Song of the Shank

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 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?

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 another 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.

Sometimes smoke rising from the kerosene lamp fools him, mirages created by light and heat, the city’s reach into his memory mapped along whatever streets he can name. Looking out through the giant glassy eye of window from his supine position on the bed, he cannot see the city. No city. No sun. Only the sky’s dull palette of gray with ocean beneath it. A dhow passes, the captain swinging the tiller from one gunwale to the other, the man looking for all the world like someone sitting in the bowels of some oceanic monster. Another man passes in the street atop his donkey, the animal’s movements at once awkward and perfectly poised in the cold. And whatever other sights distract Tabbs’s eye in drift. Such is life on Edgemere. A practical people, a sober people. They make allowances, make way with whatever measly means they have at their disposal. No crying or complaining. So why not remain here? Remain here on the island and make Edgemere home.

That’s Christmas out there, he hears Tom say.

Not for long, Tabbs says. He turns his head to see Tom standing outlined before his tired eyes, his facial movements and expressions giving a distraught impression, his shirt so dingy that it looks less like a shirt and more like milk spilled across his chest. His frock coat repulsive with its dark patches. Repulsive his whole delicate figure.

Take me to her.

Will you shut up about it.

I want to see her.

You will.

I want—

All right, you’ll get there.

Need makes us hungry, cold, afraid. (The air rolled in dirty winter wind and light.) We can only imagine what is absent. (Nothing completed, nothing attained.) Winter chill curls in around the door as Ruggles enters. Tabbs props himself up in bed. Was this his tragedy? So late in the game he is still condemned to make that effort of adaptation that he has always made, play the outward role, sometimes without being conscious of it.

Ruggles doesn’t bother to take off his hat or coat. He looks about the room as if his eyes want to glimpse nothing else. So you’re still under the weather. He shakes his head. God grant everybody such a life. He pulls up a chair, letting the legs scrape across the floor, and sits down with a grim concentrated expression. Cocks his misshapen hat.

If I could get out of this bed.

You can. All of this over some imposter? You’re just throwing dust up in the air after the fact. Ruggles looks at him with anger, face full of passion.

It is snowing now, snow whirling nimbly over the street, falling thick through the brittle air, and settling on the grassless ground, startling white against the gray day.

Let it go. Ain’t that what I been telling you all along?

Guess I never heard. Why don’t you tell me again?

Sides, this Original Blind Tom has little life left to live.

Is that so? His little life seems fine to me.

Think of a three-legged cow. The deformity is only interesting at first. Nobody wants to look at that same three-legged cow a third and a fourth and a fifth time.

Thanks, Ruggles. That helps.

Now they simply sit like members of the audience waiting for the next act. Comes the news that Ruggles has just been appointed postmaster.

Why are you always bragging on your gifts? The words are hard and icy in Tabbs’s mouth.

Me? Homeskillet, have you ever heard me brag?

All the time.

Tell him, Tom.

Tom’s face shows bewilderment (fright). A slight exhalation, lips pursed to air.

Damn it, Ruggles. Now you gon get him started.

What did I do?

What did I do?

Why don’t we just get going?

Damn your meeting. I can use your meeting like spit in my face.

But you’re still going to bring yo sorry ass.

Like a new set of balls.

Sorry motherfucker.

An hour after dusk the men of the Vigilance Committee come in silence, emerging from darkness, walking toward the slim triangle of Wire’s church, Resurrection African Christian Episcopal (RACE). Inside the church they move in noise and light. Tabbs sees Wire near the front of the church, busy greeting the deacons. He waves and Wire raises his hand and continues what he is doing. Tabbs follows the men to the row of pews at the front of the church, where a circle of kerosene lamps casts yellow light, the whole room aglow with objects, fresh and bright and distinct, but the ceiling beams above them hardly visible. One after the next, the men come up in a breezy manner, shake him by the hand, and ask him how things are. You better now?

How can he tell them about what he really feels? That something has settled in him after all those weeks in bed. That he is able to settle easily enough into the way of life here on Edgemere. That he feels utterly alone whenever he is in the city, alabasters consuming him with their cold bitter eyes. He endures their finger pointing, their verbal insults, their angry bodies brushing against him, comes to expect it (the stable framework of the body and the mind), accepts the position of one scorned as if it were proper and natural. Tells himself, They think I’m a foreigner, a stray. Me. And this is my city. My city.

The soldiers — brown rifles and white hands — are supposed to watch over the strays, keep them orderly, keep them safe. Can it be they are responsible for the fact that he is still breathing? Soldiers and their weapons everywhere in the city, weapons shining clean. He feels transparent, all those eyes looking through him. So he feels thankful whenever he leaves the city to return to Edgemere. Letting the island further inside him the longer he remains here. He is immensely comfortable on Edgemere; his time here, this year, month, however many months or days it’s been, have brought a feeling of protection he has never experienced before. Saturated in blackness.

The soldiers are leaving the city. The city is sending them away.

Nawl.

They are.

How you know?

I’m telling you.

The news is an occasion for some emotion — sighs, gasps, utterances, and expressions of disbelief.

