Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Since they’ve advanced this far, perhaps they should go for a swim. (Can the blind swim?) Or they can simply go and rest on the banks. Tom won’t have to get wet.

Seven leads Tom through the grass toward the water, where they sit down together on a grassy little knoll, fully within the sprawling ragged shadow (shade) of a large tree, Seven a few feet above and behind Tom. He’s got the best overview of the river. He’s got the best overview of Tom. After he has rested for a while, he gets up and carries a hollowed-out branch down to the river, fills it with water, and drinks himself cool. Refills it and returns to Tom, who upends the branch sluice-like to allow the water to run into his mouth. Drinking done, Tom flings the branch into the water. So they sit. Seven often touches Tom’s face without thought, running his fingers across his cheeks, around his jawline and mouth, and over his eyes, feeling the hardened lumps beneath. Tom remains undisturbed during the touching, as if these are fingers he can’t feel. Seven looks at the water now, but his eyes alight on nothing. Nothing happens, and nothing happens in Seven.

Shrieks circle out from a small source of noise. Birds. He sits observing them — the circle closing in on those who watch — these airborne creatures grounded some distance off, venturing through the grass and pecking dirt near the base of the tree. So much to see. Sees, placing every stream every river every leaf every branch every tree every stone every bird every blade of glass in its proper place.

Tom remains unusually silent and still. No humming or singing or fidgeting. A person who doesn’t speak could easily be thinking.

Do you like to swim, Tom?

The fish do, Tom says.

The pecking search for food brings the birds closer and closer to where they sit. Several of them rush Tom’s exposed ankles. Tom kicks his feet, scaring them off, flapping back to the heaven.

There go the dead arisin, he says.

Now if that don’t beat all. Seven thought that he had heard everything from Tom.

They sit for a spell in calm assurance.

Time to go, Seven says.

Time to go, Tom says. He hops to his feet. Nature is over, he says.

They return to the road with Seven in the lead, heading toward a shortcut home. He looks back over his shoulder and sees Tom hurrying off the opposite way.

Tom, where are you going? He remains there, holding his pose of entreating, thinking that Tom will come directly to him. Tom continues on. Seven rushes and overtakes him. Good lord, what has gotten into this nigger? All this time, time that he has lavished on tracking down some amusement that will keep Tom calm and content. (Approach the other with understanding.) All for naught. Is this a challenge that he detects and that he has to meet? If so, what has fallen to him is more than a decision about direction. He must exert driving force, supply a directive. They will go by the stable — their secret enterprise — even though it is quite a haul from where they’ve found themselves.

W. P. Howard— the best music professor in the country, Oakley said —lives in a clean quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of the city with houses tall and wide standing apart from squat servants’ houses, and niggers all about busy with upkeep and work. Perry Oliver addresses the opportunity with a solemnity that suggests his very life is at stake. Even Oakley’s introduction and recommendation may not be enough to guarantee Tom’s selection. All he has is a name.

A name he would rather do without. Doesn’t want to know it, doesn’t need to. (In fact, later he will almost say, “Please, sir, don’t speak your name in my presence.” Holds his hands up, warding off knowledge. “I promise not to speak mine. Let us talk money.”) The title, Professor of Music, is all he needs; in fact, it is far more appropriate than a name, for which holds the greater importance in the world, what we are called or what we do? True, a name can lift you up by the workings of social convention and ignorance. But Perry Oliver doesn’t buy into the whole principle of name and ancestry, name as designation, the linguistic path back to flesh and blood lineage, noble or otherwise. (A thousand particular stories.) By luck and chance and enterprise any white man can succeed. W. P. Howard is a name he is already trying to forget.

He arrives at Howard’s house with eagerness in his eyes, in his gait, a pretense that should provide him with the necessary deception of confidence. The decent aspect of the house — large but modest, nothing gaudy or ostentatious or overstated — brings with it the sense of a small promise renewed, revived. Still, he is leery of ringing the doorbell, leery of entering the house, but he must since he is unable to bear the tension of waiting. A nigger answers the door. Seeing the nigger is enough to awaken in Perry Oliver the value of himself as a person.

The nigger shows him into the house and they proceed down the hall to an open door, where the nigger pauses before entering, Perry Oliver behind him, looking, the open door a box of perspective, a transparent cage that illuminates a man standing in the middle of the room, man and room separating him from what is indistinct and undefined. Looking a visual purification, cleansing after the darkness outside. The man wears a jacket that is well made but long outdated, and the man stands with his feet wide apart and his head lowered. Perry Oliver thinks, is sure, that the man is muttering something under his breath. The nigger enters the room and calls out to the man. Professor Howard. As soon as the man sees Perry Oliver he literally leaps toward his visitor with his hand out in greeting, so that Perry Oliver involuntarily reels back. Howard takes Perry Oliver by the elbow and leads him over to a sofa covered with a green-gold draping, where he sits down himself, then pulls Perry Oliver into an armchair next to him, Perry Oliver easing into the unfolding dimensions of the room. Much smaller than he had at first thought, a full-sized piano taking up almost half the space. So this would be Howard’s studio, small perhaps though certainly sufficient in size for the few students he takes in — according to Mr. Oakley, Howard largely makes his money working on an as-needed basis with the city’s two schools of musical instruction for girls and with other local or county-wide organizations for the training and development of the female sex — and well designed to compensate for its extreme simplicity.

Sitting with one hand resting in the other, Howard is full of questions that alarm at first and amuse later. Perry Oliver goes with it. Easy. He hears himself say, Yes, a boy approximately seven years of age. Yes, more than a handful. Surprised that his voice carries any sound.

With deliberate ceremony the nigger serves them coffee. That is exactly what Perry Oliver needs, to be accommodated, to belong to this little world.

Professor Howard smiles at his servant. Roman, he says, I no longer require your services for the day. You may be excused.

The servant bows and leaves hurriedly, giving a backward glance as he flounces away, a glance that only Perry Oliver catches.

And what is his name?

Tom.

And how long has he been playing?

Professor Howard turns his ear toward Perry Oliver, as if he is listening all the way to the other side of the city, listening to Tom.

Perry Oliver will leave no question unanswered, will omit nothing even if he has to make it up. Gives something of Tom’s history, scrambling in his mind to hold on to and remember what he is saying.

So I take it you don’t play yourself?

No, Perry Oliver says. I listen.

I’m sure you know far more than you think, Howard says. Whoever can distinguish musical sounds from their reverse is a musician. At least to a degree.