Rails Under My Back

by Jeffery Renard Allen

  You ain’t drive?

  Jesus looked at him, hard.

  Yeah, No Face said. What am I thinking about? Fine car like that. Round here.

  A single stream of sunlight, bothered by flecks of dust, flooded the room. Spread a bright patch like a tablecloth in the middle of the floor. Jesus squinted at the stark whiteness. Shadows spotted the walls.

  Nice earring.

  Jesus fingered his diamond stud.

  Where you cop?

  Downtown. At the Underground.

  My nigga. No cheap stuff.

  Word. You’ll get one too. Look in the Cracker Jack box. Save your prizes.

  What?

  A woman entered the room from a box-sized kitchen. Like his cousin Porsha in age—late twenties—but not in appearance. Black and skinny. Legs thin as wineglass stems. I can’t dick nothing skinny. Ah, No Face’s mamma. A legend. Word had it, she once coldcocked a Disciple with her Bible and saved No Face from getting smoked.

  This is Jesus.

  The woman looked at him.

  Boy, where yo manners? Lula Mae said. Can’t you speak? Cat got yo tongue?

  No, ma’m.

  Lower yo eyes. Don’t look at me like that. I’ll slap that frown off yo face. Gracie may stand fo some sass but I won’t.

  We bout to handle our business, No Face said. Take them over to Mamma Henry or Mamma Carrie. No Face talked with a nervous, jerky flow of words. Take yoself too.

  She looked at him for a moment. Soon as I get them ready.

  Well, don’t take all damn day. Stay in the kitchen til yall ready. Me and Jesus need some privacy.

  She sailed out of the room and, once in the kitchen, shuffled across the linoleum in red cloth slippers, moving cautiously as if she didn’t know her way around.

  Who those mammas you mentioned?

  Just these two old bitches that babysit them crumb snatchers sometimes.

  Jesus could see No Face’s mother through the kitchen door, washing the face of a little boy. Several breadboxes lined up like shoes along the counter.

  Yeah, these BDs ran a train on her daughter and threw her off the roof.

  Jesus looked at No Face.

  Mamma Henry. Threw her daughter off Buildin Three. I sexed with her.

  Who, Mamma Henry?

  No Face looked at Jesus. Funny. Real funny. It’s all good though. No Face grinned.

  Jesus watched the woman. Where yo daddy?

  Something flitted across No Face’s mouth, jaws. He handlin his business.

  In the kitchen, the mother extended a white plastic teacup to the boy. Go see if Mr. Lipton can put me a lil dish soap in this cup.

  The boy headed out the door without a word.

  Damn, that’s how yall do it in the jets? Give and borrow soap?

  It’s cool. See—

  Yall that po?

  No Face’s one eye widened, shocked, trying to see if Jesus had truly insulted him. You don’t know me from Adam.

  Yall some real country niggas—Jesus shook his head. Country. Thinking: Country like Lula Mae, who always buy that thick nasty syrup. Mole asses. He and Hatch wouldn’t touch it. Too thick. Mud. So Lula Mae would give Jesus a coffee cup. Go ask Miss Bee for some syrup. Say please. And he’d go get a cup of thin buttery Log Cabin syrup and share it with Hatch.

  A knock on the door. The mother hurried from the kitchen to answer it. A little girl, about six or seven. My mamma, she say can you give her some sugar.

  I’ll bring some. I’m fin to come see her.

  Who that? Jesus said.

  My sister.

  Yo sister?

  My play sister.

  The mother stepped back into the room, one hand on the shoulder of each child. She looked at Jesus. Looked at No Face, expectant.

  Go now, No Face said. Later, I make you straight.

  She opened the door with no change of expression.

  Nice mamma you got, Jesus said.

  No Face looked at him, face working, as if trying to decipher Jesus’s statement.

  The doings of No Face’s life circulated all over the city like the sewers. Everybody knew how No Face the Thief ran with a Stonewall unit, Keylo and Freeze, way way on the wild west side of South Lincoln. A coupla ole niggas—well, not real ole, late twenties—two jacks who always kept an inch beyond reach of the law’s long arms. When they got high or bored, they would flip on him, take turns beating his ass, further damage to his already ruinous anatomy.

  Where yo play daddy?

  No Face looked at Jesus. He at work.

