by Nisi Shawl
Batalha thrust through the crowd and vanished. Someone thin, all musk and funk and black as Papa almost, passed by with a guitarra; and someone else too, more naked, with long, locked hair and skin no darker than palms and soles, like browning butter. Both young bodies tattooed, somehow, in phosphorescence.
Reggaezzi. He’d never seen any before, hardly heard of them. But he knew at once. A boy and a girl. The boy one sat in the sand and tuned his guitarra. The girl one touched her toes, no, she was laying her hands flat to the packed sand and going up in handstand, falling over in bridge, and coming up to stand again. One leg she lifted obtuse the standing, grasped that ankle, and brought up the shin to kiss. In the murk of night, the glowing curlicues on their skin pulsed marine green—not tattoos after all, but something—alive? Bright mites, infinitesimal, crept over their skin, either down in it, shining through, or glittering on top in some vexed way impossible to figure out.
“Oh, they’re young!” he said. “They don’t look much older than my sister.”
Some Johnny in the crowd forming up answered back, “How you don’t know, boy? Reggaezzi all die soon. Hardly none make twenty.”
Dressed badly for the brisk waterfront, they wore only shirts and loincloths. The reggaezza had torn off the sleeves of her shirt, and he knew why in the same way no one had ever taught him to breathe: so the line of her beautiful arms showed better.
The boy one began to play.
Strumming in rasjeo so fast and rich that a second player seemed to harmonize with him, even at times a third; and though there was none, a drummer seemed to keep the beat: the reggaezzo struck and tapped the guitarra’s inlay of clapwood while he played. He sang too.
The hoarse falsetto lacked the glories of his guitarrismo, but that voice was still a marvel of feeling. The song, in the language of the gods, was hard to follow. A mother, no, a great grandmother, had a new baby at her breast. This baby so precious so beautiful but sick and fragile with—time and space? The baby somehow growing older than the mother herself, a great grandmother to her own mother, the world upside down, reversed. What on earth? The lyrics fit together so strangely he couldn’t make sense of them. But the song was loving as a lullaby and yet triste, a lament. The reggaezza danced.
Oh, she danced.
Oh!
He’d never thought to dance in such a way that a story was told, the lyrics incarnated in a sorrowful play-act that nevertheless rendered respect to every beat and evolution of the music. He could grasp the mothersong better, in heart if not mind, seeing the reggaezza’s dance. A small gathering hereabouts was silent, while further off the night disported in revelry and strife. He stood dumb, mouth hanging open, and watched with his whole self. Nothing lasts, and the best must be briefest: so too with this. When the performance ended, the gathering of Johnnys murmured the same word of appreciation. Never more in agreement, he softly chimed in too. For a moment more palm fronds rustled overhead, and breakers rolled, the gulls calling. Then the quiet smaller crowd spoke, laughed, and began dispersing into the greater. The reggaezza, thirsty, plucked a jar of Sea-john free right out of the hands of some passerby. Rude!—but the passing Johnny made neither mention nor moan.
The boy one walked up and pointed, saying, “Gimme dat.”
He passed over one of the skewers. The reggaezzo put half the length, three shrimp, into his mouth and drew the stick forth clean, crunching and chewing hungrily. The reggaezzo stank of old sweat and something herbal. He was as crushingly beautiful as Kéké, almost. Green constellations crept across the black sky of him. The reggaezzo spat some shelly wreckage and gobbled the other three shrimp.
“Dat one too!”
“I’m very sorry; I can’t. It’s my sister’s, not mine. Batalha asked me to hold it for her.”
“Aw, ain’t you just too posh?” The reggaezzo turned and called the girl. “Hey! Quick, come listen at dis idjit here. Sound straight off Dolorosa, dis one!”
The reggaezza came over, thin as a finger and yet strong. Hunger had melted all fat from her, the daily hours of dance showing in the ripple of her thighs and veiny strength of arm.
“Now just tell huh what you come dare said to me!”
“Only that I must hold these shrimp for my sister—”
The reggaezza threw back her head, whooping laughter. She said to him, “Little prince-boy, don’t you know we could lay duh worse cuss on any Johnny won’t give food, won’t give clothes, or turn away help from us reggaezzi? So you not Johnny den, ti prince?”
