A red light halted him. He rubbed his throat. His voice hurt from the song. He pulled the sandwiches, greasy, slippery, from the paper bag. Took healthy bites. Damn. Is there any taste in egg white? Green put him back in motion. He rarely slept at night free of jackals, tail-whipping him, biting his chest, tugging his dick, clamping a tight bottle-cap anus over his mouth, or laying a heavy cloud of farts above his bed. Jackals at night and jackals in the day. He ate in large bites. The food was warm and slow and solid inside him. He felt it hang in his guts, bats in a cave. His stomach shook loose and steady around it.
A man flapped on the corner (VV and Second streets). Breathed vapors of yellow ribbon. Miniature flags (cloth)—small enough to deck midget coffins—waved in the free air. Miniature flags (plastic)—American, African (the red, black, and green), Puerto Rican (or Mexican?)—buzzed in his hair. At the next corner, a flyer red-beckoned from a lamppost: DO YOU WANT TO DIE OVERSEAS? A hand had scrawled in black marker beneath it, Niger Go Back to Afreeca. Punk, learn to spell first. I ain’t gon fight in no war. Not like Uncle John and Lucifer. Sam and Dave.
Did yall have fun?
Fun? Nephew, did we have fun?
Fun? Man, them silks is something else.
The lockstep life. The snap of servile salutes. Butts upended for the company chaplain. Let God’s winged horse root in you. Let the thunder of his hooves become your beating heart. Jackal shit. Pure jackal shit. Not for me. Hey, no sand bunny ever called me nigger. Still, many fools out here eager to throw themselves under the hooves of the beast.
If they was so bad, how’d they make it through the army?
Same way they made it through Houston, Beulah said. If Dave could tell one lie, Sam could tell two.
But didn’t the army—
No. Them niggas steals off the truth. Steal a meat bone from a dog.
The memory chased its own tail.
Be patient, Beulah said, cause what is hot today will be cold in the end.
He took more bites. The sound of his sticky chewing seemed to come from somewhere outside himself. He felt under the constant gaze of the sun’s watchful face. Like a ray, it fell everywhere. Red. His eyes roamed the street, tiny bicycle wheels. He ate and walked. Some jackals paraded up and down the street—yes, paraded, proud-flying their colorful flea collars—while others rushed to catch the El. Pulses thumping, Hatch finished the sandwiches a moment before he arrived at the El’s steps. He took them slowly, one by one. Seated in a cramped booth—an outhouse was bigger—the ticket agent took Hatch’s money and slipped him a transfer with the evident sense of exercising a well-earned right. Dumb bastard. What did the agent know? Hatch knew. The El ran its orbit around the city, making stops here in Central, in Eddyland to the west, Kings in the east, South Lincoln, North Park—all the city’s five boxes. Careful of his book, he removed a neatly folded Kleenex square from his back pocket and wiped his greasy hands on it. He dropped the soiled tissue into the foul depths of a garbage can. He watched the still logs of the rails. How heavy were they? How much did each weigh? How many men did it take to—A jackal leaned in near to him. And another. His legs found clean space. He kept his toes well behind the yellow line before him.
What’d you feel?
Nothing, Sam said. But I could taste the rails. Iron. Blood.
Life happens in a flash. As a boy, he’d read that humans have lead in the bloodstream, had believed the tracks might snatch him—call him, a steel mother commanding the child inside after a day of play—like a magnet. Now he knew, the speed, the momentum could suck you up.
He was not part. Lucifer had gone off to meet Uncle John. And he was not part. Lucifer knew how close he was to Uncle John. Uncle John surely knew. Why hadn’t Lucifer awakened him? Why hadn’t Uncle John invited him? Come along and be part. Why?
6
A STRONG SMELL OF FRESHNESS AND EARTH pushed through the open window. Gracie saw green among the gray. Lula Mae had left for New Mexico on a day like this. Rose above the strong-limbed earth and roared off into the great yellow world. It must have been spring, for the onions were the first vegetables to fill the air with aroma, their hollow stems poking black blades through the soil. Last spring, Lula Mae had returned. That is, she had come here to the city. (By bus? train? No, the plane.) Came to attend a ceremony honoring her grandson. White and timeless. Gracie watched her, wondering, How long? How long has it been? When had she last seen Lula Mae? Years ago at Beulah’s house in Decatur? Or Big Judy’s funeral in Fulton? Ceremony done, she flew back. Came and went. Came and went.
