Song of the Shank

by Jeffery Renard Allen

  Seven was not sure that Tom was comfortable playing here. The tension of his posture betrayed him. His tongue came out of his mouth to moisten his lips. Then, all by themselves, without the help of human eyes, his hands began to find the complex track of chords and notes, the heart of melodies that kindled the desire to pat one’s feet, to clap one’s hands, to dance. A twist of flesh touched. Senses awakened, Seven felt his heart leap seeing this simple and wild display. Suspended. Sealed off. (Echoes and fragrances.) Impervious to time. Music glistened everywhere. Barely attuned to his surroundings, he noticed that someone had taken a seat at the table nearest them, a sun-darkened and slim man. (Thirty? forty? Age is no consequence for Seven, still new to the world.) A good-looking man, unlike the others here, a man of good standing, like Perry Oliver, very well dressed and groomed. He seemed unconscious of anything except a set purpose of staring at the table (smooth darkness) and grumbling to himself, lips silently moving. Perhaps he was drunk, though Seven saw no evidence that he had been imbibing alcohol. His only refreshment a half-drained glass of water, chunks of ice floating on the surface. Ah—looking closer—he was reading, reviewing a document spread flat across the table. Pen in hand, inkwell at the ready. He lifted his face up. Their eyes met, or so it seemed. No, he was wide-eyed as if staring at words in the air. Stared vacantly past Seven, his face relaxed and oblivious, before returning his eyes to his document, his reading and writing. A short while later he raised his face again. Yes, now he was looking right at Seven (them). Squared the corners of the sheet he was reading, then edged around the table to position himself in proximity to the piano. He said he was waiting for a friend, although Seven had no idea why he chose to relay this information. In one hand, he carried a musical score (black lines, black circles, white space)—yes, this was what he had been reading—and he had been humming it under his breath, tapping the accompaniment on the table with his fingers, even as he talked.

  Tom’s hands stopped moving. I like that song, Tom said.

  Do you? the man said. He looked at them from behind an almost immobile face.

  Yes.

  He grinned. But it’s a sad song.

  No, Tom said. Niggers are sad.

  Yes, the man said. They are. He introduced himself as W. P. Howard. Seven introduced them. Seven and Thomas. Is he your boy?

  I’m his, Tom said. I’m his boy.

  Tom resumed his playing. Shut eyes glazed. Hands moved over keys, feet worked pedals. Body rocked from side to side. Smooth steady movement. He looked less like a man playing an instrument than like a captain steering his ship. Transported.

  Perry Oliver found the apartment pitch black—as well it should be, since he was late in returning, quite late, having missed both dinner and supper—with a peculiar stillness. Tried to get his bearings, half a thought ahead, half a thought behind. He lit a lamp, a flame that was not bright enough to illuminate the entire room, but he was accustomed to the parlor-kitchen lit at night by a single inconstant light, as he was reserved in the use of candle and oil. He could make out two figures dozing deliciously at the table. The pair seated side by side, a hand apart, slumped forward and face down. He stood and watched in this semidarkness favorable to spying and conspiracy, his emotions keeping him from speaking the words and thoughts that crowded into his head like a panicked herd. Such harsh language inside him that it might rip his throat apart should it come out.

  He methodically went about inspecting the room.

  Tea was on the table. Impossible to convey its color, its smell. Everything had been gathered up, the smaller objects placed inside the larger ones, the dirty items washed and dried, both litter and leftovers collected and disposed of. The supper—dinner?—basket was empty. Not a single remnant—shredded meat, greasy bone, bread crumb—of food.

  Tom lifted his head. Come in, come in, he said. Everybody is a member. He returned to his sleep.

  A trail of breath. A moan. He saw two little bodies moving forward in the hall toward the staircase. One put a foot out and stepped onto air, onto nothing. Pitched forward and disappeared as if sinking beneath water. The observer-listener shaking with fear at the sound of a body tumbling down and rattling against stairs.

