Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Tabbs removed his hat, pinned it between his left elbow and hip, and entered a dimly lit hall floored in elegant tile. Though he was exhausted, he started up the mahogany stairs with force and energy, the wood squishing under his feet. The stairs seemed to have suffered the worst for the humidity, soft, the wood pressing in like cake, Tabbs cautious now, unsure if the steps might not give way altogether beneath him. At the third-floor landing he saw a door left partially open at one end of the hall, and headed for it. Found a mahogany door hinged into a frame made out of cedar, with a large stained glass window depicting a coat of arms fit into the door’s upper half, and above it a brass plate engraved with the black-lettered name Simon Peter Levi Coffin IV, Esquire.

Tabbs leaned into the angle of opening and saw fifteen feet away Coffin seated bent over, gazing at some papers on his desk, pen in hand — the figure in everyday circumstances — late-morning sun entering the large room from two ample windows facing the street. Tabbs stood watching, took the time to observe, study what he could, unnoticed. This act of exclusive and privileged seeing both natural and possible because it was well-practiced, for Tabbs did (does) not view himself as one who was conditioned by — the system, the institution of — conventional intelligence. The room impressed the visitor as a place to conduct business just as it impressed the viewer as a place to exhibit a handful of choice artifacts. Scrolls hanging from the walls and a green (jade) vase mounted on a pedestal in one corner, a red (jade?) in another. Dozens of books neatly stacked near the fireplace. And papers of various sizes and description inserted in little wooden hold-alls nailed into every available space in the walls, papers that Tabbs assumed were legal files and correspondence, letters, memos, telegrams, and briefs relating to the countless cases Coffin had represented. He leaned back into the hall and tapped on the stained glass window to announce his presence.

Enter, please.

He did so unmolested. (How had he even made it this far? Reasonable to expect the lawyer to be under the protection of a personal armed guard, even his own small private band of protectors and defenders.) Face raised, the lawyer watched him enter. Stood up from his desk, smiling good-naturedly, an unmistakable man of modern height with a look of the world about him, broad shouldered and rather thickly proportioned around the waist but by no means portly or flabby (fat). He was dressed not only decently but stylishly — light (material and color) summer jacket, a linen shirt under a light-colored waistcoat, light-colored and loose-fitting trousers, and cordovan shoes from New Orleans. Tabbs saw — can see still, will never forget — in his whole impeccable figure something at once noble and ridiculous.

You must be Mr. Gross, the lawyer said with a puzzled look (so Tabbs thought).

Yes. I’m Tabbs Gross.

The lawyer leaned forward across his desk and extended his hand, and Tabbs leaned in and took it, catching the faint scent of sweet perfume.

Have a seat, Mr. Gross.

Tabbs sat down on one of two curved-back chairs positioned before the desk. Looked up and noticed a third window five feet behind and above the lawyer, lending just enough light to make visible dust drifting across the cedar panels that lined the roof.

The lawyer sat down. Well, Mr. Gross, it was good of you to come.

Sir, it was good of you to grant me an audience.

How else could we have it? Did you travel well?

Yes, sir.

I’m delighted to know that. Could I fetch you some water?

No, Tabbs said. He really wanted something to drink, his insides on fire.

Tea? Coffee? Lemon water?

I decline.

The lawyer was quiet for a few moments, maintaining his welcoming smile, a silence that gave Tabbs his first opportunity to really study the man sitting before him. With his somewhat wavy shoulder-length gray hair — waves tinged with blond streaks as if gilded, which shifted with a supple movement and brushed his shoulders when he turned or lowered or raised his head — his big-pored forehead, slanted eyelids (Mongolian fold?) that partly obscured his eyes and pupils, and heavy worm-thick lips, the lawyer looked entirely unlike himself in both the handful of well-known illustrations and caricatures — the lawyer swims the Atlantic Africa-bound with a pyramid of watermelon-eating slaves frolicking on his back — and the singular daguerreotype — that he had clearly sat for several decades earlier and that were so often reproduced in the newspapers. The way he leaned forward in his seat, his white jacket looked less like an article of clothing he wore and more like some independent object riding his back. A white impression of the kind of man he was (is), a man completely at ease here as he would be anywhere else in the known world, a tortoise-like man carrying his own white country on his back so that wherever he was he felt (and kept) quite comfortable and at home.

Tabbs (sneaky-eyed) spied the missive he had mailed two months earlier — he recognized his own handwriting — atop a pile of papers positioned exactly in line with the left desk corner edge. For some reason the desk, worn and sturdy, seemed out of order, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on the why, the source of dissent.

I’ve looked over your letter, Mr. Gross. Coffin took up the document he had been reading — his hand reddish on the outside, brownish on the inside — and placed it on top of a stack of papers, then took the letter and moved it to the cleared space before him.

If I may, sir. I’ve taken the necessary move of adjusting it. Tabbs removed the new letter from his jacket pocket and placed it directly over the old, properly flat so that the lawyer might begin reading it. Please, sir. My apologies, but this letter before you now provides a detailed description of the case and is therefore a far more accurate accounting.

The lawyer said nothing at first, but continued to sit leaning forward in his chair, studying Tabbs, his eyes aglitter, avid but cautious, weighing the possibilities. Hard for Tabbs really to look the man directly in the eye, but he somehow did. I did. Finally, the lawyer said, Then I must, Mr. Gross. He lowered his line of sight to the letter and began reading it.

Tabbs waited quietly and patiently. No point to a missive if he had to explain it, although he was (is) far the better man at speaking than at writing.

While Coffin read, Tabbs studied the many file-jammed cubicles constructed into the walls. Each box carefully labeled by month, day, and year in bright ink. These files represented a preservation of history dating back more than thirty years. On the desk Tabbs noticed a plainly bound (cloth) Bible positioned along the right desk corner spine outward so that anyone who sat in either chair before the desk could not mistake the title.

Coffin took up both letters, one on top of the other, and placed them on top of a stack of papers. Tabbs adjusted his body in his seat, trying to snap his mind clean, and hoping Coffin — the lawyer lifted his gaze to Tabbs’s face — couldn’t see any trace of his impulses and speculations. Mr. Gross, Coffin said, there is much here, much that is concrete. The words surprised Tabbs. Some note in the lawyer’s voice abiding with implication, the faint reverberation of secrets, facts withheld. Had he not spelled it all out in the new letter he had sweated over so?

I apologize for my handling of the pen, he said. Perhaps I wrote poorly. He sat awkwardly straight in the chair, like a man with his arms bound.

No, I would not say that.

You don’t understand the nature of my dispute? He had to admit, his writing hand was (is) fluid but perhaps a bit abstract. Never a word written as a commoner might say it.