We knew that, knew that they wouldn’t stay forever.

And now is the time.

A people cannot be redeemed by military victory, Wire says, but only by the spiritual and moral rebirth of the individual and the nation.

Amen, Deacon Double says. He is the only man standing in the room, his appointed duty to see to it that every member of the committee has what he needs, whether it’s a glass of water or something more stringent like Medusa, a plain wafer or a blessed slice of bread. He is clearly a mongrel, two bloods mixing in his buttermilk-colored skin. However, brother, I can hardly see this as good news. For without the sword, covenants are but words and of no strength to secure and protect a man.

Protect Africans. The refugees.

Are you afraid? Ruggles asks. We will protect the refugees. We will protect ourselves. Why should another protect us?

Go protect them, Tabbs wants to say. Has Edgemere taken possession of him for good? He cannot leave. He does not want to leave. He must not leave. Let the soldiers leave.

Speak, brother, Deacon Double says.

Neither borrowers nor lenders be, Ruggles says. We must either stand on our own two feet or start wearing garments unbefitting a manly race. Ruggles stands up now and begins pacing. He needs to move his arms to be more forceful. God said to Moses, “I am that I am,” or more exactly, “I shall be that I shall be.” Each race sees from its own standpoint a different side of God. The Hebrews could not serve God in the land of the Egyptians, nor can the Negro under the Anglo-Saxon. He can only serve man here on Edgemere.

How did we get to God? Wire asks.

Ruggles looks at him. Well, brother, ain’t this a church?

Just go carefully, that’s all I’m saying. Go carefully.

Brother, what are you saying?

A lot of people say things with they mouth, Ruggles says. I’m not one for a lot of talk.

Indeed, Double says. What the whole body does is more eloquent than lips.

So what are you saying?

Tabbs knows that he will never forget a word or gesture of Ruggles’s tonight.

What am I saying? Ruggles says. Here is what I am saying. Every man in this room was forced from his home. Everyone here. Each one of us. Ruggles looks at each member of the committee in turn — Wire, Tabbs, Drinkwater and his soldiers, Double and the other deacons. Tabbs sees something in Ruggles that he will never fully reach.

What you supposing we do?

Yes, brother. What? The Deacon waits for an answer. We have arms, we have ammunition, safeguarded right here in this very church.

That’s right, Drinkwater says.

Now, don’t go too far, Wire says. In battle men see things they thought they’d kept hidden.

They do, Double says. They do.

Each day brings word of mass graves of strays sprouting up all across the city, mutilated corpses rising knee deep out of the earth with the abrupt arrival of spring, and half-fleshed corpses floating in pits filled with rainwater, fat unwholesome frogs perched atop muddy torsos and water moccasins swimming in and out of organs and skin. Stories splinter in all directions, the hurt Tabbs doesn’t see far away. Black bodies burned. Black bodies hanging from trees and telegraph poles. Africans pulled off random streetcars and mobbed to death. Bloated black bodies floating in canals, rivers, and ponds. Blood in every eye. Such stories become commonplace. Tabbs bears these facts with equanimity, nothing so barbarous that the human mind cannot accept it. He lives in a silence with noise and conversation all around him. Air thick with event. Hard to keep up with it all. Many times Tabbs will hear running footsteps, yells of fear and excitement, everybody around him trying to get to the bottom of some new tragedy, loud donkeys filling in the spaces between words. Delivered out of nothing, strays flee the city for Edgemere, the city’s African population expelled again. Ferries heavy with hundreds of the expulsed, their hulls low in the water. Uprooted. Exiled. Displaced. The land grows weary of her inhabitants. Pulled continually into their orbit, Tabbs struggles to gain a footing in the changing daily life of the island. Lives, giving his entire attention to thoughts that on the one hand grow more vague day by day and, on the other, grow more precise and unambiguous.

The strays want to forget, erase the bad old days of hunger, desire, and desperation spiriting them across the ocean to this island, dazed by their own movement, sagging, dragging. Most have no experience with money. They work hard for very little, for less than they should. And they are cheated of what they earn. The bony women with big butts always seem to be pregnant. The stunted children seem wallowed in ignorance, cunning, play, and slovenliness. Strays display their impoverishment and degradation to anyone who cares to see. Every stray he meets is named Lincoln. His life is no longer a single story but part of theirs. Tabbs Lincoln.

Tabbs wants to say to them, Tell me what it was like. (Why do you just look at me instead of telling me about your sadness?) But he rarely speaks to them — stilted and confused; downcast and dejected; their inaccurate but splendid words — content to observe them from a distance. How can he open himself to arms that will not embrace? How heal wounds that do not bleed?

Fair to say that Tabbs does not sense any changes in his own physical condition or wish for anything to be different. The world is what it is. He has to force himself to be gentle with this frailty he finds himself in the midst of.

