Song of the Shank

by Jeffery Renard Allen

  Trapped in their own collapsing bodies, the strays take their time getting from one place to another, brittle-shelled turtles. The oldest and most weathered of the bunch don’t seem able to get about at all, planted at a spot along the road or under a shady tree. Even sitting such, they seem to suffer from erethism of their digits and limbs, and twitching and tics of eyes and face. The Reverend tries to look them in the face, in the eye, when he talks to them, but they get all respectful, hold their elbows and study their feet. Every now and then he swings his face toward heaven, either seeking guidance or receiving approval.

  They drool nonsense sounds to each other, Charity dizzy with listening, nigger talk that even she can’t understand.

  Blouse open, the thin fan of bones wafting heat through wet skin, the moist pressing air cool for a moment, until the next breath. She picks and plucks determinedly at gray desiccated flesh, uncovering the dirty buried life, lifting it to the surface. Plugs up holes where existence can escape. No two bodies alike. All the bodies alike. For weeks now since they sent her from the Home to the city, she has gone out each day and tried to see the city through Wire’s eyes and with Wire’s words. How impossible. Too much. Too much. She follows this perfectly aligned road, putting her feet down in those overlooked spots speckled with brown and green, feeling twigs break under her shoes—the sound at least—walking on bones. On her way. By and by, finds herself far from the camps, on the out-reaches of what she knows, unfamiliar streets. Moves through the streets (never stumbles) with these thoughts on her mind. Many people about. Black men in blue and varying shades of blue and gray. (She is looking for color.) She sees ship sails sticking up out of the water like amputated wings, and boats that look like disembodied feet kicking the water.

  We have to board the ferry, Mr. Tabbs said.

  What fo? I ain’t lost nothing over there.

  Thomas was there, on the island, surrounded by all that water. What had happened to the Thomas of old that she can still picture, still feel? Don’t ever touch me like that again.

  She walks through the streets and tells herself, I cannot bear staying in this city any longer. But she is alone with only her labor in the camps and the church chores. She has no other bed, no other place to go back to. Elsewhere in her head. (Which way to turn?)

  A hand snakes out and touches her then someone grabs her by the shoulder from behind. She jumps with fear, heart beating. Even before she turns around, her head goes into an accelerated and feverish deliberation, picturing several possible scenarios and how she will attack or defend and extricate herself. Someone calls a name, and she turns at the call, but she has turned in error, wrong person wrong name. A mistake that won’t let her go, that gets her thinking. All those faces out there. People everywhere. A gathering around her. No one knows her, knows her name. She can get lost. Disappear. Charity Greene Wiggins no longer.

  She breathes the warm night air, people inhaling her breath and she inhaling theirs. One of them now. Stray. Contraband. Refugee. Free.

  Song of the Shank

  (1869)

  “I didn’t think screaming was part of music.”

  We are pleased to have with us in the recital arena a singular Negro virtuoso during this era which has been largely defined by virtuoso-frenzy. This sable personage is none other than Blind Tom, who has returned to the stage after an absence of five years or more, a murky period with much still unknown, unasked, and unanswered since we the public and the press had no clue as to his whereabouts or his well-being for half a decade. Notwithstanding these facts, his talents were on full display last night as of the days of old. He is all the musician of a Liszt and Rubinstein. Indeed, it goes without saying, his technique is superb. We expect nothing less of a virtuoso. Both hands share complete equality, the interaction and rivalry between them being a constant source of new inventions. Let us celebrate the return of the most famous musician, indeed the most famous celebrity, in the world, who now tours under the name Original Blind Tom to distinguish himself from the many imposters.

  I have a new song.

  No new songs.

  Let me play it for you.

  No new songs, Seven says. Do I have to tell you why? He does not have to tell Juluster why. Of late Juluster has been running his mouth too much:

  I am ignorant of my Father’s reason for choosing the piano as the instrument on which I am to illustrate my wondrous gift. My dear mother told me, she said, My son, the Heavenly Father gave you certain gifts in exchange for depriving you of sight.

