Ballad Of Black Tom Quotes

Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.

I'll take Cthulhu over you devils any day.

What was indifference compared to malice?

I bear a hell within me," Black Tom growled. "And finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.

You can’t choose blindness when it suits you. Not anymore.

This is how you hustle the arcane. Skirt the rules but don’t break them.

Mankind didn’t make messes; mankind was the mess.

Give people what they expect and you can take from them all that you need.

There were others who would have called him a scammer, a swindler, a con, but he never thought of himself this way. No good charlatan ever did.

But a wealthy man’s reality is remade at will.

How many times did you shoot my father?” Tester asked. “I felt in danger for my life,” Mr. Howard said. “I emptied my revolver. Then I reloaded and did it again.

Destroy if all, then hand what was left over to Robert Suydam and these gathered goons? What would they do differently? Mankind didn't make messes; mankind was the mess.

The veil of ignorance has been set over your face since birth. Shall I pull it free?

Walking through Harlem first thing in the morning was like being a single drop of blood inside an enormous body that was waking up. Brick and mortar, elevated train tracks, and miles of underground pipe, this city lived; day and night it thrived.

Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.

What was indifference compared to malice? “Indifference would be such a relief,” Tommy said.

Because to watch would be to understand the play isn't being staged for us.

He had, in fact, expected to be paid to play for one evening because that's exactly what the man promised three days earlier. But a wealthy man's reality is remade at will.

A good hustler isn't curious. A good hustler only wants his pay.

The Sleeping King is dead but dreaming.

A Negro walking through this white neighborhood at damn near midnight? He might as well be Satan strolling through Eden.

He thought of himself as an entertainer. The were others who would have called him a scammer, a swindler, a con, but he never thought og himself this way. No good charlatan ever did.

Give people what they expect and you can take from them all that you need. They

There is a King who sleeps at the bottom of the ocean.

Guns and badges don’t scare everyone,

The Sleeping King. At some point Suydam called this being by another name, his true name, but Tommy Tester could never recall it. Or perhaps his mind chose to forget.

This was the first time in his life he ever played well. “Don’t you mind people grinning in your face,” Tommy sang. “Don’t mind people grinning in your face.” Few on the platform gave him their attention, another guitar man in Harlem being as unremarkable as the arc lights along the sidewalks. “I said bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find. Don’t you mind people grinning in your face.

You had to be rich to risk looking broke. The

I felt in danger for my life,” Mr. Howard said. “I emptied my revolver. Then I reloaded and did it again.” Tester’s

Guns and badges don’t scare everyone,” Black Tom said.

Every time I was around them, they acted like I was a monster. So I said goddamnit, I'll be the worst monster you ever saw!

Sleeping King. Finally he put food into his mouth, not because he felt hungry, but because he couldn’t think of any other way to shut himself up. He must sound mad.

A fear of cosmic indifference seemed comical, or downright naive....Beyond them he saw the police forces at the barricade as they muscled the crowd of Negroes back; he saw the decaying facade of his tenement with new eyes; he saw the patrol cars parked in the middle of the road like three great black hounds waiting to pounce on all these gathered sheep. What was indifference compared to malice?

I bear a hell within me,” Black Tom growled. “And finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.” “You’re a monster, then,” Malone said. “I was made one.

A man originally from Rhode Island but now living in Brooklyn with his wife proved so persistent a pair of officers was sent to the man’s place to make clear he wasn’t welcome in New York. Perhaps his constitution was better suited to Providence. The man left the city soon afterward, never to return.

What did he see? Many dismissed Malone as a drunk or a madman, but a handful—the more sensitive souls—followed his sightline. For a moment all of them glimpsed an abhorrent face in the looming clouds. Each one saw what Malone had seen, the thing that had brought him to the ground. A pair of inhuman eyes stared down at them from the heavens, shining like starlight. Then and there, Malone finally heard the last words Black Tom whispered down in the basement. I’ll take Cthulhu over you devils any day.

