Where the letters?
Don’t know what happened to them. Beulah got them. Maybe Lula Mae.
How they get them?
You ask them.
Well, what did he say in those letters?
I don’t remember much. It was so long ago.
What happened to his father, this Casey Love?
I don’t know, but R.L. did take his daddy’s name, Love. And you know Beulah got those letters from China, his Indian wife, and R.L. Junior his son. Yeah, they out there somewhere in California. Call the phone company or get a phone directory and see if—
Mamma, you know I ain’t never tried that and you know why. You know how many Loves there might be in California? And where in California?
I don’t know …
How R.L. end up in Brazil?
I don’t know. R.L. was always ready to throw a saddle on a tornado.
There ain’t no tornadoes in Brazil, Porsha said, her mouth serious and factual.
Mamma said nothing, seemingly stunned …
How old was he when he died?
Twenty-five. Twenty-six. I believe.
Sam and Dave never went looking for R.L. out in California?
They say they did.
They weren’t with him when it happened?
No. They were already in the city by that time.
Why they chase Dave out of Houston?
I can’t remember. It was so long ago. But Dave, Sam, R.L., and Nap was always gettin into something. They were young men looking for trouble. They chased Sam out bout a year after they chased Dave. Then Nap end up dead in that jail in Jackson.
Houston?
No, Jackson.
How’d he—
Never would take his medicine. Bout the same time, R.L. passed. That red Edsel. Dave, Sam, Nap, and R.L.—all them fools drive faster than next week.
Porsha played the silence. But why?
Why what?
Why did she take up with this Casey Love? Why did she leave Daddy Larry?
Ask her.
DID YOU BRING AN EXTRA SUITCASE LIKE I ASKED YOU?
Porsha nodded.
Well get it.
Porsha got it.
Put these things in it.
Why?
Hurry up.
Porsha did as instructed.
Quick.
Her hands moved quickly. A photograph flashed up into her eyes and made her quick fingers pause. A baby-faced man grinned up into the camera from a poker table. Three other men—smoking, drinking, winking—shared his company. He sat upright, no curve in his spine, upright under a stiff-brimmed hat, tweed blazer draped over the back of his folding chair. Is that R.L.?
Mamma looked at the photograph. Nodded.
Is this the only—
Put it in the suitcase. Mamma took it and put it in the suitcase. Look at it later. Put these things in there. Hurry up. Come on. Quick. Before Gracie take everything.
43
HATCH LED SHEILA to the casket, his hand in the small of her back. A pyramid of flowers. The casket was black with silver fittings, the trestles hidden by flowers in a mass of shapes: wreaths, crosses, bows. He leaned forward and looked into eternity. About what he had expected. She had shrunk since the last time he’d seen her a year ago. Her head almost too small for her black wig. He noticed a red dime-sized hole on her neck, a red scarf trying to conceal it. A faucet hole where they had drained her decaying insides? Damn that mortician!
He held Sheila up, kept her from falling. Helped her back to the pew. Had she seen the red hole in Lula Mae’s neck? (Her old eyes weren’t as sharp as his.) He was unsure if he should ask her. She cried next to him and he watched, knowing nothing better to do, jumpy inside himself but calmly waiting for her to settle.
Clothed in righteousness, Gracie walked quickly to the coffin, looked, and didn’t linger. Sheila—resolved now, firm in herself again though still shaky, motion in every cell of her body—and Porsha carried Beulah up to the coffin, the way Lucifer and John would carry her from her bed to the front porch and the swing she enjoyed, though her legs were too weak to move it. Her frail body trembled as if she was soaked in cold water. Her smooth yellow face and long black Indian hair had escaped the snares of old age. Mamma, I been obedient, she said. I followed your words, Keep over your brothers and sisters. I’m the oldest and put the youngest in the grave. Carrie Sweet. Sheila and Porsha held Beulah up, kept her from collapsing into the casket.
Beulah!
