Rails Under My Back (17 page)

He brings the butcher knife—the knife, how could he have forgotten it?—into view. Hog-squeals. He drives the knife between the second and third chins, a clean blow. He can feel a weapon on the hog, just as he knows it has a navel. What makes it moo—grunt?—oink? So that’s why they called it
—

A grind of gears—
a lawn mower? a car?
—started beneath the small high window above the bed filled with books stacked like sandbags. Hatch’s early-morning skin felt the old mattress—he slept in the same old iron bed he’d had all his life; each night, the coiled springs kept squeaking even after he lay still—but the contours and niches did not fit his bones.
Somebody’s been sleeping in my bed.
His feet dangled over the edge, awaiting the hangman’s ax. He swung his legs from beneath the covers, rooted his feet on the floor, pushed his torso up, and sat on the bed’s edge, leaning forward, chin resting on the pyramid of his fingers. His sleep muscles tightened trying to hold on to the heat and color of the dream.
The shit that can crowd your sleep.
Sleep slowly pulled its two black wings from over his face. Silver teased his vision. A dogtag bright-dangled from his neck. He squeezed its motion in his fist. It was perforated down the middle, like a salt cracker, so—Lucifer had explained when he gave it to him many years ago—that strong hands could snap it in two, half of the tag marking the body and the other half, the grave. He checked the bed for dampness. Early-morning voices and traffic sounds rolled over him. He had never been one to take all the nightmare images from the evening news into his sleep. Why now?

The previous night he’d had trouble sleeping. A jackal had thrashed its tail repeatedly against his chest. He had defended himself with a motion he remembered but his body couldn’t perform. Turned on the bulb beneath the hooded lamp. Sat on the bed edge, then moved over to the chair before the window, shade drawn. Small light teased the room, pale, from a streetlamp. And the darkness beyond, full of the city’s sounds. Then a tin-trickle of rain. He sat that way until a washed-out sky and a swollen sun drenched the windows with golden light. Fingers of dawn pulled him back into sleep, into dream.

A recurring feeling. Above: sun—choking up his skin’s natural oils. He thinks. Pulls up clumps of grass from a mental pasture, a black concentration of thought-force, chewing a blade or two to cut free thoughts. The sap of resilient spring. The sun eats its last shadow for the day. Night falls boulder-heavy, heavy drape to drop over the day, cloak to shelter you. A lizard scuttles green. Curled, the lizard curves around the circle’s inside. Grunts and silence. Silence and grunts.

The shade blew steadily in the window with a rasping sound. The mattress and springs coughed dry. The sun stood small in the empty morning sky. Rays of light spread wide, like the early-morning legs of a man above his toilet, pissing yellow.

He screwed his guitar in tune. Played a few invisible notes. His fingers refused the strings. Why? He showered and dressed, quickly. Pulled a book,
Myths of a Mestizo Continent,
from the half-bubble chamber of his drop-leaf desk. A gooseneck lamp junkie-nodded over the wooden desktop. Once, the brass desk lock had hidden all his important belongings—magazines, books, his songs, poems, rhymes, and letters—
Yes, letters. Damn. I’ve wrote Elsa poems, songs, rhymes; still she ain’t mine; should I try letters? Elsa. Elsa
—from the eyes of others. Especially Sheila’s nosy eyes. He would not tell his mother Sheila about his hard night. She’d already applied remedies to lighten up his sleep: put a doormat before his portal so the spirits could rest their shoes; sat a glass of water on the mat to quench the thirst of their long journey from
there
to here; and tacked a Scripture above the inner door—
Just in case these evil spirits
—BLOOD SAVE ME. She had a theory: his posters—Bruce, Jimi, Bird, Trane, Jack J., Joe L., the honored dead whose names popped and blinked from these paper gravestones rooted to the walls—had attracted restless spirits. The dead call us to remember.

The carpeted stairs creaked softly as he came down. Sheila stood framed in the open bathroom door, eyes dead set in the mirror. One hand hidden inside a Parisian washcloth—a pot mitten, a hand puppet—a souvenir from the Shipcos. A long monologue of soap and silence. Hot light flamed her taffy-colored skin. Reddened her skirt—diaphanous, flowing (flaming creases, rippling) in heat-blinding white—and matching pumps. Her hair sprawled a black uncombed shawl about her shoulders—like her aunt Beulah’s hair—not the usual ponytail. The air steamed from her recent bath, the smell of scented soap and powder—musk? opium? honey?—and her labored breathing. She picked up—with hands callused by the rhythm of work, skeletal hands, the skin sail-tight, hands the Shipcos (and others before them) had molded for her through thirty-five years of bronzed labor, hands that carried fine-papered books from the Shipco residence (
They ain’t gon miss them. They got plenty more
) to here—a brush from the porcelain sink edge.

Good morning, she said.

Good morning. Lucifer already gon to work?

Your father went with John.

Uncle John?

Sheila nodded.

Hatch had not seen or heard from John in over a month. Nor had Inez seen or heard from him. Gracie relayed Hatch’s messages to him, but he had yet to respond. Which had prompted Hatch to take the train ride out to Eddyland and try John’s extra set of house keys; John (or someone) had changed the locks. Why ain’t he called?

He didn’t say. The light is different where she stands from the light that surrounds him.

What you mean Lucifer went with him?

Your father sposed to meet John at Union Station. John’s going out of town for a few days.

Why?

I didn’t get all that. Lucifer rushed off in such a hurry.

Is something wrong?

I know bout much as you do.

Where Uncle John goin?

Do I look like John?

Hatch thought it over. He was not part. Neither Uncle John nor Lucifer wanted him to be part. Hidden rendezvous. Well, he said. Catch you later. I’m going to go see Inez.