I wish I’d been more like my father,” Black Tom said. “He didn’t have much, but he never lost his soul.

I wish I’d been more like my father,” Black Tom said. “He didn’t have much, but he never lost his soul. I wonder if I could ever get mine back.

One pocket held his revolver, the other his notebook of arcane learning.

I’m an officer of the law. Don’t you understand the consequences if you hurt me?” “Guns and badges don’t scare everyone,” Black Tom said.

The seas will rise and our cities will be swallowed by the oceans,” Black Tom said. “The air will grow so hot we won’t be able to breathe. The world will be remade for Him, and His kind. That white man was afraid of indifference; well, now he’s going to find out what it’s like. “I don’t know how long it’ll take. Our time and their time isn’t counted the same. Maybe a month? Maybe a hundred years? All this will pass. Humanity will be washed away. The globe will be theirs again, and it’s me who did it. Black Tom did it. I gave them the world.

It sounds as sweet as a ballad to me,” Black Tom said.

I bear a hell within me,

Malone wept.

Black Tom slapped one hand firmly on the back of Malone’s neck. Malone had never felt John’s Handshake. It was painful. Black Tom guided him away from the chair. As they moved, Black Tom kicked it over, and Mr. Howard’s body splayed out onto the ground.

No more!” Malone wailed, closing his eyes. “I don’t want to see!

My daddy’s name was Otis Tester,” Black Tom whispered. “My mother’s name was Irene Tester. Let me sing you their favorite song.

Try to shut them now,” Black Tom said. “You can’t choose blindness when it suits you. Not anymore.

he knew the role bestowed a kind of power upon him. Give people what they expect and you can take from them all that you need.

He played the roles needed to enrich his bank account.

Nobility didn’t pay well enough to make Tommy want the job.

I wasn’t making a direct route here. I was real young so I had the need to see much more than my final destination.

. That past became yet another world, a new dimension, of which Tommy had just become aware. Again, the pinch, the pain, of such a revelation

I’ve read them all,” Suydam said. “And yet there’s still so much I must learn.

The more I read, the more I listened, the more sure I became that a great and secret show had been playing throughout my life, throughout all our lives, but the mass of us were too ignorant, or too frightened, to raise our eyes and watch. Because to watch would be to understand the play isn’t being staged for us. To learn we simply do not matter to the players at all.

He didn’t want to see this. He thought he might shatter the wall of windows with his own hands if that thing in the sea depths became visible, distinct.

A fear of cosmic indifference suddenly seemed comical, or downright naive.

But they don’t see it that way. Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.

Even with all of this plot to be dispensed, the songs do rise organically out of the script. Doris’s first entrance, in head-to-toe buckskin, finds her astride a stagecoach, belting out the very catchy Sammy Fain/Paul Francis Webster song “The Deadwood Stage (Whip Crack Away).” The rollicking tune and exuberant Day vocal match the physical staging of the song, and character is revealed. Similarly, later in the film there is a lovely quiet moment when Calamity, Bill, the lieutenant, and Katie all ride together in a wagon (with Calamity driving, naturally) to the regiment dance, softly singing the lilting “Black Hills of Dakota.” These are such first-rate musical moments that one is bound to ask, “So what’s the problem?” The answer lies in Day’s performance itself. Although Calamity Jane represents one of Day’s most fondly remembered performances, it is all too much by half. Using a low, gravelly voice and overly exuberant gestures, Day, her body perpetually bent forward, gives a performance like Ethel Merman on film: She is performing to the nonexistent second balcony. This is very strange, because Day is a singer par excellence who understood from her very first film, at least in terms of ballads, that less is more on film. Her understated gestures and keen reading of lyrics made every ballad resonate with audiences, beginning with “It’s Magic” in Romance on the High Seas. Yet here she is, fourteen films later, eyes endlessly whirling, gesturing wildly, and spending most of her time yelling both at Wild Bill Hickok and at the citizens of Deadwood City. As The New York Times review of the film held, in what was admittedly a minority opinion, “As for Miss Day’s performance, it is tempestuous to the point of becoming just a bit frightening—a bit terrifying—at times…. David Butler, who directed, has wound her up tight and let her go. She does everything but hit the ceiling in lashing all over the screen.” She is butch in a very cartoonlike manner, although as always, the tomboyish Day never loses her essential femininity (the fact that her manicured nails are always evident helps…). Her clothing and speech mannerisms may be masculine, but Day herself never is; it is one of the key reasons why audiences embraced her straightforward assertive personality. In the words of John Updike, “There’s a kind of crisp androgynous something that is nice—she has backbone and spunk that I think give her a kind of stiffness in the mind.

