Song of the Shank

by Jeffery Renard Allen

  What? What have you seen?

  Brain fever, a cruel malady that lasts for a cruel length of time: a lifetime. A debilitating sickness that began long ago, before the invention of medicine.

  James stands and listens, eyes alive and searching.

  I’m not talking about this religious foolishness that so many of our people spout from bench and pulpit. That black people are children of the devil and such nonsense.

  No one here is questioning your knowledge or experience, James says.

  I trust you would.

  So we’ve said that.

  Yes.

  And you will tell me more?

  Yes. It’s a simple matter, really. Africa is the chief stronghold of the real Devil, those reactionary forces of Nature most hostile to the uprise of humanity.

  Go on, James says. He will take it all standing. He refuses to sit down.

  Here Beelzebub, King of the Flies, marshals his vermiform and arthropod hosts, insects, ticks, and nematode worms, which, more than on any other continent, convey to skin, veins, intestines, and spinal marrow of men and other vertebrates the microorganisms that cause deadly, disfiguring, or debilitating diseases, or themselves create the morbid condition of both the persecuted human being and lesser forms—beast, bird, reptile, frog, or fish. The inhabitants of this land have had a sheer fight for physical survival comparable with that found on no other great continent, and this must not be forgotten when we consider their history.

  His good friend remains silent. Looks at him as if he hasn’t understood a word of it. Or was it something else completely? Perhaps James gets nothing, accepts nothing except by instinct. Or maybe it is simply hard for him to define exactly what he wants, both what he had hoped or expected to hear and what results he expected.

  I suppose that’s more than you care to I know. I’ve laid out the pertinent facts.

  Indeed you have.

  James, we’ve known each other a long time. You trust me completely, just as I trust you. So why your delay in contacting me? If only you had called for me sooner. Much sooner. Years ago.

  Years.

  The best I can do is to provide you with a powder that might restore the use of his tongue. Otherwise he might lose his voice forever.

  Once he is outside, he angles his hat on his head to let his hair breathe some. How different was the former age of healing. Jesus cured the blind with his own spittle. In the beginning was the deed. If only the methods of modern medicine were equally effective. Unfortunately, the body is holy no longer but a thing of Nature. Every day, knowledge of how to put the constitution in such a state that it will have no disease, or that it can recover from disease, takes a higher place. Thus, it is most annoying to have to deal with facts that cannot be completely or adequately grasped, and only right to expect a doctor to hate the things he cannot explain. Invisible and unknowable things.

  Such are his musings and meditations, the line of inquiry and examination, as he leaves the house on approach to his carriage. His horse raises its face at the sound of his shoes on crunching gravel. Neighs and lifts one hoof then another, all four in turn. It is only then that a simple fact registers. He can’t see me. The thought strikes him again. He can’t see us.

  Listen, Tom says. Rain fall and not a drop fall on me.

  But, Tom, your clothes are all wet.

  My clothes is all wet, but my skin is dry as can be. He lifts his arms outward from his body shoulder-high and cranes back his head like a bird in flight.

  The thought of the lives and houses embedded in her skin. The stresses on head, legs, feet, and hands. Still, she holds together well after all these years. (The testimony of the mirror.) She awakens with all her past hardened into the blue of morning. Perhaps it is for this reason that her first activity of the day is to sit alone at the table, with her palms flat against the wood. She stares down and sees light breaking through between the fingers, light that is nailing her to this place, fixing her in the moment. She turns her hands over, palms up to the light, either a morning offering or a morning collection. Dues paid, debts settled. Let’s be plain about it. Her head is full of so many pressing memories. While she is safely lost in one thing or another, in an instant and without provocation, all the dingy rooms and dusty cabins of her past pass through her mind. Friends long vanished, their words and prayers now hers, part of her. (Belonging. By one name or another she has always known him. His silence is mine. His eyes, mine. His hands and feet, mine.) How many times has she entered a new house and parted from it? (Count them.) A parting that lingers, no way (what way?) to transfer the bitterness. There is this: not a single day, not an hour passes that she does not tell herself, I have four left and four is better than nothing.

  Look, she says. I see three of you, and only two of us. Do what we ask. Keep Thomas outta the house.

  Although the girls are caught between waking and sleep, they are quick to speak; their apologies seem already formed on their lips, calculated in advance.

  There three of you, she says. Girls. She has long held the belief that the female sex are the most capable of managing the world. Three of you can keep him out of the house.

  The girls raise a chorus of excuses.

  I tried to.

  He too fast.

  I was doing my choirs.

  She feels an irrepressible rage building up inside of her. Far from learning from their blunders the girls, her three daughters, continue to heap more errors on top of the existing ones. Little by little, they are destroying everything that she has been trying to build, this cooperating workforce—call it family—she and Mingo have both longed for all these years and have tried to nurture since their arrival here at Hundred Gates.

  Take your brother out and bathe him.

  The girls raise a chorus of refusal.

  We did.

  He won’t stay in the water.

  He bit my hand.

  Do it every day, she says. You must. Can’t you smell him? Smell him. Do it when you do it, she says. The girls are also creatures that hate water. And don’t let your brother waste himself in the house.