Then in the fall—before or after Thanksgiving? you no longer remember—Sheila had phoned her in the wee hours of the morning. Gracie, Sheila said, Lula Mae have cancer. The words echoed in the receiver. I jus called Beulah.
You called Beulah?
We better get down there right away. Porsha said she’ll buy us plane tickets. Sheila hung up.
Gracie and Sheila caught the first plane smoking and flew to West Memphis. Sheila filled in the details. The hospital had released Lula Mae. She had already begun chemotherapy and shark cartilege treatments. She never spent an unguarded moment; women from her church’s Senior Citizens Club provided, made sure she wanted for nothing.
The clouds outside the window were frozen swirls of thick white like cake frosting. Gracie couldn’t remember the last time she’d visited West Memphis. Perhaps she’d gone with her sister and their sons on one of their childhood summer trips. Yes, that was it, to the best of her recollection. She shut her eyes and sought to retrieve some specific image or moment from her last trip, and seeking found none. Lula Mae was no welcome guest in her thoughts. And for this reason she had refused to travel to West Memphis. If only she could put some healthy mileage between herself and Sheila’s know-it-all face.
Lula Mae’s house and yard remained unchanged in reality and memory. The silver (spray-painted) garden chairs curiously in their element on the mowed grass. Blue sky visible at breaks in the rows of tall peach, pear, and apple trees. Trees that curved a horseshoe around the sides and back of the house. The little house (Lula Mae called it), a trailer propped up on cinder blocks that you reached down two splintery planks stretching from three cement back porch steps, always white and clean in the sun. And the house itself, green and white with the same stone porch. Gracie’s old key still fit the front door.
Sheila, is that you? From her pillow-propped position on the bed, Lula Mae reached up and gave Sheila a forceful embrace. Sheila. They hugged long. Gracie stood at the bed smiling. She held her smile until she felt her face pulling out of shape.
Lula Mae released Sheila, then gazed with twinkling eyes at Gracie’s face. Gracie bent for her hug. Pulled Lula Mae close, carefully, not knowing how touch might trigger pain. Lula Mae was equally lax. Must have used up all of her energy on Sheila’s hug, for Gracie barely felt the two child hands that briefly pinched her back.
Yall came right away.
We came right away.
I can’t believe it. Lula Mae wiped away her tears with bare colorless hands, wiping hastily without regard to her appearance. Tear stains crisscrossed with the shadows under her eyes and nose cast by the bedroom lamp and streaks of face powder. Her shrunken wig seemed too small for her head, hardly capable of hiding the patched gray. Gracie stepped back and almost stumbled.
LULA MAE SUFFERED A SPELL OF COUGHING before going to sleep. Gracie and Sheila settled themselves in chairs, unspeaking, and kept vigil through the night. And that night carried into more nights over days then months. The first week of every month, Gracie traveled by plane to West Memphis for a bedside visit. Sheila went every second week, Gracie returning as Sheila was leaving, Sheila returning as Gracie was leaving. Sometimes they waved at the airport.
FOLKS SAY, if you stand on the corner of Church and Sixty-third Street, you will eventually see all the people you have ever known or met, so when Gracie first came to the city, she stood there, hoping Ivory Beach would pass by. She would beat the devil out of Iv
ory Beach. She saw, smelled, and felt the feverish rush of the city. But the wicked offers of men drove her from the corner after an hour of watching and waiting. The next day, she returned. And the next. It was this corner that taught her the life of evil. One day she saw a low, cloudy flutter of pigeons. She felt teeth on her behind. She made it to the solitude of her bathroom, removed her panties and checked herself in the full-length mirror, where she saw tiny marks, like a fork’s indentation. She sat down on the toilet.
The rush of water relieved her of the day’s filthy offers. She felt something clamp on to her behind. A baby held her buttocks in its gripped teeth.
A HOUSTON WONDER, Daddy Larry’s three-legged cat ran faster than a dog wit six legs.
Gracie, Sheila said, catch that cat.
I’m tryin.
Can’t you run no faster?