Uncertain of clear boundaries, the exiles put up makeshift shelters in the main square, old canvas tents and burlap lean-tos flapping under the walnut trees. Their children steal from stores and grow bold enough to sneak into kitchens while their parents are out fishing or peddling firewood. And their famished dogs begin to seek out and kill chickens and goats, tearing out the throats of younger animals, and doing enough bodily harm to the larger — donkey, sheep, cow — a plug bitten out of a calf or flank, an eye lost, an ear ripped away — to make them unusable. That’s when feelings turn completely against them. Black-robed members of the Vigilance Committee shoot their dogs on sight, and tear down their ugly shelters, row after row.

Comes the day when Tabbs sees from a distance four heads set in a stationary circle around the fountain in the main square, long faces, long necks. Horses shaped out of stone. He expects water to spill from the mouths of these horses until he sees one head dip, muzzle sinking into the water. Closer, the horses prove to be strays kneeling in the grass under arrest, hands tied behind their backs at the wrist with lengths of rope. Confined to the reach of their bodies. The single deacon guarding them letting them rest some coolness back into their bodies, jabbing the air this way and that with his finger. Fountains are not for human consumption, he tells them. Each stray turns his face toward Tabbs in embarrassment, while the Deacon lifts his head and nods at Tabbs in silence.

Some get sick from tainted food and cloudy water. Die.

In this overexcited atmosphere Tabbs is content most days to let the hours in Wire’s house pass without any disruption. Other days he attends meetings with the Vigilance Committee.

Look at these poor bastards, he says.

They stretch forth their hands, Wire says. And we stretch forth ours.

You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against these terrible but necessary hardships, Deacon Double says.

They need light and instruction, Ruggles says. So either give it to them, or let them all starve.

I thought you were going to protect them, Tabbs wants to say.

It’ll take them time to learn, Wire says. Them chains is hard on a man. Hard.

Amen.

Many a morning as Tabbs drifts into town he notices Deacon Double moving with a look of reserve and obstinacy on his face. Though he walks with his head down, many locals will recognize him and stop to greet him, and he will glance up and smile a reply as he hurries on with the swiftness of a man who feels both humiliation and danger in recognition. He is as tall as Tabbs but thick and strong, muscled up perfectly, his threatening frame always amenable in immaculate dress, his eyes — a fleeting exchange of glances — his most noticeably attractive feature, green. The pace of those days was such that Tabbs was never able to talk to him at length, in any intimacy. He would do so today. He sees the Deacon approaching, ready to enter his office. As he unlocks the door, he turns his face toward Tabbs but not his body. He knows that I don’t like him, Tabbs tells himself. He knows that I think he is a son of a bitch. They greet one another.

I’m surprised to see you here, the Deacon says, something unnaturally deliberate in the way he utters the words.

Have a moment?

A questioning look.

He swallows dry breath, strays itching in his memory. They enter the Deacon’s office. Tabbs strives to get his bearings, for every time he visits the deacon’s office he finds that the positions of the furniture and decorations have changed. He swears that this is an actual physical fact — like some bizarre variation of musical chairs — and not simply a failing of memory explained by his few visits and the separation of time between each. He’ll make a mental map and later sketch on paper what he remembers seeing, then will use the actual drawn map to verify his suspicions upon his next visit.

He decides to be direct. I don’t know who’s in charge.

We all are. The committee.

Tabbs is absolved. He goes to the meetings not simply because he has time to kill or because he wants to study their beliefs, but because he wants to be there when they step back into the world of order.

You don’t approve?

No, it’s not that. I’m just trying to get my bearings. Tabbs sees Double clearly on the other side of the table, his handsome features, green eyes, the startling colors of his shirt. Double indicates that Tabbs should sit and he does, but Double remains standing.

Do you pray?

He takes in a grand vista of bookcases that reach the ceiling, three walls, a tall line of rifles inside each case, a fence of armaments. A window set in the front wall, where Double stands in morning light, pistols on the long table between them. Tabbs knows there is intimacy in what he is seeing. I do, but perhaps not enough.

Yes. You must ask yourself, Why did God give us this situation?

He can smell soaps on the other man’s body.

And you should know the answer without any doubt. Divine power operates far beyond the limitations of what my human awareness can grasp or my five senses can detect. His voice is exact, crystal clear. If we live and move and have our being in Him, God also lives and moves and has His being in us. Double plants and unplants his feet until they are perfectly poised. That’s why we must pray. “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” Matthew 21:22. What I know is not based on what I see.

I am not unaware of your point of view.

But I can see that my words fall on deaf ears.

I don’t see any need for fomenting violence.

Double waves the suggestion away. We are fomenting nothing. Mr. Gross, if I set before you a cup of hot water and a portion of tea, would you call it a cup of tea?

I must place the hot water to the tea.

Exactly.

Tabbs watches Double, understanding what kind of God is behind his stare.

What an opportunity we all have now, Mr. Gross. The war has given us a new world. We can turn the page and begin afresh. The work to be done is not to be a reproduction of what we see in the Anglo-Saxon’s country. It is not to be a healing up of an old sore, but the unfolding of a new bud, an evolution, the development of a new side of God’s character and a new phase of humanity. As in every form of the inorganic universe we see some noble variation of God’s thought and beauty, so in each separate man, in each separate race, something of the absolute is incarnated. For the special work of each race the prophets arise among the people themselves.

