Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Ah, so she had not lied. What luck. They seemed in a way to belong to the same thing, a brotherhood/sisterhood of sorts. So, is that what it is with Blind Tom?

Thomas. We call him Thomas.

Thomas. Of course. Tom. Of course.

Tom is constant wonder. And trouble too, much of the time. But wonder. Charm. Magic. To be there in his presence each and every day and witness it firsthand. Those gifts. Blind Tom. Come and get your miracle. To see that. It’s everything else that turns you inside out. Spectacular disasters. Mundane upsets.

He took some time to explain.

Earlier that day, he had suffered through a “brunch” with the boy’s publisher. A game of extraction, he called it. The numbers never add up the way they should. One would think that Tom’s fame would be reflected in thousands of sales of his songs. But we seem to sell fewer and fewer songs each year, even as the list of publications gets longer and longer. Can you imagine the bother of trying to keep that in order, under your thumb? In fact, you don’t press for payment. You feel rather happy to be cheated. A strange trade-off.

From what I’m hearing, much of the daily business goes through your hands.

Yes.

So what does Warhurst do? What is he around for?

Sharpe said, He takes care of the performance. I take care of Tom — said, staring straight in her eyes as though expecting a response since the distinction was perfectly clear.

She did not know what to say in return.

Then his eyes brightened as if charged by her confusion. (He’d gotten that much from her.) You will hold this against me, he said. He turned his face away. I look after my family’s most profitable investment.

How solicitous and civilized those words sounded despite their meaning. Until then she had never thought of him as a slave owner.

But what am I really telling you that is news? It’s rather simple. I look after Tom.

She could not make herself utter the words burning inside her mind. It is wrong, an evil.

Then again I’m being unfair. They own him. My father, my mother, my sisters. Where am I in any of it? I was born into this wound.

She was surprised at the intensity of his dismissal, dislike.

At least that’s what I tell myself. Of course, I can reel off another half dozen ways of looking at it, all equally valid.

Did he expect her to supply those ways?

Perhaps I’m just a coward. A useless one at that.

She saw the way he tightened his lips, the way words fell from his mouth.

There is an even worse possibility. Perhaps I have the nature for it.

Grudgingly, she took in this admission, trying to determine to what extent it mattered, how it would shape whatever it was that was developing between them. She wondered if he thought his confession somehow legitimized everything. Wondered, too, if he felt entitled to her empathy, automatically expected her to forgive him his shortcomings because he was smart, rich, powerful. She asked, Where are his parents?

He is alone.

Wanted to ask him what exactly had happened to the boy’s parents, but she did not. What was the point of thinking about it all if the most it did was raise ugly fact or speculation? She was already considering the least hurtful way of untangling herself from the topic, not because he had won her over — too soon to say — only that what he had already said was a beginning.

The first appearance of water halted their conversation. They had reached the man-dug and — filled lake at the park’s center and now decided they’d walked enough. (The spot she originally had in mind was still some way off.) They sat down beside each other on the grassy ground at the very edge of the water, verges churned by the feet of animals, paw impressions — trails with no beginning or end — set and hardened in evidence. (Hopefully no droppings or urine.) A good mile in circumference, the lake glistened like a gigantic silver coin, sun lying on the water in manifold glittering, water trembling soft impossible light, composed silence, no sound but for furtive cracks (trees) and urgent scurrying (animals), the smell of fish strong, leaping out at them — all told, a scene marked by expectation. Nature making itself powerfully felt.

Now a dhow was on the lake, its triangular sail slanting forward like an oversized shark tooth cutting through water. She was disappointed — why? — to see a second then a third sleek brown-white form on the lake. Watched the sharp sails drifting by and thought how fragile they were, not in the least knowing if this were true.

Some yards off, an animal came to the water to drink.

I expect to be anywhere but here when my father arrives, another state, another country, circling the rings of Jupiter — anywhere other than here when he starts making a fool of himself with his war talk. One should know how to behave in another’s house.

So there was a rift. Was she ahead of herself again? Pardon my mentioning him, she said. Of course, his reputation is so often put before us. The entire city is awaiting his arrival.

You are innocent of any wrong. I would be suspicious if you had said nothing. He dropped his head and stared at the ground with an expression of immense satisfaction. She was only now noticing the strangeness of it, how awkward he looked sitting there, his collarbones jutting out like mountain peaks. For as long as I can remember, my father has sought secession, separation. Five years ago, before anyone was talking war, talking seriously about the possibility, he raised the first regiment in our state out of his own pocket.

So you’ve heard much more than we have.

Yes, and for far longer.

The lake was bringing a change, making them lower their voices with the feeling its sight and presence stirred in them.

Had he wanted, he could have formed an army before I was born. Does that sound so impossible?

She watched a smile pull his mouth up at one end, a derisive look.

Well, it isn’t. My fellow countrymen suffer the pathology of ignorance. How easy it is to pull the wool over their eyes. All it takes is some savior or devil cleverly done up as a man of the people, an otherwise average man of learning and consequence who has been unjustly wronged and has no choice other than to fight for self, family, and country. If such a man told them the pope was an Israelite, they would believe it.

She didn’t know what to say. Could only imagine how hard it must be for him. Although she could not recall ever having seen his name or image in print — he remained ghost, operated from behind the curtain — the name Bethune surely fitted him like trouble, given his father’s celebrity and notoriety.

The hand (troubled) in closest proximity had found his hat, one finger flick flick flicking at the brim, as if testing if the hat were alive or dead. She wanted to reach out and touch it, to lift it off the grass and position it in place, then draw her hands away and let it settle onto the shelf of his forehead.

Where will you go? she asked.

Good question. Better near or far? What do you recommend?

She thought about it for a while, pretended to.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so eager to run. After all, his stay will be short, three days. That’s really not so long, is it? I might simply hide away, go underground. This city is vast.

She smiled. Well, if you do you can gain some practice in being my neighbor.

Yes I could.

They sat looking out at the lake, lost between sentences. Yet another vessel had taken to the water, a gondola, its driver aiming and sinking the long skinny oar, gliding gradually forward to join the other vessels, the lone canoe and compounded dhows. Almost as if the five vessels were competing, three totally distinct forms pitted against one another.