“I am Johnny.” His lips trembled, eyes close to tears, for there was great hot power in her, like the burning sureties of Batalha, like the bright god in Papa.
“Zas!” said the reggaezza, snapping her fingers. “I could go like dat and yo Mamans fall out duh fishing boat tomorrow and shark eat dem up screaming. Zas! and yo Papas slip from high cutting coconut, crack dere heads wide-open so dey drooling stupid forever! Or maybe you hate yo Mamans and yo Papas, and you love yo ownself much better? Den zas!, ti prince, and you—”
“Here! I didn’t know. They never want to tell me anything about reggaezzi. Please, won’t you take it now? I love them and Batalha best, but don’t curse them. Curse me.”
“See? You just too mean sometime. Duh little boy didn’t even know. Now you got him crying and I feel all bad. Johnny boy, you could keep dat fuh y’sistah. Salright, salright—don’t cry. Nobody ain’t cussing nobody tonight.”
“I thought duh boy was talking back smart. You know I can’t stand dat. Some posh asshole. Anyway it’s two whole days and no Ladder-to-Heaven. I need some smoke bad. I hate dis hunger. I hate how cold duh night feel. Gimme dat—I’ll eat it!”
He handed over the skewer and the reggaezza crouched down on her haunches, making the same short work of six big shrimp as the boy had. He lifted off his poncho and tucked it warmly round the girl’s shoulders, just as though the reggaezza were in creaky old age, not the veriest youth. The boy one squatted down beside and stroked her long matted hair; he said, “Couple more days, duh leaves be all brown and good, and we climb right back up duh Ladder to Heaven. I hate deese days too, but gotta eat some time, don’t we?”
She looked at the reggaezzo. “You don’t hear dat? You don’t hear Song?”
“No. Where?—Yeah! But where it come from, so soft? I never heard Song dat soft!”
“Him! Duh boy here, dis boy. It’s you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, yeah! Because you still too young. But some day you gon’ come along with us!”
“I’ll come now.”
“Not yet,” said the reggaezza. “Grow some. Get in some trouble. Look at dose legs you got!—dancer, ain’t you? Well, baby brudder, yull dance much better with yo heart broke bad.”
“The best dancers need a broken heart?”
“Yup.”
“Is your heart broken?”
“Oh, sure. And fresh everyday. Yull see.” The reggaezza lay her head on the boy one’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
The reggaezzo said, “I member how bad it was, Johnny boy, but you just got to stay patient. By and by some night you gon’ hear all ten, twelve living come up duh road, and a tousand ghosts. Duh sweetest Song you ever heard by far. Duh singers all singing, some with carry-drum playing, and I be dere with duh guitarristas. You come on down dancing and join us. Climb high up duh Ladder-to-Heaven. We’ll take you over Mevilla. Get you some lights like dese.”
A galaxy spiraled on the reggaezzo’s cheek, clotted at the center with stars algae-colored and luminous—he reached to touch one. And felt nothing but hot human skin, though his fingertips came away flickering green. He brought up the glimmers to his face, wanting to see them better, but the bright motes suddenly winged off his hand, back to the reggaezzo’s cheek where they’d been. The shock of it was like a roach scuttling away, then abruptly bursting into flight back toward your head. With a squeak and jump, he stumbled over some hairy half of broken coconut, and fell in the sand. The pretty reggaezzo lau
ghed, showing bright teeth. “Scared you, huh?”
As a keepsake of this night, he wanted to know: “What is your name?”
“Ain’t got one. Soon as you one of us, yo name just wash away out of duh world forever.”
“But what was it before? Your name back when you lived with your Mamans and your Papas?”
“I told you: I don’t know. The name missing and won’t be found. Like a wave come to duh beach last year, where dat wave now? If God know all things, She forgot my name. It’s just gone. Call me reggaezzo, call her reggaezza, if you want. We nothing else.”
