Rails Under My Back (39 page)

Mamma, ain’t nobody gon do no sinnin. Some dancin. Some talkin. Some preachin. Drinkin of spirits. Jus like church.

Opened John’s Recovery Room with her money. All went well until Dallas, on his own initiative, purchased some cheap ‘Sippi moonshine and put it on tap, hog piss, devil’s spit that burned like slow lava through your system and made you pee fire and fart dynamite.

Nigga, John said. He punched Dallas squarely in the nose. Nigga. Curled his fist again, but held back when he saw that Dallas was slow getting up.

SAM AND DAVE put John and Dallas up to all that foolishness. Had to be them. Lucifer had long known in his heart. Them niggas ain’t worked an honest day since they got fired from Hammer Meat Packing House. Beulah telling it—her talk about Sam and Dave was like her far-reaching stories about the South, like the South itself—telling how they would dress up a hog in trench coat and fedora, walk out the factory yard with it between them.
Come on there, Wheatstraw, you know better than to drink on the job.
Got caught but the white foreman was willing to forgive and forget, and them niggas hog stealing again the next week, caught, not so lucky this time, three-year sentence to Joliet State.
Jet
ran the article: “Sam and Dave Griffith: Fools of the Week.”

Had to be them. By the time John bought the red Eldorado, Sam was living off disability—oh, that leg-stealing train—and Dave was surviving on Jesse’s welfare check. Beulah told that too.
She puttin all my business in the street. How she like me to show everybody her dirty draws?
How Dave got Jesse pregnant when she thirteen.
Hayseed-eatin country bitch, Dave said.
How three babies popped out of her womb in three consecutive years—but weren’t there some twins? Lucifer remembered twins.
Three pearls, Beulah said. Three crumb snatchers, Dave said.
Dave cashed his paycheck at the liquor store. Might as well have used the money to feed them dead hogs at the factory. Fed them kids sugar water. Put newspapers on em for diapers. And Jesse. Jesse. Well—Lucifer could tell it from here, what Beulah both knew and imagined. How Dave could always get some from Jesse—
My sweetness
—how she remained a reliable piece until she had the stroke that sucked the life from the left side of her body and confined her to a wheelchair;
Dave ran her til she had a stroke, dang fool,
eyes buggin, her left arm hanging limp across her lap, trembling like a bird. So I took them poor kids, Beulah said. And brought em here to Decatur.

Sam ain’t never have any kids? Lucifer asked.

Sam never claimed any, Beulah said. Cept one by this girl when they was stationed over in the Philippines. One. A Filipino. The only one he claimed. But who knows all the places his blood done run.

SHEILA DRIFTED AWAKE in sunlight. The rising sky lifted like a blanket. Faint sounds rose in spirals up the stairwell.
Hatch?
She reached for Lucifer. Discovered a warm hollow where his body had lain.
He sleeps very still, legs straight, hands crossed on his chest, an ancient mummy.
Strange. He never rose before her. While he slept, she would make breakfast and prepare his lunch.
Work-bound, he carries his lunchbox solemnly, like a miniature coffin.
Ah, so that was him downstairs in the kitchen. He was preparing to bring her breakfast in bed. Not if she surprised him first.

She found him in the kitchen, shaved and fully dressed, drinking his coffee in five scorching swallows.
Black. He likes it black. With four lumps of sugar.
Ah, he would go early to work. Make up for missed time. Set right to right. He caught her eyes as he lowered his cup, and his fingers suddenly became unable to compass both cup and sight; the cup banged against the table.

Sheila.

Clumsy. She smiled at him in the remembered fashion. Touched the yellow bird at her throat, floating in its element. Swept into an empty chair at the table. Ran her bare toes up the thick hard logs of his thighs.

Sorry.

How are you this morning?

Fine.

Why you up so early?

His head rocked unsteadily on his neck. I gotta go.

What?

I gotta meet Gracie.

Why?

His look rose and settled on her, then flew away.

Don’t you remember? The phone call last night.

She watched him.

Remember, she called last night? You know, John. His eyes floated everywhere in his face. Away from her.

John again?

She had a feeling about John.

Two days in a row.

Well, she called. He rose from the table. What am I sposed to do? She called. Said John’s gone. He crossed the room and stretched her insides.

SUNRISE FOUND LUCIFER taking the long train ride to Liberty Island, his heart ringing and echoing against the warm bed he’d left. Coffee lay in a hot ball on his stomach. And Sheila lay somewhere even deeper.

