Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Yes, Tabbs says. Yes I do.

Concern for the greater?

Tabbs nods.

And so I ask you, what is the greater?

Tabbs hears the question.

I think I know you well enough by now and don’t doubt in the least your convictions, but can you say that what you do is more important?

Plain words, the voice hard and clear, so certain of itself.

No, you cannot. So why aren’t you there in the camps with me?

Tabbs feels his seat move back. Wire a big man and everything he does has force. A good ten feet away from him, but Tabbs feels the words catapult from Wire’s mouth, like wind-flung gravel, knocking Tabbs and his seat back. I would gladly put my services to use, he says, but I’m no surgeon.

What am I? Wire, expecting this response, leans forward, bringing his chest toward the rim of his lap-level glass, giving Tabbs the hard lines of his eyes, face, beard. Do you really believe that I am so without intelligence as to fail to recognize that you are not a surgeon?

Certainly not. If you will permit me—

What is it that you think I am?

Tabbs shapes words in his mind, tries them out, but can’t get them past his lips.

Just what? Who do you see sitting here? A fool?

No, Doctor, Tabbs says.

Take your right measure. Take it.

Tabbs is looking away so as not to see and feel Wire’s words. Wire is testing him, and Tabbs stares at Wire’s large hands, trying to manage the silence under Wire’s scrutinizing gaze, deflect the charge of moral authority. What Tabbs really wants to know, will Wire extend him the money he needs to carry on his efforts with Tom? Isn’t that after all the reason why he had accepted Wire’s invitation? Granted, Tabbs enjoys the comforts of Wire’s home. All grace and courtesy, Wire supplies his visitors in a most satisfactory style, makes them eat and drink as much as possible, has a thousand stories for anyone who cares to listen, his polished manners rising from the room’s armchair, his ease with people genuine, so too his concern, high-handed but always polite. They get along well. They hold similar opinions on many subjects. Tabbs is almost out of money and a free supper and good wine cannot easily be turned down. Who but Wire can supply him with a dose of funds? Should he ask Wire for a loan—

How much do you want?

As much as you can spare. More.

— Wire will set his crude conditions, no question of Tabbs coming to the camps the next day.

Is there any way around the camps, any way to delay his entry into those golden fields of Wire’s hopes? He must walk into this trap of his own accord, the give he needs to get— I’m obliged to come to the camps. You’re obliged to pay — an unhoped-for possibility.

Behind the scenes the Almighty is working things in our favor.

Yes, Tabbs says. Yes He is. He takes a quick breath, glad that Wire has mentioned God. Who knows, he, Tabbs, might at last say something embarrassing and true.

You must get used to the idea. Earnestly contend for the faith which was delivered unto the saints. But you don’t believe.

It’s just that I don’t know where to commit myself. I don’t know all that much about church.

Tabbs, you needn’t worry. You are not welcome in my church.

Wire sits there, smiling — confident, male.

Then I’ll stay away, Tabbs says, but only if you promise to preach my funeral. Otherwise bury me like a dog.

I would be happy to preach you and bury you. We all have thankless jobs to do.

Drowsing in the diminished light, Tabbs sits in an uncertain state, earnest, tired, something broken and floating inside his head. Despite hours of talk and drink, Wire looks surprisingly fresh, a full day of energy in his body.

So, you will tell. Are you not drawn to deep belief? Let’s clear this matter up. What are your beliefs?

It seems to Tabbs that he has already answered the question.

I have my reasons for asking. When the Almighty calls me home, I will need something to report.

Please speak to our creator on my behalf, Tabbs says, that is, if you think I am deserving of a good word.

Many good words. Should it come to that. But am I capable?

Wire takes to his feet — the decanter is empty — an ending overly prolonged. Come now, it’s time for you to go.

But through some force of inertia, Tabbs remains sitting, his mind commanding (pleading with?) his legs to perform their function. Wire standing like a black wall before him, gazing. When limbs capitulate at last, Tabbs rises to leave, a painful weariness in all of his body, a thousand fists beating him. What derives from the accumulation of many monotonous hours. Nothing said that was not to be said. Nothing remaining unsaid. He has won the right to submit, to surrender. All he has to do is ask. Ask.

Here, Wire says. From somewhere in the darkness he produces a pouch of headache powder and offers it to Tabbs. Put that on your pain.

Tabbs is obliged to accept the pouch, round light weight in his hand, admitting to himself — so it is — that Wire knows the uncertainty that floats about inside his skull, however discreet he has been.

You prefer to leave here still suffering. What have I told you? Nothing is foul for those who win.

What can Tabbs say in response? He simply thanks the doctor-preacher. Wire had taken it upon himself to see Tom back to health when Tabbs and the boy first came to the island. (It had come to pass that the Bethune woman had for days or even weeks there in her lavish apartment allowed Tom to suffer from a breath- and flesh-stealing affliction.) He had put Tom in one of the upstairs rooms rather than admit him to the hospital for what he surely knew would be a slow and difficult convalescence and had assigned one of his nurses from the camps to sit all night at the boy’s bedside, turning his head so that he would not strangle on his own vomit. Wire did not bother to set out his reasons for his generosity. I am only too happy to do you this small service. Why he had fresh clothes sent to the mother after her arrival on Edgemere. (Yes, that too.) Why he lent Tabbs the services of his driver and carriage. But Tabbs knew (felt, would learn) that it was more than just a pose. Tom for weeks reposed in a sea of white sheets like a black fish. Naked to the world. Skin dry and ashy, barely conscious, discharging rivers of urine. Tabbs and the nurse taking turns cooling down his body with water and chunks of ice. Wire would descend on the bed at set hours, pressing Tom’s eyelids with his fingers, with a raised flaming lamp check the color of his patient’s inner mouth, with palm measure the heat of Tom’s body, put ear to the hollow of the rising falling chest.

What good medicines do you have, Doctor? Tom had asked.

Try this. Wire set a bottle of holy water on the bedside table and told Tom to drink all of it.

Do this for me, Tom said.

Yes, Wire said. You’ll be happy to know that I have a piano downstairs. As soon as you are back on your feet.

You’re the one all the time up in that church.

Wire stood looking at Tom, surprise glittering in his eyes. Yes. He laughed. I am of the cloth. How did you know?

Blind Tom doesn’t play church music.

Released from Wire’s care, Tom took a room in the Home and gave no further thought to the Doctor. But Tom’s daily life remained of interest to Wire. No day went by without him dropping in to visit with the boy, entering the Home with his text- and appliance-heavy cloth satchel slung across his body, the instruments of his dual professions inside, not the least of which included hundreds of biblical verses stamped on leather and two leather-bound Bibles, the reason for the duplication unknown to Tabbs, nor clear the full purpose of their presence since Tabbs has never once seen Wire read from or even open either when giving a sermon or ministering to a patient, just weight in that bag he keeps slung across his body as he makes his rounds through the infirmary, all the happier to have Tabbs accompany him, should he wish to do so. Wire will pull a Bible from the satchel and keep it in one hand, moving from one tiny bed to the next, children weightless and inert. Wire full of knowledgeable satisfaction, perfectly comfortable in this world of dissipation, of retreating minds and withering skin, a bit fussy, scolding even, with the nurses and orderlies. As if to compensate for the failure of their hands, he brushes mentholated scent onto the sternums of his patients with the most tender strokes, especially those who are feverish — a remedy he had apparently never deemed appropriate for Tom — although nothing can hide his own smell after a day in the camps, the entire Home filled with the odor of cadaver, making it necessary to keep all the windows open for hours after he leaves.