You, Sheila. You, Gracie. The stone of Ivory Beach’s voice plopped at their feet. You girls stop aggravatin that cat.
Yes’m.
Don’t yall have nothing better to do? Where that boy? Ivory Beach watched them, short and round, from her long-legged stool, a baby in a high chair. Her fat black face yielded a set of thin white teeth. Cat got yo tongue?
No, ma’m.
Where that boy wit them green eyes?
He walk to town.
Wit who?
Our kinfolks.
Nap, Dave, and Sam would sneak to the farm and steal apples, then take R.L., that boy with them green eyes, that boy that ain’t a McShan like his two sisters, ditch-swimming.
Yo kinfolks?
Yes’m.
How come you let him go to town? Ain’t yall older?
No, ma’m. He oldest.
Still, ain’t yall sposed to be watching him? Ivory Beach knocked Gracie upside her head so hard that her thoughts rattled …
Don’t, Sheila said. You hit her again, take the devil and his crew to get me offa you.
Ivory Beach watched her, unspeaking.
Why, Miss Sheila. What you doin here?
Came to pay you a visit.
After all these years?
I waited.
Don’t you look at me like that. You was an evil cuss. Should be grateful that I raised you.
The next day, they found buckets of tick-red water in the barn.
Sho look funny, Gracie said.
Stink too.
Red river.
Nawl.
Paint.
Larry, when you gon git that paint?
Next time I go to town.
Now, you been sayin that right near fo ten days.
And I might say it fo ten mo.
Larry McShan!
Looka here, woman—
Don’t I deserve some spectful kindness? I, yo wife.
White folks the only one wit red barns.
Might be po, but this place don’t have to look like the ground of no pigsty.
The firewood should fit the cookin.
Nawl, stupid. Blood.
You a lie.
That’s Daddy Larry’s blood.
Gracie said nothing. Both she and Sheila knew about the unseen world preached to Ivory Beach since the cradle—this woman from the backwoods swamps. Each night, the woman drank steaming horse tea. God knows what else she did. Who could tell the extent of her powers? Daddy Larry if anybody. He owned a tobacco patch—a real patch too, a few quilt squares—and Ivory Beach tended it. She rolled him fresh cigarettes, but he unrolled them and chewed the tobacco for snuff, a rusty coffee can serving as his spit cup.
What we gon do? Tell R.L.?
Nawl. You seen him kissin that heifer.
Here, Miss Ivory Beach. Here some sugar fo you.
Daddy Larry die?
He ain’t dead yet.
Cause if he did die, then Lula Mae—
Or she make us hers.
The next Sunday after church, Daddy Larry gave Sam and his three nephews, R.L., Dave, and Nap, a nickel each to red-paint the barn.
You boys been stealin my apples? Ivory Beach said. Everyone still called her by her maiden name. She made the best applesauce in Chickasaw County.
You needs to start you an applesauce business, R.L. said.
Cookin run in my family. My mamma the one invented Coca-Cola. She sold the recipe to a white man in Virginny. Fool run in my family too.
Miss Ivory Beach, Gracie said.
Ivory Beach looked at her, saying nothing. You boys been stealin my preserves?
No, ma’m.
What yall doin?
Workin.
Paintin yo barn.
Miss Ivory Beach, Gracie said, Daddy Larry gave them a nickel apiece.
Anybody speakin to you?
No, ma’m.
You, boy wit the green eyes.
His name R.L., Daddy Larry said. Robert Lee Harris.
Don’tcha try to eat that nickel. Eats up everything else round here.
R.L. raised his toothpick arms high above his head, sucked air in and poked his chest out, then jackknifed. He walked on his hands.
Boy, stop that.
Git down here wit me, Miss Ivory Beach, R.L. said.
What? Why I ain’t never heard such foolishness.
R.L. snapped his rubber-band legs and landed back on his heels. He smacked dust from his hands. He put two twig arms on Ivory Beach’s shoulders, making prisoners of her head and neck.
Boy, what you doin? Let me go. Small butterfly hands fluttered up to the locked arms, but too late. R.L. planted a kiss on her cheek, lips purple on the black flesh, a living coin.
There! There you some sugar.
He ain’t die in no Eldorado. I know that for a fact.
Nawl, them crackas killed him jus like they killed Nap.
