Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Yes, sir. He left quite an impression.

General Bethune looked up at Perry Oliver as if in seeing him so clearly now he couldn’t doubt his presence two years earlier. He returned the invitation, and Perry Oliver returned to his seat. Then you met the family?

Yes, Perry Oliver said. It was strategic common sense for him to avoid inquiring about the son or daughters’ well-being. Familial matters formed no part of their conversation. The two men were feeling each other out for worldly motives.

Cholera laid out half the porkers in this county dead, General Bethune said, and almost as many niggers. And my wife too.

Such misfortune, Perry Oliver said.

General Bethune frowned as if Perry Oliver had cast a deliberate slur against his family. Life would withhold no misfortune from any man. Perhaps you’ve been spared your due up to now. I’m convinced that defeat starts from inside. It has to first get inside you before you can be conquered.

I suppose that’s why I’m here, Perry Oliver said. We both want the same end. War.

How often have I urged this very same thing.

When the day comes, you will have public duties to perform, even if they are not directly on the battlefield. You can do without needless distraction. As for your son, he being one of same blood and like mind and disposition, he will feel compelled to serve. In fact, we must all contribute to our cause. Our niggers should not be free of these obligations.

Go on, General Bethune said.

At the least they should earn their keep. Niggers are built for work, not charity. You expressed this very same sentiment only moments ago. As he spoke, Perry Oliver struggled with a somewhat comical sense of embarrassment and shame at such (his) obvious spectacle and manipulation, squeezing out the words with jerky constraint.

You have no idea what you’re asking. Though we’ve been hard at training him, Tom is only a few degrees from the animal.

I understand fully, sir.

I doubt that you do.

Trust me, sir. I’ve given it deep thought. I have at my service expert men of music, Europeans, who will help to the extent that it is possible to polish and develop Tom’s crude skills.

General Bethune was quiet for a moment, thinking it over. Let me ask you something.

Sir?

Even if all you say is true, what makes you think that you are the most capable man for the job? Do you not think that others have approached me with the same offer?

Perry Oliver could think of nothing to say at first. This General Bethune was sharp. Perhaps the injury or illness that hastens the aging and deterioration of the body retards and preserves the mind. Perhaps he had underestimated his opponent and left himself ill prepared. How many hours had he rehearsed this meeting in his head? Working under such difficult conditions he had experienced one hour’s labor as two or three. Perhaps the hard work made him feel that he had put in more time than he had — reality remains reality, an hour is only an hour — as each task a man completes is like a whole lifetime and with each little life a man pieces together an entire history. So he sat in silence, half in desperation, half feeling like giving up.

I am putting myself at your service, he said. If you know of another who is both capable and willing to take on this task, I will respectfully withdraw my offer.

What are the terms? General Bethune asked.

The question took Perry Oliver with shock and surprise, coming as it did so quickly and so casually after the General’s former hesitancy, these feelings thrusting outward into something else, excitement — yes — as if the doors to a treasury were suddenly thrown wide open to him. He sought to ease his body and slowly withdraw the expectant look from his face — a tremendous undertaking. I will pay you fifteen thousand dollars over a period of three years, at the conclusion of which you will be fully expected to review my performance so that if my services have failed in any way you will be free to cancel our agreement.

With clear disbelief, General Bethune smiled into his face. Who was this far-fetched and shameless confidence man? Such nerve. Such gall. He would not have been surprised if this other demanded he produce two coins of silver as proof he was not a total pauper.

I am prepared to pay you five thousand dollars upon signing of the contract, even should that signing be today.

General Bethune seemed to study those words carefully. Perry Oliver felt triumphant, knowing fully well that only a fool would turn down five thousand dollars for a blind, crazy nigger.

You have done an excellent job in laying out your case, General Bethune said. It would be uncouth of me to refuse you. Come to the offices of the newspaper tomorrow. My lawyer will be present. We will sign and notarize whatever documents are necessary to put Tom at your disposal.

With those words some force in Perry Oliver’s mind absorbed, reduced, and crystallized all that had preceded into a black reflection casting a single image, the only image he could see later whenever he gazed at it, always there in the dark of his memory: General Bethune struggling to position his black canes and raise himself out of the chair, like a fledgling bird leaving its comfortable nest to test flight for the first time. Sound came from far away like a lost language, nonhuman speech: I will have Tom delivered to you in accordance with a mode of transportation you find suitable.

With that General Bethune turned with a distracted air — perhaps this too was recorded for posterity — like one who suddenly remembered something that needed immediate attention, and left the room. Perry Oliver stood up from his chair, unsure at first what had just happened. His visit was clearly at an end.

It would figure that he and Seven left the house and headed for their taxi, still waiting on the road. We met a general. Even under the high columns of oaks the sunlight fell so strongly that he narrowed his pupils and saw nothing but glare. Little did it trouble him. We met a real general. In fact, light and heat began to dissolve into fragments and sink into the ground. Seven entered the taxi but Perry Oliver did not, somehow forgetting that this was an action he should also perform. He continued on through the wooded area on the other side of the road, seeking an explanation from the trees. For he could not explain it, did not know how to explain it. What he had planned came to be. It was flatly inconceivable. Nothing like this had ever happened in the world before. He touched his body all over, sensing a new anatomy. Felt two hearts beating inside his chest. He took pleasure in the discovery. He went around the trunk of one tree, raised one foot — left or right? — to step over a log and found himself putting it back on a moving floor, seated as he was beside Seven in the taxi, experiencing pure joy as he traveled along the hard road in late autumn, in an uncomfortable bumpy carriage.

I met a general, Seven said. It’s only the beginning. Just watch. He gazed off into the distance. One day I’m gonna come back and buy this city and stuff it in my shoe.

Seven had been cutting marks into the table again. Only yesterday with tremendous effort of wrist and elbow Perry Oliver had managed to sand the previous marks away, and applied a touch of varnish to restore the original appearance, and now they were back, deeper, plainly visible from across the room where he stood. A long splinter of wood had actually come off from one corner. Despite what he saw before him now Perry Oliver was willing to give Seven the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the lines (figures?) were accidental, the necessary product of Seven’s daily cleaning and tidying up, like the smudges he often noted on the surface of the few other items of furniture they possessed. Perhaps he was not standing close enough to the table for an accurate assessment. He spit on his thumb and tried to rub the marks away. No doing. Incisions indeed. Permanent.