  Perry Oliver could feel the house shudder. The second body hurried after the first, but Perry Oliver hesitated, a quick gasp of astonishment in his mouth. His instinct had nudged him off course. His consciousness in a state of alert. (Too far away, too far behind.) His vision blurred as if he had suddenly gone under water. Once he decided to (once he could), he moved feverishly as if in a hurry to assure himself that the situation was not as dire as it appeared.

  He discovered a Tom-at-rest three flights below, propped up against the banister, Seven kneeling down before him, touching his charge at the wrist. A noise came from Tom’s body. His lips moved although no words came out. At least, none they could hear. He would kneel too, but he was afraid to touch Tom. But he had gained enough courage not to deny reality, what he had just seen with his very own eyes. He did not lose his calm. He even had the presence of mind to realize that he could (should?) consider himself lucky, all things considered. Tom was alive and apparently only slightly injured. He screwed up his eyes and spoke to Seven without anger or panic.

  The agonies of shame. This was why Perry Oliver didn’t speak now, why he chose to let Seven and Tom sleep. (In the morning, he would hear, he would judge, he would forgive.) The burden of words and their sounds meant to awaken the past. He had to keep his suffering intact. Would follow painful memories but only so far, a past he tried his best to confine to the long forgotten. How else to keep a tight hold on what was closest, the immediate tasks stretching before him? His mind turned wholly to the menace of the moment, the struggle that each new day imposes. Who has not tried to read the beginnings of today’s calamity—he had failed to find an instructor for Tom—in the memory of yesterday’s error? For Perry Oliver, each error was an opportunity, a stepping-stone to somewhere else. Of course, no getting around that strange fringe of uneasiness among his thoughts, muted strands of uncertainty and foreboding that were always there, that he had to struggle against. Loss has a way of creeping back. With the future crossed out, the past will become an obsession. So he welcomed what life brought each day, good or bad, and constantly strove to bring himself into a new understanding of it. The old Perry Oliver had to disappear to make room for the new one. Had to give up everything. Homes he had lived in. Books read. Places traveled. Previous sentiments and passions. Give it all up. Come from nowhere.

  He groped forward, stopped to look inside the boys’ room, which was after the parlor-kitchen the second largest room in the apartment. (His the smallest.) Handheld light revealed three images hanging on the wall above Seven’s bed. A daguerreotype of Senator Douglas and one of Senator Calhoun. Since our beloved, aged defender was unable to rise and take command of the floor, Senator Mason of Virginia stepped in as his voice. And the portrait of Paul Morphy. The two beds positioned on either side of the room were exactly like his own, all three identical in shape and construction, none longer or wider than the others, and all consisting of the same make and grain of wood. Functional constructions built to last, and fully capable of supporting the plump unshapely mattresses that covered them, rough burlap amply filled with discarded peanut shells and skin (far cheaper than cotton).

  Once he was in the tranquility of his own room, he barely took the trouble to undress, having survived another rough day. Tomorrow sure to be the same. He threw himself on his bed. He had a plan. In those towns and cities containing a preponderance of cultivated people, theaters do not flourish to the same extent as in locales where the reverse is true. Cultivated people have no reason to go out, already finding music at home. (The parlor piano.) Music halls in this city primarily catered crude spectacles for the lowly of life with the occasional special event or festivity that all may enjoy. His goal was to draw the cultivated out with music—Tom—they couldn’t get at home. Kindle a desire for a form of seri
ous (classical) entertainment they had never seen before.

  Though his plan required the preponderance of his time, he got away from hard work to pay attention to other things—mainly the newspaper. He preferred the Negro journals published in the North—he said and thought South without attaching any importance to it; he took no particular pride in this land where he was born and where he still lived—even maintained a subscription to the best, despite the suspicious glances of the local postmaster. More actuality—truth—in the pages mixed in among all the propaganda of racial uplift. Uplift the race. In the reporting more words than not that actually fit the occasion, rather than adorn or preach.

  Noble Reader, certainly the negro is not our equal in color—perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that more has been given you, you can not be justified in taking away the little which has been given him. All I ask for the negro is that if you don’t like him, let him alone. If God gave him little, that little let him enjoy.

