Rails Under My Back

by Jeffery Renard Allen

Sheila looked into Gracie’s eyes and saw the calculation in them.

  I already told you.

  Gracie said nothing.

  Why don’t you come help me? When Porsha gets here, she and Hatch can go through the attic.

  Gracie said nothing.

  They can do the little house, too.

  Gracie turned and left the room.

  SHE SAT ON LULA MAE’S BED and listened to the night frogs and crickets. She had accomplished all she could and deserved rest. She saw very clearly how her life had led to this moment. A moment that demanded perfection. It would take everything she had to grant a wish, but she would pay it. That much she owed Lula Mae. She had refused money from the Sterns, from Porsha, from George. She had bought her plane ticket and Gracie’s. She had paid for the wake, the funeral, the burial arrangements. She could breathe easy and Lula Mae could rest without worry, knowing that her death had been placed in Sheila’s loyal, dutiful, and determined hands. Sheila was the host that Death had promised her.

  Tell Gracie to stay home, Lula Mae said. Don’t come here no mo. All she do is set up in that rocking chair and accuse and pity.

  When Cookie died, Sheila had had to make all the arrangements, pay all the expenses. Gracie moved slowly and stiffly, her heart beating at a heavy cost, carrying in her blood the lead fact of the death of her firstborn. After the funeral, Sheila helped Gracie put Cookie’s wheelchair into the closet of the Kenwood apartment they shared. From there they pushed it to the patio of the May Street apartment and finally into the basement of the house on Liberty Island, where it waited in the corner, uncovered and empty. The house on Liberty Island with a real hearth where a fire could burn. Where Cookie’s photograph held command on the mantel above: a will-less face and loose eyes that looked in two directions at once; a white-and-pink bow; a pink dress with white collar and black belt; black patent-leather shoes; a white cloud surrounding her body, Cookie standing out like a gem against cotton.

  She had defended Gracie from Ivory Beach, the wicked Houston stepmother who staked claims during Lula Mae’s New Mexico absence, the swamp woman who found daily satisfaction in tormenting Gracie. And, many years later, she exacted payment in Gracie’s name and memory. She saw a woman standing old and thin and alone on Sixty-third and Church Street. The sight slowed then stopped her feet. No, it couldn’t be. Surely her eyes deceived. Illusion. Mirage. She stood thinking that her cold desire for revenge and justice had caused the woman to crystallize. The woman’s eyes jumped with recognition. She started to turn her face away. Thought twice about it. Why, why, Sheila.

  Sheila listened to the remembered voice and said nothing.

  Is that really you?

  After all these years, Sheila said. Sheila had heard no word about the woman since leaving Houston. Now to find her here, in the city, on this very street corner.

  Yes. How you makin along?

  After all these years.

  Ivory Beach lifted her nose with her old pride. Yes. After all these years. You was a mean one.

  Sheila punched Ivory Beach in the face, feeling the ancient brittle bones go soft under her knuckles.

  Gracie had forgotten all of this. Remembered only what she wanted to remember, needed to remember, cause if she remembered it all the past might force her to forfeit her anger.

  Sheila found Lula Mae’s Bible where she thought it would be.

  Lula Mae had inserted strips of white paper throughout the Bible, perhaps to catalogue important sections, clue her to crucial passages. Sheila found a yellowed newspaper clipping sandwiched between two pages.

  Sheila returned the clipping to its exact place. She ran her palm over the book’s rough cover. She left it here for me to find, she said to herself, thinking, and thinking almost saying aloud. She put the Bible in her suitcase and locked the latches.

  41

  SHE MUST BUY NEW CLOTHES for the funeral. A plague of moths had eaten her old ones. (Could this be? Is it not true that moths eat wool and wool only? Perhaps certain varieties of moths feed on a range of fabrics.) An army of babies rode off in her shoes, tanks.

