Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

One day, M&M — Malcolm Martin — bumped up against her booty. Nia turned around, ready to slap the taste out of his mouth. Sorry. He smiled, teeth big and even and white.

Yo mamma sorry.

I ain’t say nothing bout yo mamma.

Yo greasy ass granmamma.

Why you want to be like that?

Yo fat greasy-ass sumo-wrestler combat-boot-wearin great-granmamma.

Later that day, M&M flashed Porsha a sign — smeared red crayon against lined notebook paper — from his desk on the other side of the room: I LIKE YOU PLEASE GIVE ME SOME PUSSY.

In the after-school playground, M&M greeted Porsha with his energetic pelvis. I’m all dick.

You nasty buzzard, she said.

Boy, Nia said, why you always actin so mannish?

Ain’t nobody said nothing to you, fat and black.

Nia kicked him in the nuts. A short explosive grunt parted his lips. Damn. She broke his balls. How you like that, poot butt?

Yo mamma.

Nia slapped him upside the head.

Excuse me, but I don’t fight girls.

Nia slapped him again.

You jus mad cause I don’t want none of yo fat stuff, stank ho.

Nia slapped him yet again. M&M put up his guard.

They squared off. Nia floated on her toes, belly-buoyant, bee-stinging with her jab, trying to draw the blood of honey from his face. He crouched, his glasses — he was blind without them — level with her moving belly. Classmates cheered them on, put octane in their blood. M&M roundhoused a blow, his lunging body throwing him into empty space. Then Nia let go with her own punch. M&M felt — cause you could see it and hear it — her whole body against him, just above his glasses. I speak severely to my boy, Nia said, I beat him when he sneezes, so he won’t thoroughly enjoy the pepper when he pleases. M&M recovered, landed two blows to her stomach. It went on like that, Nia impacting a heavy blow and M&M connecting to the stomach. They took a break here and there over the course of the battle and fought on until they shook hands from sheer exhaustion.

NIA AND PORSHA TOGETHER were guilty of what each did alone. Mamma whipped them both.

Once, Mamma caught them rolling a joint in the bathroom. Nia looked up, the joint pinched between her fingers and held before her mouth like corn on the cob. Hi, Mrs. Jones, she said. We jus tryin this experiment we learned in science class.

Mamma laughed a full ten minutes. Then she wore out the girls’ behinds.

Why you whip me, Mrs. Jones? Nia said. You ain’t my mamma.

Well, Mamma said, tell yo mamma that I whipped you, so she can whip you too.

ONE DAY MRS. CHARLES sat Porsha and Nia down at the kitchen table. You girls are almost grown, she said. Will be women soon. Bodywise. It’s time to teach you girls about the birds and the bees.

Porsha’s stomach tightened in anticipation. Nia grinned.

When you use a toilet away from home, be sure to raise yourself a few inches above the stool. Don’t let your rear end touch the seat.

Nia looked at Porsha.

And if you sleep with a man, in the morning you shall wake and find a baby under your pillow.

MRS. CHARLES CLEANED NIA’S ROOM with the force of habit. You just keep doing well in school, she said. That’s your job. Mrs. Charles allowed boys to sleep over since Nia said that it was the only way she could study.

Saturdays, Nia and Porsha would gather up Hatch, Jesus, and Abu and take them to the museum, circus, or rodeo.

Men like women wit kids, Nia said. Why you think they always be callin you Mamma ?

THIS IS FINE.

Are you sure? The cab followed the downward slope of the street.

Yes.

The shop is—

I know.

Whatever you say, ma’m.

The street was well lit. People were about. Yes, she would get out here and walk a block. She needed the extra time to gather herself.

Thank you. She paid the driver — the fare in one hand, a heavy tip in the other — and exited the cab.

Thank you, ma’m. Have a pleasant evening.

You too.

The driver pulled away with a smile on his lips.

She walked down the lean yellow street. Trees bloomed in the dark and smelled like someplace far away. Church Street. Woodlawn. The old hood. (Well, not quite. The old hood was both Woodlawn and South Shore.) The Ship of Beauty, Nia’s all-night hair/nail salon, travel agency, and tax referral service, was dry-docked in such an unattractive part of the city where all the streets were named after foreigners. Euclid. Galileo. Vincennes. Racine. Not to mention the people. That’s why she had bought a car, to go directly from home or work and avoid streets besieged with beggars, bums, hoodlums, and swaggering seeking youth.

Give me a dime, baby, and I’ll tell you a golden story.

No, thanks. She felt her hair tightening. This affliction always began the moment the Ship of Beauty floated into sight. Moon shadows speckled the two-story building. Hard to believe this building had once housed Uncle John’s garage (lounge?). John used to bring her here often. Nia purchased it from the same bank that had foreclosed on John. Those Jews foreclosed on him, Mamma said. That musta been the winter of ’67, when we had that bad snowstorm. Nobody went outside for two or three days. John came out and couldn’t find the lounge, then he realized that it was buried under all the snow. Then Dallas came back from ’Sippi with that pee-hot wine. When the snow melted, the Jews foreclosed. If only John possessed Nia’s money smarts. Nia had reaped and sown. Ambition (desire) was her biggest crop. She was not one to stand still and contemplate her accomplishments. She planned to open an upscale salon-agency downtown. She wanted Porsha to invest, become an equal partner.

Porsha could see lights and shadows moving about on the upper floor of the salon. Good. Nia was here. She tried to spot Nia’s face in the window. Sometimes you could see her there in her office perch, where she leaned her elbows on the sill and sneered down into the street. Come on. This is mine. Start something. Please start some shit. It was the only window you could look in or out of. Nia had installed stained glass — shipped from the cathedral at Chutreaux (or Chartres or Notre Dame, one of them French places) — everywhere else. (Nothing about Nia was cheap.) You got to spend to earn, she liked to say. One day, she would retire and buy a beach house, a window opening on the ocean like an oyster, palm trees — full of fresh green coconut balls cuming white milk into her breakfast bowl — rising above egg-white sand, a yard with a dock, and a shed with two yachts.

The glass doors parted without Porsha having to touch them. Welcome aboard. The captain will be with you shortly. French tile formed a compass rose on the floor. A fountain threw a high musical rush of silvery water that fell in a constant spray into a marble basin fringed with violets and lilies. Copper and silver fish shimmered beneath the silver surface. The ceiling hummed music. Eastern? Caribbean? African? — Porsha couldn’t say which. The walls carried the smell of Dallas’s gasoline-laced ‘Sippi moonshine. Nia had papered them with jungle scenes. Potted palms lined the halls. Nia had crowded the shop with objects from her travels around the world. Full-sized sculptures cast full-sized shadows: A puppy-sized jade bitch with mother-of-pearl teats and crystal eyes that she’d picked up in Mexico. An iron-rusted elephant from India. The swami sold me some holy water from the Ganges River. He put a drop on my forehead and a drop on my tongue. You will have two sons, he said. Slanted silver divi-divi trees (with the one hairstyle) pointing west from Aruba. Follow the divi-divi and you’ll never be lost. It will circle you back to your original departure. Departure is destination. African masks followed you with hollow eyes. A framed encyclical (purchased from the Vatican) darted gilded light. Silk prayer rugs branched over the room. Japanese rice-paper paintings floated like flowers on water, shifting place and position even as you looked.