Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

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 somewhere 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.

They struck out to the garden and followed a solitary side path speckled with blue moonlight, walking neither fast nor slow, without hurry or hesitation, space between their bodies, Tabbs put on edge.

Dr. Hollister curved his face back to hook a glance at Tabbs. You look like a man who wants to run.

Maybe I should.

That’s why I came. The General and I, we’re worried about you.

I should thank you.

My agreeable duty. We want you safe.

Tricks upon tricks, Tabbs said, speaking to the back of the Doctor’s head. He was on performance, standing on his head and hands, turning somersaults. You even look like the General.

A man can’t change what he is. He is my cognate.

The night hummed with the rasping sounds of insects. Everywhere in the garden, naked marble women glowed white from under the foliage. What was one supposed to feel here? Their eyes are upon me, and I am not.