Lil Judy, Jacky, and Rochelle—Hatch’s first cousins, age exact versions of himself, Jesus, and Porsha but raised differently, living now in a place they had never been, possibly living a life they had never known and would never know; when had he last seen them? Surely at their father’s funeral, old drunk Dave—followed Beulah up to the coffin, a mocking light in their eyes, indifferent to the proceedings. They had never been close to Lula Mae. Only Hatch and no one else from his family had attended Dave’s funeral, and only he and Uncle John had gone to their grandmother’s funeral, Big Judy, Dave’s mother, the woman Dave’s crumb snatchers called Mamma—they called Beulah that too—since she had raised them.
The church was crowded with people. Standing at the back and along the walls. Who would have thought that Lula Mae had so many friends and acquaintances? Who would have thought?
She walked in the road with her black umbrella open to the pounding sun. She spoke to everyone she saw.
How you duche?
Fine.
Alright.
And the next person she saw a few feet ahead.
How you duche?
Fine.
Alright.
And the next person.
How you duche?
Fine.
Alright.
Children greeted her. How you, Miss Pulliam?
Alright. Yall be careful playing in that road.
She knew everyone. All of West Memphis. Now all of West Memphis came to say goodbye, stopped by the first pew to offer their condolences to the family. Hatch didn’t recognize most of the well-wishers. Perhaps he knew them beyond recognition. Memory knowledge.
The hot church made hotter with hot people, two small windows to let in the hot air and let out the sweat. The church was a small one-story structure with chipped and dusty stained-glass windows. A little piece of church pastored by a little piece of preacher. No white-robed nurse standing with one white-gloved hand behind her back to hold Sheila in her seat and fan her when she got the Holy Ghost. Yes, Lord. Oh come oh come oh come oh come oh glory. No ark that rocked to Beulah’s shouts. You may bury me in the east. You may bury me in the west. But I’ll hear that trumpet sound in the morning. Lula Mae, dear sister, hear that trumpet blast.
Porsha sat next to him bent forward on the pew, face in her hands, water escaping between her fingers. Lula Mae would greet Porsha with a hunk of grease in the palm of one hand and a straightening comb in the other, the necessary tools to keep her hair from going back home.
Hatch, put some of this Duke on yo head. Make you look like those nice boys I work for.
I hate white folks.
Hush yo mouth. You don’t hate nobody.
How you know?
What I tell you bout talkin back! You have to love somebody before you can hate them.
Porsha had wanted to track down Jesus and notify him of Lula Mae’s death. Reasoning swiftly, Hatch had persuaded her not to. Remember how he acted Christmas? What if … The family was none the wiser about the situation with Jesus, John, and Lucifer. He would keep it that way.
The choir sang:
Swing low
Sweet Lord
And carry all home
When I shall stand
Before the great white throne
When he shall wrap me
In the flapping wings of his robe
If I make it home
My saviour let me hold his hand
You’ll know, he satisfied me
Their bodies swayed, following the motion of the s
pirit.
I AM THE WAY, the preacher said. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Yes, Lawd.
My sheep, hear my voice. Know and follow me that I give eternal life. No one shall snatch you out of my hand.
Wooh. Beulah let her soul escape through her mouth. If I could have been there, sister. Wooh. I would have seen you through. Mamma and Daddy told me to watch over you. Wooh, Beulah howled. Wooh.
Hatch looked at Porsha. They both wanted to laugh, Beulah’s grief humorous to hear.
Aw, Sam! Wish I had been there. To hold up yo head. To put a pillow under you. Mamma told me to take care of you. You were her only boy. The youngest. She told me to take care of you. And I did my best. But this wicked woman … Sam!
O Grave, where is thy sting? Beulah, humming the words, preacherlike, singing them. O Death, where is thy victory?
The young organist—judging by the looks of him, about Hatch’s age—dripped water from the wells of his eyes. He wiped his eyes quickly to keep from missing a chord.
Wooh. Ah, Lula Mae!
Sheila attempted to quiet Beulah. He understood. She had faith. Belief. But he would not give in. Both grief and belief deceived.
Let us rise now. Heavy though we are. Rise as on that great getting-up morning.
The words dimly echoed what Hatch was attempting to slip away from.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
Yes!
Stand now, and go, stand, having your loins girth about with truth, and having on the breastplate of salvation. Stand now, and go.