Prophets? Tabbs sees in Double’s gaze something of that amused expression with which General Bethune had observed him many years ago.

Yes, prophets must do what they are required to do. You see, Mr. Gross, the great sin of that institution called Slavery is that it fostered the need for a greater sin called Emancipation that tricks the unknowing into the belief that any of us, African or Anglo-Saxon, are free. Man can never be free. At birth, he is firmly tied to his mother through the umbilical cord. And even death does not free him, for his Maker then claims what is rightfully His and assumes charge of his soul.

Tabbs listens to it all and tries to think through it, hearing (suspecting) something unsaid, that all of this talk about prophets and freedom is, in the end, about Tom.

We are all bond and must do as we are so scripted to do. Indeed, these Freedmen can’t remain idle, loitering about, seeking handouts, falling into wells. Or all of us here on Edgemere will fall. Jesus came into the world not to condemn. He came to save that which was lost. We are saving the world for the Ethiopian. And we are prepared to move heaven and earth. Conquer the waste places.

He feels comfortable (admit it) sitting here, listening to Double, gathering his own perspective, but does that he mean he should display his true thoughts before Double in this sparse room with one window and two chairs, pistols on the table and rifles on the walls? No. He should remain silent, refuse communication and hold his feelings within himself, so that Double will know him only as he wants Double to know him.

There are those who would condemn both you and me for the things we have tried to achieve. But I can hold my head high.

Tabbs holds his head high.

In the evening, Ruggles invariably makes an appearance, three or four evenings a week calling on him at Wire’s house. They take seats in the garden, tender evening light falling across the foliage. Share the bottle of sack that Ruggles brings. Ruggles is usually tired after a day’s work and not in the mood for conversation. He will talk only vaguely concerning his day — his affections and irritations — sometimes with rude familiarity. Tabbs appreciates his coming, for there is additional post to be delivered, additional criminals to be had, vigilance to be maintained, but Ruggles chooses to be here with him. Of those things they cannot speak of they simply say nothing. A measure of how far they’ve come.

Take me to her.

Mr. Tabbs is away. Two come and get him, struggling from side to side.

Tom, we thought you would like to help us this Sunday.

No church music.

You can play whatever you like.

No church. Legs dragging.

Outside light gallops over his body. The church is cool. The organ has a powerful sound, waves rising and falling.

Reverend Pastor speaks to him. Thank you for coming today, Tom. Jesus rose.

Yes he did.

He can smell burning in different parts of the church. God is the Lord of both light and darkness.

Then he goes on greeting people in the church. I see you two are still without child.

It is in the works, the husband says.

All that opens the womb is mine, he says.

The deacons do the devotion. Then it is Reverend Pastor’s time to speak.

The Almighty is good. I don’t think you heard me, the Almighty is good.

Yes.

He allowed us to get up this morning. I been sick for the past three Sundays. But He lifted my head off my pillow today. Yall gon help me?

Yes!

I say, He lifted my head off my pillow today. He made sure I got out of bed this morning. Cause he knew that I had to be with yall today.

Uh huh.

Said, I had to be with yall today.

That’s right.

It’s Easter Sunday. And the good Lord has brought us someone special today. His parallel is not to be found the world over, nor in any time of which the records are known. He reigns forever in an outlandish wayside temple of his own, full of bright dreams and visions. Brothers and sisters, the Original Blind Tom.

The two men pull Tom up into the air, three men standing on six feet. He hears the congregation, animal noises. They explode into applause. He takes his bows, one and another and another.

I thank the Almighty for allowing me to be here today to witness this miracle.

The two pull him back down, sitting on six feet. Then he tells the two, There ain’t no original.

You are the original.

You see, brothers and sisters, the days of miracles are not yet done.

Preach it!

You all gon help me this Easter Sunday?

Yes!

Take the original out of my name.

Said, yall gon help me this Sunday?

Yes!

We serve a mighty God. I do believe I have some witnesses in the house?

Yes.

He gave His only son so that we might be free from death. His only son. And He gave us all gifts. That’s something you got to understand, the Almighty gave us all gifts. And what was Jesus’s gift? Jesus came here to die. And in so dying He opened the cage and made us all free.

Tom.

Jesus Christ, the redeemer of man, the center of the universe and of history. His gift was He cheated death. Only Christ’s tomb is empty.

Amen.

Tom.

Now if Christ preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen? And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised? And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then, they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only, we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

You ready to sing?

No church music.

Okay.

Don’t go doubting Jesus’s gift.

No!

The Almighty gave each of us a gift. We need to know what our gifts are. And we need to put our gifts to use for God and the church.

Two deep breaths.

Some Sundays I can’t wait to get here to church. The sisters look good, they smell good, and what they cook is good. Everything is good.

Tell it.

You must have the audacity of hope. Lord, your church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In Your fields we see more weeds than wheat. And the soiled garments of Your church throw us into confusion. Yet, we got to remember something. It is ourselves who have soiled the garments.

Preach!

