Song of the Shank

by Jeffery Renard Allen

  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.

  Yes, to a degree. Perry Oliver sits with a touch of astonishment and gratefulness that he has gotten this far. He has come here freely on his own. Has come to yield up himself. Shaken, breathless, he sits regarding Howard with his own terror, wondering if he might have done things differently. He had considered bringing Tom along—and leaving Seven behind in the apartment—to allow the Professor to see firsthand the project he would be taking on. Still can’t say why he decided against it.

  Rest assured, Howard says. He gives Perry Oliver a little smile to put him at ease. You are doing the right thing. The South is no place for a pianist to develop. The air is too damp. It ruins the instrument and at the same time it ruins the pianist. The hands and head go soft in the shortest time.

  Howard gives Perry Oliver a look, implying that they are conspirators united against a ridiculous world. However, Perry Oliver steers clear of responding, refusing to be drawn into a discussion that he knows could lead him on a tirade against their country.

  See here. The instructor held up both hands palms outward, like a cornered victim going soft before a highwayman with a pistol aimed at his heart. Look closely, he said. See the ridges and grooves standing out from the skin. They help the fingers help the pianist along. They are as important for absorbing and recording our touch as they are for enhancing and tightening the grip. Music enters here through the tips of the fingers and travels up through the hands, arms, shoulders, neck, and makes its way all the way up to the brain.

  Perry Oliver sat listening with bemusement at an enthusiasm he had never heard before, soaking in the instructor’s words and gestures, so much so that he missed half of what Howard was actually saying to him, afraid to move, feeling that anything he did would disturb the mood, clues to what Howard was really thinking, the hidden behind the words, held up to eye to tongue to ear.

  Is he equal with both hands?

  Yes, Perry Oliver said, unclear what he was acknowledging. Both hands are equal.

  Forthright instruction, Howard said, is a way to learn how to play two voices clearly but also after further progress to deal correctly and well with three obbligato parts not only to obtain good ideas but most of all to learn the process of invention that is necessary to any style of playing by which to acquire a strong foretaste of composition.

  He composes, Perry Oliver said. However, he has a limited program. Perry Oliver looked right into Howard’s eager eyes. Might you be able to demonstrate a full range of songs for him, as many as you know, as many as you can, and build up his repertoire? He tried to keep the pleading out of his voice, hoping to establish by his very intensity a stronger claim to the child than any could make.

  Yes, Howard said, although I’m sure some exercises will be necessary. I can assure you that within a week Tom will have learned a new song.

  That is quite generous, Perry Oliver said. However, I suspect that he might be capable of learning five songs in a given day.

  Something in the other man’s face startled Perry Oliver. It was a look that said Howard had nothing but scorn and contempt for the man who was hiring him.

  You see, he possesses an iron memory. Whatever he hears he can play. Perry Oliver never wasted time pondering the origins of Tom’s gift, wondering if Tom’s powers were evidence of the mysterious workings of God’s awful hand or some other supernatural force. Enough to accept a paradox for what it is. He is one to keep to what he knows and understands.

  Yes, that is a special consideration. Howard’s eyes flashing the secret of his excitement. We should start tomorrow.

  The words surprised Perry Oliver, even more than he had hoped for. Delighted that the Music Professor had put forth the request.

  Please bring him here after breakfast.

  It was Howard’s expectation that he see Tom as often as possible, three or four times a week—he asked double his usual fee, a sum amounting to almost two dollars per day—a proposal suggesting that both Perry Oliver and Tom would have to lift their own work to merit being in the same place with him.

  A rigorous schedule should suit his nature, Perry Oliver said, for he never tires of playing.

  Pianists have amazing endurance.

  Perry Oliver looked at the piano, a black levitating mass.

  A short time later, he emerged dreamily from the house. It’s settled. Saying it to himself, to the other houses, to fading (red) sun and the wind and the trees. Not a moment to take lightly. Even though he had gotten what he wanted, he needed to feel bigger than this man, Howard. What is it that had brought the Music Professor into his life?

  He walked faster in the stiff air, trying to calm his racing mind, his eyes filling with the distance that had already sprung between him and Howard. What is this he heard from a block away? Bone-white notes. Trailing behind him, intent on following him home. He found himself standing before a haberdashery window, hats perched bird-like on their stands. Without giving it much thought he decided to celebrate his victory by treating Seven to a gift, a Paul Morphy hat.

  It took Howard a week to break Tom out of the habit of simply walking over to the piano and hooking his hat onto the cantilevered lid. Could it be that he truly believes a piano is a casual object of furniture like any other? Tom would step through the door, break away from his navigator, Seven, remove his hat, angle it on the piano, then sit down and begin playing whatever pleased him.