  She fluttered, angels in her body. She blessed the railroad plank above the grass-covered drainage ditch. Blessed the ditch itself. Blessed the chain-link fence that surrounded Lula Mae’s property, contained it. Blessed the lawn. The lawn furniture. Trees—apple, pear, and plum. Blessed the concrete walkway leading up to the house. Blessed the two concrete front-porch steps. Blessed the front porch. Blessed the lil house out back behind the house. Blessed the two railroad planks positioned side by side to offer a walkway to the three concrete back-porch steps. Blessed the back-porch steps. The back porch itself, an uncovered block of concrete. Blessed the kitchen. The bathroom. The living room. The bedroom where Sheila slept. The second bedroom where Mr. Pulliam used to sleep, the bedroom that Lula Mae rented out after he fled to heaven. She blessed the hall. The attic could wait.

  Blessing done, she entered the second bedroom where Mr. Pulliam used to sleep, the bedroom that Lula Mae rented out again and again after he fled to heaven. She undressed and slid under the covers, full and satisfied. Sharp-edged silence. Sheila slept quiet across the hall behind a closed door. Memory wheezed in the darkness. She put her Bible underneath her pillow and heard Lula Mae talking.

  42

  DAMN, MAN. Can’t you see that Indian behind you?

  Gunfire crackled through Lula Mae’s house.

  Man, is you blind?

  Turn that TV down.

  What? Woman, you ain’t left to get my medicine?

  A folk can’t even think round here. All that clamor.

  Think what? Think bout gettin my medicine. Mr. Pulliam breathed.

  Fool, get out of my face, Lula Mae said.

  Woman, you make me, Mr. Pulliam said. The words bubbled, like he had something in his throat, phlegm, dammed spit.

  You touch me, I steal yo life.

  Mr. Pulliam grunted at Lula Mae. Turned back to the loud TV. Lula Mae left the room.

  Mr. Pulliam sat bent forward on the divan, face almost touching, kissing the TV screen. He breathed beneath the TV’s traveling volume. The sound of his breathing always reached the front door ten steps before he did. His belly bulging his ribbed, sleeveless undershirt like a white laundry sack. He plowed clean paths through his lathered face with a straight razor. Fool, how many times I tell you to close the door when you in the bathroom. Ain’t nobody interested in your business. Lula Mae was careful to tell Porsha not to touch his food. (He had his shelf in the refrigerator, and she hers. So too the freezer.) Not to enter his bedroom.

  Lula Mae returned with her largest skillet, black iron, creased with shining grease.

  Woman, what you think you gon do wit that skillet?

  Lula Mae rung the skillet against his head.

  Damn, woman. You tryin to kill me. I’m callin the police.

  Call them.

  He did.

  The white officer arrived with the speed of arterial blood.

  Can somebody turn off that there TV?

  Porsha turned it off.

  You see what the woman done to me? Mr. Pulliam gestured to the white kitchen towel pressed to his head. I jus asked her to get my medicine. I’m sick.

  Sick in the head.

  Damn this woman. She sposed to be my wife. Look at what she done to me.

  I can’t miss it.

  Take her to jail. I worked a good job. I’m sick.

  He struck me.

  Law, I swear I never touched that woman. I swear on a mountain of Bibles.

  Don’t let your nasty mouth mention the Good Book.

  I’m sick.

  He struck me.

  Well, seem like what we got here don’t add up. Somebody talkin out the side they face.

  Law, it ain’t me.

  It is you.

  You both want to go to jail?

  I’m sick.

  Not sick enough.

  Well one of you is talkin sideways. Girl—

  T
he white officer looked at Porsha.

  —what happened here?

  That’s right. My granddaughter here can testify.

  That’s fine wit me. She saw what happen. Tell Law here what happen.

  Porsha said nothing. She had something to say but the words wouldn’t come.

  Girl look scared to me.

  She from the city. Up North.

  Maybe that explain it. City life. Come on here. The white officer took Mr. Pulliam by the shoulder and moved him toward the front door. We better see bout yo head. Now, ma’m. You be nice. I don’t wanna come back here. I do, both yall comin down wit me to the jail. We got plenty room.

  Law, she attacked me.

  The white cop looked at Porsha. Something mighty wrong wit that girl.

  She’s a mamma’s girl. Lula Mae smiled. When she was a toddler, I used to call her Duck. Followed her mamma everywhere.

