Caryl Phillips - Dancing In The Dark

For I’m a Jonah,

I’m an unlucky man.

It sounds just like that old, old tale,

But sometimes I feel like a whale.

Why am I dis Jonah I sho’ can’t understand,

But I’m a good substantial full-fledged real first-class Jonah man.

My brother once walk’d down the street and fell into a coal hole.

He sued the man that owned the place and got ten thousand cold.

I figured this was easy so I jump’d in the same coal hole.

Broke both my legs and the judge gave me one year for stealin’ coal.

For I’m a Jonah,

I’m an unlucky man.

If it rain’d down soup from morn till dark,

Instead of a spoon I’d have a fork.

Why am I dis Jonah I sho’ can’t understand,

But I’m a good substantial full-fledged real first-class Jonah man.

At the darkest point of the night he wakes suddenly with a dry throat and a vague tapping in his head. A shaft of moonlight stripes the bed and for a moment he studies the interplay of light and shadow before deciding what to do. He knows that it will take him some time before he becomes accustomed to living uptown, above the park in Harlem, but he understands that the woman next to him has made the right decision. Slowly he peels back the sheet and eases himself out of the bed and down onto the bare floorboards. The new carpet has yet to arrive. He stretches and then pushes his aching feet into a pair of slippers that have been deliberately placed beside the bed for this very purpose. Once he reaches the kitchen he nimbly swallows the first glass of water, then he takes his time with the second. He leaves the kitchen and wanders into the drawing room and sits on the sofa. From here he can look out at Seventh Avenue and relish the solitude of a windy night whose peace is broken only by the odd carriage that clips by, or a passing stranger hurrying his way home after an illicit assignation. He draws his feet up and lies back, glass still in hand, and then he reaches over and gingerly places the glass down on the floor beside him. It is light when he opens his eyes, and daylight is streaming through the window and laying a dappled map on the floor. Somebody has placed a blanket over him.

. . .

She stands over him and clutches the blanket to her chest. She has never really spoken to her sleeping husband about Florence, but she has expressed regret that her three nieces are growing up with neither a mother nor a father, their only relative being an aunt who they don’t know. And he has listened to her, and encouraged her to bring the girls from East St. Louis to New York City, where they might have something akin to family life, but she knows that despite his protestations this is not what her husband really desires, for family life would be a distraction from his work. She carefully places the blanket over him and then she turns and leaves the drawing room. She had long ago convinced herself that to be touched was not that important, and she had imagined, as was the case with Mr. Sam Thompson, that once they were married he would choose not to press any serious claim upon her body. And being a gentleman, Mr. Williams has chosen not to do so.

He sits in nigger heaven and looks down at his West Indian son. At first he does not recognize him, and then, when he does, his stomach moves. This bewildered creature with a kinky wig, long ill-fitting white gloves, a shabby dress suit, oversized shoes, a battered top hat, sleeves and trousers that are too short, a mouth exaggerated by paint, this real funny nigger is his son? This coon with big eyeball-poppin’ eyes is his child? He now understands why the boy has suggested that his wife stay at home and recuperate from the seemingly endless train journey. What has happened to his Bert? His Bahamian son who would sit patiently with him for hours and study the manner in which chickens threw dust behind them with their webbed feet. Father and son were inseparable. And then he brought the boy to Florida, and then on to California, in the hope that his child might achieve an education in the powerful country to the north. But this is not his son. This Shylock. This grotesque simpleton shuffling about the stage who seems to be forever trapped in foolish predicaments. This buffoon. This nigger.

RAREBACK

What in the world did you ask all those questions for?

SHYLOCK

What’s the use of being a detective if you can’t ask questions even if you do know it won’t do no good?

RAREBACK

Well, Sherry, we’ll have to keep our bluff anyway, so we’ll go down to Gatorville, Florida, make old man Lightfoot think we are looking for the box he lost, and if we’re lucky, we may get a chance to get to Dahomey with this emigration society.

SHYLOCK

Say, man, have you got any idea how fast you’se carrying me through life? Ten minutes ago I was a soldier in the Salvation Army. Five minutes after that I’m a detective, and now you want me to be an emigrant.

