Rails Under My Back (46 page)

Yo mamma.

Nia slapped him upside the head.

Excuse me, but I don’t fight girls.

Nia slapped him again.

You jus mad cause I don’t want none of yo fat stuff, stank ho.

Nia slapped him yet again. M&M put up his guard.

They squared off. Nia floated on her toes, belly-buoyant, bee-stinging with her jab, trying to draw the blood of honey from his face. He crouched, his glasses—he was blind without them—level with her moving belly. Classmates cheered them on, put octane in their blood. M&M roundhoused a blow, his lunging body throwing him into empty space. Then Nia let go with her own punch. M&M felt—cause you could see it and hear it—her whole body against him, just above his glasses. I speak severely to my boy, Nia said, I beat him when he sneezes, so he won’t thoroughly enjoy the pepper when he pleases. M&M recovered, landed two blows to her stomach. It went on like that, Nia impacting a heavy blow and M&M connecting to the stomach. They took a break here and there over the course of the battle and fought on until they shook hands from sheer exhaustion.

NIA AND PORSHA TOGETHER were guilty of what each did alone. Mamma whipped them both.

Once, Mamma caught them rolling a joint in the bathroom. Nia looked up, the joint pinched between her fingers and held before her mouth like corn on the cob. Hi, Mrs. Jones, she said. We jus tryin this experiment we learned in science class.

Mamma laughed a full ten minutes. Then she wore out the girls’ behinds.

Why you whip me, Mrs. Jones? Nia said. You ain’t my mamma.

Well, Mamma said, tell yo mamma that I whipped you, so she can whip you too.

ONE DAY MRS. CHARLES sat Porsha and Nia down at the kitchen table. You girls are almost grown, she said. Will be women soon. Bodywise. It’s time to teach you girls about the birds and the bees.

Porsha’s stomach tightened in anticipation. Nia grinned.

When you use a toilet away from home, be sure to raise yourself a few inches above the stool. Don’t let your rear end touch the seat.

Nia looked at Porsha.

And if you sleep with a man, in the morning you shall wake and find a baby under your pillow.

MRS. CHARLES CLEANED NIA’S ROOM with the force of habit. You just keep doing well in school, she said. That’s your job. Mrs. Charles allowed boys to sleep over since Nia said that it was the only way she could study.

Saturdays, Nia and Porsha would gather up Hatch, Jesus, and Abu and take them to the museum, circus, or rodeo.

Men like women wit kids, Nia said. Why you think they always be callin you
Mamma
?

THIS IS FINE.

Are you sure? The cab followed the downward slope of the street.

Yes.

The shop is—

I know.

Whatever you say, ma’m.

The street was well lit. People were about. Yes, she would get out here and walk a block. She needed the extra time to gather herself.

Thank you. She paid the driver—the fare in one hand, a heavy tip in the other—and exited the cab.

Thank you, ma’m. Have a pleasant evening.

You too.

The driver pulled away with a smile on his lips.

She walked down the lean yellow street. Trees bloomed in the dark and smelled like someplace far away. Church Street. Woodlawn. The old hood. (Well, not quite. The old hood was both Woodlawn and South Shore.) The Ship of Beauty, Nia’s all-night hair/nail salon, travel agency, and tax referral service, was dry-docked in such an unattractive part of the city where all the streets were named after foreigners. Euclid. Galileo. Vincennes. Racine. Not to mention the people. That’s why she had bought a car, to go directly from home or work and avoid streets besieged with beggars, bums, hoodlums, and swaggering seeking youth.

Give me a dime, baby, and I’ll tell you a golden story.

No, thanks. She felt her hair tightening. This affliction always began the moment the Ship of Beauty floated into sight. Moon shadows speckled the two-story building. Hard to believe this building had once housed Uncle John’s garage (lounge?). John used to bring her here often. Nia purchased it from the same bank that had foreclosed on John.
Those Jews foreclosed on him, Mamma said. That musta been the winter of ’67, when we had that bad snowstorm. Nobody went outside for two or three days. John came out and couldn’t find the lounge, then he realized that it was buried under all the snow. Then Dallas came back from ’Sippi with that pee-hot wine. When the snow melted, the Jews foreclosed.
If only John possessed Nia’s money smarts. Nia had reaped and sown. Ambition (desire) was her biggest crop. She was not one to stand still and contemplate her accomplishments. She planned to open an upscale salon-agency downtown. She wanted Porsha to invest, become an equal partner.