  He slowly and wearily put the newspaper down. Closed his eyes the better to see with his inward gaze those landscapes and horizons where printed words carried him. It amused him to come up with a subject to reflect on every now and then, an entertaining theme that could pull him away from the present. If only refuge in the self were that easy. Something had happened that his intelligence was wearing itself out trying to define. Willingly, he let himself slide into a kind of lethargy, waiting to better understand. (In the night we move forward.)

  Noises reached Perry Oliver quite unmuffled by the thin walls. The least little sound he heard (or imagined?) impelled him to be on his guard, sometimes even pulling him out of bed. Despite the heat, he closed the thick damask curtain, reinforced with a white blind behind it, impenetrable fabric that prevented any light from entering the chamber. But no barring sound. He heard feet flutter in the room next to his where the boys slept, stopping here, stopping there. No discernible pattern in the movement. Took some listening to recognize it as Tom quick’s tread. Was Tom entering the kitchen (parlor)? Now he heard voices too, snatches of murmurings. Tom and Seven? Both boys moving about? Moving and talking?

  Sometimes, on a good morning, in the clear silence, he could relive the triumphs of his life. Was this so today? He peered into the mirror but couldn’t see his eyes. Gaped and gawked at his reflection, but the image didn’t improve. The mirror—polished glass, reflective capacity, the power to throw back—swinging freely on its stand. A black screen interrupted by light. He splashed water on his face and watched it roll down his reflected cheeks and chin and drip down into the basin. His mind struggled to awaken.

  From the window he could see the woodshed and everything that went on in the yard. Bare-chested and barefoot, the nigger who took care of the house was putting the shed in order. The nigger had a full day ahead, a hundred tasks to complete. Now beat out rugs and mattresses, now shovel the garbage into a pile and set it aflame. And once that was done, he would be ready to clean the lavatory on each floor.

  Just at the outskirts, where vision ended, he could look—and he often did—at the black city under a heavy sky. His destination today.

  He went into the kitchen (parlor). Seven was still half-asleep in his chair, eyes brimming with light, heavy and comical. (Where was Tom?) He waited patiently for the boy to recover himself, his heart quick to tremble and be touched. Why bother about the boy’s feelings, about the fact that the boy worried about Tom, too, that he was perhaps three times more concerned than Perry Oliver was himself about Tom’s cares and hurts.

  Seven got up from his chair and stood before him, wobbly, in respectful expectation. Beneath the harsh reflection of his tired mouth and blank eyes, his real face appeared, the face of an adolescent.

  Shadows slithered in and out. Mr. Oliver was waiting for Seven to speak. Seven wondered what he should do, what response might be the least detrimental to him: call out or remain quiet? His mind was too foggy, the conflicting thoughts inside his head unable to focus or affix themselves. He stammered, got tangled in his attempt to control his voice, master his emotion, and find the right words, the expression that would be convincing. Instead, he emitted a kind of mush, syllables jolting each other and running together.

  Perry Oliver listened to capture every word and pause.

  Overwhelmed, Seven lowered his head, clinging to the faint hope that Mr. Oliver would understand.

  And still Tom fell down the stairs, Perry Oliver said.

  Yes.

  You must do better.

  I must do better.

  Mr. Oliver walked to the door and took silent leave.

  Sometime later, Seven stood on the bed admiring the summer trees. What could he see? (Squirrels change branches.) He wanted to see the world. Break away from everything earthly and set out on a great adventure. For now, he held Tom fast in one place. (If you can’t stand something, don’t do it.) Tom had to do everything in full view while Seven watched him. A bed’s width of silence separating them, between them, building a secret room. He got down from the bed and straightened the sheets. Tom popped up. More sheets to align. (Two diverging elements.) What it means to introduce another self into the equation.

  What body was that, hunched and shaking at the kitchen table? He recalled (his wounded memory) a happy dinner, things as usual. He told himself that all had passed off smoothly for him and Tom until supper time arrived, when Mr. Oliver returned—he recognized footsteps then heard the door yank open—from his work and joined them at the table.

