Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

When we gon get us a nigger?

Seven, you make my head ache with your voice. Kindly close your mouth and let the hammer talk.

Perry Oliver seated himself at the table, sharp pulses from his lower regions making themselves felt. He removed some money from his purse — the exact amount, down to the penny — handed it over to Seven with instructions for him to run down to Scaldy Bill’s to pick up their daily supper, a whole leghorn hen. (The killing of a fowl does not give in itself a positive or negative answer.) Seven set the table before he departed, light and rapid as a bird. At once Perry Oliver regretted his absence — too late to catch him — as he was now left alone with Tom, his black skin part of the darkness, so that Tom seemed knitted into place, black threads. Often Tom assumed a pose of absolute stillness and silence, his face like some dead object on display, two closed eyelids carved in stone. And you the observer were a mobile subject before an ideal artifact (object). (Did Tom feel the full weight of observation? The object in all of its unappeasibility.) This was how you might see him sitting at the piano, so straight and still before he began playing. (The stability and strength of the spine.) And that was how he sat now. Or perhaps not, because Tom seemed to lean back into the darkness, plenty of space behind him, and it was only then Perry Oliver noticed that the table had been beautifully laid, glass and silver sparkling in the candlelight, as if in leaning back Tom had somehow pushed these objects forward into vision. Pitcher, candle, blue enamel pot unadorned (the barest table, no cloth to cover it) but striking and noticeable in their arrangement. Peach, pear, and plum in a bowl, each shape and color distinct. Seven was organized, not subject to improvisation, but his newfound knack for table design was almost certainly a talent he had inherited from Mrs. Rudge, although their stay at her hotel had been short.

Perry Oliver leaned forward in his chair and studied the grain of the wooden floor. Oak. Each knot in the wood like a miniature island. Isolated and alone. Was it this visual promise of solitude — the altering eye — that caught his attention, attracted him, drew him in? His line of work didn’t permit the possibility of severing oneself from the world. The fleshy cord never gets cut. The other’s skin was always linked to yours. Stay connected or die. A necessary dependence.

How many more addresses must he visit? How many more people must he meet? How much more in his quest to bring Tom to the stage? Walking in the street, he did not love the questions of strangers.

Excuse me, sir. Your nigger looks just like my boy Ned who expired a decade ago.

Or he heard his name from afar. Mr. Oliver.

Black buggies beetling to and fro against his crossing. White sails snapping in silence where he strolled along the bank to follow his thoughts, breeze coming off the water. Dark bordered the light’s collusive motion. What was clear in this complicated territory? (A handshake. A certain sigh.) What to guide him through the world other than his unfailing instincts?

What was keeping Seven? The mute life of an empty house. Perry Oliver whistled a tune he had picked up in the street earlier. Only his effort made the melody sweet. Tom whistled it back to him, sweeter. He leaned forward and ran his hand across Tom’s knuckles. Surprised at the heat of the other’s skin, each knuckle like a warm stone. Tom trembled at his unwanted touch but did not draw away. Perry Oliver cast a concerned glance at the child. So be it. (There is a time for picking up stones, but also a time for throwing them away.) Drew his hand back.

He tried another tune, humming this time, expecting its attenuated repetition. Once again the thought occurred to him that he would have to hire a knowledgeable musician to show Tom some tunes. A goal he was working on, little by little. (The correct words open, but the wrong words follow.) Nonetheless, he was intrigued at the ease with which he was able to enter an unfamiliar world and learn its customs and language — the random phrase, the odd word — learn who’s who, and what’s what, which authority to approach and which to skirt, this method allowing him to penetrate a little further each day. And even if he was mistaken in his evaluation, gave himself undue credit, it made no difference to the end result. A meeting was scheduled for tomorrow. Several in fact over the next few days. (Those who remain to listen. Those who remain to talk.) Though he could not rid his thoughts completely of the possibility of standstill or failure.

In this dispirited frame of mind he heard Tom’s voice, no ordinary tone, no ordinary words.

Permit me to repeat what I have already said invariably in every professional community I have had the honor of entering, that I am not a professional player, that I never wished to make any skill I possess the means of pecuniary advancement, and that my earnest desire is never to play for any stake but honor.

He could hear every word with singular clarity, but some part of him refused to allow them to register in his mind, neither the sounds nor their meaning. The conflicting feelings began to fuse — the transformative heat of Tom’s skin — causing his waking consciousness to ebb away. More than once he had lived in a house under the belief that it was the high price one paid for isolation, anonymity, and privacy, only to discover shortly after moving in that a stranger would knock on your door to welcome you or simply ring your doorbell out of casual curiosity — Who are you? What do you look like? — or wander up in practical desperation to inquire if he might water his limping horse or exhausted hounds at your well. In fact, a house is an invitation. So he had opted for this small apartment in a multi-unit dwelling, living space he leased from a landlord he never saw, an overdressed nigger, who arrived once a week at a determined time to collect the rent. His means permitted more, but this was all he allowed, all he needed. His entire wardrobe hung on pegs on a coatrack near the door, with hats, harnesses, and whips making a definite silhouette against the gray background of wall. And the few pictures he elected to hang — a watercolor depicting men and mules struggling up a mountain during the California Gold Rush, a vivid oil painting of a bloody war scene from the Mexican conflict, a sketch of George Washington crossing the Potomac — he did for Seven’s amusement. Moving through these few rooms, he felt like a tourist walking through someone’s private collection.

With practiced hands, Seven placed their simple but ample supper on the table. (The table was their base of operations.) Tom was already digging into it, all ten fingers going. Perry Oliver realized he must have dozed off — at what point? — missing Seven’s return. Took him a minute to take in what he was seeing and to understand that he didn’t like what he saw. Tom rarely received his criticism or chastisement. Why should he? By any measure, it is not fair that the mentally and physically incapacitated and therefore upright and innocent individual should pay for his capable but compromising counterpart.

Seven, Perry Oliver said, look at him.

Seven caught Tom’s fingers to slow him down.

Often Perry Oliver disdained from joining the boys at the table for supper, taking his plate at the window or in his room. But since he was already here, in this firm chair positioned against the hard floor, he might as well. He picked up his fork, the metal shuddering in his fingers.

They ate their meal in absolute silence. For the third time that evening Perry Oliver put his poor voice into song, but Tom had ears only for the noise he made as he chewed his food, steady and advancing destruction, a greasy graveyard of bones on his plate. Ready for more.