His wife, a yellow woman with a healthy wave of straight hair—Used to be fine in her day. Wish I had known her when she was eighteen—often interrupted a lesson. Hank, ain’t you tired? You know you need your rest.
Mary, wait. Hatch pay his five dollars for thirty minutes. His time ain’t up yet.
She was a follower of the New Cotton Rivers—Hatch, why don’t you come to church with us Sunday. Sky Church (the closed-circuit temple) is in a refined neighborhood—and would often shout biblical curses.
Each week, Hank showed Hatch the same two tunes, Red Top and Take Five. Music ain’t nothing but mathematics. Play chromatics, scales, that kind of stuff. The theory part. You know what I mean? Week after week, Hatch improvised on the changes, missing riffs and hitting wrong notes. That’s okay. Coltrane said there ain’t no wrong notes. Play sharp fives, flatted fifths, ninths, whatever.
One day, Hatch played the tunes, blew the changes, paid Hank five dollars, took back the Trane albums he’d loaned Hank, waved Hank farewell, and shut the door firmly behind him.
PUT SPIN’S TAPE BACK IN, Hatch said. Take that shit out. His ears were exhausted from Abu’s raw beat dragging the music—that I wrote, that I produced—down in its flow.
Abu killed the music instantly, fingers pinching out a live match. He slapped in Spin’s tape. There. You happy!
Hatch made no reply. He shut his eyes. The speaker extended out of itself, slowly, gradually, sail-like. Sound approached, a distant train, faint, humming. Reached him in the darkness. Motion touched every cell of his body. He entered the blackness and found a space inside the accelerating music.
The lane went straight beneath the moon—the sky thick with stars, blurring the constellations on the rare chance that you could identify them—boarded on each side by shadow-thick trees, the branches like thick black cords, weighted under the heavy moon. Yes, tunnels of trees rose in night’s full leaf. You tried to feel with your feet as you walked. Paths first pale then invisible in the moonlight, felt rather than seen. Paths uneven as lumpy scars beneath your feet. (And after a rain, muddy potholes stewed booted feet.) Only Mr. Baron had the gift—this Peruvian Indian, adopted by German-American parents when but an infant, ever-present under his ridge-high Smokey the Bear hat (campaign hat, he called it), with his ever-present knife-straight tie, dark green to match the light green of his uniform. The only one who could negotiate the dark, the only one who knew the path without hesitation. The troop was guided by the compass of his eyes. It’s his Indian blood, they thought—he had that Indian-black hair, pomaded to keep it from blowing wild in the wind like a smoke signal; and he was short like most Indians but packed in white skin; when you thought Indian you thought red, least Pappa Simmons’s yellow-red skin in Porsha’s photographic words; the handlebar mustache also refused the word Indian; and he preferred a sleeping bag to a swinging, swinging hammock, though once or twice you saw him nap on the hard forest floor—stumbling, stretching out their direction-seeking arms like blind men.
Sang:
Genuine Draft and aft to adapt
and wield with musical skill
a rhythmical staff
to beat the shit out of these red beets
and make you stomp yo goddam feets, chief
Saturday night. Tents arranged around the center of the camp where a fire burned. Each tent sat on a wooden platform, raftlike, and inside the tent, two rusty coffee cans, one filled with water, the other sand. Abu loved building the fire more than the fire itself. He collected more twigs of dead wood, dry brush, and grass than any other Scout. Built a house of wood on a foundation of four thick logs. You loved the fire. Quiet and dark. Explosions of dry rhythmic crackling rose in the dark through the black sky. And leaping flames that preceded the invading heat. Warmth and light. The troop sat in a circle on the ground, arms around knees pulling them close to the chest and drawing the circle tighter. Eating hot dogs and marshmallows flavored with smoke and grit. You felt the cool knees of the Scout next to you. Caught the pulse. Around the breathing body—red veins of smoke bleeding the night—someone issued the call, struck double syllabled song for the rankin session to begin.
