Song of the Shank

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 wonders 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?