Porsha could see lights and shadows moving about on the upper floor of the salon. Good. Nia was here. She tried to spot Nia’s face in the window. Sometimes you could see her there in her office perch, where she leaned her elbows on the sill and sneered down into the street.
Come on. This is mine. Start something. Please start some shit.
It was the only window you could look in or out of. Nia had installed stained glass—shipped from the cathedral at Chutreaux (or Chartres or Notre Dame, one of them French places)—everywhere else. (Nothing about Nia was cheap.) You got to spend to earn, she liked to say. One day, she would retire and buy a beach house, a window opening on the ocean like an oyster, palm trees—full of fresh green coconut balls cuming white milk into her breakfast bowl—rising above egg-white sand, a yard with a dock, and a shed with two yachts.

The glass doors parted without Porsha having to touch them.
Welcome aboard. The captain will be with you shortly.
French tile formed a compass rose on the floor. A fountain threw a high musical rush of silvery water that fell in a constant spray into a marble basin fringed with violets and lilies. Copper and silver fish shimmered beneath the silver surface. The ceiling hummed music. Eastern? Caribbean? African?—Porsha couldn’t say which. The walls carried the smell of Dallas’s gasoline-laced ‘Sippi moonshine. Nia had papered them with jungle scenes. Potted palms lined the halls. Nia had crowded the shop with objects from her travels around the world. Full-sized sculptures cast full-sized shadows: A puppy-sized jade bitch with mother-of-pearl teats and crystal eyes that she’d picked up in Mexico. An iron-rusted elephant from India.
The swami sold me some holy water from the Ganges River. He put a drop on my forehead and a drop on my tongue. You will have two sons, he said.
Slanted silver divi-divi trees (with the one hairstyle) pointing west from Aruba.
Follow the divi-divi and you’ll never be lost. It will circle you back to your original departure. Departure is destination.
African masks followed you with hollow eyes. A framed encyclical (purchased from the Vatican) darted gilded light. Silk prayer rugs branched over the room. Japanese rice-paper paintings floated like flowers on water, shifting place and position even as you looked.

This lil Jap guy called me a coon, Nia said.

What?

A coon.

You fo real?

Yeah. He said, So glad to neet you, Nia-coon. So I told him, You shortslanteyedjapmotherfucker, who you callin a coon? Don’t you know that I’ll kick yo puny ass? Then he said it again. Ah, Nia-coon. I’m sorry. Did I offend you?

Spiral-legged tables held up bird-shaped Etruscan vases and Tunisian amphorae that erupted with roses so radiant and fresh they seemed artificial. Each reading table was centered with a handmade Navaho tablecloth from Santa Fe. Bubble-shaped hair dryers rumbled like space capsules, rockets. And a full bar where you could enjoy two drinks free on the house. (The third cost.)

Each beautician attended her client in a transparent receptacle, the cool shade of a hidden grove. The base of each chair was a genuine redwood stump. One client flipped through the latest issue of
Uplift,
hair done up like the Bride of Frankenstein. Porsha took the beauticians in at a single glance, without distinguishing one from the other. Tangiers, Archangel, Algiers, Baltimore, Tunis, Tripoli, London, Carthage, Mombasa, Fez, New York, Benghazi, Dublin, Suakin, Seville, Port-au-Prince, Seattle, Guinea, Messawa, Bahia, Zela, Kilwa, Hong Kong, Newport, Brava, Aden, Mina, San Francisco, Muscat, Cardiff, and Cape. Like one woman repeated many times. Each wore tiger-skin hot pants, halter, and sandals. Hair rose two feet above their heads and curved out into a huge anchor. For Nia’s last birthday, they had all, Porsha included, chipped in and bought Nia a cake—the last thing she needed—a strawberry (her favorite) spaceship on a chocolate launching pad under a sprinkling of cherry stars.

Hey, Porsha.

She received a concert of glad welcomes and perfumed laughter from the beauticians. She answered them in chorus.

Porsha.

The sight of the beauticians and adornments made her eyes feel full.

How life treatin you?

Good.

I saw your mother today, Shaneequa, the captain, said.

