Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Once he was in the tranquility of his own room, he barely took the trouble to undress, having survived another rough day. Tomorrow sure to be the same. He threw himself on his bed. He had a plan. In those towns and cities containing a preponderance of cultivated people, theaters do not flourish to the same extent as in locales where the reverse is true. Cultivated people have no reason to go out, already finding music at home. (The parlor piano.) Music halls in this city primarily catered crude spectacles for the lowly of life with the occasional special event or festivity that all may enjoy. His goal was to draw the cultivated out with music — Tom — they couldn’t get at home. Kindle a desire for a form of serious (classical) entertainment they had never seen before.

Though his plan required the preponderance of his time, he got away from hard work to pay attention to other things — mainly the newspaper. He preferred the Negro journals published in the North — he said and thought South without attaching any importance to it; he took no particular pride in this land where he was born and where he still lived — even maintained a subscription to the best, despite the suspicious glances of the local postmaster. More actuality — truth — in the pages mixed in among all the propaganda of racial uplift. Uplift the race. In the reporting more words than not that actually fit the occasion, rather than adorn or preach.

Noble Reader, certainly the negro is not our equal in color — perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that more has been given you, you can not be justified in taking away the little which has been given him. All I ask for the negro is that if you don’t like him, let him alone. If God gave him little, that little let him enjoy.

He slowly and wearily put the newspaper down. Closed his eyes the better to see with his inward gaze those landscapes and horizons where printed words carried him. It amused him to come up with a subject to reflect on every now and then, an entertaining theme that could pull him away from the present. If only refuge in the self were that easy. Something had happened that his intelligence was wearing itself out trying to define. Willingly, he let himself slide into a kind of lethargy, waiting to better understand. (In the night we move forward.)

Noises reached Perry Oliver quite unmuffled by the thin walls. The least little sound he heard (or imagined?) impelled him to be on his guard, sometimes even pulling him out of bed. Despite the heat, he closed the thick damask curtain, reinforced with a white blind behind it, impenetrable fabric that prevented any light from entering the chamber. But no barring sound. He heard feet flutter in the room next to his where the boys slept, stopping here, stopping there. No discernible pattern in the movement. Took some listening to recognize it as Tom quick’s tread. Was Tom entering the kitchen (parlor)? Now he heard voices too, snatches of murmurings. Tom and Seven? Both boys moving about? Moving and talking?

Sometimes, on a good morning, in the clear silence, he could relive the triumphs of his life. Was this so today? He peered into the mirror but couldn’t see his eyes. Gaped and gawked at his reflection, but the image didn’t improve. The mirror — polished glass, reflective capacity, the power to throw back — swinging freely on its stand. A black screen interrupted by light. He splashed water on his face and watched it roll down his reflected cheeks and chin and drip down into the basin. His mind struggled to awaken.

From the window he could see the woodshed and everything that went on in the yard. Bare-chested and barefoot, the nigger who took care of the house was putting the shed in order. The nigger had a full day ahead, a hundred tasks to complete. Now beat out rugs and mattresses, now shovel the garbage into a pile and set it aflame. And once that was done, he would be ready to clean the lavatory on each floor.

Just at the outskirts, where vision ended, he could look — and he often did — at the black city under a heavy sky. His destination today.

He went into the kitchen (parlor). Seven was still half-asleep in his chair, eyes brimming with light, heavy and comical. (Where was Tom?) He waited patiently for the boy to recover himself, his heart quick to tremble and be touched. Why bother about the boy’s feelings, about the fact that the boy worried about Tom, too, that he was perhaps three times more concerned than Perry Oliver was himself about Tom’s cares and hurts.

Seven got up from his chair and stood before him, wobbly, in respectful expectation. Beneath the harsh reflection of his tired mouth and blank eyes, his real face appeared, the face of an adolescent.

Shadows slithered in and out. Mr. Oliver was waiting for Seven to speak. Seven wondered what he should do, what response might be the least detrimental to him: call out or remain quiet? His mind was too foggy, the conflicting thoughts inside his head unable to focus or affix themselves. He stammered, got tangled in his attempt to control his voice, master his emotion, and find the right words, the expression that would be convincing. Instead, he emitted a kind of mush, syllables jolting each other and running together.

Perry Oliver listened to capture every word and pause.

Overwhelmed, Seven lowered his head, clinging to the faint hope that Mr. Oliver would understand.

And still Tom fell down the stairs, Perry Oliver said.

Yes.

You must do better.

I must do better.

Mr. Oliver walked to the door and took silent leave.

Sometime later, Seven stood on the bed admiring the summer trees. What could he see? (Squirrels change branches.) He wanted to see the world. Break away from everything earthly and set out on a great adventure. For now, he held Tom fast in one place. (If you can’t stand something, don’t do it.) Tom had to do everything in full view while Seven watched him. A bed’s width of silence separating them, between them, building a secret room. He got down from the bed and straightened the sheets. Tom popped up. More sheets to align. (Two diverging elements.) What it means to introduce another self into the equation.

What body was that, hunched and shaking at the kitchen table? He recalled (his wounded memory) a happy dinner, things as usual. He told himself that all had passed off smoothly for him and Tom until supper time arrived, when Mr. Oliver returned — he recognized footsteps then heard the door yank open — from his work and joined them at the table.

No, he couldn’t twist the facts. Yesterday (afternoon and night) had not worked out to his greater glory. A warning unleashed inside him. He was glad just to stir again. He had suffered no ill effects. (If you can’t handle the job, don’t volunteer.) It was all in his hands now. (This boy has put himself entirely in my hands.)

He comforted the face confronting him. Gave Tom tender consideration. Playfully patted his other’s cheeks, slapped him on the back of his neck. Soared aloft. Higher. And now out into the fresh air, which would make them both feel better.

Once they arrived (landed) at Scaldy Bill’s, Mr. Oakley quickly installed the two of them at the piano. Seven sat and listened. Cherished habits. But what was this he heard? The same tunes from yesterday. (So he remembered.) Tom was reciting as if by rote. (Re-creation.) He had never known Tom to be negligent about playing (practicing?). As good a reason as any not to listen, to lock out his emotions.

While Tom played, not once did Seven turn around on the stool and he did not so much as glance at the other patrons in the saloon (restaurant), as was his custom. Established a boundary that no one dared cross. He and Tom must not be noticed by the outside world. He and Tom must not notice the outside world. He sensed and felt nothing; all of his thoughts were focused on one point: Tom. No matter how hard he might try, he couldn’t hear the music now. He heard nothing. Locked out sight and sound.