We put holes in the boat.

Yes!

We failed to plant the seeds!

Ready?

We can’t go out and change the world until we’re right. He took some breaths. I wish some of you wouldn’t sing in church.

Ha!

And I wish some of you wouldn’t cook. You got to know what your gifts are.

He lets the organ move about the room. And they start in on a hymn. Then it gets quiet again.

You got to know what your gifts are. You got to put your gifts to use for the church and the nation. And you got to get right.

The organ speaks.

There’s a reason that Blind Tim is here in the church this morning. He ain’t here just to sing. Some of you think that. “When is he gon shut up so Tom can sing and play us some piano?”

Laughter.

The time has come for us to forget and cast behind us our hero worship and adoration of other races, and to start out immediately to create and emulate heroes of our own. We must canonize our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honor Ethiopian men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history.

But I think I said enough. The Almighty has been fortunate enough to bless us with the presence of one of our heroes, the Original Blind Tom.

The congregation applauds. Before Tom can take his bows the two walk him on legs to the front and sit him at the piano. He doesn’t touch the keys, just feels the wood beneath his hands. He feels the wood for a long time.

Play! Play! Play!

The whole church shouting to the roof, but he keeps feeling the wood. Then Reverend Pastor speaks something and the two walk him on legs to receive the wafer of bread. He takes the thin wafer onto his thick tongue. Take, eat. This is my body.

Be quiet, Reverend Pastor says, grinding the words through his teeth.

They put the cold cup to his mouth.

This is my blood. Drink.

I am one of the greatest men that ever walked the earth.

I’m sure you are. Now drink.

I overcame the earth. Mouth quiet.

They put the cold cup to his lips, and he sips from the chalice filled with blood.

The tasteless water of souls.

What did you say?

The tasteless water of souls.

Then the two take him away and sit him. Then the Reverend Pastor. Words fall from his mouth. Ends his sermon with, Become. New or old, become. Citizen or Freedman, become. Change is the only constant. Become. Don’t die. Multiply.

Let us pray.

Two men (the same two?) take him outside after his mouth settles down. He says it, word for word. My gift is the peace which I leave unto you. Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become that person. He says it again. And again and again.

Two take him back to the house. Still saying it. Mr. Tabbs isn’t there.

Stay here, one says, until your tongue gets better.

I didn’t afford you prayerful consideration, Wire says. I should have sought your permission first, I will admit that. A revolting expression flamed on his face. I’m actually glad he doesn’t play Christian music. Over the years I have given enough to substantiate my claim of precedence for the Almighty’s natural laws and their marvelous, even incomprehensible working, over any so-called supernatural endowment.

Big sparse drops of rain patter on the window.

But they already have their Tom, Tabbs says. Haven’t you heard? He doesn’t try to hide the sarcasm in his voice.

We are a peculiar people, prone to prayer on the one hand, and superstition on the other.

How do we put an end to this? You have to put an end to it. Speak to Double.

Double is of different stock. He was born in a white womb.

Can it be that he and Wire are feeling the same ache?

The rain stops. There is a smell of donkeys and some other very sweet scent. He can see the stones of the gate, the trees by the window, the dark sea. He feels that everything is looking at him and waiting.

Yes, things have gotten out of hand. But can you blame us for trying? The essential things in history begin with small convinced communities. So, the church begins with the twelve Apostles. From these small numbers came a radiation of joy in the world.

But it’s your church, Wire. Why are you giving them, these deacons, this Vigilance Committee, Double — why are you giving them all the power?

Every church in the South, every church in the city, every church in the nation, indeed every church on earth, must, by and by, become nothing but the church and renounce all other aims that are incompatible with the principles of the church. Our only enemy is sin.

But it’s your church.

I know. At least I thought I did. But God has become an exile to Himself. I want to believe that we can save these Freedmen. Lifting as we climb. I want to believe that we can save all of us. But Satan has made his way into our temple through some crack in the roof or some open window.

Urchins shelter in the lee of a crudely constructed command post, while their cohorts taunt and tease the horses, hitched to posts or braced to wagons along the main street, attempting to blacken hooves with their rags and brushes. The horses jerk in their traces.

Their loud overjoyed laughter.

Jay-bird sittin on a swingin limb

Winked at me and I winked at him

Up with a rock and struck him on the chin

God damn yer soul, don’t wink again

One blacker screams at a cohort, I ain’t tellin, Magellan, then jumps out of reach before the other can connect with a lunging punch. These shoe blackers — audacious, fearless, and self-contained. (Mischief always holds the seeds of further disruption and destruction.) Only yesterday Tabbs had declined their barefoot offers with a quick dismissive wave. Blackers with no shoes themselves. Now one points at him with perfunctory disdain. He sees a second’s brow rise and the corners of his lips fall. The boy who approached Tabbs yesterday seems more relaxed today, the look of panic gone (disappeared) from his face, replaced by a flat hurt look. Tabbs somewhat ashamed of his refusal. He should show the urchin some kindness. The boy looks Tabbs’s way, sees that they know each other. He smiles, the sound of sea waves coming at him clearly from the right, but the latter turns his face away, a quiet face, without any of yesterday’s irritation.