  Now Tom has quickly fallen into the proper routine. The servant brings a bowl of water so that Howard and Tom may clean their hands. Holds out a fresh towel so that they may pat their skin dry. They are now ready to begin.

  So much depends on where. Start with Tom’s teeth and gums. Tom must learn to keep his mouth shut. When he plays he keeps it open like an oven waiting for unbaked food.

  At first Tom gives in with no resistance. Simply goes along with Howard without his usual force of will. He is peaceful and composed before the piano. His face tilted slightly upward as he listens to Howard demonstrate a bar or melody. Mouth shut, eyes unseeing, both naive and enigmatic.

  That afternoon when Howard first heard Tom has stayed with him, a sharpened echo in his memory. Clings to the present even as it ceases to make sense in terms of where they are now, of his (their) present goals. Easy enough to recall the many patrons sitting or standing in happy ignorance and a group of overseers seated together at a table with their coats off, their faces twisted out of shape with laughter. He made sure to seat himself as far as possible from them, all the way at the back of the saloon—the tables scarred with initials, the tables without tablecloths—near the decrepit piano.

  That’s when Seven and Tom wandered in and took the
instrument. A great deal of what followed, the musical performance itself, is lost from memory. A single hearing allows us to retain only so much. Not that he was seeking to absorb anything as Tom touched and sounded the keys, as he tapped sharp glinting notes into a wall of air, the melody rising in pitch and excitement, the cadence increasing, Tom mouth open, hammering the keys, building the song into his body.

  At the very first lesson in his home less than a week later Howard learned that Tom has a good ear in the sense that he can reproduce anything he hears, no matter how difficult. But copying is cheap. The hands must engender. And the ear must reign over the hands.

  Attuning. Training the ear which is a way of training the mind to hear. Can’t have one without the other. The two are inseparable, go hand in hand. That roughly is how he would (might) describe the process. The clear shape he listens for, the frame of the composition beneath the harmony, the melody, and the rhythm, the lower pattern or higher, as it were. To grow an ear for this hidden structure.

  In order to prove that Tom was possessed of ordinary common sense, I asked him if he knew what key in flats was synonymous to another key in sharps. He promptly answered, “No.” I then played piece upon piece upon the piano in the key of C Major, at the same time informing Tom that by making the signature twelve sharps and playing precisely as I did before, there would be no difference in the music. I then explained to him that the key of D double flat (twelve flats), was synonymous to the keys which I had just used, when played or sung, although appearing different on paper. Tom seemed to comprehend this explanation perfectly, and when told that there was a key formed by the use of flats precisely like each key formed by the use of sharps, and vice versa, I found that he soon had no difficulty whatever inputting this theory into practice upon the piano in any key that I mentioned.

  Subscribed, W. P. Howard

  The title of a composition should be purely functional, factual. The composition provides all you need to know, as the actual movement of sound contains. What it evokes in you. Where it takes you. What you find when you arrive. The many colors, tints, and shades.

  How does that feel, Tom?

  What do you think of this, Tom?

  Get your hands around this little phrase, Tom.

  Howard will play a phrase three or four different ways. Which one do you prefer, Tom?

  Is this the correct way, Tom?

  Listen to this, Tom, how Rubinstein might play it.

  From Tom’s astonished face and innocent answers, it’s clear that he seems to think Howard’s questions are a form of wit, clever riddles. Tom’s not getting what he needs most from Howard. His voice can’t get through. How to strike a responsive chord and free Tom of his ready-made notions. Help him to overcome himself. Tom, you can’t have heard that properly. A painful but challenging and fascinating task. He is entitled to be impatient with Tom. No, Tom. Listen. For Tom must realize that he is a distinctive body with attitudes, memories, turns of mind, and habits of expression.

  Any command is also a release. He tries to rouse Tom to indignation or astonishment. Try it again. Slower this time. Building him up bit by bit. Until he can do it on his own. His own choices and decisions, his own way. The subtleties and give-and-take of musical instruction, of study and performance.

  Tom listens on, interested, smiling at everything new.

  Howard has never found the knack for composing, so he has given his life over to the proper interpretation of the Great Masters, although he sees himself as only a competent player at his best. Competent and correct. The moment he thinks he has a hold on a work he’s lost it. He is duty bound to devote himself absolutely to those composers who have brought the best music into the world. To respect the inviolable laws of the composition as penned by the composer’s hand. This is the guiding principle of his life. And the key method behind his pedagogy. He is never so cheerful as when he is playing music, even if he is playing in the service of a dull pupil.

