Song of the Shank

by Jeffery Renard Allen

  Can he save Tom?

  The patent of nobility is the color of the skin. To the watching world it sounds like the carefully thought out result and experience of reason. But it is all too cruelly untrue. The hurt to the Negro is the wound dealt to his reputation as a human being. Nothing is left. Nothing is sacred.

  He has no reservations about race. Like music, race is a sturdy armature on which you can hang all types of feeling and sensation and behavior. Our society works the theme like no other subject. The very fabric of what we manufacture, export, and breed.

  Tom sniffs the keys. An animal taking outer skin in. Something heavy and skeletal. Blocked from the fleshy insides that nourish and sustain. Howard has never seen anything like it, and doubts if he ever will again. He is moved. He is profoundly grateful.

  So this is how Tom does it. This is what he is after. (Squeeze yourself into Tom’s shoes.) Music slumbers in the shell, biding its time. The blind live in the world of time alone. The auditory hemisphere colonizes the visual hemisphere. And it is Howard’s belief that this metamorphosis goes further still. The olfactory enacts hegemony over the auditory. Tom smells the notes. Why his head moves when he plays, probing around, sniffing out the melody. It is there already, waiting for him to find it. What could be better, more perfect? No need for imagination, speculation, or invention. No need for study, for planning the planting of the initial seed, or for fertilizing, tending, harvesting. No. For Tom the notes are already buried inside the composition. A composition without compost. A coming to position, a bringing forth of what is already there, like a fully grown potato hidden under the soil that pops to the surface when summoned. What is already there. What is always there. Self-plenishing. Self-generating. Self-contained.

  The piano for Tom is a tool of reference, not an instrument of discovery. Any other could do, might at any time be called into service. Music is the most lasting touch, awaiting him. Howard can be little more than a steadying influence. Help him to sniff here as opposed to there.

  Seven has never called him master after that first day. I’m not a master. I’m no master, I don’t master. Seven small under his wide-brimmed field hat. He seemed unaware that you don’t simply walk into a house with your hat on. Take a seat on the couch or in a chair with your hat on. Sit through a musical lesson or recital with your hat on.

  Seven drives Tom from a far district of the city. They enter the house shaking the journey out of their limbs. Hold hands absent-mindedly but firmly. Sometimes both boys smell of the horse and the harness. Tom’s clothes are slightly too small, cuffs and ankles (no socks or stockings) revealed, so he looks half tramp, half clown. Seven looks far more untidy and underslept. Both their shirts are buttoned to the neck, which give them the appearance of being in uniform.

  Tom begins to wander about the room, but Seven stands, wordless, humble, stiff as a paper doll, seeming out of place among the cold heavy furniture. Even when he is spoken to he doesn’t raise his head (hat) to talk to Howard. Directs his words at the floor. Good afternoon, Professor Howard.

  Why don’t you take a seat over there.

  He doesn’t seem able to take the first little step toward the couch. And when he does, he sits down as people who feel guilty about something sit down, timidly looking about him, his legs dangling over the edge.

  Howard begins the lesson. Uneasily conscious of Seven. Can’t see him but knows that Seven is watching them, him. Can feel Seven’s eyes gazing right through him. He turns and sees that Seven sits listening, his cheek on his hand. Trying to be brave, he will gaze without blinking at Howard, although it is obvious he feels a little apart from the musical lesson, feels left out. He seems unaware that he is creating a distraction. He stretches his neck like a snake out of young wheat and smiles unexpectedly, with no trace of enjoyment. Smiles, almost as if the sight of Howard and Tom at the piano amuses him. No, he lacks such pride. He thinks his goodwill is something he must establish. Smile always at the ready. Eyes cast down. Words like master in his mouth. Seeing his smile, Howard grows annoyed—He doesn’t know, Howard thinks in amazement. He doesn’t even know what I’m fighting for—and will send him into the kitchen or out of the house with instructions to feed or water himself or the horse. It takes Seven quite a while to get to his feet, to get his body to budge from one spot, moving slowly, lead shoes, heavy with shame. Then he will suddenly jerk forward and turn away as if he has been pushed, lurching through the doorway. The timid anxious glance he steals at Howard as he leaves the room. After a spell of an hour or more he returns from the horse or the kitchen and lets himself fall onto the couch. Sits, adequately nourished, quiet, indecently dressed.

