Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Let me look at you. She pulls like skin away from your body. So big. Ain’t you all growed up.

Yes.

How’s Lucifer?

He’s fine.

How’s your mamma?

She’s fine.

And your sister?

She’s fine.

And your wife?

You mean Gracie. She’s Uncle John’s—

How’s Beulah?

She’s fine too.

You speak to her lately?

Sheila called her the other day.

You remember that time we all drove down to her house?

Yes, I remember.

It was me, George, Junior, Sheila, now who else?

You know.

We had a fine time. I really like Beulah. She and I are one of a kind.

Why did I come here?

One of a kind.

Hatch considered the comparison.

Junior, you know anything pleasant in the world?

He ignored the fact that she called him Junior, Uncle John. Guess not, he said.

What’s wrong with people today? Her face shows pain in every wrinkle.

They stood in the small living room crowded with furniture and memories. Nothing had changed. The room had remained untouched all of Hatch’s life. On the wall above the long squat television, two glassed-and-framed prints of birds of paradise on either side of a glassed-and-framed charcoal portrait of Inez— we got that in Mexico; he drew it for one American quarter, one American quarter —fat-cheeked and plump, nothing like the way she looks now. On the wall behind and above the leather couch, a mosque-shaped mirror, dotted with colored glass. We got that one in Turkey. Two glassed-and-framed photographs above and behind the sitting chair, GOD SAVE THE KINGS — Dr. Martin Luther King and his family seated on a couch, reading the Bible; Lula Mae got that one, I’m sure —and CHAMPIONS OF THE PEOPLE, stills of King and the murdered Kennedy brothers.

And all these strange kinds of sex.

That’s right, Inez.

The world gets worse and worse.

That’s right, Inez. Why did I come here?

I’m glad I don’t have long to stay.

Don’t say that, Inez.

I wade into the deep water, tryin to get home.

Inez—

And when I get there, I’ll sit on the river.

You ain’t going nowhere, Inez. You gon be with us for a long long time.

I’ll sit on the river. Let’s go out to the patio.

They did. The enclosed back porch lay in sunlight, wood-paneled walls with black knots like spying eyes. Inez and George spent most of their time here with a huge wall map, the many places they had traveled pierced by red thumbtacks.

Hatch eased into the worn cane chair where Porsha said that Pappa Simmons, who died the year he was born, had sat and told stories. She had never told him the nature of the stories, only that he’d told them and to her.

George brought his coffee and biscuits to the glass table— you were always afraid to eat there, the plate banging against the glass, afraid table and meal would crumble beneath you — with a small portable radio blaring out the news, his reading glasses balanced across his nose, and holding up a magnifying glass before the newspaper. He liked his coffee black; he took his first gulp, throat working, without blowing off the steam.

Pale colors ran in his eyes, fish in a cloudy aquarium. After the war, he had found work as a blueprint reader for the commuter railroad and booked passage to blindness. You could stand two feet in front of him and your face would be no more than a black balloon. Inez was losing more than her sight.

George?

Yes, Hatch. He returned the cup to the saucer with the least bit of sound.

What kind of work did you do? He could never get it straight.

Well, when I first came up from Arkansas, I got a job in the stockyards. Worked that for about two years, then I got this job workin for these two Jewish brothers.

Reading blueprints?

No. It was a machine company. We made the templates used to stamp out car parts.

I see.

Yeah. George pulled off the top of one biscuit. Steam curled from its soft white insides. It was just a mom-and-pop operation when I started. Big business now … Those two Jewish brothers smelled like dead fish, that heavy fish odor.

Man.

Back in Russia, they managed a fishery. Good people. Fair. But I also made a dollar a day. Service pay. That was good money in those days.

How’d you like the army?

George thought about it. See, it’s all about the military-industrial complex. That’s why they going to war now. George rose up from the table and walked into the kitchen.

Yo father was here, Inez whispered.

Lucifer?

Junior.

Uncle John?

Yes. He left something. Let’s go out to the garage. I’ll show you.

Hatch took Inez’s arm — light and brittle as a twig — and guided her to the garage. Partitioned in two, a space for the car (ordinary, nondescript, pale blue and gray), tools, and fishing gear, and a screened porch overlooking the patio and yard. He had spent many hours on that porch, book in hand, rocking, on a large swing meant for two people.

In there, Inez said.

He helped her into the garage proper. She took an object down from a wooden utility shelf. An ordinary basket, full of baby’s breath.

He and that woman left it.

What woman?

It’s some kind of spell. I been meaning to ask yo mamma.

Hatch recalled the time George got sick, weak in the legs, and Sheila instructed Inez to put a picture of a horse beside his picture. Horses have strong legs. And burn a candle. Red might be too strong, make his legs too powerful. So burn a red and a white candle.

Inez quickly put the basket back on the shelf and led (pulled, reined, rider and horse) Hatch from the garage.

Why would Uncle John want to put a spell on you?

She pushed him into the screened porch.

Inez? Why would Uncle John—

That man, George.

Hatch glimpsed the old swing — smaller than he remembered it — and a few old clover-shaped church fans for cooling down the Holy Ghost.

He is low. The dirt washed off turnips.

George?

Yes. That man there, George. He got powers.

Hatch said nothing.

He knows everything I’m sayin. See, he can touch something and then he sprays me with something while I sleep. George. That man there. Married all these years. Married. To dirt.

George opened the patio door. Inez’s wrinkled mouth went tight, a drawstring purse.

HATCH DRUMMED HIS FINGERS on the glass table, which yielded his reflection. He saw himself churn Inez’s ice cream. Saw himself drop fresh cream and fresh cubes into the bucket then turn the handle with all the power of his skinny kid’s arms. He saw himself skin apples for Inez’s applesauce. Shell peas for her soup.

You hungry?

No. I ate. He lied. Memory brought hunger.

If you are hungry all you have to do is speak up.

No—

But you know, I don’t do any cooking. These hands. She raised them. One day when you’re old—

Inez?

— you’ll understand. George, Junior is hungry. He want some chicken. Inez?

Some chicken. Think I can drive like this? I’m not dressed. She smoothed her palms over her white cotton housecoat. Shuffled her matching house-shoed feet.

You can stay in the car, Inez. George spoke from down the hall.

Wait, Hatch said. I don’t want any — He let it go. You want me to drive?

No, Inez said. You relax. You are a guest.

The three left the patio, walked out to the garage, and took their places in the car. Hatch in the back seat and George shotgun with Inez. She curved the car onto the gravel-covered alley. Took the alley slowly, then curved the car onto the street.

Okay, George said. Now make a left at the corner.

She did.

Stay on this street.

She did. She drove, steadily, both hands on the steering wheel, face intent on the road and George’s directions.