The train squeezed to a stop at Union Station, vast, blazing. The car emptied and filled. Continued. The car’s tubular insides mirrored the saxophone curve of Elsa’s neck. The car’s bounce, the float of her breasts.
How’s your Mexican girlfriend? Porsha said.
Puerto Rican. I told you, she Puerto Rican mixed wit—
Whatever. How come you didn’t invite her to Christmas dinner?
Well—
He hidin her, Uncle John said. In the doghouse.
He planned to meet Elsa today after his visit to Inez’s.
Why don’t you come over, Elsa said, her voice small and inviting inside the phone.
I’m sposed to spend the day wit my grandmother.
She needs the whole day?
It’s just that I don’t get to see her but once a month.
You know, Dad will be at the parlor.
I know. He’s there every day. People never stop dyin.
A soft laugh bounced from Elsa’s lips. He pictured them. It gets better, she said. Mamma will be there too.
Is that right?
She has to vacuum out the coffins, comb hair, apply makeup, paint fingernails, dress the clients, flower arrangements, that kind of stuff. Help Dad out.
I see.
So I’ll be all alone, nobody here but me and Raoul.
Raoul?
My cat.
But that would be later, much later. He had a long ride to Inez’s house in Morgan Park, the southernmost part of Central. A long ride. Elsa was hours and miles away. He flipped his book, Man and Mestizo, open. As he read, he began to feel a comfortable place inside himself where he could peek out and judge safe from penetration. Two half-pint hoodlums snatched the book from his hand, Kleenex out of a box, and frog-jumped onto the platform. They boldly flashed him their sign, thumb and index fingers curled ino a C, then blazed an escape, feet drumming across the platform fast and heavy as rainfall, nylon jackets billowing behind them as if the policing wind were clutching and tugging at their backs.
Slow-moving silence. Hatch stirred in his seat. He could feel the eyes of the other passengers on him. His tongue dry and stiff in his mouth, a dead rat. A bad way to start the day.
He closed his eyes and invented his own darkness. And he roamed in this private space while the train pushed like a diver through tubular black. It rose—he saw it and felt it—and tilted him out of his thoughts. The morning pushed hot through the moving window. Opened him. The train sped. Distance changed kind. He tried to ignore the melting of familiar landscapes: crowded streets, a river lake-still and lake-steady to cast reflection, and the sun-catching skyscrapers and flag-decked buildings at the city’s heart.
The train spat him onto a wooden El platform. He spiraled down three flights of stairs to earth. The light was slower here in Morgan Park. The sun sprayed lazy light in banks of red discs. Through the hot grit of day, he took deep-reaching steps for the bus stand.
AHHHHHHHHHH
Shut up.
Ahhhhhhhhhh
Shut up. I’m tellin you.
Ahhhhhhhhhh
Wait til we get home. I’m gon whip yo butt. You won’t be hollerin tomorrow, no sir.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh
What you cryin for? Talk. I don’t understand what you sayin.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. I can holler too. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh
No sir, won’t be hollerin tomorrow. I’m gon tear yo butt up … Don’t stop now. Might as well finish cryin. We got only three more blocks.
The toddler resumed crying.
Shut that baby up, Hatch said. In floating bus space, he rocked slightly in his seat.
What? You come up here and make me, punk.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Jus get the fuck off.
You make me, punk. Bitchass nigga.
She exited the bus. Stood on the sidewalk, hand on hip, and screamed at him, head jerking to the words. Still not satisfied, she hoisted the toddler above her head, champion weight lifter, then ran toward the bus, as if she would throw the toddler through the window. The bus pulled away.
