Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

I don’t know bout all that. He grinned. But it sho is some nice leather. I never knew you were this religious.

I am, but I ain’t no fanatic. What about you?

I believe.

Since then, she had chanced on him reading the Bible once or twice. And he had promised to attend the Great Awakening with her on Sunday to fellowship with the New Cotton Rivers, the fourteen-year-old evangelist who steered the souls of his congregation, the New Riverside Multimedia Church. The Great Awakening would be the evangelist’s first live appearance in four years. The Full Gospel Assembly, seven hundred and seventy-seven golden-throated singers, would accompany him.

Okay. I’ll let some fat fried chicken-eatin preacher take my money.

Every preacher ain’t like that. This one’s good. Builds houses for the homeless.

Need money to build houses. Most church folk ain’t got nothin but chitlins in they purses.

Well, he got money.

What’s his name?

The New Cotton Rivers.

That nigga on TV?

Yes.

Who be wearin them gym shoes and that joggin suit?

How else can you keep up with the Lord?

Right. He way younger than me.

Age got nothing to do with knowing Christ.

And he—

Will you go?

I don’t know.

It would mean a lot to me. She put her cool hand to his hot chest.

Okay. If you insist. Maybe he’ll do some—

She didn’t waste a minute. She called and reserved two tickets for the Sunday appearance.

Nothing like a good show, he said. I wanna see that preacher turn silver to gold and cotton to silk.

His promise, his tentative steps toward Christ, were good signs. No man had ever gone that far for her. But she wanted him to go further, touching distance, and accept God in his life, accept the voice resounding in her skull. These are candied kisses from God. God is the author of healing. I pray for sweet mending. I’ll put no man before my God.

One day he might even be elected to the Tubes of Testimony, Rivers’s missionaries, and help spread the gospel, roll the biblical light off of his hands and set the day ablaze. May the sun fly high. Spread wide the peacock-tailed fan of truth and light. This possibility eased her heart.

The train eased into Union Station. She rose from her seat, renewed. The doors parted. Passengers waiting on the platform divided, a clear open path between two rows of rushing bodies. She calmly waded through. She told herself, This will be a good day.

HER STEPS SEEMED SLOWER THAN USUAL. She rationed her breath as she climbed the long avenue of stairs up from the basement to the kitchen, laundry basket draped across her outstretched arms, a fireman carrying a child from a blazing building. She rested the heavy laundry basket against the wood railing. Waited for her second wind. It never came.

She continued up the stairs. The floor beneath her fell away. She dropped the laundry basket to the linoleum with a noisy splash. Snatched her a chair from the table and put herself in it. Shut her eyes and took a deep-chested breath. Her breathing was noisy. Wind and wheeze. She tried to quiet it. Crisp pain coursed through her body. She opened her eyes. The room was twisted, its objects warped, moving into one another, planes and lines falling away into white space.

Mamma, why don’t you retire?

Don’t start.

Why don’t you?

Hush.

The pieces floated into place. Her heavy eyes anchored them.

Mrs. Shipco?

No reply.

Most mornings Sheila and Mrs. Shipco would share a cup of coffee here at the kitchen table. Mrs. Shipco would trace endless circles in the brown liquid with a spoon before she took her first sip. Return the cup to the saucer, then lift her head and the cup with it. She always wore her blond hair straight back behind her ears, draping her cheeks and nape. She had never changed the style or length in all these years. She would finish the cup in one gulp, rhythm in her throat. She would begin talking, tense, wrinkles moving like currents over her brow. Close her eyes to help her words along. That done, she could talk with ease. Sheila would swim in the current of words in the morning kitchen. Let it carry her. Add words of her own. She wished to talk today. Needed to talk, tear truth from the tracks. Mrs. Shipco?

Hi, Sheila.

Hi.

You didn’t have any trouble with the train today?

No.

That’s good.

Well, I sorta did.

What happened?

Oh, nothing worth telling.

I’m all ears.

Mrs. Shipco rarely left the house. The past few years, arthritis twisted her like a vine around her bed. Uprooted her daily routine: swimming, yoga, crafts, and classes at the university — noncredit courses; she already had a Ph.D. in sociology — the same university where she had met Dr. Shipco some forty years ago when they were both students. He came from poverty. (Sheila remembers the day Dr. Shipco and his sister — older, also a doctor — sat in the living room, barefoot, shared a bottle of dark wine and celebrated their first million.) She paid her tuition from insurance money obtained after her parents’ death. A boating accident. He was a Jew. She wasn’t. He was ten or twelve years older — Sheila always forgot which — but a handsome man, when he removed his glasses, brown eyes heavy with learning, and a neat mustache.

Dr. Shipco?

No reply.

Dr. Shipco had been forced to close his practice after his heart attack. He had never heeded Mrs. Shipco’s and Sheila’s warnings to slow down. Rushed out the house every morning carrying a briefcase weighted with patient files and the latest professional journals.

Aren’t you going to have some breakfast, Dr. Shipco?

No, thank you, Sheila. I have to squeeze in a new patient. And when he wasn’t seeing patients at his office or at the hospital, he would see them here, upstairs, in his study. You could never see yourself going to a psychiatrist. Only a fool discusses his business.

The day it happened, Sheila was stuffing clothes into the laundry chute when she heard him call her from his study. Sheila?

The moment she stuffed the last shirt into the chute, he called her a second time. Sheila?

Sheila hurried down the carpeted hall. Yes, Dr. Shipco.

Please open the door.

Sheila pushed the door open. Dr. Shipco was leaning far back in his leather chair, as if his upper body was trying to flee from hot steam rising up from the desk in front of him. The phone receiver was stiff in his raised left hand. A ballpoint pen remained where he had dropped it on the pad beside his right hand.

Sheila, Dr. Shipco said. My heart feels like a baseball in a catcher’s mitt.

Mrs. Shipco! Sheila tried not to scream. Heard Mrs. Shipco approach from the master bedroom down the hall, the balls in her arthritic knees squeaking like rusty faucets.

Don’t upset her, Dr. Shipco said.

Philip! Mrs. Shipco placed her hand flat in Dr. Shipco’s chest.

Sheila pried the phone out of his hand, one finger at a time. Dialed 911.

Martha, I’ll be okay. If we all talk quietly.

Dr. Shipco remained conscious and quiet and gave Mrs. Shipco and Sheila specific instructions for his comfort and care until the paramedics arrived.

Now, three mornings a week, Mrs. Shipco drove him to the gym for mandatory exercise. And the hours they once spent at the university or the practice, they now spent reading together in bed.

Dr. Shipco? Mrs. Shipco?

Still no answer.

I’ll check the Shipcos’ bedroom. In a few minutes. After I rest. Can’t deal with any more stairs just now.