Tabbs feels he should amend, pay off this small debt. (No, he is not under sway of doing good deeds, nor the motive of unattributable guilt, the erasing of daily sins. Only wants to make penance for yesterday.) Though he believes that begging is undignified, he pulls a dollar from his pocket, silver big and round, and quickly presses it into the boy’s hand. I don’t need the blacking, he says. Share it among you. Only upon his taking his seat at home thirty minutes later does it occur to him that a few coins would have been sufficient, both to feed and to teach the greater lesson.

Holy bejesus, the boy says.

Hot damn.

Hey, what you got?

Half-change.

A case quarter.

Yall niggers don’t know nothing. That’s a dollar bill.

Gon buy my way into heaven.

Black-robed deacons approach. The coin-wealthy boy pops alive, sees them, and dashes off. Shiners and dancers alike, a few of his cohorts notice his hasty departure, turn to see the why, and off they swoop. Then the remainder of the group — slow learners — catch wind and rush off at breakneck speed.

Take me to her.

I sent her away. And she hasn’t come back. I’m sorry. I sent her to the city.

I can find her if you take me off the water.

Tabbs almost laughs.

Where we were living before.

What.

With the piano.

You’re asking about the Bethune woman?

Bring me to her.

Is that who you mean? Tabbs understands. Tom wants the Bethune woman.

Take me to her.

Tabbs sees three girls, strays, contraband, dressed in black, seated out in the open, light rising up from under them as if they are sitting on top of blankets of sunlight. As he passes them, a woman comes over to take him by the elbow to halt him. She speaks but he understands nothing of what she is saying in her irritable quick patter.

Flying their rags at the end of broom handles like the standards of an impoverished army, the shoe blackers shuck and jive. Juba it up, clapping and singing.

One mornin Massa ready to head out the door

And gon away

He went to git his coat

But neither hat nor coat was there

For colored gal, she had swallowed up both

Then took her nap in the chair

Massa took her to the tailor shop

To have her mouth made small

Colored gal took in one breath

And swallowed ole Massa, tailor and all

They exhibit many steps strokes lifts without breaking the measure of the music, with high-pitched shouts of A show for your money, a shine for the show.

Clutching something in his fist, the coin-rich boy holds aloof from the rest in the shadows of a tree. He notices Tabbs — the businesslike usage in his steady gaze — and comes over to him.

Good day, suh.

Good day.

You not from round here?

No, I’m not.

I ain’t either.

He gives Tabbs an expression that says, We got that in common.

I’m in need of employment, the boy says.

I would like to help, but I don’t have any work for you.

The boy silently closes his eyes and does not say a word more, as if stricken blind and dumb.

Urchins tussle. Pitch rocks and stones. Spill blood and bones.

Put your ear to a tombstone and hear the sound of the dead trying to rise. An aphorism that Wire has heard time and again here on Edgemere. But these newly dead have had no stones fashioned for them, only raw fresh graves, one black mound after the next like the shiny backs of so many beetles against the red horizon where a low-hanging sun turns the ocean into a rippled sheet of metal, throwing the shadows of the dhows lining the shore against the sky like so many black nests. None have sailed today, or will sail tomorrow, or take to the ocean the day after that, and many more days perhaps, not now, not after this.

He stands surveying the widening prospect of the island, children and mules rapidly coming and going in a rattle of speech and chatter between the bodies of the dozens upon dozens of mourners assembled here waiting for Wire to speak. Everything they do is considered, unhurried. He tilts his head as though to shake water out of his ear. He has an accounting to give, but quiet is knotted into his body, already wearied by what he will have to say, tired beyond bearing by all the events that have led to this moment. Wire already hurrying away from the thought before it becomes solid enough to take a grip and summon other thoughts that he has safely penned away …

Then he hears Double speak. God has three rings: of birth, of death, and of the resurrection of the dead.

It is Wire’s place to speak, his ordained right, as Double well knows, so in addressing the crowd before Wire has a chance to, Double has supplanted Wire’s authority, no two ways about it.

But the alabaster has only one, Double says. Death. Their actions have made clear that they will no longer permit us to fish these waters that we have always fished, and in so doing, they mean to starve us.

Motherfuck them, Ruggles says. Motherfuck every stinking alabaster that some white bitch shat out of her stinking womb.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than this, Double says. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.

They have numbers, Wire says.

And so do we, even if our numbers are less. Let one man be ten.

Be careful.

Brothers, I ask you, is it wrong to ignore the arms and the ammunition that God has entrusted to us? The church can order them to be removed, but nay. Rather let the church hang like Christ on the cross over these boxes of arms and ammunition until the boxes are used.

Be careful. Think it through. Every man here had better do that. Wire looks at each man in the room.

Injustice is on the throne, Double says.

Shit, Ruggles says. You ain’t said nothing.

They’re shitting on us.

They can’t help it. It’s in their nature. All a woogie knows.

Walking all over us. Shitting on us.

I ain’t never been nobody’s slave. And ain’t gon be.

