How come your cousin ain’t helping us move? Deathrow said.
My cousin?
Jesus.
She had never uttered Jesus’s name in Deathrow’s presence. Her embarrassing secret.
Where’s Uncle John? Hatch said.
I ain’t heard from him.
He ain’t called? Porsha saw the concern in Hatch’s eyes. Hatch was fashioned in John’s image. A shadow of John’s face in his, an echo of John’s voice in his.
No.
Damn, Abu said. He was Hatch’s twin, only shorter, darker, fatter. His chimpanzee ears twitched. He promised.
I know, Porsha said. He told Lucifer he was coming. After Les Payne, she had come to trust Uncle John’s gut feelings about a man. She would introduce a man to Uncle John on the first date. I know what men want, Uncle John said. She was anxious to hear his evaluation of Deathrow.
Don’t worry, Deathrow said. I can drive the truck.
Deathrow put his mouth and muscle to good use. He instructed the others as to what objects to remove from the apartment first. (Days before, he had shown Porsha how to pack and seal her boxes properly.) He loaded up the truck with each object exactly positioned. Shackled the furniture so that it couldn’t move. Drove the truck. Once at Hundred Gates—yes, she would love it here; live leaves ran green lines up the building and curtain-shimmered in the wind—he directed the unloading. It took eleven or twelve hours to load and unload several tons of items: her Bible, her globe, her wrought-iron bed with the white ship sail-canopy (she had attached chimes to it, sonorous seashells strung from a straw net, like a second miniature canopy), dresser, chest of drawers, tables, chairs, couches, love seats, sleeper sofas, refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer, and stacks and stacks of boxes: her South Shore apartment had been stocked like a museum, full of objects—dolls, dresses, coin banks (scared-eyed niggas with hollow grins and watermelon lips), old cloth for quilts, browned newspapers, perfumes that had lost their scent, doll-sized wooden Indians, a clay nigga foot (Nigga toe, Lula Mae called it), crystal knickknacks—from Lula Mae’s lil house, the trailer propped up on four corners of bricks in Lula Mae’s backyard, which you reached by stepping down three cement back-door steps and walking across two long, splintery wood planks to its metal door. The loft had been a dance space, then a gallery, then a radio studio, then a television studio. Perfect for her. Huge, an entire floor. A church-high ceiling. Two walls were solid windows. She could look down onto the web of a great tree. Sunlight smeared one wall of windows in the kitchen and dining room, and the small series of picture-frame windows in the bedroom. Through the fractured blind slats, she could watch a bird wing past. Moonlight made the floorboards silver. In the bare room—she had yet to hang draperies—voices moved like shadows on the walls and shadows danced across the ceiling. The windows were long, bright, shadeless rectangles of light. Without warning—light and dark, equal halves of a slowly spinning ball—they shaped to lengthening shadows.
The room steamed with hot silences. The purple glow of the tropical aquarium, the whisper of currents, gurgling bubbles, and fish rippling in bright streaks. Deathrow bobbed over to the aquarium, his footfalls echoing against the hard wooden floors. Tried to scare the fish with ugly faces. Fish unscathed, he rapped on the glass with his knuckles, hard.
So you from South Lincoln? Hatch said.
Yeah. Red Hook.
Red Hook?
Yeah.
Really?
Straight up.
You know T-Bone? Abu asked, eye cocked to catch deceit.
Hell yeah. Crippled motherfucka. Ridin that wheelchair like a Beamer. But he straight.
Man, he from Red Hook, Abu said to Hatch.
What?
He from Red Hook.
Man.
A moment of silence. A feeling silence.
So, Hatch said. So, well, what’s it like?
Deathrow grinned his grin. When a man in the house, he said, all the bullshit stops. He slapped Hatch on the back.
Damn.
Damn.
You ever heard of the Blue Demons?
You mean that basketball team?
Yeah.
I seen them play a few times.
My Uncle John ref for them.
The same Uncle John who was sposed to drive the truck tonight?
Hatch nodded.
Deathrow thought about it. You know, I think I know yo uncle. A short guy, right?