  Well, pigeons never fly far from home, the white officer said. All wrapped up in them apron strings.

  Young folks. Lula Mae smiled. What can you do? Who can you blame?

  Blame? the white officer said. I know this, what you put down is what pops up.

  Lula Mae gave the officer a hard look. Her brown eyes toughened like shit.

  WHERE DID LULA MAE GET THE TREES? Porsha said. Did she plant them herself or were they already here?

  I don’t know, Mamma said.

  EACH MORNING, Lula Mae angled into her white dress, pulled old lady stockings over her cotton-scarred legs, slipped on her white rubber-soled shoes—nurse’s shoes she called them, tennis shoes she called them—fitted the helmet of her wig, clamped in her horse bit of teeth, stepped into her face—it shone like a powdered mask—checked her clam-shaped purse—Where my pocketbook?—then hustled off to clean some white folks’ house.

  You be good while I’m gone. Don’t act up.

  GRACIE STARTED IT.

  No I didn’t.

  Yes you did.

  You started the whole thing.

  You started it.

  No I didn’t. You did. Mamma was crying now.

  You a lie. You started it. Gracie was crying now too.

  You the one that’s a lie. You know you started it.

  I ain’t start shit.

  Yes you did.

  Why you wanna lie?

  You know you started it.

  SHE WOULD KEEP THIS FOR HERSELF. All those years she had never mustered the nerve to ask Lula Mae to give it to her. The photograph shows three card players in a bare-walled shack. Two brothers and a stranger. All three wear tattered clothing. The older brother, mustache and all, passes the younger brother a card under the table, passes the card with his toes.

  COME ON HERE. We going to the dolla sto.

  The dollar store on Main Street next to Kress’s (the five-and-dime), next to the bicycle shop where Porsha purchased her first real bicycle (without training wheels), across the street from the Rexall, where you could buy anything you wanted. Lula Mae walked to the dollar store every day and spent money simply because the spending was cheap. Items two for a dollar, four for a dollar, ten for a dollar. Stocking up.

  Come on here. We going to town.

  Meaning Memphis. Down Main Street to the bridge and across the bridge, the river beneath reaching up to touch you like a live cold hand, into Memphis, John Brown bent forward over the steering wheel, his two withered hands moving near his throat like they were adjusting his tie. John Brown always looked at Lula Mae as if she was something rare.

  YOU THINK THIS WILL BE ENOUGH? Sheila said.

  Porsha looked at the seven bottles of Mogen David wine in Sheila’s suitcase.

  You got those from the Shipcos? she asked. Steal wasn’t the right word. If it was she couldn’t say it. Both she and Sheila knew that the Shipcos would hardly miss them. Even if they did, they had money to spare and could buy more.

  Sheila nodded.

  I guess they’ll do. You know black folks like sweet wine.

  YOU BUY THE DRANKS?

  Yes.

  You thought I didn’t see you. Comin from Chinamen’s. Actin a fool.

  What I do?

  Actin a fool round those mannish boys.

  When?

  I can’t send you to the sto without you actin a fool?

  I ain’t—

  You better be careful. Can’t jus run fast and foolish when those boys bother yo principle.

  I ain’t do nothing.

  What I tell you bout talkin back?

  I ain’t talkin back.

  You mamma ain’t teach you no better.

  She teach me.

  You need to be churched, Lula Mae said.

  That’s where we going? I don’t want—

  Hush yo mouth.

  —to church.

  We going.

  You gon dress me?

  Why, child, why?

  My mamma said don’t put none of them cheap earrings on me.

  Lula Mae drew back her hand. Go on. Lip smart. Go on.

  PORSHA STOOD IN THE KITCHEN and looked out the door to the backyard. Not ready to enter the yard yet. Let her toes feel the sun-heated grass.

  Little Sally Walker

  Sitting in her saucer

  Weeping and crying for someone to love her

  Rise, Sally, rise

  Wipe ya weepin eyes

  Put ya hands on ya hips

  And let ya backbone slip

  Shake it to the east

  Ah, shake it to the west

  Shake it to the one you love the best

  Skip a song down the two long railroad planks that flattened the grass in a path to the lil house.