  He just went.

  He always smell like that.

  I can’t smell.

  Find a rag and clean it up. You help her. And, you, come and help me wash him.

  They prepare the tub. Get his clothes off with minimal damage. He will not step into the water. She has to lift him into the air, and when she does, he spreads his arms wide, believing he can fly. Although he is far larger than the tub, he steadies himself inside it, careful to remain completely still, water silent under him. She and her daughter wash him while making sideways glances at each other. Soap and water and dirt are easy enough to understand. Plain facts her girls can’t deny or disown. But how can they know the tremendous effort required to build this union? A whole history lost to them. Unaware of the many who’ve come already. (Once again back in her mind. How much easier to roll through the day under a stray tumble of thoughts.) Can’t recall the last time she counted all twenty on her fingers, one by one, a way of remembering their names. The sixteen she will recall although even in recollection she no longer speaks their names. Gal, you’ve set a record. How many loaves can you bake in that there oven? When was the last time? A ritual she used to often perform. Certain things she never speaks aloud—some days how painful it is simply to open her mouth—even to a husband, especially to a husband—Domingo. The silences, the distances. (How can she hear the void?) So much the eyes don’t see when they examine another.

  She imagined (defined) her history (theirs) as a single rush of air sweeping all their past days toward the Bethune mansion and their own cabin of logs hacked sloppily and fitted together in haphazard hurry. (They did not build it. Have built many others but not this one. The smell of the previous occupants, a thousand men and women, all that remains.) You are born where you are born, but a person’s true soil is not the place of birth. You bide your time, you continue to make all the small improvements you can�
�more food, more clothing, less toil and torment—with quiet hopes for the future. But more than hoping and waiting. More a matter of scheming and planning—although you are at the mercy of chance—of figuring out a way to position yourself so that the next shuffle will land you a few inches higher than your present state, and knowing the right thing to say or do when you are so positioned for such a move. All of this contingent upon life lasting and things holding out, for how quickly the world can change in an hour.

  How well she remembers that moment when Domingo first spoke to General Bethune, a man whom she (they) had no knowledge of, save the name she heard spoken only moments earlier—

  Why yes, General Bethune. It’s an honor, sir. Glad to have you with us today. I was just down at the printing office.

  —as the trader began positioning them in a horizontal line before his buyers. The words trickled down her body with the sweat. At first she misunderstood the nature of the General’s physical condition. She realized that he walked with a limp. No, that was not the word. (Even now she can’t describe the moment properly.) He did a little wobble to throw one leg forward then the other, as if each weighed a ton.

  A number of men began circling them at top speed, their wives remaining behind in their buggies and carriages. A constellation of white faces shooting past her eyes, orbiting this band of eight or nine niggers, of old-marrieds and their unsightly children, standing—some just barely—tattered in the wind, heads slumped, feet swollen, drowsy and cold in bright clean heat.

  Sorry, the trader said. Wish I could be of service to you. These the last I got.

  The trader was a tall husky man—a few inches taller and a few pounds heavier than the General—well into his thirties but who tried to mask his age behind a light youthful mustache and adolescent glasses. A loud man, no force in this world capable of shutting his mouth. She stood absorbing the noise and movement, every few seconds his announcements bouncing off her body. Already woozy from the long day’s drive march to this clearing in the woods, she didn’t have the strength to correct him when he got her name wrong. On the silent march here, their feet built a common language. Some started to come undone, some already undone even before her family joined the little band. She heard someone murmuring pleas to Jesus. And words whispered in consolation. But she was not caught up in this, prayer the last thing on her mind. What was happening before her now, around her, neither awed nor moved her, for it was more tremendous than religion or church. Days of blind faith and belief behind her. She was past the point of crying. Important to her to know that there were others who felt worse than she did.

  She pondered these men swarming around her, something hungry and desperate in their speed. Some stopped to look and listen, getting the drift of the trader’s pitch and seeing if their eyes could verify his words. Someone leaned forward hoping to catch a glimpse of the baby she held in her arms, mummified in blankets. She pulled the baby closer to her bosom. Still they came, a flurry of white hands (and feet), poking, prodding, tugging and testing, opening mouths and closing them.

  Careful now, the trader said. You break it, you own it.

  The details of contact. She watched in a spell, unable to speak even if she wanted to. Her voice would be too small.

  No, ma’m. They are not rejects. What in God’s earth would possess you to say such a thing?

  This General Bethune did not rush, but moved slowly with a composed eagerness, his hands folded behind his back. From what she had overheard he made no attempt to conceal either his intelligence or his eloquence. (In the years to come she will see and hear both often.) The essence of high breeding, of intelligence itself is to be perfectly natural under the most artificial circumstances. And the trader chose to cling to this general’s presence even as he argued and bargained with his other customers, engaging them in plenty of hassling and haggling, mostly for show. Who was this sprawling elastic creature so capable of being everywhere at the same time, his smile here but somehow also over there? The General seemed to resent the trader for some personal reason unknown to her, a man unworthy of sight, looking at him only casually and briefly, perhaps wanting to be done with the introductions and advertisements and ready for concrete terms, negotiations. She would be happy to be rid of him as well. Had known him only a day or two—depending on how you counted the hours, where you began—insufficient time to make a studied judgment, but she had come to the conclusion that he had crippling doubts, was unsure of himself.