MISS JONES, Reverend Blunt said, we got a problem here. He took both of Sheila’s hands with his long-fingered preacher hands. He wore a sky-blue suit made in heaven. I couldn’t find nobody to fix the air conditioning. Sheila said nothing.
Hatch gave the reverend his meanest look but the reverend wouldn’t look in his direction. The reverend had promised that the faulty air-conditioning units in the two limousines would be fixed by the time the funeral ended. A promise he either couldn’t or wouldn’t keep. Now they would drive two hours to the Houston graveyard in the full heat. Lula Mae’s instructions for her burial written in her own hand: BURY ME WITH MAMMA DADDY AND THE REST.
Now, I’m gon return some of yo money. The reverend rubbed Sheila’s hand as he spoke. We can discuss that later. Why don’t yall hurry on. It’s a long drive.
They loaded up the limousines. Rolled down the windows. Prayed for a cool breeze. Started the engines.
Reverend Blunt leaned into the open driver’s window and passed his mother what looked like a brick of hundred-dollar bills. In case of emergency, he said. The mother smiled. I’ll see you when I get back, he said.
SUN WHIPPED THE LIMOUSINE FROM SIDE TO SIDE. Slapped him across the face. He struggled out of his blazer. Loosened his tie. The wet heat touched him everywhere at once, a hot bath. Sheila looked quietly ahead, determined. Intact and withdrawn and conscious all at the same time. Lula Mae’s long spell in bed had prepared her for this moment. Death was a challenge, for that was what it was, a war. Beulah appeared to be asleep. Porsha was looking out the open window, wind moving her hair. Gracie and the rest of the family followed in the other limousine. Sweat moved in the wind and he thought of Elsa’s fragrant rain of black hair. It came to him just like that. The first thought of her in days. Since … He leaned forward in the limousine to get a better view of the tall trees that lined the road and held the sky in place. (He would sit like this for two hours and let the heat prey on him.) Looking and seeing, everything neither familiar nor strange. Abu had never been down South, and Hatch had spent many hours talking up images of his southern experience. He wanted to tell himself these now, bring it all back, but that past was hidden behind a screen of trees. Mules and shadows of mules black-moving against the green. Black-moving into the red ‘Sippi delta. Black images glided through the blue sky. He sat and watched from the black limousine. Black absorbs without reflection, roots itself in unreflecting calm.
Seemed like they always arrived in West Memphis to a sickle moon and the flutter of insects, Lula Mae with a big smile and an expansive hug. The yard drank black water at night and spat up dew in dawn silence. Birds bounced from tree limb to tree limb. You and Jesus searched the grass for dragon’s teeth. Kept them on you as a secret. Rain always fell clear, solid, and slow. After the rain, the sun sailed out into a clear sky. Broad dented leaves—and winged seeds, birch? maple? elm?—sparkled light. Black cherries hung straight and heavy among foliage. You and Jesus pulled snails from their shells, then held up the freed shells to your ears to hear ocean roar. Frogs bellowed, their voices grave, deep, measured. Masters of the earth, they wandered out into the road—yes, the road, a rich mixture of red dirt and red gravel—to stop cars. You and Jesus tossed flattened frogs like Frisbees into the cornfield across the road. Stop that chunkin! Lula Mae screamed from the yard. A shower of leaves and Lula Mae with a mop handle knocking apples, pears, or plums from the trees in her yard. You had to guard your head from falling fruit. You had the same fear of falling when you passed beneath the horseshoe nailed above every door in Lula Mae’s house. Her fruit made the best preserves for your morning toast, eggs, and bacon. Miss Bee’s cornfield grew transparent in the setting sun’s light. Lula Mae pulled the creaking attic stairs down from the ceiling—thick robot legs—unfolded them, and lit a kerosene lamp to a fragrant glow. You and Jesus followed her up the wobbly stairs. Her shadow quivered on the attic ceiling and walls.
MR. BYRON MET THE PROCESSION in Fulton, a good sixty miles from West Memphis, another state, ‘Sippi, near Houston, the family’s beginning place. A little red-colored white man in overalls and a Cat trucker’s cap, the visor pointed right at the sun. He leaned into the window of each limousine and gave instructions to the driver. Follow close behind me, he said. You get lost, just honk.
Who’s that ole white man? Hatch said.