A ding dong dong dong dong
A ding dong dong dong dong
A ding dong
Abu sho got some ugly teeth
A ding dong
Brush em wit his ugly feet
A ding dong dong dong dong
A ding dong dong dong dong
A ding dong
Hatch got some nappy hair
A ding dong
Brush it with his dirty underwear
That was Stumpy’s favorite song, Mr. Baron said.
Stumpy?
You saw Stumpy in the slim shadow of a tree trunk. You prodded the fire with a stick, roused clouds of soft brilliant sparks that sailed up into darkness. Stumpy melted in bark. Everybody in the camp knew the legend of Stumpy, but Mr. Baron spoke history, made him present, reminded the troop of the Scout who had lost his left arm under the accidental ax of a fellow Scout. For the last forty years, Stumpy had haunted Owassippee, choosing opportune moments to dismember Scouts with his double-headed ax, or freeze the red fearful blood in their hearts with his red eyes. Mr. Baron told the story to tenderfoot ears, novices.
Stumpy soared in the dim blue night air above the smoke.
Where does Stumpy live? Where does he live? The forest is his house.
You kicked the fire into blaze. The great red light strove and burst the sky aflame. Fire chased away the cold.
Platoon Leader Jones, Mr. Baron said.
Yes, sir? you said.
Are you trying to burn down the forest?
No, sir.
You let the fire die down. Cheeks puffed out, you had only to blow on the ashes where the pile of red sparks waited. Above the forest, Stumpy watched Owassippee, where flickering campfires shone like vast unsteady stars along the horizon.
Platoon Leader Jones, Mr. Baron said.
Yes, sir?
Keep charge. I have a meeting in the mess hall.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Baron lifted off of his haunches. The forest swallowed him.
Harris, you said.
Yes, Abu said.
Tend the fire.
Okay. Abu knelt down beside the fire, stick in hand.
The logs burned slowly with hot, invisible flames. The fire burned for warmth—Abu added dead limbs when ordered—firelight on faces.
Ding dong dong dong dong, you sang.
A ding—
You hear that!
Yeah!
What was it?
Nothing.
It came from the woods.
Can you see anything?
No.
Make the fire brighter.
Yeah, make the fire brighter.
Abu made the fire brighter.
The troop draws out their knives. Whittle chips of wood, until the wood runs out. Whittle chips of song, until the song runs out. Chips of shadow, until the shadows run out. Chips of moon, until the moon runs out. And then, sliver by sliver, Stumpy’s dark body forms.
Look! Stumpy!
Help!
Night wafts in. And wind fans the fire. A red flame crawls out from under the white coals. Stumpy breaks through the comouflage of smoke.
Eyes closed, Hatch was better able to contemplate the entire course of his life. Abu had been there for most of it. Their years were one. Shadow of time. Shadow of blood. Morning and night, minute and month ran shapelessly together, the days rolling steadily beneath them, kith and kin.
MY NAME ABU. What’s your name?
Hatch.
Glad to meet you.
Hatch says nothing. He is not glad.
Where you live? The roly-poly boy with a soda-stained red clown mouth asks.
On Seventy-second Street between Constance and Bennett.
Hey, I live right round the corner from you.
Why he speaking to me? Why did he choose me? I don’t need nobody to
play wit.
Yall live in a house?
No. A part ment. We got mice too.
Yall got mice?
Yeah. Do yall?
Yeah. You better watch out. Them mice grow into rats.
Damn you stupid. Don’t you know nothing? Mice ain’t no rats. They a different species.
Oh.
Hatch looks Abu over, needing bigger eyes to sight fully his fat. What’s that you wearin?
My uniform.
Uniform?
Uh huh.
You in ROTC or something?
Nawl. Kids can’t be in no ROTC. My dad was. I’m a Scout.
A what?
A Cub Scout?
That like a Boy Scout?
Yeah. And Weblos. Cept we little kids and they big.
Okay.
You want to become a Scout? Join my pack? Pack Five Hundred.
What’s a pack?
A group of bears.
Bears?
Baby bears.
Hatch thinks about it. Abu does look something like a baby bear. What I get if I join?
We go on trips, make fires, learn how to use a compass, recite our oath, go—
Is that all?