You had to be rich to risk looking broke.

Insensitive minds always dispel true knowledge.

I’ll take Cthulhu over you devils any day.

He thought of himself as an entertainer. There were others who would have called him a scammer, a swindler, a con, but he never thought of himself this way. No good charlatan ever did.

a wealthy man’s reality is remade at will.

Becoming unremarkable, invisible, compliant—these were useful tricks for a black man in an all-white neighborhood. Survival techniques.

Walking through Harlem first thing in the morning was like being a single drop of blood inside an enormous body that was waking up.

He had, in fact, expected to be paid to play for one evening because that’s exactly what the man promised three days earlier. But a wealthy man’s reality is remade at will.

If you are indeed a seeker, then come find true sight.

(…) Aztán belenyúlt a gitártokba, és kikapta belőle a könyvet. Olyan gyorsan mozgott, hogy a kötetet szinte nem is érte napfény, ahogy berántotta a ház sötétségébe, mégis vékony füstcsíkot húzott maga után. Még a világossággal való pillanatnyi találkozás is lángra lobbantotta. A nő rácsapott a fedelére, hogy eloltsa a szikrát. – Hol találta meg? – Van egy hely Harlemben – válaszolta Tommy halkan. – Viktória Társaságnak hívják. Még a legkeményebb harlemi gengszterek is félnek odamenni. Ott kereskednek az olyanok, mint mi, az olyan könyvekkel, mint a magáé. Meg a még rosszabbakkal. Itt elhallgatott. A rejtély egy megperzselt könyv illataként csüngött a levegőben. (…)

Raids came if a local political office was up for auction, and even then, after a few photos and the exchange of many dollars, the criminals were set free. In this way Red Hook ran efficiently, its crimes quarantined— this was all society demanded of such neighborhoods.

A fear of cosmic indifference seemed comical, or downright naive. Tester looked back to Malone and Mr. Howard. Beyond them he saw the police forces at the barricades as they muscled the crowd of Negroes back; he saw the decaying facade of his tenement with new eyes; he saw the patrol cars parked in the middle of the road like three great black hounds waiting to pounce on all these gathered sheep. What was indifference compared to malice? “Indifference would be such a relief,” Tommy said.

But a wealthy man’s reality is remade at will. Suydam

He hadn’t noticed the traffic when he’d left the counter, but by now the streets clearly had a clog. The roads became more flooded as he approached 144th. His block looked positively underwater. Three police cruisers—Ford Model T Tudor Sedans—were parked midway down the block, a much bigger Police Emergency Services Truck behind them.

Malone looked up and found Tommy instantly, as if he’d been sensitive to Tester’s scent.

This was reported neither with relish nor with sympathy.

Tester’s tongue felt too large for his mouth,

man originally from Rhode Island but now living in Brooklyn with his wife proved so persistent a pair of officers was sent to the man’s place to make clear he wasn’t welcome in New York. Perhaps his constitution was better suited to Providence

And it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead,” he said.

He didn't look like a wealthy man, but it was the well-off who could afford such a disguise. You had to be rich to risk looking broke.

