Song of the Shank

by Jeffery Renard Allen

  Tom, why do you play Bach?

  I prefer to live by that which I know.

  In only a few short hours. Hurrying to meet that moment—I will be early, count on it—because they had kept him waiting, the promised delivery deferred, pushed back until today. Two days since he had answered a caller at his door, opened it—the bolt loud, the hinges louder—to find the lawyer, Mr. Geryon, standing there leather satchel in hand. Stunned at this unexpected arrival, all he could do to exchange the most obligatory greetings and gestures. The lawyer had stepped inside after waiting patiently for Tabbs (stunned) to make the offer, removed his hat, and sat himself in the first seat he came upon, then proceeded to remove a sealed envelope from his satchel and hand it to Tabbs, who took it, confused, his frame of mind all the worse because he was still thinking about, pondering, certain facts and speculations he had just been reading about in the newspaper. Tom—across the river—had finished his extended run at the town hall. Naturally, the journal had given high marks to Tom’s closing recital at town hall—the Negro press can’t hymn his praises enough—but it also issued more reports (rumors) about a continuing and steady decline in General Bethune’s physical well-being and the vanquishing of his professional and financial holdings, the cause for the latter: every dollar earned from both the General’s press and Tom’s concerts and publications went into the Confederate war chest. Tabbs had already grown numb to such pronouncements. What truly caught his interest was the photograph accompanying the story. Tom seated on a stool at his piano with the General posed behind him, one hand in paternal rest on the boy’s shoulder. In the photograph General Bethune did not come across as a man on his last leg, a man who was suffering daily ruin and facing an early grave. He still possessed that big-eyed look of desire, hunger, and expectation that Tabbs recollected from their two meetings. When had they sat for the photograph? How recently?

  Hands in flight, the lawyer took it upon himself to explain the letter, reciting it word by word, and inserting comments and clarifications and meaningful pauses as he saw fit. General Bethune seeks an additional two days and a small change of venue for the transfer. Tabbs sat gazing at the lawyer, unable to speak for a time. As much as he tried to avoid wrongful thoughts, his first inclination was to reject the request out of sheer defiance, tit for tat. Then he thought he should practice caution, the sooner to get on, two days part and parcel of his transformation, of making anew. Clearly General Bethune had his own fears. Otherwise why had he elected to conduct private business in a public space?

  Despite the early start, he arrived at the meeting place thirty minutes late for reasons that he was hard put to explain, but that he now believes were a foreboding of bad things to come. The restaurant was empty as far as he could tell. He took a seat at a table offering an unobstructed view of the door, a Negro waiter motionless at his dais, looking at Tabbs but pretending not to. Tabbs felt safer in the open air of the street. Not for anything did he want to be surprised. The restaurant was a continuous row of windows on three sides, glass glinting out onto impressive views of the town, beach, and river. Easy looking out, easy looking in. A glass crib thrust into sight. Came the thought that he was positioned perfectly for a sharpshooter’s bullet.

  He checked his watch. The time was all wrong. Surely his watch was malfunctioning. He returned it to his pocket. But the clock fixed to the wall behind the waiter (watching) confirmed the hour. And no sign of General Bethune. Had he come and gone?

  Mr. Geryon walked in, leather satchel swinging at his side. The waiter rushed forward to greet him, but the lawyer brushed past him, walked over to the table where Tabbs sat—the waiter backed away, as if from contagion, scurried return to his dais—and, without a word, seated himself on the other side, quietly positioning his worn satchel on the immaculate white cloth covering the table, draped over the sides.

  Mr. Gross, he said. You are not the man you say you are. His face down-tilted toward the satchel, avoiding Tabbs’s eyes. Speaking words into leather. You will be arrested.

  What the lawyer said, no mistaking it. Tabbs could hardly keep his eyes open. The moment demanded some kind of gesture, but what could he do with his body?