Hatch nodded.
Look something like you?
Yeah.
Damn. Small world.
Sis, he from Red Hook.
He from Red Hook.
I know.
Sis, you know you don’t owe me nothing for helpin you move.
That’s right, baby. Deathrow kissed her.
Buy us some brew, Abu said.
Nigga, you know you can’t hold yo liquor.
Yo, money. What you drink?
Be pissin all night.
Watch yo mouth in my house.
I don’t drink no beer, Deathrow said.
What?
Man, how can yall drink that shit? Taste like piss.
Stop talkin low-life.
That’s because beer and piss got the same ingredient.
What?
Pee.
So it went. Hatch, Abu, and Deathrow: their forms and talk awakened memories. Shades of blue pasts. Hatch, Abu, and Jesus as rusty-butt boys, the three sitting before her monkeylike while she greased their naps.
She gave them money for liquor.
Deathrow kissed her before he stepped out the door with the other two.
Be back soon.
You better.
Awaiting their return, she kept her hands busy, arranging, rearranging, unpacking boxes, dusting, sweeping, mopping, cleaning.
She felt very small and tight inside. Her mind wandered. Imagined the worst. She sat and tried to settle. Time flowed.
Hours later, the three of them came back, drunk and stinking, speech thick. A night with devil in the wind, beating, pounding evil against the windows, and a handful of stars.
What took yall so long?
We were talkin.
What?
Jus talkin.
Yeah. They were tellin me all about Jesus.
Jesus?
Yeah.
And Uncle John.
A measure of silence—Porsha expected Deathrow to lean in for a kiss; he didn’t—then torrential tears. Hatch first. Abu followed. So too Deathrow. Tears distorted their faces. Sobs came wet and deep. The three babbled words from some unknown dictionary. Then their heads fell back like heavy stones, their bodies sinking into the floor, in the hollow created by a ring of boxes.
DEATHROW HAD YET to turn the final corner of maturity. Porsha moved in the world with complete faith that he would in the fullness of time. She devised ways to speed up his growth. Last Christmas, she had bought him a black trunk full of new clothes, a Bible at the bottom, leatherbound and smelling like new shoes.
That’s your passport to heaven, she said. She braced herself for some sarcastic reply.
He ran his hand over the worked leather. Thanks, he said.
Perhaps her very look had drawn out of him the answer she wanted. She went further. It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, and the soldier’s sword.
I don’t know bout all that. He grinned. But it sho is some nice leather. I never knew you were this religious.
I am, but I ain’t no fanatic. What about you?
I believe.
Since then, she had chanced on him reading the Bible once or twice. And he had promised to attend the Great Awakening with her on Sunday to fellowship with the New Cotton Rivers, the fourteen-year-old evangelist who steered the souls of his congregation, the New Riverside Multimedia Church. The Great Awakening would be the evangelist’s first live appearance in four years. The Full Gospel Assembly, seven hundred and seventy-seven golden-throated singers, would ac
company him.
Okay. I’ll let some fat fried chicken-eatin preacher take my money.
Every preacher ain’t like that. This one’s good. Builds houses for the homeless.
Need money to build houses. Most church folk ain’t got nothin but chitlins in they purses.
Well, he got money.
What’s his name?
The New Cotton Rivers.
That nigga on TV?
Yes.
Who be wearin them gym shoes and that joggin suit?
How else can you keep up with the Lord?
Right. He way younger than me.
Age got nothing to do with knowing Christ.
And he—
Will you go?
I don’t know.
It would mean a lot to me. She put her cool hand to his hot chest.
Okay. If you insist. Maybe he’ll do some—
She didn’t waste a minute. She called and reserved two tickets for the Sunday appearance.
Nothing like a good show, he said. I wanna see that preacher turn silver to gold and cotton to silk.
His promise, his tentative steps toward Christ, were good signs. No man had ever gone that far for her. But she wanted him to go further, touching distance, and accept God in his life, accept the voice resounding in her skull. These are candied kisses from God. God is the author of healing. I pray for sweet mending. I’ll put no man before my God.
