Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Tabbs can’t help but notice Wire’s ease with children. They don’t fear his intimidating form but enjoy his company. They follow him into the church, a long singing chain.

Tabbs stands looking. Of course he is lost. Should he take the street on the left of the church or the one to the right?

Excuse me, sir. How do I get to Ruggles? No sooner said than corrected. People here know Ruggles by his Christian name, David, Mr. David. When he’d first returned after more than five years away, Tabbs had no clues to Ruggles’s whereabouts, if he was dead or alive or if he had moved away, moved on. But he quickly discovered that on Edgemere Mr. David was a name in every mouth and ear. During the expulsion the island had taken Ruggles in with a thousand other exiles from the city, no questions asked. They provided him with a house and made him headmaster of the orphanage, an unlikely profession for the Ruggles Tabbs knew, a hard-nosed man loaded down with banknotes, a good twenty pounds or more distributed under his fine clothes and underwear, a man whose head was full of names, dates, places, and numbers, how much borrowed, how much paid. This Ruggles took his leisure at abolitionist parties, listened patiently while the runagate at the lectern narrated his horrible tribulations — ladies fainting, men vomiting in their handkerchiefs — and pleaded for donations toward the purchase of loved ones left behind, Ruggles unmoved, holding out for the post-testimonial food and spirits.

I won’t put my hard-earned money into some slaver’s coffers, Ruggles said. Rather I murder one or two of them instead.

By birth Ruggles’s right leg was noticeably shorter than the left, every inch of his body twisted and swollen with his lopsidedness. He tried to mask (present?) his deformity as best he could beneath fine clothing and expertly stitched shoes — a big half moon of soft leather on each foot, always polished, black shine — walking with surety at his own unhurried pace. However, his vulnerable body and risky line of work brought him days filled with violence, legs and arms and pockets wracked with danger, he and Tabbs both accepting the brutal necessity of fending off some attacker or collecting a debt.

Nothing of his wealth survived the expulsion, ocean stripping him of suits shoes shirts and hats, dissolving the last of his banknotes, Edgemere restructuring the body itself, bringing about a change in dress and a change in personality (to the surface self at least), and creating in Mr. David a man decidedly different from his city counterpart, a man who finds everything in this life to his taste: the roosters, the donkeys, the narrow streets, the luring softness of sand and sea.

I was in the water. Dark. Cold. My lungs had no more life to give. I knew I would never make it across. Knew I would be carried under. I would be left to tell my last words and tales to the mud and eels. Anytime now. But I kept swimming and somehow I made it across. That’s how it all started. Can’t say if it took a week or a month. It happened so quietly and without my notice. One day I up and realized that my legs were now the same length.

These white devils had done a most wonderful thing. They had given me what God couldn’t. I could never have broken free from their world on my own. They kicked me out the door.

Tabbs crosses the low hedge-lined and tottering and slippery narrow stone footpath that brings him to Ruggles’s house, a little cradle of stone. You should have seen it. A sight for sore eyes. Most of the windows gone, part of the roof, and all of the doors. They brought paint, plaster, and wood, and in two weeks the walls were white, the doors closed the way they should, the windows had shutters, the closets could be used, the floors no longer had holes in them, the roof and ceilings had been sealed. They brought beds and furniture and carried everything in and put each item where I told them. They started a fire in the stove. Stocked the pantry. Shit, wouldn have surprised me none if they gave me a wife.

Ruggles cracks his knuckles in the doorway, looking amusedly at Tabbs, eyes steady with their assured shine, stark wonder. The unexpected sight of Ruggles standing there as if by prior arrangement causes something to break inside Tabbs. He doesn’t have the calmness of mind he thought, fearful of surrendering himself, Ruggles a master at balancing judgments, playing the devil’s advocate, off-putting, pushing around, cutting down. Tells himself that he must stick to his sense of right no matter what, that only his sense of right can decide it.

Tabbs directs the leaf-wrapped bundles of fish toward Ruggles, who accepts them with hands the color of dark soil, a good three shades darker than the rest of his body as if he is wearing gloves.

You want to fry these up?

No. They’re for you.

Back inside Ruggles gives the parcels of fish to his housekeeper. The men take seats in the parlor, a small pleasant room sparkling and grand with the eye-filling sight of red vases in the wide tall windows, vases around which nude black figures pursue each other in an endless procession. The housekeeper hurries in with a whistling teakettle and a single cup on a saucer. She sets cup-saucer on a slim table between Tabbs and Ruggles. Starts to pour. The spout releases water so slowly it takes a good minute to fill the cup, Tabbs and Ruggles waiting for filling to be done and the woman to quit the room.

What’s up, homeskillet?

You looking at it.

I’m looking at it? I know there got to be more to see.

Nothing to it. One day like any other.

Uh huh. How those women treatin you?

What women?

What women? The ones that’s pretty as pee. You know how I like mine.

I know.

You run into a dry spell? Ruggles’s smile is even coyer now. Better get you some of that pussy oil from Wire.

So we’re going to sit here talking about pussy?

Homeskillet, you the one bringing me fish first thing in the morning. Sounds like a pussy problem to me.

I wanted to catch you before you left.

You could have caught me at the Home.

Tabbs looks at the steaming cup of tea he hasn’t touched.

I don’t know how you spend your days.

What’s to know?

Lots. Starting with who you fuckin.

Dressed in a plain open-necked white shirt with black buttons and loose-fitting white pants encircled with a black leather belt, Ruggles sits with his left leg crossed over his right and his body inclined forward somewhat as if guarding his right side, a pose that seems to draw attention to his fit angles and lines while at the same time throwing his face in proud relief, a face exuding irrepressible vigor and excitement. His eyes do not smile when the mouth does, but his goatee moves with every facial expression like some adjustable ornament draped over his mouth. A lion’s mane of hair roars from his head, black intensity although he is starting to gray at the temples and his hairline is retreating from his forehead, low tide. Still no mistaking the sense of youthful accord in his features. Ruggles looks not yet fifty but long past forty with teeth that shine white when he speaks or smiles. When they first met — twenty years ago? or was it more? less? far less, yes? I was seven, give or take —at the Zoological Society Ruggles must have been roughly the same age as Tabbs is now.

I’m not the only one out early. I saw Wire down by the church.

Probably saying his good-byes.

He’s set for travel?

No, Ruggles says. He’s leaving us. Leaving Edgemere. Moving back to the city.

Tabbs cannot prevent Ruggles from seeing his puzzled look.

You didn’t know? He’s been telling everyone for weeks.

Tabbs will say nothing about supping with Wire yesterday, about the camps and the amputations and the headache powder.