Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

What do you want, Tom?

Food.

Seven gave him more vegetables.

Perhaps Seven’s appetite had not improved as much as Perry Oliver had supposed. He took slow gradual nourishment, picking at his food, tentative portions, close inspections, like a scientist on an archaeological expedition. Even before he had finished his first plate Tom was ready for a third.

Would you like some more food, Tom?

No.

What then?

Meat.

Seven gave Tom another helping of chicken. Tom smiled at the sound of the meat touching his plate. It seemed a happy smile, a deliberate expression of emotion, and perhaps it was. Soon came a request for milk, Tom’s first request every morning, Seven pouring him half a glass, seeing if that would satisfy him, before he gave in and poured a full glass. A simple pattern of back and forth between the boys, of mock protest and playful negotiation. Catching sight of them like this, Perry Oliver remembered Tom’s troubled entry into their apartment and their lives.

As he had wanted to surprise the boy with their new charge, he had made Seven wait behind in the apartment when he went to retrieve Tom from the station, electing to hail a taxi and relieve Seven of his usual chauffeuring of their carriage drawn by a single black horse. An hour (two?) later, he stepped through the door guiding the blind boy by the hand. Seven was kneeling on the floor, busy with the waxing and polishing of it, his rag whirling over the surface, until all at once it drew still, less in response to Perry Oliver’s return than at Seven’s noticing of two human shadows cast against the shiny floor. He raised his head and turned to look.

You got your nigger, Perry Oliver said.

Seven shot back a wide-eyed look Perry Oliver had never witnessed before, as if he didn’t know what to make of the blind nigger standing in their apartment. (Truth be told — yes, he will admit it — neither at first was sure what he was seeing.) Got to his feet and studied Tom with appropriating eyes in the dead silence. With minimum effort, Tom shook free of Perry Oliver’s grip and ambled forward, hands out in front of him, more for the purpose of throwing path-clearing swipes in the air than for guiding touches to avoid potential obstructions. He bumped into the table and continued on, knocking it out of his path as he angled into the farthest corner of the room — why this corner as opposed to another? Perry Oliver still had no answer — next to the open window — the world blowing in, bits of their privacy blowing out — and spun around facing them, his body turned toward the door. Without instruction, Seven had immediately gone over to Tom and tried to take him by the arm. Tom swung. Tom kicked. Seven did not give up, persisted in his efforts, cautious creeping, like a trainer trying to bring a stallion or bull under control. Tom kicked. Tom swung. Perry Oliver didn’t blame him, understanding as he did the economy of fear and self-preservation. (Two modes of fear: actual danger and the avoidance of it.) Tom’s lungs were hard at work, breath after breath charging in and out.

Come on, Perry Oliver said. We’ll leave him there until the morning.

Seven looked at him, doubtful.

He wondered: Would Tom sleep? Or would hunger and terror keep sleep at bay? And would morning bring an end to his battle? If not, how long could this condition last?

Over the next few days, Tom had remained in the corner, taking neither food nor water, and standing on two feet the entire time, no easing up, never once lowering his body to the floor, at least in their presence. (How many nights did it take for Tom to give in? Could Perry Oliver trust his memory?) Without warning or reason he would take a few steps forward, only to stop, as if he had suddenly lost all notion of the place where he had found himself. They maintained a careful distance from across the room, hearing Tom’s body give off murmuring surges every now and then, low noises that gradually lengthened into a continual droning — on and on — that was a bit soothing once you fell under its repetitive spell, and observing — creatures at a further remove from man — gross disturbances of this same body, strange shivers of the neck and ear and head, and motor discharges of the shoulders and feet, at almost calculated intervals.

Be still, you dinge, Seven said.

Shut up, Perry Oliver said.

Were these the tactile and general sensations his muscles and skin had preserved in the long journey from Hundred Gates? Exactly how much of Hundred Gates remained in his memory, wherever memory is stored? (What does a nigger carry with him?) No easy answers, for whatever his concerns or protestations they were confined to the dumb machine of his flesh. Easy to be fooled by this fact. How well Perry Oliver knew that words are not the only way of expressing or distilling emotions.

Seven seemed to have his own questions, the distance, the resistance, the reservations all behavior he seemed both unaccustomed to and unprepared for. (The battle was taking its toll on them both.) Far be it from Seven to give an unwelcome impression, but Tom incurred his suspicions, his first doubt Tom’s blindness. Within minutes of Tom’s being in the apartment and firmly ensconced in the corner, he spoke his first words to him. Hey, don’t look cross-eyed at me like that.

He’s not cross-eyed, Perry Oliver had said. He’s blind.

This explanation did not satisfy the boy. In those initial days and weeks, Seven would hold out two fingers before Tom’s face or wave both hands at him from across the room as if to lure him into the light that way. (Indeed, Tom’s blindness seemed to possess a particularity all its own. Something Perry Oliver couldn’t put his finger on even as he became more and more accustomed to it. Eyes completely shut most of the time, but partially open on other occasions. Involuntarily turning in one direction or another. Or glistening with tears. Nothing like what Perry Oliver imagined blindness to be, nothing like the image of the affliction floating — two dark islands — for so long in his mind. Blindness is in the first place something felt, and as a feeling it is of most obviously unpleasurable character, not that this is a complete description of its quality. Though they have lived together and worked closely for this extended period of time — how long has it been? nine months? a year? — and he felt that he knew Tom as well as anyone might, he was far from in a position to explain the boy.) Seven also began to scrutinize Tom with a disapproving air, frowning, mumbling curses, crossing his eyes, once a foul odor began emanating from the corner that the chance breeze coming through the open window would carry to even the most remote areas of the apartment, the smell of sweat, urine, and feces collecting at Tom’s feet where Seven’s rag and polish usually fell.

It was asking much. The boy found himself obligated to clean up waste spilling from another whose name he still did not know. For his part, Perry Oliver had forgotten to pass on certain facts to the boy— Tom. Seven, his name is Tom —taken up as he was (no intention, no deliberation) with the immediate exigencies of Tom’s physical presence, his being there, although it was also true that both before Tom’s arrival and after, he and Seven had rarely breathed a word to each other unless some matter of Seven’s duties or instruction needed addressing. Bottom line, Seven would wipe up the shit and piss, and he would do so grudgingly, his anger and disgust offset by the incontrovertible fact that they finally had a nigger in their possession. You got your nigger. Perry Oliver feared that a far greater challenge would be his getting the boy to understand the true purpose Tom should (would) serve in their lives.