Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Where did you get that piano from? he asked.

I never got it, Mr. Oakley said. It was sitting right where it is when I accepted the deed.

The piano had become a cherished habit, the tool that would clear the way for him and Tom to develop an understanding. Seven distinctly recalled the very first time (second?) Tom touched the keys. His hands jerked back, as if the keys were some burning substance. (Seven had heard that electricity has the same hot effect.) Then again, minutes earlier Tom had fallen down three flights of stairs. Perhaps he had suffered an injury.

Seven was not sure that Tom was comfortable playing here. The tension of his posture betrayed him. His tongue came out of his mouth to moisten his lips. Then, all by themselves, without the help of human eyes, his hands began to find the complex track of chords and notes, the heart of melodies that kindled the desire to pat one’s feet, to clap one’s hands, to dance. A twist of flesh touched. Senses awakened, Seven felt his heart leap seeing this simple and wild display. Suspended. Sealed off. (Echoes and fragrances.) Impervious to time. Music glistened everywhere. Barely attuned to his surroundings, he noticed that someone had taken a seat at the table nearest them, a sun-darkened and slim man. (Thirty? forty? Age is no consequence for Seven, still new to the world.) A good-looking man, unlike the others here, a man of good standing, like Perry Oliver, very well dressed and groomed. He seemed unconscious of anything except a set purpose of staring at the table (smooth darkness) and grumbling to himself, lips silently moving. Perhaps he was drunk, though Seven saw no evidence that he had been imbibing alcohol. His only refreshment a half-drained glass of water, chunks of ice floating on the surface. Ah — looking closer — he was reading, reviewing a document spread flat across the table. Pen in hand, inkwell at the ready. He lifted his face up. Their eyes met, or so it seemed. No, he was wide-eyed as if staring at words in the air. Stared vacantly past Seven, his face relaxed and oblivious, before returning his eyes to his document, his reading and writing. A short while later he raised his face again. Yes, now he was looking right at Seven (them). Squared the corners of the sheet he was reading, then edged around the table to position himself in proximity to the piano. He said he was waiting for a friend, although Seven had no idea why he chose to relay this information. In one hand, he carried a musical score (black lines, black circles, white space) — yes, this was what he had been reading — and he had been humming it under his breath, tapping the accompaniment on the table with his fingers, even as he talked.

Tom’s hands stopped moving. I like that song, Tom said.

Do you? the man said. He looked at them from behind an almost immobile face.

Yes.

He grinned. But it’s a sad song.

No, Tom said. Niggers are sad.

Yes, the man said. They are. He introduced himself as W. P. Howard. Seven introduced them. Seven and Thomas. Is he your boy?

I’m his, Tom said. I’m his boy.

Tom resumed his playing. Shut eyes glazed. Hands moved over keys, feet worked pedals. Body rocked from side to side. Smooth steady movement. He looked less like a man playing an instrument than like a captain steering his ship. Transported.

Perry Oliver found the apartment pitch black — as well it should be, since he was late in returning, quite late, having missed both dinner and supper — with a peculiar stillness. Tried to get his bearings, half a thought ahead, half a thought behind. He lit a lamp, a flame that was not bright enough to illuminate the entire room, but he was accustomed to the parlor-kitchen lit at night by a single inconstant light, as he was reserved in the use of candle and oil. He could make out two figures dozing deliciously at the table. The pair seated side by side, a hand apart, slumped forward and face down. He stood and watched in this semidarkness favorable to spying and conspiracy, his emotions keeping him from speaking the words and thoughts that crowded into his head like a panicked herd. Such harsh language inside him that it might rip his throat apart should it come out.

He methodically went about inspecting the room.

Tea was on the table. Impossible to convey its color, its smell. Everything had been gathered up, the smaller objects placed inside the larger ones, the dirty items washed and dried, both litter and leftovers collected and disposed of. The supper — dinner? — basket was empty. Not a single remnant — shredded meat, greasy bone, bread crumb — of food.

Tom lifted his head. Come in, come in, he said. Everybody is a member. He returned to his sleep.

A trail of breath. A moan. He saw two little bodies moving forward in the hall toward the staircase. One put a foot out and stepped onto air, onto nothing. Pitched forward and disappeared as if sinking beneath water. The observer-listener shaking with fear at the sound of a body tumbling down and rattling against stairs.

Perry Oliver could feel the house shudder. The second body hurried after the first, but Perry Oliver hesitated, a quick gasp of astonishment in his mouth. His instinct had nudged him off course. His consciousness in a state of alert. (Too far away, too far behind.) His vision blurred as if he had suddenly gone under water. Once he decided to (once he could), he moved feverishly as if in a hurry to assure himself that the situation was not as dire as it appeared.

He discovered a Tom-at-rest three flights below, propped up against the banister, Seven kneeling down before him, touching his charge at the wrist. A noise came from Tom’s body. His lips moved although no words came out. At least, none they could hear. He would kneel too, but he was afraid to touch Tom. But he had gained enough courage not to deny reality, what he had just seen with his very own eyes. He did not lose his calm. He even had the presence of mind to realize that he could (should?) consider himself lucky, all things considered. Tom was alive and apparently only slightly injured. He screwed up his eyes and spoke to Seven without anger or panic.

The agonies of shame. This was why Perry Oliver didn’t speak now, why he chose to let Seven and Tom sleep. (In the morning, he would hear, he would judge, he would forgive.) The burden of words and their sounds meant to awaken the past. He had to keep his suffering intact. Would follow painful memories but only so far, a past he tried his best to confine to the long forgotten. How else to keep a tight hold on what was closest, the immediate tasks stretching before him? His mind turned wholly to the menace of the moment, the struggle that each new day imposes. Who has not tried to read the beginnings of today’s calamity — he had failed to find an instructor for Tom — in the memory of yesterday’s error? For Perry Oliver, each error was an opportunity, a stepping-stone to somewhere else. Of course, no getting around that strange fringe of uneasiness among his thoughts, muted strands of uncertainty and foreboding that were always there, that he had to struggle against. Loss has a way of creeping back. With the future crossed out, the past will become an obsession. So he welcomed what life brought each day, good or bad, and constantly strove to bring himself into a new understanding of it. The old Perry Oliver had to disappear to make room for the new one. Had to give up everything. Homes he had lived in. Books read. Places traveled. Previous sentiments and passions. Give it all up. Come from nowhere.

He groped forward, stopped to look inside the boys’ room, which was after the parlor-kitchen the second largest room in the apartment. (His the smallest.) Handheld light revealed three images hanging on the wall above Seven’s bed. A daguerreotype of Senator Douglas and one of Senator Calhoun. Since our beloved, aged defender was unable to rise and take command of the floor, Senator Mason of Virginia stepped in as his voice. And the portrait of Paul Morphy. The two beds positioned on either side of the room were exactly like his own, all three identical in shape and construction, none longer or wider than the others, and all consisting of the same make and grain of wood. Functional constructions built to last, and fully capable of supporting the plump unshapely mattresses that covered them, rough burlap amply filled with discarded peanut shells and skin (far cheaper than cotton).