Rails Under My Back (63 page)

HATCH SMELLED THE CITY’S CHOKED SEWERS. He curled through the tangled streets of South Lincoln. John had brought him here. And Jesus. He had been drawn into the elongated circle of their will. He grafted unknowns to unknowns. If he had winged eyes, they could fly and find John. If he could make boats of his words, they would sail and find Jesus. How could he halt what had already been set in motion? Maybe blood ain’t—

An angle of brick stabbed him. The concrete snatched him down. His eyes spilled spinning suns. He rubbed his head. His fingers felt no blood. The wheeling slowed to a stop. He and another boy both sat on their butts with their arms extended behind them. The boy pulled himself up on an invisible string. He was slow to follow.

Sorry, he said.

Bitch, why don’t you watch where you going?

He felt sun on his shoulders. Listen, ain’t no need fo all that.

You don’t like it? The boy poked his hard face into Hatch’s.
He’s the same height as me. Why, he’s the spittin image of
—He wore a hat, bomb-pointed crown aimed at the sky above, straps dangling like girl’s pigtails. Bitch, I’m talkin to you. The boy had eyes like sucked-out shells. Dry ice or frozen spit. A nasty gray light glowing in them.

I was jus turnin the corner.

Bitch, I ain’t ask you what you was jus doin. The words bat-flew out of the boy’s black grave mouth. Hatch breathed in gravedigger breath. He saw. Face behind the words. Face behind the breath. Little fly hairs of mustache. A black hole of mouth.
Oh, he’s smilin. That’s what he’s doing. Grinning. Sneering.
Crooked tombstones of teeth. I wanna know what you gon do now.

Hatch said nothing.

Bitch. I didn’t think so. The boy’s eyes traveled the entire orbit of Hatch’s body. I oughta smoke you. The boy slid his hand in the breast pocket—Napoleon-like—of his athletic jacket. Least make you suck my dick. His eyes ran a second orbit. Bitch, get outa my face.

The words pushed Hatch away. Made his legs move as fast as they could. But not fast enough. At the next corner, the boy leaned his face out of a red ambulance. Buck! Buck!

Hatch ducked to the safety of the sidewalk. Tried to camouflage himself in concrete. Laughter rose from beneath burning tires. Bitch. The ambulance speeded away.

THE SHADOW-SWAMPED TREES shimmered like black ghosts. Thinned against the stars. Moon burned over the rim of the horizon. Blackened headstones blazed in the night, cracked old people’s faces, leaning, here and there a name or date barely legible. What did it matter? The years telescoping, he might have lived out the rest of his life in this single discovery.

He continued under the hot stars. Chill struck through his clothes. His veins drew it in, then spilled it from the faucet of his head, down the pipe of his neck, and throughout the basin of his body. He moved with no exercise of will, only the habit to endure. He looked down at his feet. They were far off, almost out of sight, under black water. He felt himself slipping away in the dead moment before dawn. I am no longer the same person I was, he thought. He was going home. A forbidden city.

THE STREETLAMPS STRUNG THROUGH THE NIGHT LIKE BEADS. Hatch and Abu stood in the yard, their still eyes following the back of the receding ambulance.

Keylo, Hatch said.

What?

That was Keylo.

Who?

He followed me here.

What?

Hatch looked at the star-filled night and breathed deeply. Nobody, Hatch said. He had already said too much.

You said Keylo, didn’t you? Keylo from Red Hook?

Forget it.

How you know it was him?

Hatch said nothing.

What he doing round here?

Jus forget it. I was mistaken, that’s all.

Where you been?

Who said I been anywhere?

Yo mamma called looking for you.

Hatch searched for an answer. I was over at Elsa’s house.

Why you ain’t call?

I was busy. I was getting my groove on.

Oh. Abu redirected his embarrassed eyes. You get the tickets?

What?

The tickets. You know, for Spin’s—

Oh.
Forgot all about that.
They was closed.

Closed?

Yeah. You know, the flood and all. We’ll get them tomorrow. Hatch turned toward the house.

Abu followed behind him, trying to keep pace. What did T-Bone want?

Oh, you know.

What did he want?

It ain’t important.