  Tom, the journalist said, that is such a beautiful song about your dear mammy. She must be so proud of you.

  Mother is a jewel, Tom said. Father is a mirror.

  My dear mother, do you know what else she told me? My son, she said, you had not long been from my belly when I received a sign. A rock dove set down on the rafters above where you lay and shat down on your forehead. From that moment on I knew you were destined for greatness.

  And this:

  “The Rain Storm” received its title because in the opening statement of the composition, I tried to give the feeling of something coming down—descending octaves—and then overflowing. In a way, it’s musically analogous to rain. I wasn’t, however, thinking specifically of a flood, but rather of an overflow of something. In a way, I suppose the original impetus for this piece came from my first years of being taught the Holy Bible in Sunday school and of hearing about deluges, good old Noah and the ark and all that. Of course, I wrote the piece at a very young age when I still accompanied my good mother to church almost every Sunday and when we attended Bible study together several hours before service began. With one thing or another, I am no longer afforded the chance to attend church all that often. So, now, at my present age, I certainly would approach the song differently. I would even give it a different title, “Deluge,” or something like that. Have I said too much?

  Yes, Seven thought. You have said too damn much. Let him do the talking. Who knows Tom better than he does? The person he invokes when he thinks of Tom is accurate to the inch. He has memorized Tom’s measurements, knows all of Tom’s dimensions, the space between Tom’s fingers and toes and teeth. Knows. They had that between them. Not for nothing has he taken pains to come to this city where Tom gave his last concert and where he is thought to have died and may have died, probably did die. To the consternation or delight of many, he, Seven, will resurrect Blind Tom right here in the city. Do this in memory of me. What he can do for Tom. What he owes Tom is beyond action and expression. Tom has given his life a size and shape that no man can diminish. Tom would want this, he tells himself. Tom wants this. Tom wants this for me.

  And how does it feel to be a nigger, Tom?

  A nigger is a thing of no consequence.

  Mr. Seven? Juluster says.

  Yes. Seven leans in to hear the question.

  A blind man walks into a fishmonger’s shop. Do you know what he says?

  What?

  Oh, beg pardon, ladies.

  Will Seven laugh?

  Mr. Seven?

  Yes.

  You want to hear another one?

  As many as you have.

  There was this cross-eyed planter who confounded his niggers to no end because they could never tell what or where he was looking. (Give me blindness any day over that.) He would say, Nigger, bend down and bring me that, and four or five niggers would bend down. Or, Nigger, what’s your name again? And ten or twelve niggers would answer. Mary, Martha, Matthew, Michael.

  And there they are, the three weeping women in black, clustered together in one of the first rows, their faces veiled. Seven sees them but refuses to believe what he sees. Could these be the same weeping women in black from his days with Perry Oliver and Tom? Are these those? Vitalis asked.

  In the days and weeks that follow, his thoughts seem stuck, he feels paralyzed by the sense that Time is repeating itself, three weeping women in black entering the order and comfort of his life concert after concert. He wonder
s about their appearance again and again, and even as he hears a voice call out to him in the noisy solitude backstage after one recital.

  Sir, the woman says, do you know me? She is encased in a black dress from throat to ankle.

  He is asking himself the same question, unless the answer he is looking for is hidden in the next question she throws at him.

  Where have we met?

  I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure before now.

  Sir, we’ve had the pleasure.

  Her thin frame seems more substantial, seems to possess more flesh than what’s there, under its assured bearing. She stares at him with the impassiveness of a sculpted form. Her face etched with weathered lines that are not at all unpleasant, but (somehow) patterned and elegant. Her gaze is frank and unsparing.

  Well, ma’m, that cherished encounter I seem to have forgotten.