The reggaezza leapt up, the poncho falling away, and she cried out, “I feel good! I feel good! Let’s go way over dere where it’s more room and brudder you just play me a fast song, a wild song, duh strongest song you got! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
She tore away through the crowd and the reggaezzo snatched up his guitarra and ran away after her. Stay put, Batalha had said, and those words pulled him back down, chained to that spot in the sand, or he’d surely have followed. He reckoned it was all right to reach over and gather back his poncho just lying there abandoned. So he did. Then a new thing stirred in him and the chains broke. Get in some trouble, she had said. He stood up.
“O ermano mio.” O my brother!
He looked back towards the cry and there came his sister staggering. She was bloodsoaked, awash in gore, the knife hanging from her grip and dripping, it was that wet.
“Batalha! They cut you? Where are you hurt?”
“Me? No. I’m fine.” Seeing the condition of her knife, she stropped off the wet black shine onto her ruined poncho, and slid the blade back in its sheath. “That other time I stuck the saltdog just a little and it was enough to scare him off.” Batalha sounded very sad, nothing like herself. “This dude though—he just wouldn’t quit. He wouldn’t go away. I had to cut him down stone dead.”
[Todas las noches]
[ ] saw the reggaezzi once before. He was too young to remember.
As a baby, at the Festival of San Maurizio: when the reggaezzi come down in force to give a show on the seafront Board. Then, Johnnys bring out their ailing loved ones, their sick of heart, their babies and any family grown elderly or close to passing. Great blessing will visit whosoever attends San Maurizio. No reggaezzi miss who yet live. If all are there, then surely those bereft parents in the crowd need only crane their heads, and blink away the tears, to catch a glimpse of their doomed youth, their child. Which one? What was his or her name? They no longer know—but perhaps the one on drums, or that other one there, dancing, had been theirs.
Savary takes him off the breast and turns him round. She sits him up on the shelf of a forearm. “There, [ ]! You see them?”
He cannot see much. Why won’t they let him down and free, to wriggle forward through the crowd as Batalha had? They’re all crushed among jostling hundreds back here, though nobody is frightened, so he’s not either. Certainly [ ] can hear the song. Sweet and powerful, a choir delves deep and soars high, all to the greater glory of one soloist, some apocalyptic soprano. Drumbeats, wild and precise, overwhelm the rhythms of his own heart and breath; in time, ecstatic, [ ] shudders, held perched to Savary’s breasts. But glimpses are few and far between, as are the gaps among arms and backs and shoulders of the crowd. There’s nothing much to see, really, save occasional flashes of green light.
“Mamita, really now! How’s the baby supposed to see from way down there? Give me him.” Jahs lifts him away and up, a full foot higher to her shoulders where at last there’s some bit of view. Those gorgeous lights belong to people. Green glow freckles their skin, and some great master, perhaps the music itself, exerts sublime puppetry on the abandoned leaping of their bodies. Still, he can only see top halves, only torsos.
“More, more!” [ ] beats fists atop the head against his belly, punishing its offensive and inadequate height.
“Baby, stop. What are you doing? What’s the matter with you?”
Jahs’s chief attributes are goodness, clarity, and strength. The thing called for now, however, is stature.
“Papa, up up!” he shouts, stretching his hands toward Redamas: much the tallest being in the crowd, and from whose shoulders, once [ ]’s hefted there on high, the vantage is astounding.
Grace is down here, available to the flesh for embodiment at every single moment. These wonderful creatures are showing him how to do it! Wildly [ ] sobs, shaking his head, wrapping his arms tight about Redamas’s brow, when Jahs reaches to lift him down for mothercomfort. “No no no,” he screams. I want to “see!” I want to “see!” Beauty’s only ever a soft thing? It never harrows?
“Woman—ow. Why are you hitting me, Jahs? Don’t hit! You see the boy is holding on for dear life. He wants to watch.”
“Man, my baby is crying! You hand him down to me, Redy, or I will cut you like a pirate right here in the streets!”
On My First Reading of The Einstein Intersection
Michael Swanwick
There is a hollow, holey cylinder running from hilt to point in my machete.