If it ain’t important how come—

Hatch gave Abu a look for an answer. Stared him down.
Looks have language.
Abu turtle-shrunk into himself. Hatch reached the housefront. He did not stumble. The low-rising steps were easy flying.

Once inside the house, Hatch phoned Sheila to ease her fears. (He knew precisely what to say. Much practice.) Then he clicked off the lights. Abu made no complaint.

They had the house to themselves until the morning. (Abu’s parents worked nights.) In complete silence, he and Abu sat as one until dawn, their still eyes forming shapes to guard off the dark space of absence.

A BODY GETS AROUND. Traveling. To see the cities of men. Travel a little further and see as much as you can see.

Well, I hope you have a nice trip.

I plan to.

Porsha sat at the window—the sky has nearly forgotten the sun; how many days now? no sight no sound no touch—and watched the evening invade the avenue.

Why you so quiet?

Porsha said nothing. The receiver hummed at her ear like an empty well.

Hmm, I see. Um huh. I see.

The words echoed what she felt.

I’m sorry, Nia said. Sorry, I really am.

Porsha listened and waited.

I’m sorry but, you know, people shouldn’t cross roads in heavy traffic.

Porsha searched each word for the meaning she wanted to hear. Perhaps Nia was right. Perhaps it was all her fault. Then again, she had only followed the natural flow of her heart.

Next time you’ll know.

I thought we were talking about you.

Ain’t no need to talk about me. Evil as always.

What happened?

Same ole.

I’m coming over.

No need to.

Nia had missed the point.
She
needed to. I want to come over.

Stay away from me cause I’m in my sin.

You ain’t gon tell me what happened?

Who said anything happened.

Porsha could hear destruction in the words. But Nia was like that, secretive—something you either were or weren’t—holding and nurturing it all inside until she was ready to let another taste her bitter milk. Okay, Porsha said, be like that then.

I will. And you do like I always do. Find a hole and crawl into it.

Porsha felt the words roaring like ocean in the phone, roaring, as if they had enough wet force to will her into action. Well, I’ll talk to you when you get back.

Sure you don’t want to come with?

Porsha smiled into the phone. She pictured Nia sitting at her office desk, looking like a package somebody else had wrapped. No.

It’ll do wonders.

I’m sure it will.

Okay. I tried. Later, girlfriend.

Later.

THE WINDOW FRAMED A REMOTE WORLD. The day had drawn sure. The night was well along. But night is no hiding place. The earth and its corrupt works shall be discovered. What the cockroach has left, the locust has eaten. Cause the Good Book says that through the windows the locust shall go like a thief. She felt a hot melting urge. She greased her hands in petroleum jelly and eased them into the Lazarus 1 Ascension Aid, patent pending. She failed to levitate. Once again. She’d been unsuccessful for months. Nia had succeeded on her first try, her fat body bobbing balloon-fashion above the bare floorboards.

She returned to her seat before the window. She felt like a passenger in a waiting train. The hum of the air conditioner amplified her feelings. She clicked it off. Quiet. At that moment, she felt pain all over, pain that had been crouching and waiting in the silence and the dark. At first she thought her friend was paying the monthly visit, then the pain declared that it was different. She accepted this difference when the pain declared that it wasn’t pain at all but acute lethargy. She drew the blind cords. Raised the window. Warm night air expelled the musty air of the room. Moonlight gave depth to the objects around her.

She lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Half-formed images blinked in and out of the ceiling plaster. Head and face a patiently crafted globe directly in the ceiling’s middle, glowing there in the lightbulb’s place. The face grew smaller and smaller until the features were indistinct. She had to think hard to imagine the eyes, the set of the mouth.

In all the folds of her body she felt tired dampness, summer weariness. But this was spring. Day had simmered down to brown evening and evening to blue night. She could string hours together in thin melodic lines but the rhythm had broken. Everything seemed impossible, far away, another world. To escape sleep, she took inventory of her physical being. Silence in her muscles. Her hands rubbed her legs in slow circles. She shut her eyes. Many a day he had met her at the train station. Piggybacked her home.
Damn, you heavy.
He would watch her walk about the room, loose her hair, take off her garments. Kneeling while she stood, he would kiss all her body. Now, he wasn’t here. A mile away or a million, all the same. Her hands worked. He don’t know what he’s missing. Her open sea scent. A whole life would not be long enough to survey, discover, and explore her soft, curving geography. His loss.