He blinked behind sunglasses, looking through tinted glass, looking through the train’s speeding window. Bright streaming skyscrapers rose above his twin lenses as the train left Central, shaking and shivering like a dope fiend, and passed over metal scaffolding to the island. The horizon licked the bright slapping waters of Tar Lake. Licked sun from his glasses. Sun-day. A day that reminded him of Sundays reminded him of Porsha reminded him of Pappa Simmons cause it was hot and bright and Sunday when he and Sheila carried the newborn to Inez’s house, first showing her to the old man, spending the last of his years on the screened patio watching the grass and soaking in the quiet, and they made the trip every Sunday after that, Porsha making the journey by herself when she was old enough to learn the El, coming to hear the old man’s aged words—
wrinkles slacken the face, loosen the tongue
—words that memory and possibly the fear of death had forced out of him, and it was on a Sunday when Death took him, snatching him from under Porsha’s frog-witnessing eyes.
She never grew out of her ugly.

Beneath his dark shades, an old feeling of stolen sleep.
Each day, he rose early, the sun scratching his back.
Gracie had robbed him of needed sleep.
Healing in long sleep.
Perhaps she had robbed him of even more. Sheila’s mouth formed into a taut line and tightened about him. For the second day in a row, he had crossed her. In the kitchen this morning, his eyebrows had raked in her startling form. He had shaded his eyes so that he might see only a little of her face at a time, first the chin, then the lips, then the nose, then—skip the accusing eyes—then her forehead. Yes, she was angry that John had drawn him away for a second day. If she knew all that he had thought and felt as night softened to dawn, she would understand why he was on his way to meet Gracie this morning. Once she knows—I must tell her, I will—she will understand.

He reached Twin Lakes station, walked to the Davis Street exit, and ran down five flights of El platform stairs—cool wind blowing past his ears—hoping the speed would wake him. Liberty Island. Cobblestoned alleys gave hollow force to the sound of his footsteps. Tall yellow fire hydrants.
You only see those in museums.
Tree-lined streets. Gardens smearing the air with scent and color. Groomed lawns and neat squarish brick houses. Liberty Island.

The hot ground came up through his shoes. He pressed Gracie’s doorbell. Removed his glasses. Fixed a smile on his face. Over the years, he had learned to hide his disgust for her.

She opened the door. Lucifer.

Shadows spilled out the house.

Gracie.

Sunlight filtered the shadows. The stairs curved upward just beyond her. Black. Black as a worn ass. She had lost some flesh. Always been a toothpick. A skinny chicken bone.
Caught in John’s throat, his chest.
Two scroll legs meant for stomping prayers in church.

You and John gripped your dicks like fire hoses. Pissed high as the hellfire ceiling. Pissed down Reverend Tower’s hot sermons. Fat women with Bible-weighted pocketbooks chased yall out.

You, Lucifer. You know better. Being the oldest.

Zip up your pants.

Do something constructive. Fix Miss Beulah a plate and take it over to her place. And take them nieces something.

You fixed Miss Beulah a plate (fried chicken, buttered dinner rolls, candied yam, and greens)—them nieces can fix they own—and ran to keep it warm.

My, my, Lucifer. Ain’t you sharp in your suit?

Thank you, Miss Beulah.

Miss Beulah smelled good, like rusty tubs of rain.

Where that mannish John?

Playin with Dallas.

Dallas. There’s another one for the devil. Miss Beulah tasted her chicken. You ain’t bring my nieces a plate?

I forgot.

Well, help them there with that ice cream.

You did. You turned the cooler’s handle while Gracie and Sheila added ice, salt, or milk. Ice cream done, Sheila sat you down at the table and white-stirred some into your bowl.

Gracie watched him, the curve of the staircase behind her.
There are curves in this house.

They embraced as though through glass.

PORSHA WOKE with Deathrow imprinted all over her. Her nipples raised tepee-like. Deathrow had worked them, painting with his fingers. Morning entered, cool and clear, through the open window. Sunlight edged under the closed blinds and formed a yellow square of concern on her bedding. She shed her sheets—onion skins, layer upon layer; one skin for sleeping, another for loving, another for eye-burning tears—and opened the blinds to the full blast of day. What night had blurred began to take definition again. The humming warmth of the Prophet 1 Faith Stimulator patent pending still roared through her body.
Rise. Rise. Rise. Rise and shine.
She never slept this late. How dare he?

