Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Seven feels himself yielding to Tom’s way of thinking, the quick and instinctive compliance that comes when someone is shaken awake to uncertain surroundings. Recognition — plain sight — the holdout, slowing down that part of him that wants to give in. Long enough for the weight of mere witnessing to stop him altogether, cause him to disregard, to reverse his feelings. To look at Tom looking that way. This is his own hand posed to reach for Tom’s hat, for his shirt, for his collar. No, don’t touch him yet. Perhaps he should say something first. What are the correct words he needs to speak? If he understood him, he would know how to help him. He needs help. No force behind him but his own. Difficult to admit. Crying out could bring rescue, but it would also mean announcing his weakness as well. No way he can let that happen. He’ll deny what is going on here should anybody happen to chance upon them. Much of what we see is not really what it looks like.

Just then the light brightens like a compromise. He stoops all the way down and speaks to Tom and Tom crawls out cat-quick from under the horse into the new sun, the dirt where he is kneeling reuniting behind him, as if it has never been disturbed. Seven uses his handkerchief to clean Tom as best he can. Business as usual.

Tom is changing. Everything about Tom is changing — voice, posture, expression. Is that what Mr. Oliver wants?

When he pens his history in the future, Perry Oliver will withhold one important fact, that it was the Music Professor who drafted the sworn proclamation attesting to the authenticity of Tom’s genius, although his subscription was withheld, the words W. P. Howard never appearing on either the original statement or the various reproductions of it that Perry Oliver went on to have published in one newspaper after the next.

Dear Sir, The undersigned desire to express our thanks to you for the opportunity afforded them of hearing and seeing the wonderful performances of your protégé, the blind boy pianist, Tom. We find it impossible to account for these immense results upon any hypothesis growing out of the known laws of art and science.

In the numerous tests to which Tom was subjected in our presence, or by us, he invariably came off triumphant. Whether in deciding the pitch or component parts of chords the most difficult and dissonant; whether in repeating with correctness and precision any pieces, written or impromptu, played to him for the first and only time; whether in his improvisations, or performances of compositions by Thalberg, Gottschalk, Verdi and others: in fact, under every form of musical examination — and the experiments are too numerous to mention or enumerate — he showed a power and capacity ranking him among the most wonderful phenomena in musical history.

Accept, dear sir, the regards of your humble servants.

B. C. Cross

John M. Beck

K. Blandner

R. L. Stern

Paul Swann

Samuel Harris

Ross Necknor

Carl Rose

Paul Grace

J. A. Alfred

Elijah George

Witherspoon Enright

And several others.

The signers — Perry Oliver had met all of them about town at one time or another during his dealings; and despite their rebuffs and refusals he would have made a conscious effort to be cordial on encountering them in the street, raising his hat to them had it been his custom to wear one — had received a flat fee of one hundred dollars each for their troubles and the Music Professor twice that amount. Any man is worth buying, for in Perry Oliver’s eyes distinction is a thing wholly independent of social position. Several weeks earlier, he had asked Howard to approach every available music scientist in town and induce them to convene for the express purpose of listening to Tom so as to issue a notarized document of witness. The proposal — the very asking — would bring about the certainty of the Music Professor being in disgrace with his colleagues. No way around that. Although he should take some consolation in knowing that the one in a position to ask a favor holds greater power than the one who can only accept or decline, a fact that should thus enhance his prestige in the eyes of the world. (Perry Oliver feeling the need to extract this idea since he did not wish to exclude the possibility of a happy alternative.) Of course, his colleagues can like what they hear or not like it — the Music Professor has his own authority and his own views — but let’s be clear, Perry Oliver needs them to endorse Tom, to recommend him to the public. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord; for his mercy endureth forever. Money might help reassure them about their choice, help them arrive at a happy medium between their bestowing praise on a nigger and any slight reduction in their racial position in the world because of it. As well — turn it around — Tom’s supporters might delight in the knowledge that they will take a mental share in Tom’s rise to prominence, should that rise occur. (It will.) A dangling carrot: the prospect of fame being of far greater importance than the fear of ostracization, a dynamic that should gratify their self-esteem, at least in the short term. He removed fourteen hundred dollars in fresh notes from his wallet and held it out, choice hovering. The situation didn’t merit much thinking, but the Music Professor made the thinking last as long as possible. Once Perry Oliver put the money in his hands, he pocketed it immediately.

He tells the Music Professor what he wants — this and that; some suggestions about the wording of the missive — guessing cleanly how far he will go. Now all he has to do is wait. The deference that he owes to Howard imposes on him the reciprocal obligation to do nothing that might render Howard less worthy of his colleagues’ regard. (Empathy in recognizing that both the asking and the accepting will open doors of suffering.) Fortunately the Professor’s colleagues had recourse to principles entirely in line with those that Perry Oliver intended (expected) them to adopt when the time came for them to form an estimate of Tom.

When Seven presented him with the letter several weeks later, Perry Oliver could not help but gaze at it with a blend of congratulation and irony. Now he can look forward to enjoying the fruits of the Music Professor’s splendid connections. Not that he isn’t grateful. Perry Oliver for weeks feeling bound to thank the Music Professor in person but as of yet unable to make the trip. Internally (to himself), he pleads the pressures of work. The moments steadily accumulate. Still so much to do before Tom’s premiere.

Blind Tom. So it came to him. He does not waste time asking himself where it came from, but is only surprised at its slowness — he stood still, unable to move — at how the first word — language the material upon which we have to work — had been so slow in appearing, as were those that followed it. How he found that the thought I must change his name was already there, the idea having traced itself on his mind much earlier, somewhere or other, his mind heavy with its half-remembered weight. Only the words Blind Tom were missing, the initial forgotten thought (idea) coming back and passing between him and the image the name conjured up when he uttered the words Blind Tom Exhibition out loud, listening to his own voice uttering the words as if they had come from someone else. How well he understands now that identity is not a disposition but an accomplishment. Tom today, Blind Tom in the by and by of history.