Jus like they woulda killed Sam and Dave. If they had caught them.
Yall, hush, Sheila said. Hush. Ain’t nobody killed R.L. Ain’t nobody killed Nap. Accidents.
You younguns better learn some respect. Why, Lula Mae light outa town like she killed somebody. And I seen the devil hound on her trail. Aint no leash in Texas gonna hold it.
She ain’t go to no Texas. New Mexico.
Texas, New Mexico—ain’t no difference. Still the South. And a sin is a sin. She looked at Gracie. See, it’s all in the bloodline. Good breedin shows.
The blue sky burst into yellow, thin, like Ivory Beach’s chicken neck. She always had plenty of chores to give work to R.L.’s idle mind. Cleaning up the horse shit. Sorting the good peas from the bad peas. Plucking hair from the hanging hog on hog-killing day. Shucking corn.
R.L., Sam said, that lady got you doin lady’s work.
Damn her dirty draws.
Double damn them.
Yeah. I feel like I been rode hard then put in wet, R.L. said.
To get to Brazil, he woulda had to come back this way, cause California—
Porsha, hush.
What business a nigga got playin cowboy?
Don’t know but I ain’t a bit surprised he became a cowboy.
Damn them three rascals, Beulah said. White folks be damned if they didn’t lynch em. Some colored folks love cracka mo than corn bread but not them three rascals. All I know is I get a call from Dave sayin that they gotta spirit outa town. R.L. had run off to California.
I thought he went out there to find his father? Mr. Harris?
Beulah continued, deaf to the question. Nap was dead.
Ain’t nobody killed nobody, Sheila said. Beulah, you know Nap had those seizures and he get to drinkin and wouldn take his medicine.
And Sam get on the phone, Beulah said, and tell one version bout stealin out of some white woman’s house and Dave git back on the phone talkin bout stealin her love. Whatever they did, they did it together. They both gets on the phone, cryin somephun bout crackas lynchin a boy in Fulton. Strung em under a railroad bridge and burned him up wit a blowtorch. Burned him so bad that his family didn’t get no remains. First wind come along and blow his ashes from that rope. So I wired em some money.
QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAIN, she bounced off the dresser in the old barn. Bounced, above and beyond. Went sailing over the side. Spread her wings only to discover they didn’t work. Her stomach hit the edge of an open drawer, her flesh curving around it.
Sheila’s lips moved silently.
At first Gracie felt no pain. Hers was the sudden feeling of falling down a well into the deepest solitude. Then she saw the pain, red spiders crawling down her thighs.
Gracie, Sheila said, You awright?
The words rolled heavy in Gracie’s head.
Gracie? …
She’ll be dry as an empty riverbed, the doctor said.
She was thirteen.
NOW, YOU AND GRACIE take this applesauce to Brother James.
I don’t wanna be round no dead folks, R.L. said.
I don’t either, Gracie said. She was thinking about the doctor’s words. She’ll be dry as an empty riverbed.
Ain’t nobody dead. Do like I told you.
Sister James’s house lay in the bend of the road, set far back from the trees to catch the best chances of light. Why anybody want light in this Sippi heat? The fever had gotten so bad that Sister James’s naked black body glowed with heat. Not one sister of the congregation could get within ten feet of her without blistering.
Take the water from the well, Gracie said.
Why, girl, that water poison. Kill her for sure.
Listen. Take the water from the well. Gracie knew exactly what to do. Knowledge breaking like rushing waves inside her.
Lord!
Holy!
Heaven!
Fetch Miss Ivory Beach! Tell her come see bout this child.
That girl—the sister pointed at Gracie—one of them McShans.
You know Larry over there wit that three-legged cat. Triflin wife ran off—
And that one—the sister pointed at Sheila—touched. Born with a caul. So they both might be touched too.
Listen, Gracie said. Take the water from the well.
Sister, an older sister instructed, do as she asks. The lesser evil won’t kill her no quicker than the more.
Sister took a bucket of water from the well. Gracie stuck her face in the rusty cool, bobbing for apples. She filled up the balloons of her jaws. She walked over to the bed and stood directly above Sister James. Arched back her head and sprayed a loop of water from her mouth, a thick stream that thinned and sputtered, then sizzled against the sick woman’s naked skin.
Rails Under My Back Page 14