Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

I can’t say I see nothing wrong wit it, Mingo says.

She turns her head and stares at him in the dark.

The thing you spend your time at is what you are, he says. A hewer of wood is a hewer of wood, even if he spends all day fancying he’s some big-timer driving a carriage.

He continues to whisper to her. A man can spend all his day fancying he’s laid up in bed with the queen of England while lil Sally is the only flesh he knows. You are what you live. Mighty fact, I can’t see not a damn thing wrong wit it.

She is left to think. Yes, she wants to say, but will this be the last? How many Sundays? Thomas is chosen. The boy-mouth said that Thomas had been chosen. God had handpicked him. Like walking down a dark road, then somebody up and clobber you over the head. Chosen like that. How come nobody had chosen her?

A rapid gust of wind. Tom alone in the river tangled with fish, color washing across him. His mouth jumps and every few seconds his nostrils flare, breathing words and breeding air. How it is. See Tom leaning away. He scarcely disturbs the water.

Certain things even God can’t repair. In hindsight, looking back to piece it all together, Charity will recall it this way. The image of Mrs. Bethune piled up on pillows in her bed, her bloodshot eyes glowing in the hollows of her withered face, Mrs. Bethune upset to the point of sickness over her husband’s decision regarding Thomas. Go only so far, as Dr. Hollister has forbidden all to enter the bedroom, although no one can keep out Sharpe, who arrives from overseas even as others are trying to escape, hurrying along in poor light, cloaks wrapped around them, shifting shadows who seem to be whispering in foreign languages, even as General Bethune implores them to remain, because his wife is not long from the grave. Long legs, long boots, Sharpe will come up to Charity and ask for certain information with a penetrating glance, at once both skeptical and kindly — he stands up with real devotion when she enters the room — eyes and cheeks aflame, a little black mustache like a pencil balancing on his top lip. Days of this, sickness and questions.

Then, on an impulse, she heads down toward the river, and finds Thomas on the bank where the harsh water flows, a sight that both chills and excites her, just out of view herself, spying as Thomas piles up little stones to build structures that resemble towers. What she sees now before her she sees again. Had he not constructed such structures before? Had not her girls in fun or anger kicked them down?

She sees him rise and start up the bank. Sees him stop to embrace first one wet tree then another and still another. Embrace the air itself.

And then she sees her body embrace a new dress, a black garment that reveals her form, elongated in the sunlight. Her breasts sag and her stomach too. Holy sounds reverberate beneath her feet. True, this is another Sunday, but it is also a day like nothing else. Sun, heat, smell — she sheds these elements as they appear. Her family stands around, watching and waiting without seeming to look, masking their true intentions with lackadaisical ambling, taking advantage of the usual assumptions about their race, namely, that the observer will fail to see anything beyond a handful of niggers — one, two, three, four — on pause from their chores and activities, niggers lazing about as niggers are supposed to. Thomas emerges. Never before has she seen him so well dressed. The sight brings a clear sharp pause in her thinking, much like that day many years ago when she spied his legs sticking up like ladles from the tub. In one prolonged instant she sees the strange escort take Thomas’s arm and guide him by the elbow toward the carriage. Thomas. Almost not wanting to believe. Thomas. His face is trained on the carriage. Thomas. He picks up speed and almost leaves his escort behind, the grass unbelonging to his feet. Heat shimmer on the horizon. How can the world shine from that far away? There is less fear in her now. She is upset. Why try to hide it? How tell about it later? All of the fragments of her life collect around this one afternoon, meet at the point right there in the grass where her sweating feet are planted.

Domingo and the girls move forward to help Thomas up into the carriage. No need now to draw back or to be timid. He wrestles his arms and hands away and lifts himself up into the carriage unaided. She can’t understand. There is nothing to understand.

Get these niggers away from me, Thomas says. Pulls away as though he has never known them, carrying with him all the light and air.

“Sure, I been ripped off. I been cheated. But they gave me a name.”

FROM THE START PERRY OLIVER WAS BOTH BEWILDERED and annoyed by the noise of the fiddles, the lamps in the trees, the chatter of smartly dressed men, the medley of gaily colored dresses — mostly white cottons and silks done up with floral patterns — the clink of bracelets, the gold crosses and lace, the niggers in white jackets and pants scurrying about serving hors d’oeuvres ordered specially from New Orleans. In this garden setting, all the women exchanged kisses in the European style — Perry Oliver had never been to Europe — while the men seemed to take pride in their provincial accents. A few guests had even brought along their niggers to fan them cool.

Perry Oliver walked the grass lawn up and down by the neat rows of flowers, hoping that the fragrances of soil and stem might drown out the powerful odors of the overly powdered women. He exchanged a few words here and there, practiced being sociable when he had to — he felt not so much antisocial or shy as careful and opportunistic — using his routine that he was a tobacco planter from Savannah. I’ve heard that’s a nasty business. Terrible stains on the fingers. You’re much too young for it. Get out while you can. But perhaps it is wrong of me to criticize. I must admit, I do like a good smoke every now and then. Even as he talked, he was careful to observe the going-ons of the party through a watery shimmer of heat and haze. Men and women alike, the guests gave their hosts, General James Bethune and his wife, Mrs. Mary Bethune, inquisitive welcoming looks, each considering it was her or his duty to make some pleasant polite remark. The couple was standing directly in front of a white trellis with several varieties of roses blooming out. In contrast to the commanding presence of her husband, Mary Bethune was small and slight, pale and thin, with protruding collarbones. She was very willing to raise the most casual remark — Are these Negroes on loan? They are quite delightful — into a conversation, while her husband was quite content to let his wife do most of the talking, smiling here and there and responding to statements directed at him with expressive movements of his mouth and eyes. Hands in his jacket pockets — he seemed to have the habit of keeping his hands in his pockets — he watched his guests with a strange glow in his face, as if he possessed a certain strength that he thought they all lacked. When he did speak — He is a soldier, his wife said, that’s all he can say for himself — he expelled words in a deep voice like some stage performer as if he expected his booming words to knock the listener off his feet.

Mary Bethune was the first person to welcome Perry Oliver. She left her husband’s side — pink, white, and red roses blooming up behind his shoulders and back — and came over to Perry Oliver and introduced herself, offering him a white-gloved hand. He didn’t have one sentence ready in case she should ask him how he came to be invited to her party. (He had not been invited.) Taking evasive measures, he tried ingratiating himself, complimenting her on the house and the grounds and the servants and the food and wine. Well, she said. You are here to enjoy yourself. Let me know if it all meets your satisfaction. For now, I beg your leave, she said, but I must pay my respects to — she soon moved off to greet other guests.