  Sir, the woman says, you are an imposter. You and your blind nigger both. She is a thin lady and she is out of breath. I know Blind Tom, and that ain’t him.

  Ma’m, I can assure you—

  The real Blind Tom was of the lowest Guinea type. Your boy is clearly an amalgamation.

  Ma’m, I will be happy to refund your ticket. But nothing he says can do the work of either convincing or dismissing her.

  He collects Tom and Vitalis, the accusation pushing him into the vivid dark.

  Who she? Vitalis asks.

  The crazy old bitch, Seven says out loud, speaking mostly to himself. Thinking: She does not believe. She sees right through me.

  Juluster holds his hand straight out. Wire—the name the tall nigger preacher had given—reaches and takes it and Juluster tries to give it the same painful grip that he gives everyone, but the preacher’s hand is large enough to grip a watermelon. Blind Tom, Juluster says. Eighth wonder of the world.

  Pleased to make your acquaintance, the nigger preacher says. He releases Juluster’s hand.

  Likewise, Juluster says.

  His hair angrily askew (so much, too much), Vitalis stands next to Juluster looking up at the preacher in astonishment. Nature has afforded this Wire radical proportions, a very Hercules in stature, seven feet in height and nearly as wide as two men, a man too wide and too tall to squeeze his way through the average portal. And the black robe he wears, splayed out in front and behind winglike, intensifies his colossal proportions.

  I watched and listened tonight and after watching and listening, after what I saw and heard tonight, I had to bring myself here before you. The preacher’s voice is needlessly loud, as if he is addressing an audience. Judging by the wrinkles on his face, the preacher is over sixty years old, a bad sign. The old like to talk.

  They will have to suffer the inconvenience (no way around it), but Seven hopes that the preacher will avoid beating around the bush and simply hurry into the purpose of his visit—a donation for his church? He wants to pray with Blind Tom? Bless Blind Tom? Have Blind Tom bless him?—the sooner the better.

  You’ve done a fine job—speaking to Seven now. The preacher lets his gaze drift over Seven.

  And Seven stumbles in his thinking. Thank you. Trying to smile, the words carrying with their own insistence since Seven has no idea what the preacher means. And now he notices a faint but deep forest smell coming from somewhere inside the gallery, a wood and leaf and soil scent, green and brown against the marble floor and smooth granite walls.

  Bemused, the preacher gazes steadily at Seven. But sometimes another is chosen in preference who by all rights should not even be considered your equal.

  The meaning and importance of the words escape him, but Seven feels (detects) something in the preacher’s vocabulary that is rallied against him. Just who is this nigger preacher anyway?

  Still, to your credit your illusions and confidences and deceptions are of sufficient approximation to confidence most people, especially those least in the know.

  It’s up to him now to talk this nigger preacher out of whatever it is he thinks he believes. Reverend—

  Your present condition comes as no disclosure. We have to know what we want from the start. Already as children we have to be clear in our minds what it is we want, want to have, have to have.

  Reverend, perhaps we could visit your church? Seven sees the old woman in the oil canvas behind the preacher, her hands stiff on her lap, the skin pale, the hurtful rheumatic veins—life as it is. Given the vagueness of this black body, this Blind Tom, surely the preacher is only drawing upon all he can remember or guess.

  Out the mouths of babes, the preacher says. Do you really think so little of me?

  It is hot inside the hallway and quiet, the air full of thoughts and things to say. Seven stares into the preacher’s impassive face. Gives the signal for Vitalis to take Juluster down to the driver and the carriage, but Vitalis does not move, only looks at Seven as if he has never seen him before. Stands there looking like a damn fool, with that tear-shaped rush of hair rising skyward from his forehead, six inches tall at the tip. Then Wire smiles as if to encourage Vitalis to follow Seven’s instructions. He touches Vitalis’s back, quick firm pats. Vitalis and Juluster hurry purposefully ahead. Juluster, his movement constrained by the weight of Vitalis, accelerates to escape his navigator, and they disappear from sight, leaving Seven and the preacher staring across confrontational space.

