Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Even if Inez was standing right before your face, she wasn’t there. Worst of all, Inez kept no portrait of Pappa Simmons readily visible to the visiting eye. You had to search through dusty photo albums to find his face and form. Photographs don’t lie. Inez was a looker in her day. Mad pretty. And George made a handsome soldier.

In the failed daylight, Inez stood on the walk before the house — one of the small, low houses that George claimed the government had built for soldiers returning from the war — her thin frame etched against the sky, as if she had been awaiting Porsha’s arrival. Colorless beside the marigolds, tulips, and roses (red, pink, and yellow). The rotten handwriting of time scribbled up and down her face.

Inez. Porsha kissed her on the cheek. Felt wrinkled skin beneath her lips. How are—

Terrible.

Can’t you ever look at the bright side of things? What are you doing out here?

Junior was here today.

John? Today? When?

Your father did something terrible.

My father?

He stole all my money?

He did what?

He stole my key.

Wait a minute. Lucifer. He—

Stole my key.

Key? What key?

To my safety-deposit box.

Porsha held up her hands as if to push Inez away.

He got all my money, my bonds, my stocks, my savings, my valuables, my certificates. Everything. Inez was crying now, hands over her face, the fingers larger than the shrunken head. Porsha guided her up the porch steps, hands on her thin shoulders, through the door, past the flower-filled sitting room — cream-colored plastic-covered antiques, and clam-shaped glass bowls offering candy — through the cramped living room, no larger than a chessboard square — the sketch of Inez done in Mexico, two photographs, Champions of the People (King and the Kennedy brothers), and God Save the Kings, that hovered above Inez’s head on the chair where she always sat, the latest issue of Jet on the TV stand — past the guest bedroom where Porsha had always slept when she visited, patting Inez’s back — burping a baby. Inez, get some sleep. Everything will be okay. She helped Inez to bed. Tucked her underneath ancient covers.

It don’t matter, Inez said. I’m going home. Going home. Soon. Soon. Good Lord break of day. And with that, she fell asleep, eyes shut painfully tight.

Porsha moved down the hall to the patio — as a girl, you imagined it an island, separate from the rest of the house, separate from everything else; deserted island populated by you and Pappa Simmons — where George sat at the glass table, bent over his newspaper, eyes swimming beneath his reading spectacles and magnifying glass throwing his face in large relief. The portable radio blared the baseball game.

Porsha. He looked up as she entered. His eyes, despite the spectacles, were watery and weak.

Porsha flopped down onto the couch beneath the world map where red thumbtacks indicated all the countries Inez and George had visited: Morocco, England, Italy, France, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Turkey, Spain— Spain would be an island without the Pyrenees —and more.

George put the magnifier down on the glass table, clicked off the radio. His eyes were uneasy behind the heavy reading glasses. I didn’t hear you come in. His white sleeveless T-shirt fit snugly against his firm flesh. He shifted his feet, gloved in backless house shoes.

Inez was out front.

Out front? George removed his glasses. I thought she was in the bed.

No, she was out front.

I didn’t hear her go out. She gets worse and worse. I can’t watch her every minute.

Why don’t you get some help?

George watched her.

You know, have someone come in a few days a week?

I already looked into that. You know how much they want?

Porsha watched him. No. How much?

George eased back in his seat. I’ll tell you it’s a lot. More than I can afford. We’re not rich.

Porsha fought back her words. He got all kinds of money, Uncle John said. She sat, not speaking, until she settled down inside herself. Was Lucifer here today?

Lucifer? Lucifer never comes here. You know that. John was here.

Today?

No, last week sometime. The week before. He wanted money.

Same ole same ole. John always wanted money. Family legend, Inez gave him ten thousand dollars cash to open a lounge, and another ten thousand to open a garage, five thousand down payment for Gracie’s house, and a thousand here and a thousand there to pay his taxes, keep the hounds abay, and stay out of jail. John had squandered a good deal of their money, tens of thousands.

Inez says that Lucifer stole all her money.

He ain’t stole nothing. I took her safety-deposit key and moved the money into a new account. In her state, you can’t tell what she might do. And no matter what John does, she will always — He’s got some scheme now about buying cars cheap at auctions and sellin them for high profit. Guess he’ll never learn. He’s been tryin to get her to sell the house.

I need to lay down, Porsha said. Flame spread a red plant through her body.

What’s wrong?

Nothing.

Are you okay?

I’m gon lay down. Rest before I head back.

Okay. Tell your mamma I want to see her.

I will.

Don’t forget.

SHE LAY ON HER BACK and watched the cloud-dark ceiling. Memory hovered like rain. The air heavy with perfume. Beneath the perfume, other scent. She could breathe in the air-carried aromas of other nights. She always had trouble breathing here. No fresh air. The one small window above the bed that George had nailed shut against burglars — he didn’t like bars, the black wrought iron so familiar to every house on the block and in the neighborhood — until Inez had forced him to remove each nail — A guest has to breathe, she said — one by one. He had removed them with a grimace, as if extracting his own teeth. Then Inez had him stick an air conditioner into the window. Porsha had memorized in this room all the shadows and how they changed, memorized the exact spaces between things. Limited choices. She could sleep either here or in the basement bedroom, the humid, damp, and musty room like another world beneath the house, where Pappa Simmons had spent the last years of his life. The room you reached down the pantry stairs. (After all, the stairs were the pantry, Inez’s mason jars neatly arranged on shelves, book-fashion. You could actually fold a thick wooden door over the stairs and seal off the basement, lid and cigar box.) Had they buried him down there?

The real man in the flesh, not the memory, would come to the guest bedroom and look in on her.

Girl, how can you sleep in there? He pinched his nose. You’ll suffocate.

I’m okay, Pappa Simmons.

Well, come shut the roof for me.

She followed Pappa Simmons, the old man walking slow, slow, concentrating on each step. He moved so slow that you hardly saw any movement at all, and by the time he made it to the pantry, you felt you had walked and waited miles.

Need any help?

Jus shut the roof.

And the small old light white red man slow-moved down the pantry stairs, one by one.

Good night, Pappa Simmons.

Good night. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.

She shut her eyes. Slipped beneath the covers. The comfortable buzz and hum and scratch and whirl of cotton and thick wool — the air conditioner blew chill — to warm the night. A steady wave of snoring rode through the house. Lying there now, the bed holding her above the floor, she turned again and again. Shaped in the darkness. Shaped.

He trots along the vine-matted trail, erect in the saddle, head motionless, flicking his rod over the horse’s flanks to keep off the flies. His spurs rake the mount’s belly until it bleeds. Dry branches crack beneath hooves. He bends his head down and presses it against the horse’s neck. Tries to put his mouth next to the horse’s ear. Angry breathing. Hard hooves.