Can’t they jus leave us be?

You’re talking willful destruction, Tabbs says.

They’re killing us one way or the other. If we must die …

Walking all over us. Shitting on us.

They don’t know no other way.

Be careful.

Advances only a few yards when he sees the band of shoe blackers, all of them, the youngest and the oldest, fully seated on the ground outside a stone gate. Resting. No, not resting, more as if they are all waiting for something, expecting something. Whispering, nodding, grinning. One urchin looks up and sees Tabbs, then they all begin exchanging excited winks. The last to notice, the coin-rich waif turns his head and falls silent under Tabbs’s gaze. The unmoving darkness of his eyes. He does not look away. Tabbs can see him watching, preparing himself.

Sir? The boy stands up. Tabbs thinks twice about acknowledging the waif. He should just continue on, walk right past him and wash his hands once and for all. So why doesn’t he? For no conscious reason, he decides to go over to the boy, neither curious nor suspicious, and having (seeing) nothing to lose, nothing to gain.

The boy holds out his hand, then opens it to reveal the coin Tabbs gave him yesterday glinting with sweat in his palm. It’s okay if I come to your hotel room with you, he says.

What?

It’s okay if I come to your hotel room with you.

This boy — Tabbs had not asked his name — with his flushed face, shining eyes, and poorly obedient tongue. He takes Tabbs with his other hand, the hot little dirty coinless one, this final action — Tabbs thinking, I will never see him again, I never saw him again.

In the ocean air his thoughts play. Strangely peaceful here, the water glowing and rippling, and light hanging in the sky like trailing silk. The night cooler than you might imagine, out in the open like this, all those stars freezing above.

An ungodly man diggeth up evil, and in his lips there is a burning fire. So is the tongue among them, that it defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature. Double is quick and alive, full of energy and expectation, his movements strong and excessive as he strolls back and forth along the water’s edge, which is like the spine of some colossal animal, strolls before the men assembled one and all in white robes along the shoreline, the men perfectly calm and relaxed in their garments as if these robes are simply another feature of this landscape, shawls of sea fog. He is part, one of those white-robed men, and he stands waiting and watching and hearing the low buzz of the other men breathing alongside him.

I was there at the beginning, Double says. I remember the cold hold where together we were held in shackles and wallowed in filth and stewed in disease and pondered the worth of life and the finality of death as the chains rang and echoed and the ship creaked.

And when we spoke out, they tried to remove us from speech and exile us to silence.

The Deacon puts one hand on Drinkwater’s shoulder and exerts downward force until Drinkwater drops into the wet sand, porous beach dented around his knees.

And he has to consider his own weight, all of that sinking softness beneath him, wet and black and full of shapes.

In a barely audible voice Double asks Drinkwater to open his mouth. Drinkwater opens his mouth. (Small teeth.)

O sons of Israel who feed upon suffering and who must quench your thirst in tears, your bondage shall not endure much longer, for there is something in us that cannot be outside us and thus will be after us though indeed it hath no history what it was before us, and cannot tell how it entered into us.

Double’s left hand arrows into the opposing sleeve of his robe then angles free. The glinting object he now clutches in his hand he holds out for all to see, a glass vial filled with red liquid and secured with a bone (ivory?) cap carved in the likeness of a fish. Even from a distance of several feet in the fading light, he can see that the cap is so finely and intricately detailed that one might mistake the cap for an actual fish shrunken into miniature.

Behold. Consecrated blood.

Double unscrews the cap and allows one drop of consecrated blood to spill onto Drinkwater’s tongue then three additional drops to plop onto Drinkwater’s forehead.

Do not mourn. Each of us is a celebrant here. In the times to come we shall know each other by bloodstains.

Double moves on to the next man, who kneels down before the Deacon and opens his mouth without the Deacon having to first instruct him.

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And so stand with us, poised at the entrance to our suffering. Leap for our islands, our towns, our cities. Leap for our seaborne ships.

No one comes in, Tabbs says. And you don’t go out.

Yes, suh. The top end of his black boots rise well above his knees, like strange appendages, new growth, the boy’s body rising plant-like out of each leather sleeve. (Boots full of sound. Whenever he walks, his footsteps are hollow in sound as if there are hidden cellars under the floorboards beneath him.) And the shank, a sharp shiny addition to the belt around his hips, with its long wooden handle and equally long blade, also seems too large for this boy.

Do you understand?

Yes, suh.

Tom is beside them before Tabbs notices his presence. I got stories to tell, he says.

The way I feel this morning we might witness a miracle today. Double looks at the Bible on the dais, gets momentarily lost in admiring contemplation of the pages, then turns his gaze back to the congregation. Sermonizing, he keeps one hand on the Good Book. Are you all with me?

Yes!

I thought so.

Excited laughter and exchanges from the congregation.

I’m gon say something that yall don’t want to hear today.

Uh oh.

We are not worthy of this island, Double says. I don’t think yall heard me. I said, we are not worthy of this island.

Silence.

