Song of the Shank

Charity looks around the austere room where Wire works on his sermons—Brethren, I have taken off my shoes and on this consecrated ground adored the God and Father of our ancestors. You’ve been crowned with victory. There is a king in each of you—looks at the bed, the table, shelves of books, sketches on the walls, and the shiny white sheets of paper that occupy his hard narrow desk like felled birds. No easy time of it. His robe stiff tight on his shoulders like feathers mashed in place. He shifts his bulk from time to time. She waits in silence, the room hot, airless, can feel the urgency flowing from him in waves. Wouldn’t surprise her any if he rips the sermon into skinny strips and tosses the wasted words out the window. Nothing a preacher can’t do. He puts down his stylus, shakes his head, looks up at the sagging ceiling — God pressing in — shielding his eyes as he does so. Seems to have forgotten that another person, her, Charity Greene Wiggins, is in the room with him. But then he looks at her, and for a moment his eyes look almost compassionate. Try again. He shuffles the papers, moves them about on the desk, piecing together a new nest where his tired hands can perch. Looks at her absently, eager to get back to his sermon. So she’ll just keep standing here, awaiting some sudden surprise of light, color, or motion. Not much longer now. He takes a sip of chocolate tea, lukewarm now, returns cup to saucer. Primed, he stuffs a black plug of tobacco in his mouth and chews his annoyance away. Spits brown puddles of tobacco juice right onto the floor.

She remembers moments of the recent past that already seem distant, long ago:

Why did you go? Thomas asked.

I ain’t go nowhere.

You been.

They took you, took you away.

You say.

He gave you to them.

He put his arms on the table. Still arms, slack face.

You understand? They took you away from me.

But here now.

Yes. Here. Together…. Don’t you miss me?

Got no words.

Why? They took you. A nigger ain’t go no say.

You want to play. Play. I’ll hear you.

She started to hum a song, low in her throat.

Don’t ever touch me like that again, he said.

She blows out the quotidian candles, readies the kerosene lamps, and carries them lit by the latches, two to a hand, into the small sitting room where the Vigilance Committee, twelve deacons from as many churches, come with weekly reports about trials, tribulations, and triumphs. (She does not give as much thought as she might to what the men actually speak about.) Looking at the men, she thinks about how the black children of Israel are like a speckled bird in their many shades of skin. She serves them decanters of sack, kettles of soma, and goblets of Medusa for those who want their eyes to roll back in their head. Bowls of goobers and pecans, apple and pear preserves on little rafts of hard bread, and flat cakes of ground meat smothered in sweet red sauce. Reverend Wire is brightly attired in blue robe with a line of silver buttons shining — she keeps button polishers in the pantry — from his throat down to his shoes. All of the men at the table wear robes of the same color if not similar in fit and construction.

Using only the tips of his fingers, Deacon Double lifts a newspaper from the table, the newspaper some vile unclean thing. Brothers, this is what they write about us. He lowers his eyes and reads from the newspaper. Negroes at every turn. Their presence is undesirable among us. They should be confined to large tracts of unimproved land on the outskirts of the city, where they can build up colonies of their own and where their transportation and hygiene and nourishment and other problems will not inflict injustice and disgust on worthy citizens.

A little breeze reels through the white curtains and suddenly the entire room feels different.

Double raises his line of sight from the newspaper and makes a point of catching the gaze of every man in the room. It would be nice to be able to say a miracle had happened, he says. But it hasn’t. We know these alabasters, know that their hearts and hands are capable of anything. Knowing what we do, it is the duty of every man here, men of God, to provide himself and his congregants with arms and ammunition. I myself have at least one rifle and at least enough projectiles to make it useful.