  What bout yo smoked-out sister who suck dicks?

  Ain’t my sister. A slender thread of something in his voice.

  I heard—

  I don’t care what you heard.

  Jesus saw something in No Face’s one good eye.

  I ain’t got no sister like that. You don’t know me from Adam.

  Whatever. Anyway, a blow job don’t mean blow.

  No Face tried to adjust his eye patch, fingers thick with anger. Tell you who my daddy is. My real daddy.

  Who?

  No Face was blank.

  Where yo real daddy?

  I already told you.

  Tell me again.

  Where yours?

  Nigga, I ain’t the one who frontin.

  Who say I’m frontin?

  Then what you doin hangin out in Stonewall?

  Another stretch of silence. Aw, man. You don’t know me from Adam. Those my peeps. Where you come from?

  From out my mamma’s ass.

  What?

  A round smelly hole.

  No Face chuckled. You got to be somebody. Ain’t nobody born naked. People.

  People? We all People round here.

  Jesus watched No Face hard. Nigga, you ain’t no—

  Why you always be wearin red? Who you represent?

  Myself.

  Yourself?

  Jesus nodded.

  It’s like this. If you stand for something, you should show it.

  Jesus said nothing.

  You got to represent something.

  The words sounded across the entire length of Jesus’s mind. Jesus red-rolled up one sleeve and revealed two lines of scars running up his forearm.

  No Face cleared his throat with a scratch of sound. How’d you—

  A Roman shanked me.

  Man! No Face’s eyes traveled the length of the scar. Look like a railroad.

  Check it. Jesus nodded. See, you up here doin all this frontin at Stonewall, but I learned from the source.

  What source?

  You know.

  Tell me about it.

  Jesus thought hard and fast, brain working. Bright wings fluttered in his dark mind. Birdleg, he said. I used to roll with Birdleg.

  Birdleg?

  That’s right.

  Who—

  Birdleg.

  No Face thought a moment. Jesus’s bald head gleamed in the room like a bright egg. What he learn you?

  Listen and learn. Jesus repeated the words from memory. Learn to listen. More will be revealed in the end.

  What?

  Birdleg. The source.

  Then, you got to represent something.

  I told you—Jesus rolled down his sleeve and covered the scars—myself.

  You selfish.

  It ain’t like that.

  How it like then?

  See—

  Even T-Bone represent.

  That crippled motherfucka, Jesus said. He pictured T-Bone. Wide bodybuilder torso and slim ballerina legs, riding a wheelchair like a Cadillac in Union Station, patrolling the platform, digging in the scene, racing the subway trains. Word, everybody knew T-Bone. Kickin up dust in his wheelchair, crippled but still kickin it.

  Yeah, but he got more heart than some niggas wit three good legs. He ain’t sorry bout what happened to him. I was there when it happened, No Face said, proudly, chest puffed out. See, it’s like this. We had jus jacked that Jew, Fineberg.

  Yo
u was in on that?

  Yeah.

  Jesus looked at him. I see. He tryin to bullshit the bullshitter. And once I caught one this big—Jesus held a fabled fish in his parted hands.

  No, straight up. You don’t know me from Adam. We had just changed that Jew, Goldberg—

  Thought you said Fineberg?

  Naw. You said that.

  Nigga—

  Like I said, we change that Goldfine Jew, then we get on the train and this crazy white man, this other Jew-lookin muddafudda, pull out his gat and start shootin at us. Jus like that. So I pull out my shit. I’m like—No Face rises to demonstrate—Boom boom boom. No mercy. And—

  Nigga, you weren’t even there.

  No Face retakes his seat. How you know?

  I know.

  See, that how I lost my eye. I had the long demonstration like this. No Face took a sniper’s pose. Then I went Boom boom boom and hot oil popped in my eye. No Face raised the patch and used two fingers to open the eye socket like a clam.

  Jesus peered into the gray-pink insides. Nigga, that’s disgustin. Why don’t you get a glass eye or somephun.

  No Face laughed. Stick yo finger in.

  Make a nigga wanna throw up.

  Go head. Stick yo finger in.

  Jesus shook his head.

  See, I’m down fo the hood.

  Nigga, the only hood you down fo is the one I’m gon put over yo ugly face.