Our work has been slow, but it has been certain and unfailing. And our enemy steps in and puts an end to it. Unworthy I say. Because the enemy told all of us to leave. Did they not? They shot us. They poisoned us. They burned us. They took what rightfully belongs to us. Did they not? And what do we do in return? Nothing.

Double shakes his head.

They drove us out of our homes in the city, not once, but twice. And they will drive us from our homes here, on Edgemere, if we let them. Are we to build homes in the sea? I think not. But we seem willing to simply stand by and let the enemy do to us whatever they desire. Do you mean to tell me that you gon jus let the enemy edge you into the grave?

Once again, Double shakes his head.

Do those words hurt? I hope they do. God’s words should cut deeply. If you ever been cut, you know that you remember the knife forever.

Speak, brother!

If you haven’t been cut, you forget. God’s words should make you worse. Before you get better you have to feel sick. I’m gon make you all feel worse today.

Preach.

Double’s black robe is adorned with two red crosses on the front. A day of red. Red cloth draped across the black wooden Jesus affixed to the crucifix on the stage behind the dais.

You wronged, buked and scorned, outraged, heartbroken, bruised, bleeding, and God-fearing people. Double drew his free hand against his glistening forehead and continued. I love all of the streets of Edgemere, and all of the alleys. Every inch of our island. And every man, woman, and child. Every cow and chicken and donkey. Each of the powers of the soul has a different luminosity here, a different coloring, a different richness, a different profundity, a different clarity and a different mystery from that which it has in other lands. Only upon this soil can our nation exist. His eyes radiating in their intensity some message to supplement his words.

And our enemy is taking it all away. And you gon jus sit by and let them. Why oh why? His face is trapped in a smile so sick-looking that many are embarrassed into looking away.

O God why has Thou cast us off? Remember Thy congregation. Lift up Thy feet unto the perpetual desolations. Thine enemies roar in our midst. They said in their hearts, “Let us destroy them together.” O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? How long?

The words squeeze to a close like a carriage drawing to a creaky stop. Double brings both hands to his throat, with his thumbs pressing into his Adam’s apple. And he begins pushing up on his face at the chin as if he can lift his head from his neck. He falls backward to the floor headfirst, hands still at his throat, and starts thrashing about, arms wailing, face moving in a circle windmill-like. Wire is quickly at his side trying to bring an end to the seizure with a medical hand. But Double’s energy is such that he rolls around in the dirt on the floor, clutching his throat, rolls over and over, one direction and another, until he comes to rest on his left side, kicking his legs like a fallen horse.

He gives up that position and remains flat on his back. Shut eyes, gnashing of teeth. Then his head cranes back, pushing up the temple of his throat, words gurgling there. Soon all twelve deacons surround Double, closing him off from view, Ruggles roaming the periphery trying to keep others away. Give him some air! Step back! Give him some air to breathe. The hum coming from Double’s body gradually approaches understandable sound. Wire and the others continue to minister to him, although Tabbs cannot see their actual movements.

Then the deacons get to their feet one after the next, grouped in two rows like parted water, six deacons here and Wire and the other six deacons there. That is when Tabbs sees a second Double emerge from the right side of the first, one man on the floor become two. Both men sitting up slowly then both getting into a kneeling position before standing fully upright. One Double falls down, two Doubles get up. Two Doubles. Tabbs looks intently, trying to clarify what he sees. His own eyes must express amazement first, denial second, and then acceptance. Two Doubles. They take to the podiums at either end of the stage. Audible expressions of awe and disbelief from the congregation. Indeed, it is Double, same skin, same hair, same teeth, same black robe with two red crosses dirty in the same places. Wire tries to take one Double by the hand, but both Doubles wave him away.

You see. I was slain in the spirit. But I arose. See me now. Double on the left and Double on the right, both speaking at once.

Yea, I tell you, if we die, it will be but a temporary farewell to this earth. Let me assure you that we will rise up some day from the ashes and come again. The two Doubles are looking at the congregation as if they are staring at something behind them, something that they can see only by looking through them. The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. Arise, O God. Forget not Thine enemies, for the tumult of those that rise up against Thee increaseth continually. Double’s tone is flat, so hostile that it lacks even the warmth of anger. Help us rain flesh upon them as dust.

Members of the congregation begin to fall to their knees in awe.

And let them eat, and be well filled, and die while the poisoned meat is yet within their mouths. Help us. We are become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

Preach.

Turn us again, O God, and cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. And render unto our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom their reproach. But fornication and all uncleanliness or covetousness, let it not be once among you. Each Double points a finger at the congregation. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting. And be not drunk with wine. No whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom. Let no man deceive you with vain words. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.

Go away, Satan!

Walk as children of light.

Satan!

Hold not Thy peace, O God, and be not still. For, lo, Thine enemies make a tumult. They hate Thee. Thine enemy places his mother, sister, wife, and daughter on a platform up among the stars, then this enemy gets a thousand swords, rifles, and cannons and decrees death to him who seeks to drag them down.

Tabbs tells himself, I will take Tom and leave. I must take Tom away from this place, from Edgemere, from the city. Tom and me gone by morning.