you do something crazy like that?

Dark had set in solidly. Black. Smooth. Headlights like smoke. Ghost shadows of factories and steel mills.

Why you always jokin? I know you are.

CHIC RICKS: The night magnified the marquee’s yellow undertones. A structure congealed into shape. Uncle John swung the cab from the tarred pavement to a gravel road, cab and men lurching from side to side. Pickup trucks crowded the parking lot, fat rats.

Wait a minute, Uncle John said. Is that the club?

The marquee lights danced and winked in the black night. Uncle John kept the engine running.

I guess so.

You guess so? I thought you said a concert. Does that look like a concert hall to you? Uncle John’s silver-rimmed spectacles flashed. An auditorium? A theater?

Well—

That’s a club, not a concert hall.

The marquee was a converted beer sign. Two long and low brick walls showed in the distance, and a badly placed doorway. It’ll be okay.

What?

It’ll be okay. Man, they here to hear Jimi. Jimi!

After a few beers, Jimi, Johnny, Tommy — what the fuck do they care.

But it’s Jimi.

Jimi? Disbelief in Uncle John’s eyes, his words.

How could Hatch explain? Jimi was dead but Randy was the next-best thing. A disciple, following in Jimi’s footsteps, true to his sound and vision.

A long metal caterpillar crawled out of the tunneled space of Uncle John’s fist. Uncle John broke the caterpillar open, pulled what was inside out. Then he made the inside part float butterfly-like in the yellow marquee light. Let them see this, he said. He moved his butterfly in a sharp line across an invisible throat. Okay, that’s good. They saw it. Now, let’s go on in.

The air inside the cab went heavy against Hatch’s legs and arms.

Come on. Let’s go in.

John’s butterfly glinted bright in the night. Hatch jammed all his fears to one side of his brain, and hoarded solutions on the other side. He started out the cab.

Wait. Uncle John touched Hatch’s arm with his nonbutterfly hand. Let them see this some more. He floated the butterfly in orbit around the steering wheel.