Dumb bitch. He said it to himself. Fuckin hood rat. His seat offered no comfort. Inez live too damn far away. Too damn far. A long train ride, then a long bus ride. Shit. A flow of streets unfurled behind him. Sunlight angled across the river. The sprawl of the city and the sun like its glowing heart. With sniper-sensitive sight, he followed birds through the bus window, black images through blue sky, flying well and very low, with a calm, favorable wind. To his left (in the distance), the Central River pulled its drying legs together. To his right (near), Tar Lake stirred under a slow flood of sun. Formless substances afloat, each separate from the other, but each also kin to water, the element which will, in time perhaps, dissolve them into a new solid identity. A ship sailed for some unknown destination. I know everything about that ship. By simply stretching out his hand he could touch it. Ship lights bubble up and bob on night water. Anchors and chains ring, cowbells. Awaken you as Uncle John slips in silence through Gracie’s front door. Moves like a bat in the dark, as he navigates the steps to Gracie’s bedroom. Dallas’s drunken ghost knocks and bumps against the stairs behind him. He peeps into the room where you and Jesus sleep, the hall light glowing behind him, and Dallas’s ghost too, his eyes fired and twisted.
Gracie’s house was completely surrounded by Tar Lake. Though the lake was but a short walk from the house, Uncle John would pack his fishing gear in the trunk of his yellow cab—well, back in the day he drove a red Eldorado, then the green Cadillac, then the gold Park Avenue—park Hatch and Jesus in the back seat, and drive the few blocks to the lake. We don’t wanna walk. We like to ride. Hatch, Jesus, and Uncle John would play their favorite game, hide-and-seek. The boys would race down the hill toward the water, arms windmilling, and dive down into the tall grass. Uncle John would sneak up on them without a sound. Then Jesus would snag a black worm onto a rusty hook. Cast his bait. Motionless rod and motionless line in the current. Hatch would relax with a book and cast his thoughts into the black water. His fingers could handle the toughest guitar strings, but not twisting, slippery worms. Uncle John would ready his rod, clean the horsehair line—stronger than wire, he said—polish the gold-colored hook with his silk handkerchief, then tug on the bait, a red-snapping fiddler crab. Patient—Patience catches a fish, he said—he might spin a tale or two. I remember this one time. This time, once, when this guy got shot. The bullet made his clothes catch fire. The weirdest shit. The bullet hit him in the thigh. A flesh wound. But his clothes caught fire. And the fire burned him crisp. He would catch small, green, finger-thick catfish. Be careful of them whiskers. Cut you like a razor. He would clean his catches right there at the lake, nail a hammer through a head and pull off the skin in a clean stroke, easy as removing a sock. Now, if yall really wanna catch something, we gotta drive down to the Kankakee River. One night, Uncle John bought Gracie a bowl of goldfish, which she placed on the fireplace mantel next to Cookie’s photograph, commanding a watery view of the living room. Uncle John, why they call them gold? Ain’t they orange? She gave Hatch a few sparkling fish to take home with him. One jumped like a pole vaulter out of the bowl he had carried all the way from Lula Mae’s lil house in West Memphis. He stood and watched it. Felt sea spray in his belly with each flop of the fish’s tail. Felt his heart jump inside his ribs. For hours he watched it, beating out its rhythm.
He didn’t chase the memory. Braided sun whipped the bus from side to side. Whipped him across the face.
Junior, you comin to see me?
Inez, this ain’t Junior, I’m Hatch.
You promised to come see me. Junior, you promised.
Why was he going to visit Inez? Making this long journey? Why? Well, Inez was his grandmother. More important, Inez was Uncle John’s mother. Yes, Uncle John’s mother. The why. The reason. So he must journey, must pay respect.
Junior, what time you
comin?
Sun spindled light. Junior? Why she call Uncle John Junior? Lucifer was the firstborn. Doesn’t firstborn make him Junior? I was young. I was new to the city. We all make mistakes cause when you young, you think you know everything. I wouldn’t listen to Mamma or Pappa. I met him in the Renaissance ballroom. Used to be down there on Sixty-first and Ellis, right across from the Evans Hotel. See, in those days you would dance before the men came out to play their basketball. We danced. The Turkey Trot.
Well, what was it like when yall came here?
Hard. It was hard.
Hard how?
You shoulda met Pappa. He could have told you all about it.
Pappa Simmons ain’t here. He dead.
You shoulda met Pappa.
