Song of the Shank

The conductor is standing on the steps of the dining car, directly behind the engine, a heavy-built man with a red strong-boned face, bodied like someone better suited to hard labor, laying tracks rather than riding on them. For a brief moment, more a gesture than an act, he glances from his perch toward Eliza, travels on to Tom and sees all there is to see of him, then directs his gaze elsewhere, a dismissal. Steps down hurriedly to the platform and starts a slow walk down the length of the station, but there is nothing to supervise, conduct, since she and Tom are the only boarding passengers.

All aboard!

Never acknowledges her. Never collects their tickets. His dismissal multiplied by heads framed in windows, faces pressed to glass, peering out in judgment. Determined not to let the insult inside her, Eliza takes the time (seconds) to study everything that is grotesque about the conductor, irritated by her powerlessness to force the issue. She gets up easy, like she has no weight to herself, and touches Tom in such a way as to let him know she is not going far and she will not be long. Makes her way over to the handcart and takes down the first item of luggage from the mound, aware that the conductor has already reached the end of the station and started the walk back. Seeing too something else that beggars belief, the Negro emerging from around the station corner, a black mass of speed, moving determinedly with head forward and a fixed from-under stare like a charging bull’s. This entity that shoulders right past the conductor, who, startled, understanding, stops dead still for a moment, looking at the Negro, the Negro continuing on, coming straight for her.

Ma’m. He lifts his hat, and before she can react he takes (snatches?) the bag from her hand, gets another bag and a third, then climbs onto the first passenger car and deposits them into the carrying space, loading and reloading two bags at a time, working with a kind of furious patience, a calmness and authority that surprise Eliza after his deferential antics earlier on. The conductor assumes his perch and hangs there in frozen immobility, his gaze calmly following the Negro, the conductor looking (trying to) more unconcerned than perturbed. (Just for a moment, she catches the fire of anger in his eyes.)

All aboard!

After he loads the heavy trunk, the Negro sees to it that she and Tom assume a berth on the train — moving single file down the narrow aisle, the Negro, Tom, Eliza — one (his decision) all the way at the rear of the car, meaning that they must pass row after row of their fellow passengers — the car half full — proper ladies and gentlemen who are nevertheless shocked and alarmed at this occurrence, drawing back in disgust and (even more) willing to express their feelings through faint cries of protest and indignation and (probably) derision and scorn. Tom takes the inside seat, near the window, passing his malacca cane off to Eliza for safekeeping. Eliza relieved that at least this much is settled. Duty fulfilled, the Negro stands poised in the aisle, waiting quietly — loud breath, silent sweat — looking down at them, eyes bright, as if the lifting and carrying and conducting had been a form of play. She takes it that he is waiting for her to discharge him.

Sir, I’m both sorry and thankful, she says.

Much obliged, ma’m.

Please allow me to compensate you something for your time and effort.

No, ma’m.

Are you certain?

Yes’m.

Iron scrape and drag, the train begins its sluggish pull out of the station.

Well, I best be leaving. The Negro bows slightly and lifts his hat. Ma’m. He shifts his attention to Tom. Mister. Tom neither moves nor speaks. The Negro stands, watching and waiting, the great iron wheels slowly rotating in hope of greater momentum, and succeeding somewhat, a beat or two. Mister. Momentarily he leans all the way over her and touches Tom’s shoulder. Tom turns his unseeing face at the contact. Only then does she notice that the Negro is staring at Tom with a marveling smile. Now she gets it. One poor son of Ham helping out another. Kindness, generosity — it was more than that with the Negro. It was Race and blood, shared suffering and circumstance. But wait — watching him watch — is that the true sum of it? She feels privy to an even greater, deeper, emotion. Apart from anything else, what — she sees in his gaze — can only be described as admiration and devotion, sentiments fully evident — unmistakable — from something in his manner and posture that had nothing to do with strength or height or poise or clothes or their cut and fit.

You can help us again, Tom says.