The words flew behind her. She watched the pretty girl under a sailor’s cap. Red cravat twisted in sailor fashion. Pen poised over the log. A butterfly fluttered over her back. Oh yeah? Nia in?

Shaneequa closed the log over the pen. You know where to find her.

Porsha nodded. She took the upward-rising stairs—the beak of a ship on a wave—two at a time.

The office door was parted. She would knock before she entered. Once she had thrown the door open to surprise Nia and caught her kneeling before some good-lookin brown.
The Bible say, Nia later said, Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth
. Men liked her. She often went the whole mile on the first date. And she had an educated pussy.

Knock knock, Porsha said. She pushed the door wide, not waiting for a response.

Nia sat before her desk, calm and monumental in the office light. Porsha, is that you? Nia raised her head—coils of yellow hair—sleep-heavy.

Nobody else. Porsha entered.

Nia’s seat was arranged like the ideal house, everything in easy reach, including the globe—a replica of the world as Europe knew it at the time of Columbus’s expedition to the New World, patterned with monsters, behemoths, sea dragons, and misplaced or missing continents and islands—that Porsha had given her for a birthday present many years ago (high school?). A bird could not ask for a better nest.

Girlfriend. Nia put a last piece of a sandwich into her mouth.
That girl been all over the world, Mamma said, but she never been further than the other side of a pork chop.
Mary Poppins. She rose up out of her seat. Pop up anytime. She forcefully approached, waves to the shore. Every part of her body danced. She sported snazzy palazzo pants. (Her designer was divine.) She always wore loose clothes—unlike some fat women who put on the tightest thing so the fabric stuck to every jellied curve—and her makeup was expertly handled.

The women hugged—Nia’s body spanned the swaying fabric—and kissed.

Nia pushed Porsha to arm’s length. Smoothed her clothes. She raised the lid on her cookie jar (from Nebraska) and peered into its depths. Like some tea?

No.

How bout a glass of sherry? Nia poured herself one.

Porsha laughed. I see you already had a few.

Nobody been drinkin no liquor. You ain’t the police.

Porsha pulled a chair close to the desk. How life treatin you?

Workin like a bitch.

Heard that.

I left a message on your answering machine.

Girlfriend, we must be thinking on the same track.

Guess who came into the salon today?

Who?

Wanda.

That triflin bitch?

Girl, let me tell you, she started some shit with Seattle, and you know Seattle don’t take no shit. A fool and her seat were soon parted.

What?

Yes she did. Seattle hauled off and slapped her.

No she didn’t?

Yes she did.

I heard it all.

So how was yo day? Nia amused herself by cracking her joints in anticipation.

I went to see Inez.

How she doin?

Same ole same ole.

I see.

Porsha patted her hair. Can you do something bout these naps?

Let me see. Two fingers fluttered into Porsha’s hair. Um huh. Jus like I thought. Symptoms in yo hair. Go on over there and sit down in the chair.

Porsha did as instructed. The high chair afforded a view of Church Street. (She might have seen far without the obstructing trees.) Strange glass rippled the world outside.

You just wash it?

No. I mean—

I can tell. What I tell you bout washing yo hair and going right outdoors?

Well, I—

Don’t say a word.

Nia’s black hands moved light and fast in her hair.
She can truly minister to your scalp. Know how to make a head feel good.
I’ll give you a few curls.

I like yours. But don’t dye it.

Why not?

Girl, you know that ain’t me. Porsha relaxed under Nia’s exploring fingers. Her body sank deeper and deeper into the chair’s warmth.

So how’s Deathrow?

Porsha pushed the word out, no hesitation. Fine.

How come he ain’t with you tonight?

The words washed from side to side in her mind. I don’t know.

What you mean you don’t know?

I don’t know.

What, he actin a fool?

Did I say that?

The problem is you ain’t said nothing.

You won’t let me.

Thought yall was an item? Bout to make lil feet for shoes.

Porsha said nothing.

I see, you got a meat shortage. Girl, if you can’t hold it in your hand, you can’t hold it in your head.

It ain’t that.

I tell you, men these days is jus too triflin. Pitiful niggas out here won’t even give you a good fuck. I don’t blame these prostitutes. You might as well get paid.

It ain’t nothing sexual.

It ain’t?

No.

Oh, I see. He can’t keep his pants on? He found him some side meat.