Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Aunt T and Whole Daddy grew tired of workin and waitin. By and by, some of the church women come over and sit wit Mamma all night, singing them church songs. (Whole Daddy and the Indians tend church regular.) People tend her like she tend people. Come mornin, all of them sisters gone. Nowhere to be found.

What happened?

Water burst from Mamma’s body. Them church sisters run off. Scared.

AUNT T FOUND THE SHARPEST KNIFE and cleaned it in her skirt. She cut a line on her forehead so that her blood could mix with her tears. Then she cut her a gown from a flour sack and a veil from some mosquito netting. She and Whole Daddy put Mamma in the box and rest that box on two chairs, then they call in a preacher who know how to whoop and holler.

We make ash of the body.

Ash?

Aunt T spread Mamma’s filthy ashes over her face. Then we bury her out in the yard behind the house, plenty near the creepin gators and the diggin and shovelin coyotes. Whole Daddy hammer a cross three foot high to remember where we put white roses every day. (We grew our own.) He put Mamma’s favorite quilt over the grave.

WHOLE DADDY SAT DOWN on the front porch wit the double barrels of the shotgun across his lap. Aunt T sat beside him. Old. They couldn’t do much else but watch me and Manfred work.

THE COUNTY SENT A WOOGIE to take the farm, the barn, the smokehouse, the hogpen, the outhouse, the springhouse, and everything else in and outa sight. The county hit like a flood and carry it all away. What the Lord give, he sho can take. He can even take what he don’t give. The woogie say one word, Taxes. Death taxes.

Suh, I said, beg pardon but there must be some misunderstanding.

Manfred came right out wit it, You can’t steal what ain’t yours!

The woogie look at him. Nigga, go hire you a lawyer.

WE LEAVE RAINS COUNTY with one hundred twenty-six dollars Whole Daddy had kept tied in a knotted rag and buried in an old barrel out in the barn. Wasn’t nothing to keep us in Rains County, make us wanna stay. Shake the tree and see what falls from the branches. Sides, niggas talk. (Don’t we?) In the city, the fire hydrants full of wine and all the grass green onions and there taters neath the sidewalks. Mighta gone to Library if we knew how to get there.

Had to steal away durin day cause the white folks guard the railroad at night. Guess them white folks thought rightly no nigga stupid nough to leave in broad daylight. Broad or narrow, me and Manfred git.

Packed everything I owned into a grip. I wuz lookin good the day I left Rains County. Never will forget. A duster.

A duster?

High dicer.

High dicer?

A derby. Lil hot fo the summer. Frock coat. Vest. Paper collar. Watch chain all shined. And my brother was lookin good, too. (Folks took us fo twins, only he was taller.) Straw hat. Spats and high boots polished with Bixby’s Best Blacking.

If I live nother hundred years, I ain’t gon forget that railroad station. Station house no bigger than a toolshed and this lil ole red-faced woogie in striped overalls, like a convict or somebody on the gang, wheezin behin these three lil rusty iron bars wit his red face stuck in a piece of window. You can tell he think he high dukey there behind his window. One of those real nasty woogies, the salt that make the cracker.

How yall? he say.

Fine.

A good day fo travelin.

Yes indeed.

Two tickets fo two niggas, Manfred said.

I stomped on his foot.

That woogie’s eyes snapped out of his face, like red whips. Niggas?

That’s right, Manfred said.

We don’t low no white niggas in this here county.

Yes, sah.

And we don’t low none to leave.

We won’t tell if you don’t, Manfred said. He winked at the woogie.

Boy, you need to school you some manners. The red-faced woogie take the money and slid the tickets under the bars.

Manfred had to have the final word. Make sure his money rang loud on the counter. Thank you, white folks, he said.

We wait fo the train on a piece of knobby plank they called a bench under the station porch. Then it come.

Inside Porsha, the story grew and grew. She could see it, the locomotive puffing short blasts of black smoke that held, lingered in her memory, then grew, a long black plant.

I stand there and watched the moving walls of that train as it come rushin in and past, fast as a flood.

A few woogies get off and yawn and stretch.

We want the Jim Crow car, Manfred say. See, Whole Daddy had told us many stories about travelin woogies. Nasty. Spittin in the aisles.

Son, you know we don’t low that.

If I’m payin, I’m nigga.

Suit yoself.

So we board at the noon whistle. Ride in the Jim Crow car. Niggas give us a curious eye, tryin to pretend like they ain’t lookin. We right up front near the engine. Cinders jus fly right in through the window.

She faced him in light where red was missing. Shadows of dreams passed along his forehead, clouds over water. So you fled across a black land similar and same to the black land that birthed you. The train rushed on. And your heart raced to keep pace. You leaning to the window, watching the fleeing countryside, the tracks hill-rising and valley-plunging, and your heart leaning into your chest, trying to flee your tight skin.

But that car was dandy. Real dandy. Red carpet. Lamps glintin on the ceiling. Leather seats soft like a pretty lady’s skin. This shiny-buttoned porter bawling out the stations. And the woogie conductor wit his shiny ticket puncher.

We stop to water the engine.

Water?

That’s right. Just like a horse. They ran on steam. (Live and learn.) And we go on.

That train snort and burp and cough and fart and ginny and shake. And the walls shove you and the ceiling shovel you on top of the head and people camped and cramped bout and the flo rollin this way and that spillin people into yo lap this minute and out the next.

Damn, Manfred, I say. Move over.

What? I ain’t on you.

See, I ain’t never been on a train befo. Wasn’t like no horse or no wagon or nothing else. That locomotion get in yo stomach and it spin round and round and round. I had no eyes, no ears, no nose, jus a mouth. Next thing I know, I spilled all over my brother’s shoes.

Yuck. Disgusting, she thought, not saying it.

Christ! Manfred said. Christ! Jus like that. Jumping back like it was hot water.

He hand me his initialed handkerchief. (Aunt T had stitched us both one.) I wipe my mouth.

Christ! he say. What bout my shoes?

I get my handkerchief. Clean his shoes. Then I throw both hankies under his seat. The train wuz still movin but I felt better. And the train started to slow down.

Then the train slowing down but your heart still rushing. Yes, the train slowing into town. And your body a gathering of tremendous effort. Cause this you must do and it can’t wait. A sea of faces white-waiting on the platform. Like hot stones, they draw the water from your body. Something breaks and rushes away.

I felt worse again. All I could do to dam my bowels and keep it from running down my leg. I tell Manfred, I gon get off.

What? he say.

I can’t stand it.

You seasick again?

Do fat ladies eat?

We proceed. See, the conductor said. That’s what yall get fo niggerin.

I was so glad to feel land again. But standin there on that platform, I feel something else too. Red eyes on me. Feel like a fish in a bowl and I’m hopin these woogies don’t kick the bowl over.

Manfred, you get back on the train. I’ll catch the next one.

Couldn’t you go on a boat? she asked.

Nigga, you crazy? Think I’m gon leave you here?

Why didn’t you go on the boat? she said.

You know what’ll happen if these woogies discover us? Better one than both. I’ll find you.