Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Yea, I tell you, if we die, it will be but a temporary farewell to this earth. Let me assure you that we will rise up some day from the ashes and come again. The two Doubles are looking at the congregation as if they are staring at something behind them, something that they can see only by looking through them. The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. Arise, O God. Forget not Thine enemies, for the tumult of those that rise up against Thee increaseth continually. Double’s tone is flat, so hostile that it lacks even the warmth of anger. Help us rain flesh upon them as dust.

Members of the congregation begin to fall to their knees in awe.

And let them eat, and be well filled, and die while the poisoned meat is yet within their mouths. Help us. We are become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

Preach.

Turn us again, O God, and cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. And render unto our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom their reproach. But fornication and all uncleanliness or covetousness, let it not be once among you. Each Double points a finger at the congregation. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting. And be not drunk with wine. No whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom. Let no man deceive you with vain words. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.

Go away, Satan!

Walk as children of light.

Satan!

Hold not Thy peace, O God, and be not still. For, lo, Thine enemies make a tumult. They hate Thee. Thine enemy places his mother, sister, wife, and daughter on a platform up among the stars, then this enemy gets a thousand swords, rifles, and cannons and decrees death to him who seeks to drag them down.

Tabbs tells himself, I will take Tom and leave. I must take Tom away from this place, from Edgemere, from the city. Tom and me gone by morning.

“The closer I’m drawn to God, the more things on earth lose their color and taste.”

SOMETHING IS SUCKING ELIZA IN, SUCKING HER INTO THIS country landscape, Eliza a city lady who holds a fit against the country but who now feels absolutely secure here. Go wherever you please. Look at whatever you please. Solace and delight in the honey-colored bales of hay dotting the landscape, the sacks of feed, the bushels of peanuts and firewood lining the road. Surroundings so rich she has to select senses.

She walks until the landscape slurs into darkness. And once it is dark she is inside the house in ten minutes. She can sit down, rest her tired soul, and let her hungry body fill itself. Night around her continues to be alive, her body porous to every noise, scent, and taste. The lovely swallowing of thick night air as it carves around her brain, cutting away any thoughts or memories she doesn’t want, leaving her with nothing but her lean anonymity. Glad to be cut off from the city. Not the slightest clue about what is going on there. Her final appalling days there enough.

Perhaps the events should not have proved as stunning as they did, however suddenly they came. One miscellaneous night she heard wild thunder and knew that people were going to die. Then in the days that followed, sky noises, abrupt light, and fires glowing in her windows like fireflies painted the complete details of scenes that she did not need to see, mobs hunting and hounding the way only white blood can, Eliza not quite believing that it was happening again.

Tom, how did you escape the mob?

Tom said, I went up in a chariot of fire.

She knows that she cannot return to the city. She is uneasy at the thought that this stay in the country is a return to a kind of beginning, a push back. (Sharpe. Tom.) She tries to shove away from the thought, but it stays suspended in her brain. What is she saying good-bye to?

You did not choose me. It was I who chose you.

She flames a lamp. Light pushes its way about the corners of the disintegrating roof. It had once been a nice house, with soft timber selected for the beauty of its grains. Now the house carries a faint odor of dampness. The beams in the ceiling look old and insecure, little monsters chewing up the wood from inside. She feels calm in a strange distracted way. Lingering in this wayside place where new emotions enter her. Thinking (what else?) about black days and nights in the city where she would wake early each morning, the pain in her head on again.

What she wanted was something not far from herself, but she would not want to think her feelings out. Back home in the city, even before the violence, she would be overcome by such a sense of aimlessness and futility that she would venture out, purely in order to preserve an illusion of purpose, and walk about the streets with no particular destination in mind. In this way she got to see the city in her own good time. The streets always curiously empty, no explanation for it, unless — perhaps — half the population spent every day drowsing the hottest part of the day indoors. Only those few but serious faces returning her gaze. In the faces she would sense some terrible knowledge shared. Then one day she saw a man who looked like a beardless General Bethune walking freely about, crutches circling him, like a man rowing a boat on dry land. Peeking into the man’s silent face, she convinced herself that it was someone else entirely. That was when she knew she had to get out of the city, alone there in her apartment, no Sharpe, no Tom, only the piano. Convinced herself that she had to go to the house in the country, for the outside world in the city had become so painful for her that she could no longer stand to be in it. And then the violence came.

Walking around the house she sees only lifeless objects. She is the only crazily alive thing in the house. She will always stand outside, against herself, searching for that something inside that can break down her despair. (Why?) Daylight remembrance of words said and events that happened far apart, now no longer separate but pushed into each other. (Bath. Lait. ) Her days will be filled with more broken things. Any reason she should think differently? This is what she has. This is what I have.

Some nights when she sleeps, the long day behind her, she hears Tom speaking inside her, speaking in a voice that does not sound like the one she remembers — but why does it sound familiar? — and speaking words she doesn’t remember him saying. She does not resist. Indeed, she lets it happen, forgetting who she is for a time to become him. Sleeps on serenely. No one has heard these words, it seems, but her, a rare luxury:

The doors spring open. The people enter. The music flies up. Breath stops. I am what I am. A what and a who.

Go down belowdecks then climb back up top into sunlight and noise. Look, Blind Tom! What seeing is.

They choose me. I cannot choose them. What seeing is. A hand touches my shoulder. A voice comes into my ear. Each person is a surprise.

People see me. Even when I cannot feel them. (Will you look after him? Please look after him. Please walk him back to the house. See to it that he doesn’t fall. See to it that he puts on the white suit.) I must be spoken to or touched. I must speak or move. Draw water. Drawing with hands. What is “deep”? How high is “above”? How much space is “wide”? Even there thy left hand shall lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. What is “tall” or “short”? “Ugly” or “beautiful”? Measure. What seeing is. Hot and cold I understand. Hungry and tired. Sleep and awake. They always think I am asleep. What seeing is.