Fearing as Him; Laughing as Him
From Middle Passage, by Charles Johnson:
Silhouetted as he was, his wild hair like rope yarn, skin drier than scales, and beard nearly an ell from top to bottom, his face looked, so help me, like five miles of bad Louisiana road. Rum came reeking, like a slap, off his clothing. A gun hung low in his belt. Yet his eyes were in-turned, icy, as he pushed by me into the room, swaying on his feet like a damaged rig, drunk and barely registering my presence at all. He lowered his rump onto the cushion of his chair, one hand squeezing the armrest, the other pressed against his chest; then he lifted his chin slightly, to the left and away from me, to let a belch of volcanic proportions bubble free. “Light a candle, please. And bring me that jug in the corner and a clean cup — bring one for yourself too.” Instantly, I felt ill, but hastened to obey, each step I took causing the doubloons in my crotch to jingle. By rights, he could have me birched or keelhauled or lashed to the capstan bar. But even worse than that, I realized he might lecture me again, beginning as he often did with a personal anecdote that might go on forever, embellishing each line of dialogue and taking every part in the story for my instruction. Even worse, he might decide to demonstrate esoteric Chinese jointlocks he’d learned while living for a year in Kin Miu village, using me as his hypothetical opponent in lessons that resulted in my neck aching for days thereafter. Carefully, I poured him a cup of merry-go-down. Then I took a step back, gauging my distance from the door.
A relatively short time in Middle Passage before the scene above, you learn that Rutherford Calhoun — a bombastic liar, immoral drunk, uncompromising free spirit, (most recently) stowaway-become-sailor, and practiced thief now trying to work over his vessel’s captain — will be caught.
“His courtship of me, for so it must be called,” Charles Johnson writes and Calhoun narrates, “began the night Falcon caught me rummaging through his cabin.”
Calhoun admits his future and sets the stage for what immediately follows: A wave of text in a way that only he could deliver it.
Of course, when I say “only he could deliver,” I do mean to address Johnson as much as the shipwreck of a man he created. Johnson crafts the entirety of Middle Passage as a mix between the highest of educated prose and the lowest of depths that a man could reach or situation he could fall into. He blends character, situation, and narration into an intimate bundle that makes the reading experience one of living through the narrator’s every sensation.
You earlier learn of Calhoun’s innate and learned capabilities through a history of his upbringing under a Reverend Pelig Chandler. As Calhoun tells it, his forced study of society and religion meant to keep him from a noose. He offhandedly describes his aversion to such polite pursuits, referring to himself as a “social parasite” in as flippant a manner one might describe himself as having brown eyes.
You learn about the city of New Orleans through a lens into seedy bars and untoward social encounters. As Calhoun describes his encounters, they’re a “nerve-knocking thrill, like a shot of opium” that he not only longs for but which also carry their own sense of sordid purpose.
In his ability and desire, Calhoun says over and over that he knows and accepts his mind and body.
It’s the way in which he speaks of those elements of self, in his narration, that captures your eyes on every page and propels you through his long trains of thought and deed.
Look again to the passage above to find many elements of Calhoun encapsulated in his encounter with Falcon. His mental fortitude; posture; humor; presentation. They come forward in his retelling of the event which is so detailed that it makes you think time slows down somehow for Calhoun as he lives it; so managed that Calhoun might be ready to obey, to fight, to run, to take his punishment; so funny in bursts that it lets you breath among the pressure of the room, and reinforces the idea that Calhoun doesn’t take his life too seriously, even when he’s stealing from someone; so long-winded that, well, that’s the joke played on everyone.
You read the room as Calhoun does. You manage your space like he does. And you laugh at misfortune as he does because there is no gap between the author, narrator, and reader.
Johnson writes this man in a way that draws you in and never lets you go. Immersion, as a concept, begins to tell it, though there’s something more. Calhoun lives in this non-stop hurricane of events told in such an engrossing playback that you don’t just live here beside him, you live here as him.
This evening, you have stolen from your superior and the loot is jangling in your pants. He could kill you or worse. How many drinks to unconsciousness or steps from the door are enough or few enough to escape with your life?