Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

He had only just entered the apartment, greeted by the sound of Seven’s excited voice reciting the latest newspaper dispatch humming with the distant and happy echo of Paul Morphy’s victories from across the Atlantic. Seven and Tom remained seated at the table drinking hot chocolate, candle flickering — all things are born of a single fire — shadows booming up behind them, the boys lit less by the small candle than by the shimmering surfaces of cup, plate, and spoon. They did not acknowledge his arrival, although they must have heard him enter, heard lock opening and door closing. Seven partially hidden behind the open halves of his newspaper, and Tom plainly in sight next to him. Only when Perry Oliver reached the corner of the table, angling into Seven’s line of vision, catty-cornered, no mistaking him, did Seven look up from the journal, long enough to pause in his reading, but he evidenced his employer without surprise or astonishment, observed him walk to one corner of the table to inspect it, and simply went on with his monologue, voice rising and falling, hurrying up or slowing down, in a haughtily adult tone to an apparently passive and indifferent (we assume) Tom — so still he could be asleep; in fact, he often fell asleep in this position, especially after a meal (usually a heavy supper, several helpings of meat and milk), fully dressed, and sitting erect at the table, head held up, until a telling flutter escaped his lips, and Seven roused him enough to lead him off to bed — who remained perfectly still, eyes closed and face free of expression, as unknowing as the objects before them on the table.

Perry Oliver listened to Seven, each word an unmooring, taking him further and further away from his own thoughts that he wanted, needed to hold on to. (Words would keep him.) Nothing he required more than some silence after a full day of planning and work. (In his dealings with the world the two were the same.) But every evening when he returned home Seven wouldn’t afford him such escape, intent on sharing with the world (Tom) the latest news about the “New Orleans Sensation,” in a voice that gave glory to a flesh-and-blood deity constructed out of black ink crowded onto cheap paper.

All in all, Seven took great delight in delivering news good or bad. He would have wrong news rather than no news at all. The afflicted had sought out Perry Oliver to inform him that Seven, upon reaching his destination to deliver a message, would draw out the pleasure by asking the recipient teasing questions or, to the recipient’s considerable surprise, bowing his head in concentration, pretending that he had forgotten the message, or by searching his pockets, having (pretending that he had) misplaced or lost Perry Oliver’s note. Once the maneuver took effect, he would finally get around to relaying the message. And at those times when he returned home with a reply to the original message, he tried to hold on to it for as long as possible, searching his pockets — now, where did I put it? — until finally turning over the note trembling in his hands.

He had to resign himself to Seven’s quirks and concerns, and his occasional lapses in performance — the logs had been crudely hacked despite their deceptive arrangement into neat stacks; the outlines did not hold — and disturbances and delays. Even on the rare occasions when the house was noticeably untidy he voiced no complaint, for Seven tended Tom with expert care, with knowledge and command, perfectly present right down to the hands-on and messy task of regulating Tom’s hygiene, not the easiest of jobs.

Seven wasted no time in offering his opinion of the improbability of Morphy’s ever losing a match.

Fire, Tom said.

No, Seven said. Not that kind. A contest. A tournament. A series of games. He returns to his reading.

Though the ward where they lived was colorless and dull, for Seven the large bright world began only a few blocks away at the general store where he purchased the newspaper, the Watchman —cities of glittering words — each afternoon. It had taken him only a few minutes of reading to discover how Paul Morphy was connected to his life. In Morphy Seven discovered the model example of an intellectual and social development he admired, and given favorable circumstances, he himself might one day achieve. Paul Morphy the destiny he had assigned himself, the appointed end. He was always speechless at first after he completed his reading of the report and his patient inspection of the illustration. With somber authority he would place the journal flat on the table and raise his head and stare off into space. After some moments of this he would look down at the journal, studying it like a map. A prearranged and agreed upon action, clue (Perry Oliver suspected) that always set Tom’s mouth moving, elicited a flat and spiritless recitation of the dispatch word for word. Then talk came more easily, Seven asking (demanding?) that Tom recite the report from the day before, and the one before that. Paul Morphy, Seven, and Tom — a drawn-out affair. Day in and day out, the boys under Morphy’s spell.

It turned out, Perry Oliver felt strangely touched to see them together like this. At moments he observed them bent over laughing together at the table, laughing as only boys can. More than once he had seen them embrace like brothers, Seven taking the lead, leaning into the other under his charge. And he often spied them sitting conspiratorially, showing no regard for the man who fed them both. (It is one thing to provide food for another person and quite another to be faced with the sudden, complex, and increased responsibility of providing for two additional mouths.)

Why can’t we get us a nigger? Seven said.

We can’t bear it.

I want me a nigger.

Can you feed one? Clothe it?

But he took continual pleasure in Seven’s development, his increased independence, the sharper differentiation of his mental apparatus into various agencies, the appearance of new needs (food, chess, Paul Morphy). Seven employed precisely the energy Tom had set free in him. (What those under our care bring out in us.) How to repay that?

My dear chess master Herr Löwenthal, Seven said to Tom, your play is very good, and worthy of a great master, but as to beating Morphy, don’t dream of it.

Tom didn’t seem to hear or notice.

You must have too much time on your hands, Perry Oliver said, if you can find nothing better to do than sit there babbling nonsense with Tom.

Seven didn’t respond to the accusing observation, both of them aware that his hands held plenty, time included, that he put in a full day’s work — Perry Oliver had made it clear that Tom must never aid him in any form with the household chores — and this form of play — whatever you might call it — was a necessary pause, a gathering of strength for the other chores to be done around the house today and the next day. With the exception of the three or four hours when Seven guided Tom down to Scaldy Bill’s Drinkery and Eatery to play the piano — the nearest piano Perry Oliver could find, a fortunate arrangement as owner William Oakley charged him nothing, their patronage (breakfast, dinner, supper) of his establishment pay enough — Seven and Tom remained indoors. Perry Oliver insisted on it. (Assume that Seven followed his instructions to the letter. No evidence to the contrary.) As much as possible, Tom should stay within the confines of their apartment — confined? he couldn’t call it that — so as not to offend the sensibility of other persons in their house or on the street. Look at that misery. But by the grace of God, that could be me. Blind and a nigger. Count my blessings. Perry Oliver was not insensitive to their misfortune, but this is the way it must be. (Soon enough the public would get to see as much of Tom as they could stomach.) Before he departed each morning, Perry Oliver reviewed the measures Seven should take in the event of his unexpected or prolonged absence or in circumstances of injury or illness. But even this review was grounded in the many months of thorough preparation that preceded Tom’s arrival from Hundred Gates. Perry Oliver had put Seven through a rigorous apprenticeship. As a rule, each morning he would assign the boy a lengthy and detailed series of errands and tasks to train his memory, put it to good use. A test for the body too. (Fair to say that he was the first person to introduce Seven to axe and saw.) Put Seven out on a limb, to both measure and increase the level and range of his ingenuity and skill. Would he fly and survive or would he fall prey to either earth below or danger from above? Undeterred by his tough initiation, Seven never uttered a word of complaint about hard work — he still didn’t — saving his back talk for other matters.