  No, you don’t want to go to jail. The lawyer shot Tabbs a glance, flickering his fingers irritably against the table. He opened his satchel and pulled from it a crisp stack of banknotes, held together with Tabbs’s distinctive leather ties at both ends. You have violated our trust, he said, speaking to the leather again, and in so doing have annulled all contractual claims. He placed the bound notes before Tabbs. Here is a sum total of one thousand dollars, your original deposit, plus the cost of rail passage.

  Tabbs out on a limb, past words.

  The balance of your monies will remain in our possession, pending calculation of penalties, investigative costs, and matters of forfeiture.

  The lawyer said nothing else. Enough said. Simply closed his briefcase and departed. Some time before Tabbs could do the same. See his startled angle of retreat from the restaurant, from the hotel, earth streaming away under his feet, a thick swarm of indistinct sounds pursuing him.

  Some of what Tabbs did in his life for the next few days after that meeting is lost to him now. What he sees is himself leaning back into the darkness of a hallway and patiently waiting outside a receiving room after one of Tom’s concerts, listening to the invisible chatter of voices inside the room. Emboldened, he was intent on confronting General Bethune. How had he arrived at that decision in the face of the General’s threats of arrest and imprisonment? Perhaps his presence there was the sum total of his intelligence, his shrewdness, his astuteness, his courage, a man daunted by nothing. Perhaps it was precisely the time for gallant gestures. One after another the supplicants began to leave the room. Counting, Tabbs entered the room only after the last had exited.

  General Bethune looked up from the table where he was seated and saw Tabbs standing, contained in a pocket of light, his appearance now, there, no different in purpose from the previous one only days before. Went rigid with surprise, unbelief. He was trapped. What is this man, this Tabbs Gross, not capable of?

  Tabbs took a seat at the table within touching distance of his adversary. The General gave him a look of mild approach, then he and the General glared at each other across the silence.

  I will never cease in knowing you, General Bethune said. Your history increases each day. You have murdered men. You have pandered women. You have befouled children.

  From far away the thunder of a noisy sonata reached Tabbs: Tom’s encore. Feelings are ridiculous in such moments. He must not speak. Would he really be foolish enough to report his most private feelings to a white man?

  General Bethune pushed both hands into his pockets, pulled free two fistfuls of banknotes. Tossed the crumpled notes onto the table, patted his pockets for more. Annoyed, as if cornered into donating charity.

  Tabbs looked at the banknotes, no intention of picking them up, cast-off leprous skin. Understanding the other’s restraint, General Bethune swept the notes off the table and right into Tabbs’s lap. Already Tabbs knew: he would never see the General again. He never has.

  For weeks after he did not leave his house, welcoming no callers—Ruggles, Ruggles—in his increasing dismay, forgetful of the most ordinary matters, eating (strings of onions, loaves of bread), bathing, cleaning his teeth, washing and combing his hair, shaving, passing urine, moving his bowels, instinct equating, mind skipping off, sunk in his memories of that terrible moment, playing scenes, what he could have said, what he could have done. Signs, gifts, wonders. The trick in the hand. From dawn to rocking close of day. Thinking small, thinking big, he greeted each morning with many tongues. What must I do to be saved? Sickness when there was nothing else. Sickness that made him (feel) capable of anything. (What might strong hands do?)

  So one day, once he had retrieved enough of himself, he packed his bags—Fill up your horn with oil and be on your way—put on good clothes to go out into the street, and set o
ut—he served notice to no one, Ruggles, Ruggles—following the Blind Tom Exhibition from town to town—maps make the getting there look easy—engagement to engagement, one month, then the next through the raucous scrambled world of dark streets dark rivers dark halls. Tunnels, blackness he would (will) never come out of. Iron wheels pulling in and iron wheels pulling out. The muffled strain. The jarring chord. The running smoke and heat. The whoosh and hissing. The melting in his legs. The hot puddle between his thighs. The black ink flying at angles across paper. Advertisements. Certificates of purchase. Bills of sale. A surfeit of work. The blood-stained gate. Beat by the hammer. Beat by the fist. Prodded and pushed. Nothing had the color he would expect. Always in pursuit but sometimes falling behind schedule or, worse, losing the trail altogether until he chanced upon another lead. Knocking on a door and stepping through that door held open for him. Checking in. Checking out. Stale and alone in a country busted apart. Not another summer. Please, not another fall. Then the Union instituted a war lottery (draft) and the city exploded, fire surging like a red sea, smoke in the wide sky and hot things going up and coming down that Tabbs, trailing Tom (always, because the boy was all that mattered to him), could see in his imaginings from a thousand miles away. The planters down South driven in, underground, and Tom and Warhurst and the Bethunes dropped from public view. What now? Knew he must set out again—comfort in motion, hope—but to where, what the port of call? How would he fish up Tom out of a deep dark unknown?