  Now Wire starts to walk away too, huge and lumbering, a black moving wall, and Seven sets off after him through the grandest structure in the city, all pristine neoclassical stone with an interlacing arcade. A marble labyrinth of stairways and galleries, gangways and corridors, pillars and porches, halls and dead ends.

  I see no reason why you can’t revive the name of Blind Tom on every tongue in the civilized world, Wire says, for the replica in your charge is no person of ordinary means. He is an extraordinary talent, the genuine article. Perhaps the spirit anointed him in this purpose. So I ask you, is it for me to stand in your way?

  Words vie in Seven’s mouth. No, he says. But you want something.

  They exit the building and come down the wide grand staircase situated like a series of descending bridges between two stone lions, the memory of roar and kill long drained from mouth and claws. Walk past a little booth at the foot of the staircase, where earlier that evening hundreds had purchased tickets. Seven’s body acts without him.

  Yes, I do.

  Here it comes, Seven tells himself. He is leaning toward the idea that this preacher will take him for all he can.

  In the receding light, crowds of people walk in small groups by the sea, some of them holding hands. All of their movements seem identical, the same pace, the same stride, arms swinging. A dream. If anyone knows if Tom is alive or dead, this preacher does. He is sure of it. He feels powerless against this unforeseen enemy. The preacher’s mind remains against them, against him and “Tom.” Nothing good can come out of their time together.

  And you will want to know that I seek nothing for myself since my private needs are few. However, the needs of my collective are wide-ranging and extensive, and will require means of both a material and an immaterial nature, in the present moment as well as long term.

  It is more than Seven expected, too much. No two ways about it, he must lie to earn the preacher’s trust and to win himself more time to devise a true course of action.

  But already I am at fault in assuming that our goals are not at cross-purposes. Ignorant of your character, I should not pretend to understand your motives behind this venture let alone assume that we can arrive at a meeting of the minds.

  The sun coming through the branches of the trees makes the sidewalk look reddish, like a river.

  I will do all I can, Seven says.

  The big nigger preacher looks down at him with eyes the size of plums. No, Wire says. You will do more than that. You will do whatever I tell you to do.

  Seven hears the words like something coming from very far away, from the top of a hill or mountain. Thinks: Things can change in a day. Beneath history is a
nother history we’ve made without even knowing it. Blind Tom is a name that he can no longer claim, a name that perhaps no one can claim or that everyone can claim. A million Blind Toms.

  Later, he will think that this nigger preacher was worth killing.

  Tabbs crumples paper to encourage the flame. Getting to what he wants will be slow going and mostly smoke. How many weeks has he been laid up in bed now? Can’t say for sure, only knows that he was already coming down with something serious, something severely debilitating on that day right before the start of winter when Wire came to visit him, made him sit down, then spoke to him with utter directness about an imposter Wire had chanced upon several days earlier, a prevaricator going under the stage name the Original Blind Tom. Tabbs no longer recalls Wire’s exact words, but can still feel the way the words worked into his chest and moved up into his throat and face. Although the preacher’s visage (eyes, mouth, jaw) was distorted with outrage, Tabbs did not let Wire know what he was feeling—so that’s it, I’ve finally lost, it’s over now—his straining body sealed tight so that no sound or movement could escape. They sat quietly for some time in a semblance of mourning and reflection until Wire took to his feet. Tabbs saw Wire to the door and managed to remain standing until the preacher left. Then days of sickness. Fever. Chills. Thirst. Delirium.

  His mind freezes on the image of Tom coming to his aid with a circle of hands and comforting words, Tabbs growing in the shade of the other male’s nursing presence. Tom so particular in his touch, Tom so familiar, so pleasing. Just when Tabbs’s recovery had appeared complete, he was seized by another fever. So he dragged his wretched body back to the safety of this bed where sleep eludes him.