  Here, kitty kitty. Here, kitty kitty. Lula Mae calling out the back door. Calling her cats. Cans of dog food (Chuck Wagon) waiting in the grass. She never let them in the house.

  MAMMA? Porsha said. I wanna ask you something. How long was she gone?

  Trolleys that carried you down the serrated palisade of Main Street, carried you past the poplar-filled and maple-filled square, by dingy brick three-storied houses or smoke-grimed frame houses with tiers of wooden galleries in grassless plots, junkyards, greasy spoons with rows of noisy backless twirling barstools, a lone tree out front, lop-branched magnolia or stunted elm.

  A long time.

  But how long?

  I don’t know, but it was long.

  Beulah says two years.

  Way longer than that.

  And Gracie says ten.

  Not that long. We went to Houston to live with Daddy Larry and his wicked heifer.

  The wicked stepmother?

  Mamma nodded. Yes, the wicked stepmother. Ivory Beach. She never messed wit me or R.L., but she jus couldn stand Gracie.

  Why not?

  Said she was two-headed. And the way she used to knock Gracie wit her fist, she like to give her a second head. So one day, I grabbed her fist. Squeezed it to crumble it to dust. And I told her, If you hit Gracie again, I’ll beat you till you can’t see. And that was the end of it.

  Porsha said nothing. She let the new words soak in with the tea.

  I saw that woman years later. She used to live on Kenwood.

  She did?

  Yes, she did. She said, Sheila, you wuz an evil child. I said, No. You the evil one. I hit that heifer. Like to kill her.

  Porsha rowed her spoon in her cup and changed the direction of the conversation. Well, what did she do in New Mexico?

  She ain’t do nothing. Casey Love, the man she went wit—

  You mean run off wit.

  —worked road gangs. Construction. In Tucumcari.

  Where?

  Tucumcari.

  Porsha made a mental note to look it up.

  See, R.L. was her son by that man, Casey Love. Real name was Robert Lee Harris, but everybody called him Casey Love. So I remember. She wuz married to Daddy Larry, but she left him for this man.

  Porsha felt the warmth of her teacup. How old was you?

  Well, R.L. was eleven or twe
lve, I believe. So I was ten.

  Then Gracie was seven or eight?

  Yes …

  Why she come back?

  He went on to California and she came back to Memphis. We moved back into the house on Claybrook Street that she rented from her friend. She started working at the car factory.

  Car factory?

  Yes.

  They had a car factory in Memphis?

  And a lot else.

  Thought she was workin fo those white people.

  That was later.

  You came wit Beulah? Porsha was heavy, full of questions.

  Yes.

  When Gracie come?

  Bout a year later. She stayed wit Lula Mae in the house on Claybrook.

  What they do?

  You ask Gracie.

  She say that Lula Mae put you in Catholic school but wouldn’t let her go.

  That’s a lie. I paid fo my own schooling. Helped Beulah at those white folks’ house.

  Why she say it then? Why she lie?

  You ask her.

  Porsha thought about it all. How old was she when she had him?

  Eighteen, I believe.

  That means she was only sixteen or seventeen when—

  Yes.

  So R.L. was twelve when she left. That means she was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine?

  Yes, that sounds about right. A year or two before the war …

  Porsha thought about it all. Lula Mae was sixteen. Sixteen. A mother at sixteen. It was all starting to make sense. You said she left round the time the war started?

  Yes.

  But how could that be? Sam and Dave fought in the war.

  They were older than R.L.

  How much older?

  Not that much older. A few years. They were still boys really. Couldn’t have been older than sixteen when they went.

  That young?

  Yes.

  Well, how did they get in?

  They wanted to go. Trouble never had to find them if they could find it first. Beulah did her best to keep R.L. on the straight and narrow. The people she worked for were good people. The Harrisons. Those white boys treated R.L. like a brother. Took him everywhere wit them. Then when he got grown, he went out to California. That man, Casey Love, had a ranch out there. R.L. sent me letters.