With hidden force, she lifted her body from the bed. She took a long time getting dressed, hindered and slowed by pain. Clothed in cutting elegance, she stepped out into the night. Flowers shone stronger than the moon but she carried the night’s chill—the first cool night in weeks—and trembled like a bird near a pond. She walked rapidly along the empty street beneath failing streetlamps where bugs crashed and whirled in halos of mist. Streetlamps that spread pools of soft fire at her feet. Her footsteps fell lonely and hollow. The night seemed a walking shadow. Her necklace shone like an illuminated noose. She admired herself in the mirroring dark.

HOW’S NIA?

Porsha thought about it. Fine, I guess. Same ole. You know Nia.

She still datin all those men?

Yes.

Mamma shook her head. She keep that up, she’ll be a used bill. Out of circulation.

Mamma and Porsha laughed above the river-running faucet. Truth in wet laughter. Where is everybody? Porsha said.

They ain’t here. Mamma washed dishes, scrubbing hard, like they were made of iron. She rinsed them spotless under the running water. Lined up the cleaned dishes like soldiers in the drainer. Quieted the water. Porsha had seen it all before. Mamma, a woman of settled habits.

How come nobody’s here this late at night?

Mamma dried her hands on her apron. Hatch over at Abu’s house. She removed the apron and draped it over a cabinet arm. A plume of steam whistled from the teapot’s spout. Mamma killed the flame, lifted the pot with a holder, and poured two cups. She lifted the cups and placed them on a plastic serving tray.

Need some help?

Sit back down. Mamma carried the tray and the cups over to the table on creaking knees and set them down dead center. Then she placed one cup before Porsha and one before herself. She pulled her chair out from the table and eased into it. Nobody’s here, she said. Praise the Lord. She smiled into the steam of the tea she had made. I got some peace finally. Nobody to clean up after. She broke open two packages of artificial sweetener and poured and stirred them into her tea.

You deserve it. Tea steamed up into Porsha’s face. She scooped two spoonfuls of sugar into her cup. She sipped tea hot and sweet on her tongue. Where’s Dad?

Mamma raised—yes, raised, as if the hand were a machine; the fingers long and thin, the veins taut spokes beneath the skin—her steaming cup to her lips. Out of town. He went looking for John.

John?

Yeah. A few days ago.

What’s going on?

Mamma tasted her tea. Ask
him
that.

Dad ain’t called?

You think I been sitting around here waiting for him to call?

Porsha thought about it. You never knew what to expect when those two got together. Like two lil kids. Maybe all brothers are like that. She looked at the globes of Mamma’s breasts. Dad remembered and told, Mamma would hold the infant Porsha to her breasts and recite all the places the baby would travel. Where did they go?

Well, John run off to that march in Washington, then Gracie come callin here at two or three the next morning sayin that she ain’t heard from him.

Is that all? … What she expect?

I don’t know what she expect. She thinks John disappeared.

Disappeared?

Her exact words.

Porsha shook her head. He disappeared all right. Wit some woman.
Beneath her sheets. Between her legs.

Mamma sipped her tea.

Think after all these years she’d know.

Well, she don’t know. That’s why Lucifer up and run off to New York or Washington or wherever the hell he went.

Mamma, calm down. Porsha rubbed Mamma’s rough hand—veins like ropes. You know John. And you know how
they
is together.

Mamma said nothing.

You’d be surprised if they acted any different.

Well, Mamma said. Well. She sipped her tea.

Porsha played the silence. I saw Inez the other day.

When?

Monday.

How is she?

Worst.

Well, Mamma said. Well.

She said that John had been out there.

You can’t believe a word Inez say.

I know.

Mamma sipped her tea.

Though the night was cool, the kitchen was so hot it was hard to breathe. Porsha had something to ask. Her body trembled. Mamma. She blew on her tea.

Yes?

Did Clarence call?

Who?

Clarence. Deathrow.