  Remarkable that Tom can play anything at all with his pudgy hands and fat fingers. He touches the piano as if he has lumpy pillows at the end of his fingertips. This explains why his playing is so forceful at times, during certain passages or movements, so forceful when it shouldn’t be, or less than it should be. A music of regurgitation that expels—a grunt, a shout, a fart—after being bottled up too long.

  But it is well possible for someone with an inferior touch, bad hands, to develop a warm tone. Tom’s posture and hand position are far from good. (Start there.) The pianist must not allow his body to dominate his hands. (Among other things the professional recitalist must create the proper picture for his audience.) The pianist need first sit inclined decidedly toward the keyboard. (Tom sits straight up, except when he is sniffing notes.) The upper arm and forearm should be light, float in air, for maximum ease and freedom of movement. The fingers must remain near the surface of the keys so that the playing is delicate and uniform. The piano key must go all the way down. The finger, the hand, the wrist, the arm, the torso, the head (face bent forward, chest hovering two feet above the keys, a bearing that is graceful, lively, alert)—all operate in conjunction for this to happen. The whole body comes together in a rhythm that goes deep. Master the principle of moving the fingers only at the joint where they are connected with the body of the hand. Do not battle the keys, hammer them like some blacksmith. As large a surface of the fingertip as feasible must engage the key. The thicker the cushions of flesh upon the fingertips, the wider the range and variety of touch. The wrist must always be flexible, loose, sinking below the level of the keyboard. The more spring the less bump. This Rubinstein calls the pedal the soul of the piano. But a soul resides either in hell or in paradise. Fine pedaling is worthless without a sense of touch. Hand controls the foot. And brain controls the hand. Instructs hollow fingers to transmit feelings to the keys. So why this focus on the hands when so much of the body is involved? When all of the body is involved?

  As little of the self as possible. The performer is a facilitator, a middleman for the—unpresent, often deceased—composer, bearing a tremendous responsibility of presenting the composer’s music to the public while staying true to the composer’s ideas and intentions, to his thoughts and feelings. But most pianists lack the faculty of actually hearing the composer, of hearing themselves as the composer, of hearing the text. (Unfortunately I have to reconcile myself to the thought that nobody will ever play my works to my liking as I had imagined them. Chopin.) Sometimes it is necessary to go far then come back. Imagine the melody as heard from an instrument of different quality from the piano, say the oboe, trumpet, flute, or French horn. But how does one teach the blind, who have no way of first seeing the text on their own, but must always arrive at it secondhand, through another? This way.

  Bach. All those voices crying out. Faint floating sadness. Music is a map of the world. A map of Time. The sense of release it (he) brings. Unless his thoughts are pinned down by musical business they tend to drift off to painful matters. Second-thinking. Strain and worry. Even more reason to give up his mundane students and give all his time to Tom. Assuming of course that Perry Oliver continues to pay.

  Today, he starts Tom on the Chopin études. “Aeolian Harp” étude (op. 25, no. 1). Tom is looking positively cheerful while Seven sits on the couch le
gs dangling, reading his newspaper, the leaves pushed close to his face. He is no longer watching us, Howard thinks. He is not even listening. He is not afraid of me now. That Howard can stand. Howard can ignore him, efface him, act like he isn’t there.

  Howard and Tom, all thrill and trembling, the teaching a great source of pleasure for them both because they both welcome the unexpected, never know what will come next. Now he hears me, he thinks. He hears me. He places one round hand on Tom’s shoulder to encourage him, praise him. His words do not belong to him any more than his body, his hands, his feet. Utter them back, claim them, or they will be lost. Tom takes on the glamour of something still to come.

  The instructor draws the curtain and shutters.

  Have a little sun, Tom says.

  The instructor opens the curtains and shutters. Tom waves his hands as if directing light over to the piano. Then his fingers descend upon the keys, descend without touching, prepared, caught in space, awaiting orders.

