Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Tom was seated in a chair identical to his — straight-backed wood, uncushioned — but Seven afforded Tom what he believed was the more comfortable of the two. His job to preserve order in the apartment’s August emptiness. His duty, sure, but he also felt a quiet affection for Tom. Tom opening up new areas of feeling in him. He could not get over the fact of how much freedom the blind give us. The closest thing to being by oneself. You can do most anything before them undetected. Not that he chose to do so, took advantage. He was always correct in his bearing toward Tom.

Absently, he passed his gaze over the surface of Tom’s face, unseeing eyes that made the aspect of him a particular delight. Sitting carefully upright in his chair during silent moments, he found himself staring into this face. Black calm. Blankness. The shiny smooth innocence of an unused stone. The most comforting person he had ever met, Tom was happy here with him (them) and he took considerable pleasure in the knowledge, as in his good handling of Tom he deserved primary credit for Tom’s state of being. Whatever he said to Tom would be heard with sympathy, with kindness. And Tom had the additional advantage of Mr. Oliver’s close and careful management.

Seven decided to leave the apartment as it was for later. Too much trouble. They should be able to depart and return with sufficient time left over for him to tidy up before Mr. Oliver returned. Time for all things.

Tom, he asked, where are you?

I’m on earth.

So you are. He stood up and stretched out the stiffness. Leaned across the table and fit Tom’s hat onto his head, flattening the thick-rooted hair, low, mashing, right down to the ridge of Tom’s brow and just above his blind bulging eyes.

Every day, Tom said, I put on a new head.

Hat, Seven said. Tom could well use a new hat. It would decidedly improve both his appearance and his existence. A good head covering — his beaver cap, Paul Morphy’s panama — provides important relief from the heat. (Mr. Oliver somehow managed without one.) He tugged on the brim of Tom’s hat, signaling that it was time for them to depart.

Tom rose up from the table, came around it, and embraced him so hard he thought he would choke in Tom’s arms. Chest constricted, breath trickling out, he allowed Tom to hug him for a considerable length of time until it was clear that Tom had no intention of releasing him. He wiggled free by distracting Tom with a tune he whistled into his ear. (One trick he had learned.) His skin felt different, as if Tom had left some element of his body behind on Seven’s. In fact, it seemed to have taken on a certain painful illumination, and he wondered now if he had wrongly sensed Tom’s embrace, the stationary hug not stationary at all but a rough rubbing of skin against skin, a hard-worked polish.

Tom had been his shadow ever since he hit town. His Tom unique, a totally new person in human history as far as he could tell, and his singularity left him unable to exist without Seven. Height against height, he loomed above Seven, a fairly sizable nigger at seven years of age — his reputed age (Mr. Oliver’s estimate), certainly (probably) far younger than Seven by several years, five at the least, possibly more, but niggers don’t develop by the calendar or the clock — tall but not excessively so. Seven was small for his age, a full head shorter than Tom, and just as slim as his younger charge, spindly, boy-skinny— Eat, Perry Oliver says. You need to eat more —but he was a force capable of imposing the necessary discipline. Easy when one was experienced in such matters. His job to keep Tom regulated, under a daily routine, an unavoidable necessity as Perry Oliver had made it clear that Tom lacked the internal clock that most of us, white people and niggers alike, are born with.

Tom unlatched the door, opened it, and made his way to the head of the stairs, then waited for Seven to help him down. They hurried out into late-morning light. The worst heat. Seven looked out at the world, a red line throbbing on the far horizon, his senses awakening, detecting. In the clear silence, Tom wordlessly clutched Seven’s hand with both of his, and allowed Seven to lead him forward. But Seven’s gaze was no longer directed upward at the much taller Tom but downward at the wobbly cobblestone road. The road seemed more even, your walk less steady if you concentrated on counting the individual stones as you stepped onto each one.

Tom sniffed the air like a hound. Raised his face — peered up; could he call it that? — as if something — a bird, a cloud — had passed overhead. The sky is so high, he said.

He often had much to say. Seven encouraged him to speak up, to talk loudly, even if he confounded sense, for he had found that much of our inability to understand Tom came from our inability to hear what he was actually saying. Hushed tones. Failed to speak at a high enough level for our ears to detect him. Speak up, Tom.

Caught in an unreal space. Heat and overlapping speech. Faces came out of the blackness to glare and shout. Bibulous types who downed hot drinks, the temperate fuel that allowed them to blow fiery words from the open furnaces of their mouths. For some reason they thought it amusing to offer Tom tobacco. Like a smoke, Tom?

Seven spoke kindly to the patrons, but he was quick to whisk Tom away, politely excusing them, removing his hat and tipping his head. He guided Tom toward the piano, scarcely registering the things around except in glimpses of single objects, as he (they) weaved between the tables, dodging a gauntlet of propositions, patrons offering Seven spirits, tobacco, and whatever else their tongues saw fit. Courteously he took the time to pause and decline to each and every one. Perhaps he and Tom were the only sane creatures within these four walls.

A man stepped in front of them, blocking their passage. His thin cheeks were badly shaven, here and there short little tufts of hair having escaped the razor. He stared over Seven’s shoulder at Tom. What’s the nigger’s name?

Thomas, Seven said.

Thomas?

Yes, sir.

Are you sure?

Seven tried to subdue his irritation. Yes, sir.

That is too much of a name for a little nigger to carry around.

Sir?

Thomas, you said?

Yes, sir.

That means twin.

No, Tom said. It means Tom.

Taken aback, the man turned away noisily in a vibration of cloth, hobbling but decisive, a fantastic construction, his image changing and reforming, by turns good-natured, crazy, and threatening, like a passing cloud.

Seven and Tom continued on until they reached their destination. Tom sat down on the long stool (bench?) positioned before the piano. Seven noticed that he was trembling. Sat down on the bench beside him, slanted, facing Tom but also able to turn his head and take in the room if need be. Not that he wanted to. He was unconcerned with his surroundings, closing in on himself, pushing the saloon further into the back of his consciousness. Tom and Seven, two plotters ill at ease in the light. Here they could unite with angles and corners, make themselves invisible to the population.

The piano was an awkward piece of work, with its tall square back and massive elephant-like legs and its cracked and discolored keys. It seemed strangely out of place here, this saloon the last place on earth where one would expect to find a piano or any other brandishment of fancy. Seven saw great meaning in this fact, knowing as he did the troubles that Perry Oliver had experienced in trying to locate an instrument for Tom. Something almost magical in all of this, as it could be this piano and no other. As if the piano had awaited Tom’s arrival, biding time, possibly for centuries. Had always been here, a natural formation like a rocky monolith, this roof this floor and these four walls constructed around it.