  No, he couldn’t twist the facts. Yesterday (afternoon and night) had not worked out to his greater glory. A warning unleashed inside him. He was glad just to stir again. He had suffered no ill effects. (If you can’t handle the job, don’t volunteer.) It was all in his hands now. (This boy has put himself entirely in my hands.)

  He comforted the face confronting him. Gave Tom tender consideration. Playfully patted his other’s cheeks, slapped him on the back of his neck. Soared aloft. Higher. And now out into the fresh air, which would make them both feel better.

  Once they arrived (landed) at Scaldy Bill’s, Mr. Oakley quickly installed the two of them at the piano. Seven sat and listened. Cherished habits. But what was this he heard? The same tunes from yesterday. (So he remembered.) Tom was reciting as if by rote. (Re-creation.) He had never known Tom to be negligent about playing (practicing?). As good a reason as any not to listen, to lock out his emotions.

  While Tom played, not once did Seven turn around on the stool and he did not so much as glance at the other patrons in the saloon (restaurant), as was his custom. Established a boundary that no one dared cross. He and Tom must not be noticed by the outside world. He and Tom must not notice the outside world. He sensed and felt nothing; all of his thoughts were focused on one point: Tom. No matter how hard he might try, he couldn’t hear the music now. He heard nothing. Locked out sight and sound.

  So they remained for several hours, Tom playing. Then the attentive Negress barmaid came over and sat a pitcher of iced tea on top of the piano, the diversion Seven had been waiting for.

  Time to go home now, Tom, he said. Time for food, he said, strategic. Long minutes had worn by; Tom would obey hunger and taste. Tom nestled against him. Tenderly close, the two of them got up from the piano and made their way to the bar. Seven received their dinner basket from the Negress. Handed Mr. Oakley the money due. The owner seemed to be giving serious thought to the changes in Seven’s behavior, today’s standoffishness, aloofness. (The mind twists and turns as it sees fit.) Seven was transgressing a simple rule of propriety with his silence. Even so, the owner didn’t express his feelings, only issued Seven a message that he instructed him to pass on to Mr. Oliver. Then he enclosed the two boys in his arms like sons, with more of the family, a sparkling pair of green glasses, awaiting their kinship on the counter.

  Discreetly, Seven made as if reachin
g for one of the glasses and by such deceptive means managed to rearrange his limbs and create some elbow room. Tom, his welcome accomplice, was not so discreet. Dropped right to the floor free of Mr. Oakley’s skin. Seven hastily apologized—no telling what a nigger will do—then stooped down and helped Tom back to his feet in a nonclaimed space, three bar stools of distance between them and the owner. The owner showed no reaction beyond breathing. Seven mentally filed away the owner’s message, but found an excuse to refuse the green liquid, quick to forestall any objection by saying that they were already late in meeting Mr. Oliver back at their residence.

  Outside, they encountered the usual stares and disavowals. Pure fantasy to expect anything less. Seven was fully prepared. These petty figures underestimated his strength. Just by looking at them or refusing to look he could switch them on and off. Tom, his natural cohort, fluttering along behind him, leaving reflections in the store windows.

  Perry Oliver dreams of walking in a deserted and silent street. But the city is overpopulated, swarming like flies on kill, no matter what the time of day or what the season. It resounds with their footsteps and voices. Buzzes with their wings and working tongues. He shrilly struggles for breath. With what joy he would like to send them all to hell.

  Face it, he is living among barbarians. Nothing can change that fact, alter the immovable difference between him and them. How is it that of the many people he knows in this city only Tom and Seven and Oakley meet his expectations? So many frauds, failures, and incompetents. He has come to expect the worst. (Experience is fact.) Has to be overly cautious in his dealings because the local good citizens offer the world, but what they can actually provide is insufficient to help him get on with his work. To expect good craft, care, is an excessive demand. Nothing is done thoroughly enough, everything is rushed and imperfect.