Much of the local population had fled countries under siege, in the midst of war, and had not expected to find such artillery used against citizens of the United States.

Nobody here ever called me a monster. So why'd I go running somewhere else, to be treated like a dog? Why couldn't I see all the good things I already had?

But you don’t walk into that white man’s house unarmed or unaware. Anything goes bad, you get out, and you get back to me.

Tommy clutched the handle of his guitar case as if it were a guideline leading back to the front door, down the steps, out the yard, out of Flatbush, back onto the train, to Harlem, and by his father’s side.

Poets should be dreamers, cops should be rough. That kind of thinking.

Your people,” Robert Suydam began. “Your people are forced to live in mazes of hybrid squalor. It’s all sound and filth and spiritual putrescence.” If anything could pull Tommy Tester’s attention from the door it would be this. He turned to Robert Suydam expecting to find the man sneering, but the man had one hand on his belly, patting it gently. He looked up and to the right, like a man trying to remember a speech. “Policemen despair of order or reform and seek rather to erect barriers protecting the outside world from the contagion,” he continued. Tommy held the neck of the guitar tightly. “You talking about Harlem?” The spell broke. “What?” Suydam said. “Oh damn you! Why did you interrupt?” “I’m trying to understand what in the hell place you’re talking about. It doesn’t sound like anywhere I’ve ever lived.” No applause for honesty this time. “Mind your tone,” Suydam said. He covered the money with one hand. “You haven’t been paid yet.” This motherfucker, Tommy Tester thought and took one step closer to the old man. Even Robert Suydam, for all his authority, sensed a change in the room. For a moment he looked like a man who realized a meteorite was about to crash into his planet. He raised an open hand, a gesture of peace.

Suydam said, “The return of the Sleeping King would mean the end of your people’s wretchedness. The end of all the wreck and squalor of a billion lives. When he rises, he wipes away the follies of mankind. And he is only one of many. They are the Great Old Ones. Their footfalls cause mountains to topple. One gaze strikes ten million bodies dead. But imagine the fortunes of those of us who were allowed to survive? The reward for those of us who helped the Sleeping King wake?

The mansion had been Outside?

When he returns, all the petty human evils, such as the ones visited on your people, will be swept away by his mighty hand. Isn’t that marvelous? And what will become of those of us who are left? The ones who helped him. Think of the rewards. I know you’re a man who believes in such things, and you’re smart enough to make sure they come to you.” Then Suydam handed over two hundred dollars and walked Tester out of his home.

He would make it back to his father, as he promised.

His night with Robert Suydam returned to him, all of it, all at once. The breathless terror with which the old man spoke of the Sleeping King. A fear of cosmic indifference suddenly seemed comical, or downright naive.

Tommy had no desire to speak of it. Still, the news—the horror of it—felt as if it wanted to leap out of his throat, an unclean spirit wanting to make itself known. To prevent himself from talking about his father’s murder, he spoke of Robert Suydam instead. Even the wildest detail seemed less fantastic than the idea that right then, only seven blocks away, his father’s body lay in their apartment, shot through until dead.

And no matter how hard you work, men always make time to tell their stories. “Well, we had some boys from as far as Fiji and Rarotonga. Tahiti, too. I couldn’t understand the boys from Tahiti. They spoke that French. But the Fiji boys, two brothers, I swear they said what you been saying. The Sleeping King. Yeah. Them Fiji boys said it more than once.

But they had another name for him, too. I can’t remember just now. Couldn’t hardly pronounce it if I tried. ‘The Sleeping King is dead but dreaming.’ That’s what they said. Now, what in the hell does that mean? Those weren’t my favorite stories. I kept my distance from those boys. You not planning to fly out to Fiji, are you?” Buckeye laughed but it was forced. How could his friend from Harlem come up with the same story as two brothers from Fiji? Especially when both died during the construction of the Panama Canal? How could such things be?