  Tom, let’s give this a try.

  Let us do the work of our hands, Tom says.

  From his place on the couch twenty feet away, Seven notices how the instructor looms above Tom, closely observing Tom’s posture and hands, the awkward sprawl of his knuckles, the elements of his movement and fingering. Sometimes the instructor keeps time with his feet, throwing his hands up high. Tom firmly on track. Only when his hands stop will the instructor sit down. Right there on the bench, beside Tom, the wood whining under their weight. Four hands now at the piano. Two of each color. A white man and a black boy seated side by side on the same polished wooden bench. Where Tom is concerned, perhaps he can do nothing right, the way the instructor wants it. Seven the unmoving witness. He must sit quietly. Not a squeak or a stir lest he be banished from the room. But he is perfectly capable of being silent, figures that he can even maintain silence for longer than Perry Oliver. In fact, put to the test, he can pass days on end in uninterrupted silence—no talking, no music.

  He sits under the sun’s invisible weight. Day slants through the window. But the atmosphere in this house, in this room, is still heavy. The instructor’s face set and distant. All Seven can sense from him is his anger, his dissatisfaction with things. He recalls their first introduction to the house. The instructor saw them come in, but he didn’t see how frightened Seven was. He gave Seven a little smile and tried to make small talk. But Seven could hardly hold up his end of the conversation.

  Didn’t know what to say. Nothing he could say. He said nothing, tongue-tied. He didn’t want to say anything stupid. How do you converse with a music instructor? What do you say and what do you not say? So he simply stood there, praying that words would come. No wonder the instructor has not encouraged him to speak since.

  That first day, he took in the dimensions of the room and its sparse furnishings and many books, his gaze relinquishing one space for the next. He made his first tactless remark. That’s a shiny piano.

  The instructor actually turned to look at the piano. Then turned back to Seven, his face a thousand words, none of which he cared to sound. The tilt of his head and his expression—a curious mixture of pride and spite—brought to mind the planters and the pose they assume when they speak to their overseers, although the instructor—Mr. Howard, kindly call me Mr. Howard—is far more modest and unassuming in appearance and dress. And for this reason, he was a rather plain man, Seven decided. If he seems on in years, it is only by comparison with Mr. Oliver.

  You will find the couch directly over there.

  Seven sits with uneasiness. Mutely, he looks at the bookcases, at the window, at the bare walls. If he gets up to move, say to glance out of the window, or to browse at the titles of the books on the instructor’s shelves, he must do so on tiptoe. The strange sensation of knowing that he is the object of the instructor’s secret glances. Who knew that sitting could be fraught with dangers?

  One day the instructor leaves Tom at the piano in the middle of the lesson, comes over to Seven, and shows him into the small dim kitchen with orders to find himself something to eat. Seven makes no fuss. Thinks little about it. He doesn’t want to be in the way. Although he is sick with shame and worry and can barely eat, no matter how hungry he might be. Soon the instructor goes a step further and suggests that Seven might prefer outside. Seven complies. The sense of ridicule that covers-uncovers him. What will he say should Mr. Oliver ask? His job to keep an eye on Tom at all times, even in the presence of this instructor. So how is it that he allowed Mr. Howard to banish him from the house? He waters and hays the horse’s mouth again and again, reassuring himself with solutions he will come up with.

  Perry Oliver had made his orders clear. A plain statement of intention. Seven was to escort Tom to and from Mr. Howard’s residence, but he was also to remind Mr. Howard at every opportunity to show Tom as many new songs as possible and to keep the lessons, the training and exercises, to a minimum. Frighteningly simple. But now he doesn’t have the slightest clue if this is what the instructor is doing. Nor does he know how to ask. He lacks the courage to confront Mr. Howard. His heart is too soft. That must change. Indeed, it comes to him that he will need to voice certain words one day. (Most words are kept.) For Seven wants what Mr. Oliver wants, even when he is not thinking about him. His feeling for Mr. Oliver stops short of love.