  See, you don’t know me from Adam. No Face closed his cavernous socket. I put in work. When I see a number three, my enemy. That’s it. Devastation take over.

  Nigga, stop dreamin.

  But I don’t use no street sweeper, mowin fools down on the run. No innocent bystanders and all that. See, me, I’m like this. If I want somebody, I park in fronta they house, camp out all night, drink me a little Everclear, smoke me some Buddha and jus wait fo em. Soon as they leave they house, I be like bam! Peel they cap. Staple a navel if I jus wanna fuck em up fo life. You know, make em carry one of those plastic pee bags. Make em wear diapers.

  Like that, huh? A mission.

  Hard-core. No Face patted his heart.

  Then how come you ain’t got no rep?

  He looked at Jesus for a long moment. You don’t know me from Adam. I got a rep. You jus ain’t heard about it.

  Yeah. I heard you a busterpunklyinmotherfucka.

  Now why you come at me like that?

  Jus stop frontin. I got proof. Real proof.

  Man, you don’t know me from Adam. I got proof too. I—

  Jus fire up the Buddha.

  No Face grinned at the words. Aw ight. Stroked his bare chin. You already sampled my fine products.

  I can tell you something. Jesus thought about it. He approached the words slowly. I got plenty enemies. Last Christmas. No, last Thanksgiving. No, Christmas. Yeah, Christmas. My family—But he didn’t say any more.

  No Face sucked his teeth. Can’t trust nobody these days.

  Jesus said nothing.

  Can’t get no respect.

  Jesus nodded.

  Tell me about it.

  PORSHA MOVES like a mule. Slow and strong. A young, shapely woman in a tight black dress, bright red belt boasting her slim waist. She drapes a white cloth shroudlike over Gracie’s long supper table. Sets the table. Lace doilies, cloth napkins (folded and ironed), silver utensils, gold-edged plates, and glass goblets. She positions two crystal decanters of dark dinner wine—Mogen David by the looks of it, tasty Jew wine that Sheila, her mother, my aunt, had stolen from the Shipco liquor cabinet or that Gracie, her aunt, my mother, had lifted from the Sterns—at each strategic end of the table. And two pitchers of minty eggnog. Balances steaming serving dishes on her raised palms. Carefully sets them down. Everything where it should be. The table creaks, sags from the weight.

  Yall come eat.

  The family blasts into the dining room like an express train. Porsha directs them: Mamma, you sit here next to Dad. Aunt Gracie, you sit over there next to John.

  Jesus grins it over, grins cause Sheila and Gracie are sisters, but you must keep them apart. Can’t stand each other. Always been that way, always will be.

  And you boys sit down there.

  Boy? Hatch says. Who you callin a boy?

  Yeah, Jesus says. We men.

  Seventeen ain’t grown, Porsha says.

  Don’t start, Sheila says.

  Dressed to the nines, as always, John removes his glasses, sets them next to his plate. He whispers something to Lucifer—my uncle—who nods in silent agreement. Two brothers, their hair spotted gray, strewn with ashes.

  Aunt Gracie, why don’t you say grace?

  Okay. You must realize that in the last days the times will be full of danger. Men will become utterly self-centered. They will be utterly lacking in gratitude. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

  Prayers circulate around the table. Sheila says, Let the peace of Christ control in your heart and show thanks. Porsha says her say. In connection with everything give thanks. Lucifer, John, Hatch, and Jesus mumble in unison, Christ wept.

  Let’s eat!

  Jesus tears into his food, though the sleeves of his thick winter coat slow him somewhat. He watches the others as he eats, prickly aware of himself.

  I was jus remembering something, Sheila says over the clatter of dishes. When Porsha was little, she couldn get enough of Jesus and Hatch. Feed them. Bathe them. Take them anywhere they wanna go. I tell you. Sheila smiles and shakes her head in memory and delight. She used to drape their wet diapers across the radiator. And bring them fresh cookies from school.

  Oh, Mamma, Porsha says. Why you have to bring that up?

  Cause I—

  Sheila, ain’t you got this boy tied to yo apron strings?

  John, I don’t see nothing on my apron.

  Look again, cause the way I remember it, when Hatch there was a baby, he was always ridin yo hip.

  As tired as I was. How he gon ride my hip?