Abu watches Hatch for a moment. Well, my mother a den mother.
A what?
A den mother. And we have lots of fun. We—
Do I get to wear a uniform like that?
Yeah, but yo parents gotta buy it.
Sheila buys it. Stitches yellow square numbers (500) into the blue khaki shirt, her needle musical in the cloth, a baton calling forth rhythm from the yellow square keys. She starches and irons the shirt. Starches and irons the crisp blue pants. Buys and blocks the half-globe blue baseball cap. Buys the yellow kerchief and shows you how to roll two corners into tight pigtail braids so that the remaining corners form a neat triangle—a bear cub centered inside it—beneath your nape. Slides on the kerchief holder. Polishes your best black shoes.
Uncle John! Uncle John! I’m a Scout.
What?
A Cub Scout of America. How you like my uniform?
ABU BOWS HIS HEAD at the sound of thunder, clasps his hands at clapping lightning, shuts his eyes at the sight of televised floods, and fears a tornado in every wind. He forms a steeple with his fingers, then whispers a prayer over his hamburger and french fries. He performs a slow order of dutiful chores. Mrs. Harris (mother and den mother) gives him permission to play. Abu and Hatch spill out Hatch’s collection of Hot Wheels cars—I only play with the best; they like real cars, like my Uncle John’s—roll them over rugs, under tables, up walls and banisters, down noisy pipes. They make tow trucks of their hands—We can pull them anywhere—and motors of their mouths. Rrrrr rrrrrr. They puzzle over scale-detailed trains. They spend hours of bent concentration constructing model tanks, battleships, and airplanes, military and civilian. Battle monsters (Godzilla, King Kong, Dracula, the Werewolf) against Superheroes (the Hulk, the Iron Man, Spiderman). Then they pit skills. Abu beats Hatch at checkers. Hatch can sense no strategy in the game and blindly moves the plastic discs from one black square to another. But he beats Abu at chess, game after game, hour upon hour—Look, Hatch. We don’t stop playing until I win a game—and always under twenty moves.
Who taught you how to play?
My Uncle John.
They wear serious faces, masks, as they move the chess pieces. Hatch remains silent, focused on the magic of the unspeakable. He absorbs the plastic power of each piece. The pieces flow mobile with a self-determined plan and will. His hand moves knifelike, cutting patterns.
Abu, Uncle John says. His eyeglasses are like flying saucers, high and still, reflecting over the entire position of the board. Move your rook to—
Stop kibitzin, Uncle John! You jus mad that I beat you.
Uncle John, who taught you how to play?
Spokesman. He says it’s based on medieval warfare.
Spokesman knows everything.
Well, who taught you how to play the game?
You did.
Don’t forget it.
HATCH AND ABU walk far and fast—Hatch leads the way with a firm military step—until one or the other (usually Abu) says, I quit. They discover a place so far away that it has no name. Grass, trees—the place breathes green. The ground slopes down into a deeper green, an area entirely shaded from the sun where you can pick patches of sunlight from grass beneath an oak tree. Lie and read. White water flows down over clean black stones. Fill your empty canteen with the clean-tasting water. The river glows with the full benefit of the sun’s rays, down to the stones shining like jewels. Birds and fish move in a single stream. Sunlight skims the waves; the water flashes like a buckle. You imagine it the sea, crimson as fire, and the patch of land at its center, an island retreat. You touch the water, and it replies, Yes. No matter how much or how far you walk you will never find where it begins or ends. At one point, it spills white steam against the surrounding rock—you toss a stone and listen to it plunge roaring into a black watery pit—rising yet somehow still, breath set in steel.
Wet, they sit in a dry space against a tree. The sun soon follows. Makes a square patch on the bark. Dissolves in your thoughts.
Say, you say, man is the measure of all things.
What?
Jus say, I hate God.
Don’t say that, Abu says.
I repeat, say, I hate God. You speak in a place where you can wrestle with your shadow and never lay hold of it.
No, Abu says.
Afraid?
You don’t believe in God?