She showered. Perfumed her body. Massaged her private places with a healthy sprinkling of powder. Slipped on a red loose-fitting dress, black-belted at the waist. Slipped into fishnet stockings and high-heeled satin shoes that accented the curve of her calves. She rouged her cheeks and drew another face for herself. Haloed her mouth with lipstick red and apple-shiny. Now the final touches. Four gold apple earrings Deathrow had bought for her. A necklace of real pearls she had bought for herself.

The full-length mirror returned her reflection. Coal-black eyes burned between inflamed cheeks. Coal-black body made the mirror steam. Yes, she liked what she saw.

She separated her garbage, tin and aluminum in one bag, plastic in another, glass and bones in still another. Tuesday. Today is Tuesday. Recycling day. I must stick to routine. North Park was the only square of the city with a recycling program. PRESERVE THE FUTURE. Funny how today’s milk came packaged in yesterday’s plastic. She put the garbage in its chute and the valuable waste in the recycling bin. Routine.

She hurried up her belongings. Hurried out her loft.

The sun held in sharp relief against the sky, though the stars still shone. (Today, the stars would be visible until noon.) Gnats swarmed in red light. She fanned them away from her face. Deathrow swarmed inside her.
All flesh is insect-harboring grass.
I must put myself out of his reach. Ah, a new day. A new rooster crowed. Forget Deathrow. By this road they would come to understand each other more clearly. She moved with arrogant rhythm through the chessboard streets, sidewalks red in the sun and black in the shade.

A dog barked pointed teeth. She rooted, held her ground.
What’s with these dogs?
The dog trotted off, tail waving batonlike.

She took the rushing ride out to Inez’s house.

WHY WOULD INEZ WANT TO SEE HER? What could be so important? She couldn’t remember the last time she had visited Inez. In the old days, in the real old days when it was possible to tell Uncle John anything cause she was the black apple of his brown eye, every Sunday Uncle John would drive her—in his red Eldorado (or was it the black Cadillac?) with power locks and windows, custom items in those days; the two of them blasting along at dangerous speed, car mistaking itself for plane, shouted curses and angry stares from fellow drivers reminders of their passage; they passed a river; she held her breath, figuring that if the car crashed into the water she’d be prepared—to Inez’s house to visit Pappa Simmons. Pappa Simmons could talk. The body was weak, decaying—he had barely enough strength to walk to the kitchen, the bathroom, or the bedroom without George’s assistance—but he watched you with intense cold eyes, very black, sparkling like lumps of coal. He could see forwards and backwards, he could lift you up on the fork of his tongue, carry you to the heights of witness and testimony. He was the only adult on Lucifer’s side of the family who would talk and tell, though he had little to say about Lucifer’s and John’s father—Inez testified, the boys resulted after an
indiscretion,
though the father was around long enough to pass down the peas of his name—though he rarely mentioned his wife—they met at the church picnic, her sitting beneath a chinaberry tree, mouth greasy with the last of her fried eel—the only two black spots in his memory.

Sunday was the nervous thread that pulled her through the week. The vibrating pulse that awaited the hour when Uncle John would arrive.

Now, Pappa, John would say, don’t talk my niece’s fool ear off.

Two things I always been good at, Pappa Simmons said. Work and talk. I reckon I’ll dig my own grave. Might even preach my own funeral. He faced Uncle John. Uncle John returned his unturning stare. Junior always been big on eye work, he said. He work when you lookin. Body blind when you ain’t.

They remained then, looking at each other, looking, directly, for longer than they would ever again.

EACH SUNDAY, she rose early, with the first tentative fingers of sunlight, and fled the warmth or coolness of her bedcovers to catch the train—
Relax, Sheila. I’m gon ride wit her the firs few times myself. She be alright. Shoot, I been ridin the El since I was what? … nine. And she eleven. Or damn near. Sides, George said he’d drive her home. Instead of gettin on my case you need to ask George why he won’t pick her up
—safeing it, as Mamma had instructed, meaning that she boarded the car with the most people and sat near the engineer in the shut metal cabin. She wasn’t scared. Riding the train unattended couldn’t be any more dangerous than riding attended in Uncle John’s speeding Cadillac. So she took the hour ride from South Shore to Morgan Park, a land of un-city light, light that belonged someplace else where palm trees circled sand and sand ringed ocean black with unblinking sharks.