  You go to the grocery store and he ridin yo hip.

  John.

  You go to the Laundromat and he ridin yo hip.

  Please.

  Well, he rode it. Yeah, while you cleaned up yo house.

  Dr. Shipco, Lucifer says, told me himself that Hatch rode her hip while she cleaned his house.

  Dinner over, the family retires to the living room with two fifths of Crown Royal. The women take glasses and a bottle and retire to one corner. The men take the other bottle and another corner.

  Give them boys a drink, John says.

  Just one, Sheila says. One glass apiece.

  What about Porsha? Hatch says. How come she can drink?

  Porsha grown and livin in her own house, Sheila says.

  But I’m livin in my own house, you say.

  You ain’t grown, though.

  Don’t worry, John whispers to Hatch. Got something for you. He slips Hatch a shapely paper bag. Don’t let the women see that.

  Time passes.

  Lucifer and John grow louder with each successive tip of the Crown Royal bottle.

  Liquor-possessed words slip from John’s slack mouth. So me and some of the fellas at the dispatch tryin to start our own company.

  Yeah.

  We got the cabs. Most of the guys own theirs.

  Still ain’t gon buy yours?

  John laughs, a laugh that begins little on his lips but expands to swell his stomach and chest.

  Still ain’t … Lucifer kills the words, staring at the laughing John with his heavy, stone-cold eyes, then uplifting the bottle and the weight dropping from the eyes, the mouth slacking into a smile, adding his laugh to the other. Jesus sees recognition in Lucifer’s face, his own features and nothing else.

  Brother. John shakes one bottle then the other. We empty.

  Can’t have that, Lucifer says.

  Be back in a flash. John’s slow fingers fit his spectacles onto his face, the sidepieces
creating viselike pressure at his temples, pressure that scrunches up his face, features distorted, pained. He quits the house for two fresh bottles of Crown Royal.

  Boy, you sho is tall. Smile gone, Lucifer speaks with his torso craned forward, the widow’s peak at his forehead like a scorpion’s tail. Jesus knows what is coming. The liquor helps bring Lucifer’s true feelings to the surface. Where you get all that height? Lucifer says. And that red hair? Can’t be from John. No. Can’t be from my brother.

  Come on, Hatch says. He tugs at Jesus’s elbow. Hot, Jesus refuses to move, soldered in place. Come on. Hatch tugs.

  Jesus and Hatch move to the bamboo patio with the big movie screen of a window overlooking shrubs, kept green and square by any wino willin to do the job for the buck or two John paid. Green but hidden today behind curtains of slanting rain.

  Where you get that jacket? Hatch says. It’s the hype.

  Arms out, Jesus twirls like a ballerina so that Hatch may admire it. Red down (goose feathers that flutter when he walks) with a black leather circle centered in the back. From Jew Town.

  The hype. I gotta get me one.

  Cool. We should go down there. I’ll take you to the store.

  They slide their food-heavy bodies onto the oak rocking chair, feeling the baked ham and turkey, the candied yams, buttered corn, the collard greens and string beans, apple and peach cobbler settle into their bellies. Hatch pulls a brown paper bag from his blazer pocket, unwraps it, a brick of Night Train, the lil somephun that John had promised, that John had sneaked in under his jacket. Hatch crumples the paper, returns it to his pocket. Breaks the cap and offers Jesus the first taste. Jesus tilts the bottle twice, taking two huge swallows, a musical gurgle of liquor in his throat. The wine’s heat spreads fanwise out from his stomach, filling his entire body. He passes Hatch the bottle. Hatch hits it, eyes closed. Passes it back to Jesus. So it goes. They share the wine while their legs pump the rocking chair in motion. The liquid spills forward in the upturned bottle. Jesus gulps. Hatch gulps. Gracie’s plants lean into the absent daylight. They drink in silence, only the rhythm of the rocking chair and their breathing indicating that they are not asleep. Drink, until the empty bottle glints beyond their reach.

  Guess they think we sposed to sit there and watch them drink.

  One drink.

  Yeah.

  One.

  One.

  Won’t even let us drink like a man.

  Check it.

  I mean she let Porsha … Jesus’s mouth seems swollen, the words too fat to escape through his lips. He reaches up to examine them. Fingers tell him what no mirror can reveal.