No. Why should I? He does terrible things. Why would he let Cookie deform and die? Kill Nap? Kill R.L.? Chop off Sam’s leg? If God exists—you poke out your chest—let him strike me dead.
You better not say that. Abu scoots away from you.
We are dwarfs on the shoulders of gods, you say. The words roll across the surface of your tongue. Words you had discovered in your wide reading. We can see farther into the distance than our parents and grandparents could see. Wise up.
DOWN DOWN IN WEST MEMPHIS, Lula Mae rewards you with a present, a sunburst Sears, Roebuck guitar.
You doing good in school, Lula Mae said.
Well. I’m doing well.
But I hear yo math ain’t too good. Strive to put the bottom rail on top.
The train ride home, you sit the guitar in the seat beside you—Red, move outa the way. Sit back there. And keep yo hands off it: it ain’t no toy—and touch it like a friend. Home, you perch on the edge of your bed. Slant the guitar across your body. Brush the elevator-cable-thick strings but barely raise a note. Hit it harder, Jesus says. You hit it harder, give all six strings—you counted them—a firm karate chop. The hollow body echoes a sound like a rake scraping concrete. Damn! Jesus laughs. Hit it another way, he says. You do. And this way and that way and the other. In the days that follow, your novice fingers grope for the dark strings at every opportunity. You hit them again and again, determined to produce the sounds inside your head. The strings become necessary, loud blood flowing through six red veins. Even today, your hands will sweat when you don’t or can’t touch them. You climb inside the deep dark well of the guitar and gaze silently about. Sound and sight enter from a bright world far away. Hours pass. Then you hear footsteps approaching from down the hall. You hide the guitar in the cave under your bed. Sheila throws the door open to the sound of your musical snoring.
Dear Lula Mae,
I am well. I got one tooth out the chair fell on it. I want to see you. I got the book you sint. Sheila read too stories in it. I still got the guitar. I like them when I coming to see you again?
Love Hatch
At the first opportunity, you lug your guitar to school for show-and-tell. (It was either the guitar or your chameleon, Dogma.)
Where you get that guitar?
Down South.
Down South?
Yeah. Down South. My grandmother gave it to me.
What she doin down South?<
br />
She live there. You ain’t never been down South?
Nawl. I’m from here.
At the next show-and-tell, Abu presents a drum set to the class—Copycat! Monkey see, monkey do—the price tag still attached. I can play music too. A full set, not the kit with a single planet of drum, but the whole bright constellation of cymbals, tom-toms, cowbells, snare, and bass traps.
Dear Hatch,
Be a good boy. Don’t aggravate your mamma. Racket and confusion her. Learn to play that thing. And jump at the sun.
Love your grandmother
Lula Mae
You lug your guitar over to Abu’s house. Mrs. Harris puts the two of you in the basement and shuts the door.
What we gon call our group?
Third Rail.
At home in your room, you continue to practice. You finger notes and miss them. Fingers snap off strings, soundless. Try again. Fingers jump back, riff-ready. Switch to the right track. Gradually—seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months—you begin to hear it for the first time. Records are black seeds which sprout musical trees. You hack through foliage. Perched birds sing on six twanging limbs.
SO YOU PLAY GUITAR? Uncle John asks.
Yeah.
Bet you ain’t never heard Jimi?
Jimi who?
Listen. Uncle John spins the record.
Sound surprises. You hear a guitarist who is also an orchestra. One man who is six. Oak, cherry, redwood, pine, rosewood, mahogany—six limbs bunched in a single trunk of sound.
Hear that? you say to Abu.
Hear what?
I gotta learn how to play like that.
What? Hear what?
MRS. HARRIS (Geraldine you call her—behind her back) leans over the church piano, her fingers spread web-wide on the keys.
A little gold in the church
A prayer in the name
Her round, flat, black skillet face shows no movement, a black dot of musical notation. Choir-robe sleeves rolled up, her hands run slow across the ivory tracks.
I got fiery fingers. I got fiery hands.
And when I get up to heaven, I’m gon play in that fiery band.
Rails Under My Back Page 38