Samuel R. Delany, The Einstein Intersection
The novel began with a lilt of alliteration, a half-hidden sexual pun on the holiness of holes, the promise of a plot that would run some unspecified gamut to its endpoint, and the metaphoric conflation of music, violence, and work in the description of a tool which was suited for all three and was thus a stand-in for the as yet unintroduced protagonist. There was quite a lot going on in those first fourteen words. It was a young writer’s sentence—exuberant, leading with the chin, aglow with the joy of a newly-mastered facility with words. The unlovely adjectival “holey” broke the easy laminar flow of words, tugging at the reader’s mind and grabbing it down into the gutter of language, demanding that one pay closer attention not only to what was said but how.
Samuel R. Delany was twenty-five when The Einstein Intersection was published and I was seventeen.
I was living in Seven Pines, Virginia, at the time, just outside of Richmond, in a cockroach-haunted rental in a cookie-cutter development surrounded by a gothic Southern culture alien to a boy from small-town Vermont. My father had contracted early onset Alzheimer’s and was in the process of losing all that made him human. As a direct result, I had surrendered my lifelong ambition of becoming a scientist and now aspired to literature. John Gardner has written that writers are hurt into being. Certainly that was true of me. I read books with a savage hunger not for escape and entertainment, important though those were to me, but for information I could use to teach myself the art of fiction.
No single book fed this hunger better than The Einstein Intersection.
The novel was slim, 150 pages or so in paperback original. A biographical note, which I read last, mentioned that Delany’s first novel was written when he was nineteen, and that this one was composed “primarily during a year of travel in France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and England.” His condition could hardly have been more different from mine. Most of my reading material then came from the library or used book stores, but, this book being new, I probably bought it off a revolving wire rack in a drug store.
On a day otherwise lost to memory, I began reading.
The first chapter was a scene-setter establishing an ambiguously bucolic world, liberally dropping hints—many misleading—about the nature of that world, and introducing various characters. On the prose level, I could see that Delany’s most elaborate sentences with their eye flakes of sun on water or belly pulsing out from the sides of him, leaves flicking each other above were allowed to soar only so far before being brought back down to earth by a no-nonsense line like Anyway, not only do I bite my fingernails disgracefully, I also bite my toenails.
Alerted by that opening sentence, I saw that these alternations allowed greater freedom on the figurative side while letting the unadorned prose do its work of efficiently moving forward the plot without inviting the reader’s disdain, as merely-functional pulp writing so easily
(and unfairly) can.
The second chapter opened with a long passage from the author’s journal about the difficulty of writing the very book I was reading. Which was a matter of particular interest to a future writer such as myself. The excerpts and quotations heading each chapter formed a meta-commentary on the novel, alternately claiming the mantles of poets and intellectuals and mocking itself with, for example, the commercial slogan: Come ALIVE! You’re in the PEPSI generation!
This mixture of high and pop culture extended into the narrative, where the common religion was based on rock and roll and the Beatles were explicated as avatars of the Orpheus myth. At a time when the question of how long they would last—pop careers were notoriously evanescent—was a commonplace, this was prescient. (Though Janis Joplin or Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix, in the event, would have filled the role better.) Spike Jones, a musician who made a career of lancing musical pomposity, could not extend his material into the era of rock, he said, because it was a genre that refused to take itself too seriously.
My heart rocked. My heart rolled. Similarly, Delany’s prose wasn’t afraid to mix the profound and self-mocking. This was very much a Sixties thing. But in TEI, its function was transparent.
Midway through the book, there was a scene which made obvious a quality, or perhaps lack is the better word, consistent throughout the novel. Lo Lobey, having taken a job as a dragon herder, arrived at an anticipated destination, an intersection in the ruins of an ancient city.
Here’s how it was set:
The sky was blue glass. West, clouds smudged the evening with dirty yellow. The dragons threw long shadows on the sand. Coals glowed in the makeshift fireplace. Batt was cooking already.
“McClellan and Main,” Spider said. “Here we are.”
And that was it. No broken glass crunching underfoot, no smell of ancient PCBs leaching out of the sand, no reflection on a single shard of marble the size of a thumb—the nose, perhaps, from a shattered statue—sticking out of the sands that stretched lonely and lifeless to the horizon. These things weren’t even implied.