  Sir, Domingo said. Just that one word. It was the greatest thing anyone had ever said in the history of the world. She felt something leaping under her skin. His strength in these matters, turns of mind, made her want to join him. He was a smallish man, and she was a woman of average height, which made it possible for them to look each other face to face without any lifting or lowering of heads or adjustments of feet. They were both slight as well, and she liked to imagine them as two units conjoining to form one substantial body. People (a person) of few words, able to set the silence against each other’s doubts.

  Sir, Domingo said. He never called any white man master. Look at us standing here, he said. He held his palms out at his sides, like a Bible-mouth pausing midsermon to hook his congregation.

  The trader gave Domingo a look expressing silent betrayal. He stuck his hands in his pockets, nothing better to do with them. But from the look in the General’s eyes and the smile on his lips she could tell that he already knew what Domingo was asking. Seemed to expect it in fact. Had he not lingered before them? Had he not passed them by on several occasions only to return again? His gaze sliding over all of them—her, Mingo, the baby blanketed in her arms, their three girls, who stared hard at this funny-legged white man.

  Then Domingo did the impossible. Took two steps forward. Sir, we been put out cause a white man couldn’t keep up with his affairs.

  She saw the trader’s fisted pockets go heavy. The trader made some clever remark, trying to draw a laugh from the General, but the other man said nothing, acting like he hadn’t heard. Sir, could I interest you—

  No, the General said. He looked at the trader. Tell me about this.

  They are foreclosures, the trader said.

  From where?

  Out by Thirty Wells. A little run-down habitat called Solitary.

  Solitude?

  Yes, I believe that’s the name.

  And what is the other name?

  That would be a Johnson. Should I get the papers?

  You mean Jones?

  Yes.

  A Wiley?

  Yes, the trader said. A Wiley Jones. He had to say something.

  Now how hard was that? the General asked.

  Sir?

  Then Domingo cut in. Sir, maybe I don’t look it, but I’m two niggers in one. I can work like you ain’t never befo seen a man or any two men work.

  The trader pulled his hands from inside his pockets. The General seemed to take pleasure in his anger and discomfort. I can assure you, the trader said.

  Is that something you wish to spend your time doing? the General asked.

  This gave the trader reason to pause. Sir, I am deeply disturbed. I really need to get these off my hands. I’m getting wed in two days.

  The General looked at him. That’s pressing business. And here you are, he said. I commend you on your locomotion, with so much else before you.

  I could be convinced to give it all up.

  The General didn’t look at him. How much for this bunch?

  The trader worked some numbers.

  That’s not what I’m asking, the General said.

  Sir, I’m deeply sorry if you misunderstood me. The trader started on his numbers again, like a drunk man who couldn’t stop himself. Then he said, I’ll even throw that uncle over there in at a five-dollar discount.

  I don’t need an uncle.

  Okay. Perhaps—

  What would I do with an uncle?

  The trader said nothing.

  Now, what am I asking?
r />   I’m sure we can arrive at a fair sum, the trader said.

  Or I could go rob the treasury.

  And so it went. While the men worked figures, she and Mingo looked at one another, exchanging unspoken thoughts. They did not hold hands. They did not hug. They did not kiss.

  It did not take long to finish the negotiations. The trader seemed satisfied, happy even. That is a price I can live with, he said. I’ll throw in the blanket warmer for free. Eyeglasses glinting in the sun, he shook the General’s hand in farewell. I’m forever in your debt, he said. You really learned me a thing or two about a bargain.

  Despite his casual disposition, General Bethune took the discovery of Tom’s talents with more than a grain of salt. Within a month of learning (seeing) what the toddler (crawler) could do, witnessing with his own eyes and ears, he instituted a new routine. At least once a week, he would instruct her to bundle Little Thomas up in a carryall and bring him out to the carriage, where she would hand him up to the General’s wife, already seated there. Then the driver would help the General take his place beside his wife, the toddler cooing in her arms, and she (they) would assume charge of Thomas, the couple partnered in some secret cause—never revealed to her, even now, though she has her suspicions—lasting from that moment until Miss Toon returned Thomas to her later that evening, comfortably asleep. She would stand at the gate and watch the carriage pull away, escape vision, leaving her to imagine, without forming detailed images—that would be too much—Miss Toon accompanying her husband to the printing office and aiding him in whatever activity transpired there. (Either openly or clandestinely, she never heard them discuss what went on.) An odd calm would set in. Indeed, if called to judgment, she would admit that she met these weekly separations with an uneasy mixture of fear and relief. For during this period of her life Thomas dominated and consumed all her mental energy even when he was not directly present. If nothing else, the weekly separation gave her, both physically and mentally (what could she do about it? Out of her hands, beyond her control), a safe and justifiable withdrawal from her son for that short spell of hours, during which, in matters of child rearing only the Bethune daughters, and her own, were left to her care. They were proud girls, arrogant, and bashful only among themselves. Twelve frenzied limbs that made daily chaos of the mansion.