  For the next three years (almost), he lived with his anxious ear pushed up against the world, traveled—no end to it—from one city to another across the North tracking any mention of Blind Tom—Tabbs time and again clutching his ever-hopeful ticket of passage—some supposed sighting of him here, some supposed recital he was to give there. Rumor, all rumor. His dream deferred. Biding time until the war ended.

  And so it was that the war ended, and he found himself deep in the enemy’s country, determined to unearth Tom. See him thus: exhausted and bewildered, he walked right into the hotel restaurant without taking the time to wash up first and settled on a table. Sat right down, knotted his napkin around his neck, took up utensils crafted from pure silver, and waited, the rattle of a hungry body in a room that smelled of salted cooking grease. Little astonishments going off all over the restaurant. What remarkable things these chefs could do with cowpeas, peanuts, greens, rice, cabbage, and potatoes, Tabbs partial to the food here—rib eye, roast, tenderloin—taking all of his meals here each day—You shall eat the fruits of this world—morning, noon, and night, although to sit down to a meal with the other guests was to dissemble, Tabbs dining dumbly, rolling wine in his mouth, even when the guests, all men, all alabasters, all Northerners, would sit down at his table and try to make small talk, engage him in conversation above the soft clattering of plates, the scratching of silverware on porcelain, and the clinking of glasses, trying to gain a sense of Tabbs’s feelings about the war and the reconstruction of the South, taking his hand in greeting, the hard power of their granite grips crushing his skin.

  Tabbs sat thinking into the day, into the moment.

  Why would he do this to me?

  Because he can, Ruggles said. Because you’re a nigger.

  He made up his mind to add that to the account he was determined to settle with the General, a promise that surfaced spontaneously into consciousness while he sat over his dinner engineering the fried fish (whole) on his plate with knife and fork.

  Get yo grits right.

  He looked up from his plate and saw Mrs. Birdoff frowning instructions, her sculpted eyebrows arched and sharp like Oriental temples, each eyelash black and hard and separate.

  You got to mix em.

  He shoveled his fork into the pool of grits on his plate and performed some vigorous stirring.

  Mrs. Birdoff looked at him for a long time without a word, no movement in her eyes. You ain’t never ate none befo. I can see that. Her surprise uncovered a set of fine white teeth.

  Just what does she want him to mix?

  You know what you eatin?

  Fish, he said.

  Crappie, she said.

  He looked at her.

  You just gon and eat. Don’t worry bout how it sound.

  You have to put the worm on the hook, Ruggles said. Go ahead. Hook it through. Why am I telling you twice?

  It’s greasy.

  Get it between your fingers.

  I don’t think I can touch it good.

  You want me to do it? Is that what you’re telling me? You want me to do it?

  Mrs. Birdoff gave him a wide sweep of the hand, a blessing. Bless the hominy, bless the crappie, bless the greens, bless the beans, bless the sack, and bless whatever else I’ve forgotten. She left, gathering her deliberate walk about her as she went.

  Several hours later, he found himself entrenched along the perimeter of General Bethune’s estate. Light flowed in a smooth reflection that outlined the shadow of the trees whose branches and leaves closed rank around him. Hid him. He could watch the house from here, so he did, watched and waited. No way he would (could) fully abide by Coffin’s restrictions. Keep to the hotel, Mr. Gross. Stay away from Hundred Gates. Let Coffin do his part. As for himself, he could submit and observe, decide and execute, all at the same time, torn away from the usual incongruous questioning, his mind free, clear, and quick. He viewed the General’s house as the empty shape of a heaven he coveted and had been promised, that he longed to enter once and for all. Nothing protecting it, only this single iron gate that opened at his touch, no fence. He walked right through the garden all the way to the porch without encountering another soul. Squinted in at the window, trying to see beyond morning glare and his own reflection shiny on the glass pane.