Sun shattered in flakes against the window. Hatch blew them away. Inez. The rubbish heap of old age. He would spend all afternoon and most of the evening with her, but, by morning, she would carry no memory of his visit.
A CAR DROVE BY on muted tires. The sidewalk steered him past a weed-and-bramble-filled lot that he once had believed was an alligator-and-cottonmouth-spawned swamp. A sidewalk made all the more dangerous for its narrowness. The sidewalk opened into a quiet unpaved street. Under construction to remove the old cobblestones hollow-sounding against your heels (like horse hooves), cobblestones that hollow-held the sun’s heat and black-blistered your feet, wore down car tires (so George often complained).
Trees sparkled in the morning sun. Hedges square and trim, grass patiently mowed. A line of range houses all brick, all built for returning soldiers after the great war, the war that George knew firsthand. He saw action. But how can anybody see action? Action something you do. George (old and nearly blind) kept the house up and refused all offers of assistance, climbing a shaky ladder to fix the garage roof, shoveling snow from the walk and driveway, hosing watery blackish substance from the sidewalk. Hatch had never quite pieced together the chronology. The only wedding photo showed George in his army uniform and Inez in a knee-length party dress. So they had married during or after the war. Lucifer was born the year the war began. Uncle John two years later. Pappa Simmons and Georgiana took them in.
Hatch followed a short narrow cement path around the side of the house to a low white picket fence that opened into the backyard. A small patch of garden with furrows like dirt roads. Beans and peas and tomatoes and cucumbers and lettuce and turnips and mustard greens. A bird pond—you and Jesus tried to build a birdhouse with some old sticks from the alley—of white stone that had stood here as long as Hatch could remember. Plenty of birds today, splashing and chirping. He thought twice about it and retraced his steps to the front door.
Hi, Junior. Inez speaks as if someone had punched the air out of her.
Hi, Inez. Short, slight, childlike, her round yellow prominently boned face—level with his—and wormlike wrinkles shining between the dark wings of her hair. Her body frail as tissue paper, limbs thin sticks for a toy airplane, and you are afraid to touch her, to feel her skin, afraid that she might roll up and crumble under your hug. But you must hug her. She shrivels in your arms.
Let me look at you. She pulls like skin away from your body. So big. Ain’t you all growed up.
Yes.
How’s Lucifer?
He’s fine.
How’s your mamma?
She’s fine.
And your sister?
She’s fine.
And your wife?
You mean Gracie. She’s Uncle John’s—
How’s Beulah?
She’s fine too.
You speak to her lately?
Sheila called her the other day.
You remember that time we all drove down to her house?
Yes, I remember.
It was me, George, Junior, Sheila, now who else?
You know.
We had a fine time. I really like Beulah. She and I are one of a kind.
Why did I come here?
One of a kind.
Hatch considered the comparison.
Junior, you know anything pleasant in the world?
He ignored the fact that she called him Junior, Uncle John. Guess not, he said.
What’s wrong with people today? Her face shows pain in every wrinkle.
They stood in the small living room crowded with furniture and memories. Nothing had changed. The room had remained untouched all of Hatch’s life. On the wall above the long squat television, two glassed-and-framed prints of birds of paradise on either side of a glassed-and-framed charcoal portrait of Inez—we got that in Mexico; he drew it for one American quarter, one American quarter—fat-cheeked and plump, nothing like the way she looks now. On the wall behind and above the leather couch, a mosque-shaped mirror, dotted with colored glass. We got that one in Turkey. Two glassed-and-framed photographs above and behind the sitting chair, GOD SAVE THE KINGS—Dr. Martin Luther King and his family seated on a couch, reading the Bible; Lula Mae got that one, I’m sure—and CHAMPIONS OF THE PEOPLE, stills of King and the murdered Kennedy brothers.
And all these strange kinds of sex.
That’s right, Inez.
The world gets worse and worse.
That’s right, Inez. Why did I come here?
I’m glad I don’t have long to stay.
Don’t say that, Inez.