RAREBACK

(

laughing

) Stick to me and after we’re in Dahomey six months, if you like it, I’ll buy it for you. I’ll tell the king over there that I’m a surveyor, and you’re a contractor. If he asks for a recommendation, I’ll tell him to go over to New York City and take a look at Broadway — it’s the best job the firm ever did, and if he don’t mind, we’ll build him a Broadway in the jungle.

At the curtain call, with applause thundering in his ears, Bert looks straight out at the orchestra stalls and bows deeply. He gracefully receives the noisy evidence of their approval. However, as he straightens up at the waist he realizes that his heart is heavy with shame, and try as he might he cannot bring himself to look up and acknowledge his father. Upstairs in nigger heaven.

He remembers the tall eleven-year-old boy whose father insisted that he still wear short pants, and who stared at the swath of foam that the ship was cutting into the tranquil waters of the Pacific Ocean as it edged a slow passage along the far coast of this new country. Above him the wind charged between the clouds, creating space for the lines of migrating birds who were returning north to where it was still cold and where snow clung stubbornly to the trees. The birds would soon realize their mistake. Back then young Bert discovered that he had no fondness for ocean voyages, and all these years later he remains uncomfortable when presented with only a watery horizon. These days he spends the greater part of his time downstairs in his cabin reading his well-thumbed copy of John Ogilby’s Africa , and his wife is content to sit with him and minister to his needs. Elsewhere on the ship, the members of the Williams and Walker organization seem to be raucously enjoying themselves for he can occasionally hear their revelry, but he prefers some measure of detachment. His wife has assured him that his company will not interpret his absence as a sign of either distance or aloofness, and that they will understand that he needs to rest, and so, during this saltwater crossing to England, he has seldom ventured out on deck. Handsome meals of various meats and vegetables are brought to his cabin on a silver tray, and sometimes, when the moon is bright and the ocean is unruffled, he and Mother will saunter upstairs, and cautiously slipping her arm through his, Mother will anchor herself to her husband and together they will promenade on deck. The white passengers know exactly who he is and they nod as the colored couple stroll by. After all, he is a man who is leading his own theatrical company — a man who has performed fifty-three times on Broadway.

Later, when alone in his cabin with his slumbering wife, he listens to the intoxicating rhythm of the sea. His toes stir for there is music in the light babbling of the swell as it laps against the hull of the vessel. He and his fifty so-called elite of coon performers have set out on a novel voyage for England, where Williams and Walker will present In Dahomey in the West End of London, and then tour the country with the production. Williams and Walker are doing well, and Bert has moved his parents into their own place and done everything he can to ensure that they feel settled in New York City, and he has made it clear to them that they must stay for as long as they wish. Relations between himself and his father remain somewhat strained, but neither one of them has found a way to address the troubling issue of the son’s choice of career. Embarrassment hovers, like an unwelcome visitor, between the pair of them, but nevertheless the son has bought his father a barbershop business on Seventh Avenue, only a few doors from his own home, and to begin with he would occasionally wander by the parlor for a trim and shave. Having taken up a seat in the waiting area he would look proudly at his father’s hands as they skillfully controlled both scissors and razor, and then it would be his turn to ease his way into the big leather armchair and sit quietly as his father pumped the metal lever with his foot and adjusted the seat downward. Having done so, the older man would tip the chair back, only slightly, but just enough so that the son felt helpless, and then he would produce his special pearl-handled razor. For a second the son’s eyes might meet those of the father and the doubt would return. Although neither of them had ever acknowledged the source of the discontent that now existed between them, the son understood that it was probably he who should broach the uncomfortable subject, but by the time he was ready to do so it was generally too late, for his pop’s slick hands would already be at work around the chin and neck, and the nature of the procedure meant that conversation was now impossible. However, whatever frustration his father was suffering from seemed to be safely locked away inside of him, and if silence was the price to be paid for the existence of a perplexing, but loving, peace between them, then the son was prepared to endure silence. Bert looks at his wife, who despite the gentle movement of the ship continues to sleep tranquilly with a hat fastened tightly to her head. He lights a cigarette and reopens his Ogilby, but he notices that his toes continue to dance to the music of the sea and it disappoints him that he appears to be helpless to arrest the nigger in him.