Mr. Byron, Sheila said.
Who?
Mr. Byron.
Who’s that?
Mr. Harrison. His son. Nephew. Grandson.
Who? I don’t know no Harrison.
The people she—
What people?
Questions furled and unfurled into fire. Mr. Byron drove his black car fast as if the cemetery was in danger of disappearing. Fast in transport, fast in arrival.
Do you know how to find this cemetery? Hatch said.
Yes, Sheila said.
Is that white man the only one who know?
Sheila said nothing.
Mr. Byron guided the family through the cemetery. Nowhere else had Hatch seen earth so red. Gravestones shimmered in the high noon light. They followed Mr. Byron past a clutter of crippled tombstones,
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF FLORA
A COLORED WOMAN, WHO DIED JAN. 5, 1826, AGED 104 YEARS
STRONG FAITH, STRONGER, TRUSTING IN HER SAVIOUR
then mounds with handmade crosses, then mounds with no crosses at all. Hatch knew. The Griffith family was buried here. All whose hearts had quit the job. Buried beneath red soil. Beulah had worked for the Byron (Harrison?) family. Koot and Big Judy too, for all Hatch knew. There Candice Griffith. Mr. Byron’s voice banged like a gavel. He pointed to an unmarked grave. Hatch smelled brilliantine on the white man’s hair. There Dave Griffith. There Carrie Sweet Griffith. There Judy Randle. There Buck Randle. Big Judy’s husband. There Arteria Stone. There Nate Stone. There Dave Griffith the Second. The weight of names. All buried in the same red constipated earth. All gone headlong in red clay holes. Only R.L. was missing, interred somewhere in California, foreign soil.
Whosoever will, whosoever will
Hear the loving Father
Call the wanderer home
Whosoever will may come.
We got to bring Sam home, Beulah said. Sheila and Rochelle kept her standing, holding up her arms like broken wings. Bring him here. Gather up the family. Yall ain’t got to wait long. She wa
s speaking to the graves now. I’ll be with you soon. Follow you now if I could.
Hatch and three strangers dressed in black held two wide straps of canvas that cradled the casket over the grave’s yawning red toothless mouth. On the headman’s signal, Hatch released length after muscle-straining length of the strap, like undocking a boat to open water. He lost his footing and almost slipped into the grave.
A WHITE HOUSE comes to you from long-forgotten times. Floats, flutters, flies, a moth-eaten memory.
You reached it by a red string of road that snaked up through the hills—at the foot of the hills, neat white double-level houses, each perfect as a double scoop of ice cream—and from there up to the crown, flat houses like rotting boats, scaling walls, sagging blinds, torn window screens, pieces of curtain, sunlight blasting the exposed ribs and wafting mildew smells as Big Judy gunned her car along the narrow, curving road, yes, right up to the crest of the hill, where her house stuck out under the sunlight. Koot’s house was just down the road, pushed back beneath the shadow of poplar and maple trees, like the oval portraits of every family member (except R.L.’s) pushed back into the space above Koot’s fireplace—as if someone had mashed it there under their palm. A big range house—yes, how big it seemed to you then; years later, you returned to it (Dave’s funeral) to discover that it had shrunken in size, like cotton under excessive heat—sweating in the Fulton summer.
A swirl of summer chickens. An invisible rooster strutting in the sun. Used to have a rooster, Big Judy said. Henry, we called him. Never crow when he sposed to. Never at dawn. But five or six times during the day. But he ruled. If you see my little red rooster, please drive him home. Been no peace in the barnyard since he been gone. The vapors from three or four hogs fenced stomping and grunting in the pen. Big Judy dumped pails and pails of rotten fruit and kernel-depleted corncobs. Hogs roll, a boiling sea of stinking pink.
The ravine behind and just down the hill from the house everyone called the snake pit, a serpent-stricken hissing valley, smoke wreaths during the day and mist at night. Over the years, Big Judy had lost several hogs and chickens to the pit. But the old people would come and sit, bending the legs of the metal folding chairs under their weight of creaking years, in the shade of her concrete driveway, unbothered by the chicken and hog noises and smells or the threat of scorpions and snakes, and suck the sap of memory.
Rails Under My Back Page 51