I wade into the deep water, tryin to get home.
Inez—
And when I get there, I’ll sit on the river.
You ain’t going nowhere, Inez. You gon be with us for a long long time.
I’ll sit on the river. Let’s go out to the patio.
They did. The enclosed back porch lay in sunlight, wood-paneled walls with black knots like spying eyes. Inez and George spent most of their time here with a huge wall map, the many places they had traveled pierced by red thumbtacks.
Hatch eased into the worn cane chair where Porsha said that Pappa Simmons, who died the year he was born, had sat and told stories. She had never told him the nature of the stories, only that he’d told them and to her.
George brought his coffee and biscuits to the glass table—you were always afraid to eat there, the plate banging against the glass, afraid table and meal would crumble beneath you—with a small portable radio blaring out the news, his reading glasses balanced across his nose, and holding up a magnifying glass before the newspaper. He liked his coffee black; he took his first gulp, throat working, without blowing off the steam.
Pale colors ran in his eyes, fish in a cloudy aquarium. After the war, he had found work as a blueprint reader for the commuter railroad and booked passage to blindness. You could stand two feet in front of him and your face would be no more than a black balloon. Inez was losing more than her sight.
George?
Yes, Hatch. He returned the cup to the saucer with the least bit of sound.
What kind of work did you do? He could never get it straight.
Well, when I first came up from Arkansas, I got a job in the stockyards. Worked that for about two years, then I got this job workin for these two Jewish brothers.
Reading blueprints?
No. It was a machine company. We made the templates used to stamp out car parts.
I see.
Yeah. George pulled off the top of one biscuit. Steam curled from its soft white insides. It was just a mom-and-pop operation when I started. Big business now … Those two Jewish brothers smelled like dead fish, that heavy fish odor.
Man.
Back in Russia, they managed a fishery. Good people. Fair. But I also made a dollar a day. Service pay. That was good money in those days.
How’d you like the army?
George thought about it. See, it’s all about the military-industrial complex. That’s why they going to war now. George rose up from the table and walked into the kitchen.
Yo father was here, Inez whispered.
Lucifer?
Junior.
Uncle John?
Yes. He left something. Let’s go o
ut to the garage. I’ll show you.
Hatch took Inez’s arm—light and brittle as a twig—and guided her to the garage. Partitioned in two, a space for the car (ordinary, nondescript, pale blue and gray), tools, and fishing gear, and a screened porch overlooking the patio and yard. He had spent many hours on that porch, book in hand, rocking, on a large swing meant for two people.
In there, Inez said.
He helped her into the garage proper. She took an object down from a wooden utility shelf. An ordinary basket, full of baby’s breath.
He and that woman left it.
What woman?
It’s some kind of spell. I been meaning to ask yo mamma.
Hatch recalled the time George got sick, weak in the legs, and Sheila instructed Inez to put a picture of a horse beside his picture. Horses have strong legs. And burn a candle. Red might be too strong, make his legs too powerful. So burn a red and a white candle.
Inez quickly put the basket back on the shelf and led (pulled, reined, rider and horse) Hatch from the garage.
Why would Uncle John want to put a spell on you?
She pushed him into the screened porch.
Inez? Why would Uncle John—
That man, George.
Hatch glimpsed the old swing—smaller than he remembered it—and a few old clover-shaped church fans for cooling down the Holy Ghost.
He is low. The dirt washed off turnips.
George?
Yes. That man there, George. He got powers.
Hatch said nothing.
He knows everything I’m sayin. See, he can touch something and then he sprays me with something while I sleep. George. That man there. Married all these years. Married. To dirt.
George opened the patio door. Inez’s wrinkled mouth went tight, a drawstring purse.
HATCH DRUMMED HIS FINGERS on the glass table, which yielded his reflection. He saw himself churn Inez’s ice cream. Saw himself drop fresh cream and fresh cubes into the bucket then turn the handle with all the power of his skinny kid’s arms. He saw himself skin apples for Inez’s applesauce. Shell peas for her soup.
Rails Under My Back Page 19