  A Negress appeared in the doorway. You again, she said. I already told you. He ain’t here.

  She frowned. Muttered under her breath. Should he stay or go?

  Where is he?

  We livin here now.

  When did he leave?

  Now she greeted him like any caller. She offered him a cup of tea—she did not say hot or cold—as if she knew that he was (is) a tea drinker. Then he understood: she was trying to trick him into revealing his true nature, man or ghost.

  And you’re sure he’s not here? These planters’ mansions have all sorts of box rooms, hidden passages, and unexpected staircases. So he had heard.

  Come see for yoself.

  He stepped through the doorway. Looked once or twice, here and there.

  I got to get back to my work. She looked at Tabbs sideways.

  Where did he go?

  I ain’t ask him.

  It fell to Tabbs to guess. (Light suddenly more clear.) Now he was sure—uncertain before—that she had been the woman present at the meeting with General Bethune years earlier, standing quietly in the corner, wearing a black dress with maline trim. (What is she wearing today?)

  He sold the house.

  Don’t you see us livin here? Ain’t no coming back.

  She seemed to be out of breath, hauling pots, washing dishes, wringing laundry.

  He left nothing behind.

  Nothing, she said.

  She has turned her back on servitude. Elevated herself in the world. He could enforce his presence. Speak to her openly and honestly. She would embrace him instead of exclude, absolve instead of condemn.

  What you see? she said.

  A perfect translucent silence fell over the house. He felt oddly at home. (The piano in the hall.) He would like to move but couldn’t. Didn’t know whether it was his mind not speaking loudly enough to his limbs or whether these limbs had grown treacherously stiff, or something else, another foreign force making him stay put.

  Did he leave anything for me? A letter? A message?

  I’m sposed to give you this, she said.

  What?

  She shut the door in his face.

  Back at the hotel, he heard music coming from somewhere on an upper floor—no, from so
mewhere downstairs, in the parlor, filling every room and corner with song, disembodied scales and tones quite like nothing he had heard before. Drawn in, squeezing into bodies and furniture populated with dead bottles no one had bothered to remove.

  He saw a face that bore a connection to him, Dr. Hollister standing by the fireplace on the other side of the room, his head bent with listening. The blunt impact of the man. Feeling flowed in. The Doctor saw Tabbs but did not appear in the least bit surprised. Tabbs saw the Doctor’s mouth move, but the words were lost on him. The Doctor came slowly over with long sad strides—moving to the music perhaps? Tabbs couldn’t say.

  He greeted Tabbs like an old acquaintance, shaking hands with him in a friendly way. So you remember me? I ain’t think you would. Turned back to the music. You ever heard anything that good?

  The musicians were seated in the layered shadows of Mrs. Birdoff’s ruffles and skirts, Mrs. Birdoff standing wide behind them, above them, like a shady tree. She looked across at Tabbs and Dr. Hollister, her eyes as surprised as Tabbs’s. Looked away.

  We’ll be all alone in the garden, Dr. Hollister said.

  We can stay right here, Tabbs said. He didn’t look at the Doctor, acted as if he could not be thinking about anything in the world, his thoughts sliding across the strings of a violin, a banjo plucked and pulled.

  So you stay. But you got to leave sometime.

  The words sinking beneath the music.

  Another chord. Another exchange between the instruments. But the Doctor wasn’t talking, talking that talk. Tabbs saw some of the men (listening, dancing) pull their faces from the music to watch the Doctor leave the room, nodding and smiling, all courtesy and respect. Tabbs followed. What else could he do, having resigned himself to capture, a spy in the enemy’s country, no matter who had won the war, who was in charge. Six beats behind the Doctor, he felt a renewal of everything he could suffer from ugliness and stupidity.