One hand swam—a dolphin—along the white sink. Dived into a low glass of clear water. Brought teeth to the surface. Drowned dentures. Clean. Applemeat-white. Slapped them into her mouth. When a stranger or visitor caught her off guard, she would hide her toothless mouth (gums and more gums) with her hand and speak through her fingers. This embarrassing ritual would cause Hatch to shrivel, fade, then flare up in silent, unexpressed anger.

Sam never could drive for shit, Dave said. I know. We runnin buddies for years. Never could drive. But he insist on drivin with that wood leg. We drivin down to see Beulah. John loaned me the car and I loaned it to Sam. Cause he beg me the whole night. Nephew, Sam said, after all I done done for you. You can’t let me drive? And he kept on beggin. Sheila say, If you let him drive this car, you better let me out on the side of the road. And you know how Gracie is. She read me from the Bible. Sam keep at me. Nephew this and nephew that. I let him drive. Sheila don’t get out. And Gracie don’t open her Bible. Drove along fine for a mile or two. Then it happened. One, two, three. Faster than you can snap yo fingers. They couldn separate the teeth from the glass.

She faced him. When you talk to her?

Last night.

How she doin?

Same ole.

Sheila shook her head.

She—

Hush.

Hello, Inez?

Jesus. How are you, baby?

This Hatch.

Oh.

How you doin?

Terrible.

How’s George?

A long pause. Fine.

Well, I want to come and see you.

Don’t come. You know I’m sick.

But
—

There ain’t nothin good out here.

I’m gonna come see you.

You’ll understand someday when you old.

Be there tomorrow morning. Bout nine.

Don’t come so early.

Okay.

If you gon come, come on then.

I will.

Bring Jesus. Bye.

Well tell her I said hi.

I will.

Get you some breakfast before you leave.

I will. Hatch was already in the kitchen. Aunt Jemima’s face floated up from the oatmeal box. Steam lifted from Lucifer’s untouched nest of hawk-eyed grits.
Hawk grits soar to the nest of your ribs.
Toast floated on steaming coffee.

And some meat. You need meat. One day you’ll see. Your body need meat in the mornin.

Little chance of that.
Okay. Hatch drew open the refrigerator. Cold rushed out. Throat working, he guzzled some apple cider, straight from the jar.
Hope she didn’t see that.
Held the edges of a toast slice and moved the butter knife in rhythmic strokes. Took a few slices of toast and some scrambled eggs and made two sandwiches. He eyed the ham on the bright white plate.
Leave that man’s pork right here on the table. Take a pitchfork and feed the devils pork. Didn’t Christ put demons in a herd of swine? Ain’t the pig a graft between a rat, a cat, and a dog?
Stuffed the sandwiches into a paper bag and stepped out into the screaming morning.

Second Street.
Deep Second, Uncle John called it.
Edgewater.
Woodlawn long gone. South Shore too.
An axis of distance. Hatch suffered a furnace of sky. The sun’s still yellow wheel. Birds winged high in a windless sky, their voices—yes, voices, high above in the blue-red arch—circling, circling—like explorers—new terrain. The air poked sharp, threading the lungs. A trumpet to the blood. Strange. Cause no wind. Unusual, here in this city of one big lake (Tar Lake) that lifted a hawk from the icy nest of its waters and flapped you in the wind of its cold feathers (stalactites of feathers, dripping winter year-round)—this lake imitating ocean. Like a traveler who had not seen land for months, he saw the world with new eyes. All the colors vivid. Saw two black lines of birds—red-tipped beaks, beaks dipped in inkwells—stiff on two black lines of telephone wire. Trees in green leaf. Brown blazers of barks covering their trunks—
And tracks. Networking through the bark; the seed must absorb water to rehydrate;
Sheila’s green thumb had impressed this lesson, in the middle of his forehead—and brown sleeves of bark enveloping their skinny limbs.

A radio coughed on the horizon. Hatch tugged his horseshoe earlobe.

The song retracted from Hatch’s ear. Jimi. They bustin Jimi. The radio gurgled, cleared music from its throat. In the chambers of his mind, Hatch busted a rhyme.

He trimmed his tongue. Unctuous? Check that. The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meat. Cause the whole language resembles the body of a trained athlete where every muscle, every sinew, is developed into full play. One day my ear will take me far. Hatch’s tongue rolled in his mouth, the pea in the whistle.

Loud spit flooded his song. No, smells ambushed his nose.
Smell like dried doo-doo on a doggy day.
Realization barked in. Packs of unleashed jackals—all dyed in the same flaming color of spring (summerlike) heat—trotted in ducklike lines, sniffing out somewhere they might nuzzle their greedy snouts. Sunlight glared on their white shirts. Their clothing said blood. At the next corner, more jackals lay in wait. Wet dripping tongues tasting the day. Chiseled white fangs hungering to bite off the feeding hand.
Sic em, boy!
Paws shaking in tune to color and noise.
Every time Jack looks in yo face, he sees a mirror of his crime. And though he stacks the plates of grace, he ain’t never done no time.
The best way to take jackals to your heart is to get as far away from them as possible. But Hatch had nowhere to run. He timed his movements against the rhythm of the street. Their ears caught the beat of his feet. These sound-sensitive jackals, red ears like sharp twitching flames. Red-tailed jackals blazing off to buy some coal or get their ashes hauled. Pure products from the deep red doghouse.
It must not be hot, that one can burn in it forever and never burn up.
Their mouths moved, but silence came out—a wordless gap—for their words rusted together in one red voice. Hatch pushed forcefully through them, a river in the middle of a red sea. Where had they come from? Who’d dreamed them?
A handful of light in his palm. Then a wild pitch spinning black out
—The thought cooled off in a hot breeze.
What Spin say on his record? A burned goose laid the golden egg of civilization.