Song of the Shank

They have come a good piece, and the three of them show signs of it. She can hardly stand, quick to collapse on the settle right outside the door that leads into the ticket office. Tom finds the settle with his cane and takes a seat beside her, still clutching the single bag the Negro had assigned him, arm crooked at his side to keep the bag from touching the floor. The Negro lets all the bags he is carrying fall into the dirt three paces short of the porch. Leans against a vertical post to catch his breath, so tall that he has to lower his head to avoid touching the wood roof under which he shelters from the sun. In all this not a word has been spoken among the three of them. Three people walking and sitting and standing while abiding by a hard bright silence that she did not find disconcerting. (It would hardly have been fitting for her to strike up any conversation with the Negro. Knows well how to play her part.)

He looks at Eliza from under his hat — Ma’m, just giving my arms a rest — before he starts loading the luggage onto a handcart. Takes the last bag from Tom — tugs once twice before Tom relinquishes it — and stacks it neatly on top of the others. Stands there under the roof, head hanging like a horse’s above her and Tom, his face glistening with sweat of the earned type, like a polished badge proudly announcing its achievement. He wants to be paid.

Of course, the Negro will prefer banknotes to sugar. (Common sense.) Thinking such, she removes the three lowest denominations of bills from the drawstring purse she keeps on her person (dress pocket) and holds them up to him.

He throws her a hard disapproving look. No’m, he says. You ain’t got to pay me.

Hearing confounds sense. Had she understood every word, Eliza asking herself although she knows that she has, knowing bringing change. All of this is quite different from the way she has been conceiving it. He simply wants to help her (them). She continues to sit, staring up at him with an amazed and incredulous question. Why?

I’ll tote them on for you.

Sir, Eliza says, I must not detain you any longer. What she says, although she would be happy enough to accept his offer, even let him do it all again, right down to his clumsy performance at the end (luggage dropped in dirt), a mishap that she is willing to forgive, seeing that in these three or four or five seconds they have established something noteworthy between them, formed an alliance to make the best of the worst.

Ma’m, you ain’t got to worry bout that. I’ll just tote them then—

Sir, she says, I must decline. You’ve gone out of your way, her refusal almost lost between whines of gratitude. Let us manage henceforth.

His eyes dart at Tom, as if to read the meaning of what she is saying. As you see fit, ma’m. Beneath his hat he looks disappointed. I should take my leave. He seems reluctant to move. Safe passage. He lifts his hat and tilts his head.

I bid you a very good day, Tom says.

Eliza watches the Negro disappear around the corner of the station, and she continues to watch, not knowing where he has gone any more than she knows where he came from, and debating whether anyone had ever bestowed upon her a greater act of charity. She gets up from the settle, leaves Tom — The tickets, Tom, I’m off for the tickets — and walks with brisk purpose inside the station to the ticket booth, where she sucks in the dense air of the room and coughs a wave of gagging unstoppable coughs (heaves). Greets a small naked face crossed by three black iron bars. A face with too narrow a forehead; the eyes seem to be starting out of the sockets. The face sees only the one standing before him requesting two tickets, but this face does not question her purchase, bestowing the tickets on her with a courtly motion.

She returns to find Tom standing up, on the verge of panic, his cane waving about in the air like a confused insect feeler. She touches his arm and they sit down together on the settle and wait for the train. Plenty of time to kill. More than an hour. The journey here by foot had seemed slow, their own dust getting ahead of them, but it had not been, only seemed that way because (perhaps) of moving through country without another soul around.

The train is just a sound at first. Then it comes all at once, punctual to the minute, great iron wheels and rods slowing beneath the tossing ringing bell, black smoke flaring out of the stack and steam wailing through the whistle, the station full of cloud and noise, Tom moving beside her, his mouth urgent and wide.