Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

She has trouble making her way through the crush of bodies, four or five rows deep, but polite requests, dexterity, and force eventually gain her the front and access to an even more impressive spectacle, a slow river of color flowing southbound down the boulevard. Negro soldiers on parade. Black, brown, and yellow skin enlivened by blue uniforms, the best blues embellished with white gloves and white leggings. They step bravely, heads high, bodies stiff, displaying a dignity of purpose even when a sleeve is torn, a cap mended, a cuff tattered, or a collar worn away. Their regimental flags (colors) swaying wildly above although there is no wind that Eliza can feel, the previous breeze stilled. Some soldiers ride high on horses. Counted among the hooves that carry men those that pull along cannons mounted on wheels. And the men to a one are fully armed with muskets, bayonets in place, holstered pistols visible in the belts of a few. Altogether enough firepower to set ablaze acres of white skin.

Her ears awaken in an explosive instant at the sound of a rifle, the first bullet fired. Surely a volley will follow. But no body falls dead. No one runs for sanctuary. And she realizes that what at first struck her as the absence of sound was only its denial, a vain effort by that white wall of bodies to cut off any and all evidence of these Negro soldiers to the listening ear and the observing eye. Only now can she hear the thud of boots, the smacking of hooves and the creaking of wheels, the straining of leather, the swishing of cloth and clanking of metal, the clatter of drums and calls of bugles and shrill of flutes.

The last soldier reaches the end of the boulevard and slips from sight around the corner with his compatriots, and the crowd moves as one body in curious pursuit of the Negro soldiers when they should be fleeing in the opposite direction. She simply stands and looks into one face after another, trying to read the emotions stirring there, their faces radiant with panic. Charmed by the piper, the entire city tags along to its doom. Is she fated to perish along with them? For surely the soldiers are here to enact their revenge against the city.

With no loss of speed or obvious sign of tiring, the soldiers make the many miles back to the harbor, where the big metal ships that had carried them hulk like resting whales, their guns the size of houses. The soldiers march the half circle of the harbor then start to travel north again, along Broadway, passing one canal after the next until they reach the southernmost entrance to Central Park. They enter the park and continue on to the Great Lawn, and only cease to move when someone shouts a command. A second shouted command brings them at ease.

Now the city beholds the third astonishing sight of the day. Tents pitched across the Great Lawn. Dozens if not hundreds of them. Flapping in the breeze, they seem perfectly at home. Even their canopies were a familiar shade of seasonal green. Not hard to believe that these tents have sprouted up through the earth of their own accord.

Then the sense of unease. She feels it, but she can’t be alone in her feeling, glad that they are feeling it too. (She sees it on them, hears it inside them, even for those who can only manage a murmur.) But it also feels good for some reason she cannot fathom to be standing as part of the crowd, as if she is one of them still. She mingles her surprise with theirs — why not? — even as she recognizes with new intensity just how alone she is, just how far the world has left her behind.

Her arms shiver in the coolness of the evening. Bare limbs bearing their loss. She adjusts her shawl and continues up the street, shadows gathering behind her, planning ambush. All along the avenue the gas lamps come on one by one. No cause to worry.

How will Tom greet the news? An invading army of Negroes. Victorious in one war and readying for another.

So much around her is untried or different that it takes her almost a half block to realize that she has passed the building where she lives. Making hasty return, she finds a man sitting on the front steps, wrapped in his overcoat. A Negro. She decides in an instant to simply make her way around his person as quickly as she can.

He takes to his feet at the sight of her. Mrs. Bethune? Eliza Bethune?

Who are you looking for?

Madame, I believe you are the reason for my call.

She stands watching.

My presence must be a surprise. Tabbs Gross. The Negro holds his hand straight out. She reaches and takes it, and he shakes her hand with the minimum of movement and force, like a bird alighting on the thinnest of branches. Mrs. Bethune, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. The Negro eases his features into a relaxed smile. He is tall and very correctly dressed. He is calm and dignified, a man who makes himself felt at once.

I don’t mean to excite you.

You haven’t. She rubs her hands up and down both arms under her shawl.

It pleases me to know that. I should make haste and explain.

You called once before? You were here back during the summer?

Well, I have expended considerable time and debt to find you.

She senses that he is pleased, he is delighted, he is glad, but he allows nothing of his feelings to appear on his face. Does he expect her to make apology for his troubles in locating her?

I’m sure you will find the purpose of my business most satisfactory to yourself.

Yes, Mr. Gross. I feel certain of that too. Kindly inform me.

Madame. You see, I’ve come for Tom. I’ve come to return him to his mother.

What could have prepared her for this response? Far easier to draw upon certain acceptable assumptions that might make quick work of explaining his presence here. A journalist. A soldier even.

You would have me believe that this mother is alive? He has no one, Sharpe said.

Yes, madame. Even as we speak she is resident on Edgemere, awaiting reunion with her son.

And she has been resident there for how long? Why is she not here instead of you? She can barely get her voice to work.

Madame, I fully understand your concern. You see—

She can see colors when the Negro speaks, this Tabbs Gross, colors, as if the seasons are moving in reverse and autumn is returning again. The circle ending where it began.

She takes two steps back and falls on the curb. Sits there looking up at the man, Tabbs Gross, afraid to talk, afraid of what might happen if her words hit air.

“God does not beget a child and then kill it.”

SHALLOW-BREATHING BODIES SHUFFLE ABOUT, FEET MAKING a way, making way. Some feet shod, others routinely naked. Ankles made raw, skin white with calluses. Dim shapes, both fact and becoming, who feel more in control, more hopeful than their eyes suggest, eyes bright and empty, the sockets weak, the orbs so frighteningly clear that they look completely disembodied, hovering in midair, that wild unsteady look of bewilderment and doubt offset by the intentionality of their presence, tangibly here and here for a reason, for the long haul. Tabbs sees the agitation in their faces, faces heavy with an expectation that cannot be put down. So assured, so much purpose, so determined — promised (a plot so wide so long; a beast of burden so young so strong), thought capable of, expected to — To your tents, O Israeli — bringing their hands tightly together in prayer to defeat Doubt, beseeching in bodies that are designed for activity far more vigorous than this, waiting, passing time, ready for the next thing although that next thing is uncertain, so they must keep holding on to God’s unchanging hand (for now) in a world that refuses to stay still. They move with the weight and speed of their own expectations, confidence (new) in the quick movement of their legs. Their once slow tongues up the pace too, stumbling into strange conjoinings of consonants and vowels, a metamorphosis that Tabbs has heard seen with his own skeptical ears and eyes — Tom’s mother speaks at double the speed he recalls her speaking in the South — even as he gets stuck in the thick speech of fresh arrivals, those just off the boat as it were, struggles to understand their muddy English, the thick drawn-out syllables, and the way certain words sink beneath sense altogether. Listen to them. The one the many. Here those who were not now are. Strays who have drifted up from the peculiar lands, customs, and institutions of the South, otherwise know as Freedmen, the freed who feel free and think free and talk free. Ripening so fast. Even the sun seems to lighten the color of their skin — however dark their eyes — new skin for a new race.