Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Wade in the water

God’s gon trouble the water

(Yes, she had these thoughts.)

Once on land, she and Mr. Tabbs set off by foot for their destination, the Home for the Education and Edification of African Orphans. She walked the black length of her mind under a dark overcast day, tall curtains of fog hanging beneath dense low-hanging clouds that burned faintly red and black above as no sky she had seen before, the ocean a long flat cloth connecting the island to the horizon. Through the fog (inland) she saw the faint outline of houses silhouetted in the distance. She watched as the ocean started to pull its waters away from the island and restore several feet of borrowed shore, the dhows bobbing slowly back to land. In a counter cadence a thronging of fishermen started hauling in their nets, bright streams of wetness running over them as they pulled fist on water-logged fist. She kept closely in step with Mr. Tabbs as he took a path that turned into one tight street after another, each sidewalk part of a little valley pierced with pinpoints of light from the many candles that were already starting to be lit in the windows of two-story stone houses rising up on either side of them. Soon she caught her first glimpse of a donkey, the beast approaching her from the opposite direction, crates stacked on its small but powerful back and its head curled into its own shadow, but the animal still certain in its course. That donkey followed by a second then a third, each donkey raising its face to the others, breath passed from mouth to mouth, owner behind. Ah, the wonder of it all: ocean, island, dhow, donkeys, fishermen. But you’re free now, Mr. Tabbs said. She had tasted the sound of her new identity on her tongue and liked it so much she would call herself nothing else. Free. Emancipated.

The curtains of fog parted and the sun broke its chains and drifted from behind the clouds and found its place, a little bright island floating in the sky. For the first time she saw in full clarity the little green and yellow and pink and orange stone houses of Edgemere, and beyond in the middle distance a tower-like structure that she took to be — Mr. Tabbs pointed, There, he said — the Home set a good mile inland from the ocean in its own alien (an aloneness) terrain, a vast grassy plot, against a blurred background of trees (bleem). The Home hung (floated?) before her eyes, even as she flowed (floated?) toward it. So here she was— Here I am — plugged into this brave new world — where she is now, who she is now — her mind throbbing beyond language, beyond meaning. Thomas. Little Thomas. My Tom. Her eleven-year wait would soon be over thanks to the Almighty — all praise due — who had decided to make the impossible possible through His mysterious means.

Voices reached her even before she and Mr. Tabbs reached the stone fence that rose up from the ground ten feet into the air above them. Passing through the gate, she saw a wild constellation of orphans roaming in playful circles across the wet grass of the main lawn, boys and girls alike dressed in cheerful uniforms (black pants, white shirt or blouse with a length of red tie extending down the front), their voices singing through her skin.

Down, down, baby

Down, down, baby

Down by the riverside

Grandma, grandma sick in bed

She called the doctor and the doctor said

Let’s get the rhythm of the head, ding dong (Heads rock bell-like side to side)

Let’s get the rhythm of the head, ding dong (Heads rock)

Let’s get the rhythm of the hands (Two claps)

Let’s get the rhythm of the hands (Two claps)

She relished this dance that she had seen many times before. Would it be too much to say that she wanted to join them with her old arms, legs, and hips? She pushed to know. They scattered away from the macadam walkway on her approach.

Hey, Mr. Tabbs, sir, they said in one voice from both sides of the lawn. Did you bring us anything from the city?

He got some chocolate.

Some wine candy.

Turtles.

You eat that? That’s nasty.

Nawl. Some cracklin.

Nawl. Some Jumpin Jacks.

Candy cane.

It ain’t Christmas.

He brought the lady.

Who she?

Who you?

She a teacher.

Nawl.

Uh huh.

She his wife.

Nawl.

Uh huh.

No way.

Is that yo wife?

She his wife.

Shut up.

You shut up.

Their next words like their last. A calm Sharpened her as she looked at the face of each child. Carried by memory, she wanted to hear all their voices at once, even if she had to close her eyes to hear them. (What the heart believes it needs.) And even if some (many? most?) of the orphans did not speak the way she was used to hearing niggers speak, but instead, like Mr. Tabbs, vocalized their say with that new city (Edgemere?) way of saying, a tongue that was already starting to sound familiar to her ears. (Mapping language.) She could feel the movement of shared blood, theirs and hers. Why could they not remain one body? They were niggers after all, and every nigger was a slave — so she had been told for as long as she could remember — Africa a whole country full of slaves where woogies could go shop and take their pick. Blood was blood, even if, as she was to learn, Mr. Tabbs and some of the orphans had been born here, on Edgemere or in the city.

All of their humility drained away as they drifted around her, the ground saturated with their dance. Come on inside, Mamma. They wanted to look at her, touch her, get the closest look and feel that they could, eyes in their fingertips. She did not object; she was in thrall to all of them. She and Mr. Tabbs continued up the macadam walk toward the Home accompanied by dozens of rejoicing orphans, their dancing bodies bumping into her. A few minutes later they all moved as one through the dimness of a long wide corridor, the last rays of sunlight persevering in stained glass windows that she would later come to find in every room of the Home except for the chapel. Light shining through biblical scenes — Christ multiplying one dhow into a thousand, Elijah carried into heaven on a chariot of fire, and so on — in variegated pigments, a kind of red-yellow-blue combination (light interwoven) that stood out as the only color through the stained glass. (What Thomas cannot see you look at.) Little that she could make out amid the loose shadows on the rise (three flights of stairs? four?) to an upper floor, but she could tell that the Home was a formidable structure, sturdy and well built with the same thick stones that the other houses on the island were constructed from.

They stopped before a room on a floor of many rooms, the line of children behind Mr. Tabbs and her. Mr. Tabbs slipped one hand into his waistcoat and removed an iron ring that encircled a well-notched key, then slid the key into the door and unlocked it for her to enter, which she did, a little dazed by the speed of things.

This is your room, he said. I will bring your son. The look in his eyes made her feel strange. He took his leave, and the orphans followed him, mostly without complaint, waving their good-byes, feeling exactly the way they wanted to feel, the older children pulling the reluctant younger children along.

Not long after an orphan brought her supper, three fish sleeping side by side on a plate. She ate. Then the night came to shut her in anxious waiting. She felt the walls contract as most of the air in the room swirled around her. Could feel the walls pressing on her skin. She sank off to sleep. Little did she know, it would be one week before she would see Thomas.

Early the next (second) day, Mr. Tabbs called upon her with six or seven orphans in tow, carrying the dresses, blouses, skirts, gowns, stockings and undergarments, and shoes that constituted her new wardrobe. They filled her closets with the clothes and set her table for breakfast, then went away without a word. And Mr. Tabbs repeated what he had said the evening before, that he would bring Thomas to her.