  His favorite composers have designs on him. He can’t escape their power. Their putting him on paper, what they have brought into the world. The composer speaks through your hands, lives through your hands. The performer can only be him, the composer. You create yourself so far as the composition dominates you. Obligated to the composition but free. Independent. Every note matters. Every note has meaning. No note can stand on its own. You enter the score and must find your way around. Each note is a station, a step. This way. So many bread crumbs leading you both away from and back to tonal center. Calculated coherence and balance. A unity of count. Numerical magic.

  He places Tom’s hands on top of his so that Tom may feel the proper way hands should move. He sits Tom on his lap with Tom’s shoes on top of his shoes so that Tom may know how the feet properly work the pedals and how hands and feet complement one another. He has Tom touch his face—his brown hand nice and warm in its roughness—hoping that Tom may feel what he feels. (What changes underneath the skin no one sees.) Tom the shape of his own push and pull. (Bach for four hands. Four feet.) No matter how often he is put off he perseveres. He will work with Tom for as long as it takes.

  Howard closes his eyes to keep from seeing Tom’s hands move. Tom is getting a better focus on matters of importance. Loosening up the reins of his imagination. Howard finds himself nodding agreement when Tom plays something correctly, forgetting that Tom can’t see him. He must speak in order for Tom to know. That he is advancing, going somewhere, although the direction is not clear. So much to glean and deduce. Glimpses through the gaps of what has been denied him, of what he has denied himself. But Howard must be careful not to say too much, to bring up everything that comes into his head without reckoning the consequences. Not to confuse Tom, tie him up. The more Tom holds on to Howard, the more Tom belongs to himself. Little by little Tom is getting hold of Howard’s way of being so open. Little by little, he’ll give up his idea that he has no life of his own, that he has never had a life of his own up until now.

  The gleam of dollars, perfectly new coins. He takes the money from Seven without impatience. Seven pays him weekly, always on Friday. Mr. Oliver gains you this sum, he says. Howard has set eyes on Perry Oliver only once in his life, those many weeks ago, the sole encounter in person, in the flesh. Howard opened the door and was granted the sight of Perry Oliver’s anxious face. This solicitor had dressed with serious intention, obviously with care, like someone attending the theater, although he wore no hat. Their conversation was private and enclosed. Very quietly and without having to consider his words Oliver spoke of the child as a beloved person, almost kin. Let himself express natural affection for the child as he hinted at the stunted surroundings in which the child had grown up, not so much reared by its parents as guarded by its owners, and explained his speculations about these parents and these owners and their relationship to the child by filling out the details of its present situation and environment with him, Oliver.

  Who knew if anything he said was true. Howard listened with interest and respect. The hardest thing was to keep from laughing in his face. Damn fool. Speaking in his drawn-out, carefully articulated sentences. Little did he know, Howard had already witnessed the boy for himself less than a week earlier. Oliver hasn’t the slightest clue about what he has on his hands here. Doesn’t know and probably doesn’t care. Without even thinking about it, Howard took two steps back—Oliver had been standing not farther than two feet from him—fearing contamination. Damn him and all his high-sounding words.

  He cannot get used to the awe that, through no wish of his own, he inspires in certain people despite his quiet modest disposition. Even the planters are respectful in his presence, almost timid and fearful, shy. They speak little and do not say what they mean. Stare at him without blinking, as though expecting every minute that he will say something important, something infinitely significant. Their compliments bother him. He finds their unshakable convictions insulting. He believes their acts of charity are nothing more than bribes, methods of indenture. The plante
r will come down off his high horse and treat you with courtesy, pretend to stand equally before you all the while believing you are insignificant. They try to make the difference felt. They make it felt without trying. For they are used to dealing with plebeians who have so little that they look to the planters as the ones to serve and lead them. Damn them all. Howard thinks amicably of every kind of disaster that might befall them.

  He gladly agrees to Oliver’s offer, despite the weakness of this man’s character. (Teach him all you can, Oliver says. He has money in him.) He smiles, having made a silent renewed resolution to remember his debts—the house, the servant, his publications, his books—and his commitment to the higher cause. It is (becomes) important to stand before this man with a straight face, free of anger, however difficult. Tragedy offers no consolation. No, he is not without twinges of doubt, and hatred, but he is mildly hard up and needs the money and needs this mission. He quietly accepts the banknotes that Perry Oliver hands him in advance of the first lesson. Money or no money, he can’t refuse. The weakness of others demands a greater strength from him. Tells himself that he is not so much taking on a student as taking on a moral obligation, that he is serving as someone who can do for Tom what no other white man in this city can do. This is his conviction that he will repeat and reaffirm in the months and years to come.