One day he might even be elected to the Tubes of Testimony, Rivers’s missionaries, and help spread the gospel, roll the biblical light off of his hands and set the day ablaze. May the sun fly high. Spread wide the peacock-tailed fan of truth and light. This possibility eased her heart.
The train eased into Union Station. She rose from her seat, renewed. The doors parted. Passengers waiting on the platform divided, a clear open path between two rows of rushing bodies. She calmly waded through. She told herself, This will be a good day.
13
HER STEPS SEEMED SLOWER THAN USUAL. She rationed her breath as she climbed the long avenue of stairs up from the basement to the kitchen, laundry basket draped across her outstretched arms, a fireman carrying a child from a blazing building. She rested the heavy laundry basket against the wood railing. Waited for her second wind. It never came.
She continued up the stairs. The floor beneath her fell away. She dropped the laundry basket to the linoleum with a noisy splash. Snatched her a chair from the table and put herself in it. Shut her eyes and took a deep-chested breath. Her breathing was noisy. Wind and wheeze. She tried to quiet it. Crisp pain coursed through her body. She opened her eyes. The room was twisted, its objects warped, moving into one another, planes and lines falling away into white space.
Mamma, why don’t you retire?
Don’t start.
Why don’t you?
Hush.
The pieces floated into place. Her heavy eyes anchored them.
Mrs. Shipco?
No reply.
Most mornings Sheila and Mrs. Shipco would share a cup of coffee here at the kitchen table. Mrs. Shipco would trace endless circles in the brown liquid with a spoon before she took her first sip. Return the cup to the saucer, then lift her head and the cup with it. She always wore her blond hair straight back behind her ears, draping her cheeks and nape. She had never changed the style or length in all these years. She would finish the cup in one gulp, rhythm in her throat. She would begin talking, tense, wrinkles moving like currents over her brow. Close her eyes to help her words along. That done, she could talk with ease. Sheila would swim in the current of words in the morning kitchen. Let it carry her. Add words of her own. She wished to talk today. Needed to talk, tear truth from the tracks. Mrs. Shipco?
Hi, Sheila.
Hi.
You didn’t have any trouble with the train today?
No.
That’s good.
Well, I sorta did.
What happened?
Oh, nothing worth telling.
I’m all ears.
Mrs. Shipco rarely left the house. The past few years, arthritis twisted her like a vine around her bed. Uprooted her daily routine: swimming, yoga, crafts, and classes at the university—noncredit courses; she already had a Ph.D. in sociology—the same university where she had met Dr. Shipco some forty years ago when they were both students. He came from poverty. (Sheila remembers the day Dr. Shipco and his sister—older, also a doctor—sat in the living room, barefoot, shared a bottle of dark wine and celebrated their first million.) She paid her tuition from insurance money obtained after her parents’ death. A boating accident. He was a Jew. She wasn’t. He was ten or twelve years older—Sheila always forgot which—but a handsome man, when he removed his glasses, brown eyes heavy with learning, and a neat mustache.
Dr. Shipco?
No reply.
Dr. Shipco had been forced to close his practice after his heart attack. He had never heeded Mrs. Shipco’s and Sheila’s warnings to slow down. Rushed out the house every morning carrying a briefcase weighted with patient files and the latest professional journals.
Aren’t you going to have some breakfast, Dr. Shipco?
No, thank you, Sheila. I have to squeeze in a new patient. And when he wasn’t seeing patients at his office or at the hospital, he would see them here, upstairs, in his study. You could never see yourself going to a psychiatrist. Only a fool discusses his business.
The day it happened, Sheila was stuffing clothes into the laundry chute when she heard him call her from his study. Sheila?
The moment she stuffed the last shirt into the chute, he called her a second time. Sheila?
Sheila hurried down the carpeted hall. Yes, Dr. Shipco.
Please open the door.
Sheila pushed the door open. Dr. Shipco was leaning far back in his leather chair, as if his upper body was trying to flee from hot steam rising up from the desk in front of him. The phone receiver was stiff in his raised left hand. A ballpoint pen remained where he had dropped it on the pad beside his right hand.