  Couch, kitchen, horse—for nearly three weeks that’s the way it goes until the day Seven enters the house with his newspaper under his arm. The newspaper (reading) appeases Mr. Howard’s desire to banish him from the house, and the couch has been his since. Not that he had planned it that way. The paper was only an accident. (His usual seeking out of Morphy.) Even so, the dishonoring memory of his feeding the horse, his feeding himself, is overtaken by the consoling image of his sitting here on the couch reading his newspaper.

  Seven feels himself returned to the road of his mission. A cause for celebration. Rightfully so, for the music lessons have become point and purpose of their day. Teach Tom some tunes. In fact, the lessons come with more, are benefiting him in ways he could never have imagined. Are giving him something he wasn’t even looking for. The instructor will play four or five different notes, then a moment later play the same notes again, making them sound totally different. He plays them a third way and a fourth. The same notes for unalike ears. How is this possible? Hard to believe what he hears. Hard to believe.

  Tom risks putting his hands on the keys. Fallen chances.

  Wait, Tom, wait.

  A discomfiting silence falls over the room. The instructor sits down at the piano, causing Tom’s hands to fly up then come to rest comfortably in his lap. The instructor proceeds to demonstrate the melody that Tom bungled. Once, twice, three times. Again and again. He watches Tom try the melody with some determination in his movements.

  Wait, Tom, wait.

  Tom makes an odd little gesture of helplessness.

  Set in his ways, Tom clutches at playing things in the manner he knows them. Can’t seem to let go, pleasure and habit impeding his advance. Not clear if he even knows what the instructor is after. At times he doesn’t seem to understand what the instructor is saying, what the instructor is going on about. Sharps and flats. Keys and doors. Seems unable to divide one thing from another. Doesn’t even try, make the effort. He can be impatient, forever geared up to move on, to get into the next satisfying adventure, that sense of now when he is sitting at the table with his fork and spoon at the ready. No, these lessons are far from easy sailing. Quite rough at times. (No, Tom!) The first week or two Seven feared that Tom was proving to be too much for the instructor. In thought and deed Tom roamed uncontrollably, unable to halt once he got started at the piano, tearing on until the end of a tune, deaf to the instructor’s orders and directions (pleas?), as if he owned the piano and would do anything he damned well pleased with it. The instructor shouts, but Tom simply ignores him. Seven breaks in, asking Tom to behave. The instructor turns to him and brings a finger up to his lips, making it clear that he wants Seven t
o keep out of it. Then Seven watches helpless as the instructor’s hands swoop down like vicious talons and attack Tom’s fingers, forcing them still, killing the music contained within the worm-like fingers. It hurts Seven to see it, but he says nothing—his cowardly heart—Tom wheezes out some air, Seven watching, trying to discount his feelings of guilt and remorse because he hasn’t come to Tom’s defense. He suffers a flush of curiously mixed emotion, wishing that his own feeling could somehow make the pain less for Tom, but knowing that it will not. He is all at once overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms around his charge.

  Tom puts demands on both of them. (You miss the point, Tom.) But the instructor seems to be a man who knows how to make himself obeyed. (In this house, you are my student, Tom.) Physical force is not his only means. Why should he go easy on Tom? Why should things be any different for him? Tom should be treated like any other student. Tom has a head to learn and learn he will.

  He has to endure a rehearsal of all he has done wrong over the past hour. He sits listening at the far corner of the bench, his body stiff, defenseless, unresisting, everything happening at once, his hands hovering above the keys like frightened birds.

  Okay, now let me hear you try it.

  And try it he does, Tom’s hands slow and smooth, moving in such a way—soft, serious—as if to suggest that he now realizes he needs to curb his instincts and calm himself in the face of what he is up against if he ever hopes to play exactly how the instructor is determined to have him play. Seven shifts forward on the couch, uniformly, barely noticeable. He can see Tom’s black mind working, searching, recalling, questioning.

  The instructor gives Tom a smile, perhaps to lead him away from his unhappy thinking, but of course Tom can’t see the smile.

  Better, Tom, better.

  The instructor’s reasons for insisting that Tom play something a certain way are so written in stone he never bothers to set them out. But steadfastness is the one thing Tom has in abundance.