Sheila, Dr. Shipco said. My heart feels like a baseball in a catcher’s mitt.
Mrs. Shipco! Sheila tried not to scream. Heard Mrs. Shipco approach from the master bedroom down the hall, the balls in her arthritic knees squeaking like rusty faucets.
Don’t upset her, Dr. Shipco said.
Philip! Mrs. Shipco placed her hand flat in Dr. Shipco’s chest.
Sheila pried the phone out of his hand, one finger at a time. Dialed 911.
Martha, I’ll be okay. If we all talk quietly.
Dr. Shipco remained conscious and quiet and gave Mrs. Shipco and Sheila specific instructions for his comfort and care until the paramedics arrived.
Now, three mornings a week, Mrs. Shipco drove him to the gym for mandatory exercise. And the hours they once spent at the university or the practice, they now spent reading together in bed.
Dr. Shipco? Mrs. Shipco?
Still no answer.
I’ll check the Shipcos’ bedroom. In a few minutes. After I rest. Can’t deal with any more stairs just now.
How horrible. You saw that and you still came to work today?
I didn’t want to miss a day.
Sheila, you should go right home.
No need to miss a day.
A cuff of water froze her ankle. Lord, I peed on myself. Sheila looked down. Nelly’s wet nose was sniffing at her feet. Nelly, get on away from here. Sheila gave the black fox terrier a light kick to push it away. Nelly inched back to her feet. Nelly was one black ball of short wild hair, like somebody’s napply ole head. Nelly sniffed, wet. Then she started to howl. Shit! Mrs. Shipco ain’t home. Sheila hated when Mrs. Shipco left the house, because Nelly would howl and howl and howl until she returned. Wishful, Sheila checked Nelly’s bowl. It needed no food. Habitually, Sheila would have to slide the bowl directly under the dog’s nose. Nelly could no longer actually see the food. Sheila had been after Mrs. Shipco to have the dog put to sleep. But Nelly was one of the family. Jus
t like Laddie, that old collie, had been. Shipcos musta owned Laddie fifteen years.
Fifteen of our years for one of his years, Sheila said.
No, Sheila, Mrs. Shipco said. He’s twelve.
That makes him—Sheila calculated—one hundred and five.
Not fifteen. Seven years.
So he’s—Sheila calculated—eighty-four.
He’s making it.
Mrs. Shipco had waited until Laddie could no longer walk before she loaded him onto the front seat of the family station wagon and caressed his fur and snout all the way to the veterinarian’s office. Brought Nelly home the same day.
Nelly howled. Sheila’s nerves had tolerated enough. Sheila picked up the dog and tucked it under her arm like a football. Carried it outside and lowered it into the fenced-in pen—oak rails and post—that ran parallel to the two-car garage. Nelly howled once or twice, blinked her unseeing eyes, then curled up on the gravel.
Now I can get some peace. Sheila went back inside.
She retrieved the laundry basket. Dumped the clothes onto the kitchen table. Readied her iron and board. Her hands burrowed into the pile of clothes. Starchy heat massaged her fingers and palms, a warm after-dinner cloth. Her warm hands worked. Backwash flooded her throat, a flake of something dry and nasty. She had a city inside her. An entire kingdom. She had been an hour late today. Eyes had held her back. Eyes that see everything they care to see. Her vision helpless as the image formed itself, upside down, backward, salmon-driving up into the streams of her tears. But your witnessing morning is now a part of somebody else’s memory. You don’t want it. Give it away. You were conscious of shoes, so many different clicking colors, walking by you while you stood and waited, wading in ocean, so much surrounding you. Voices drawing from you, moment to moment. You were conscious of boarding the train, the train moving, jerking to a stop, then moving again. Besides, everything that happens makes sense. So Father Tower used to say. And what happened this witnessing morning—Well, it ain’t anything to miss work over. She has worked for the Shipcos for over thirty years and can count the numbers of days she has missed on all twenty of her fingers and toes.
Rails Under My Back Page 25