40 pages • 1 hour read
The Ballad of Black Tom
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Part 1, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
As the novella begins, we meet the protagonist Charles Thomas “Tommy” Tester. Tester is 20 years old, lives in Harlem, and shares a “crib” (9) with his ailing father Otis, a retired bricklayer. The usage of crib for apartment gives the reader insight into LaValle’s style of literary yet conversational writing. Tester’s father calls him “Charles” while his friends know him as “Tommy.”
Tommy is a small-time hustler who inherited his parents’ gift for performance but not their musical talent. He dresses in a worn-out suit and carries a scuffed guitar case to give the impression that he is a down-on-his-luck musician. Tommy’s current job is to deliver a small book to a woman in Flushing, Queens, named Ma Att. Tommy knows he will be traveling to an all-white neighborhood and acts docile and inconspicuous on the train as the conductor questions him. When he arrives at Ma Att’s house, she cracks the front door open without letting Tommy inside. He opens the guitar case, and she snatches the book, which gives off a wisp of smoke as it is briefly exposed to sunlight. The book is titled Zig Zag Zig, but Tommy does not know what it means. Ma Att asks if Tommy will take her to the place where he procured the book, but he refuses, feigning concern for her safety. Tommy collects his payment, and Ma Att tells him to leave Flushing before sundown.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
A month later Tommy travels to Flatbush, Brooklyn, to try out his down-and-out musician act on the white locals. As he is playing outside a church, an older wealthy man approaches him, introducing himself as Robert Suydam. Tommy thinks he will be an easy mark but is surprised when the man offers him the unusually large sum of $500 to play at his upcoming party. Tommy is suspicious, but the promise of big payday is too good to refuse. Suydam gives him a $100 retainer, a mysterious password “Ashmodai” (22), and tells him to come to his house in three days.
As Suydam departs, two white cops accost Tommy. One, a private investigator we later learn is Mr. Howard, grabs him roughly by the back of the neck. Tommy observes that the other, Detective Malone, is less aggressive. They question Tommy about his business with Suydam, who they say is part of an ongoing investigation. They take the $100, prompting Tommy to put on a “Clueless Negro” act (25) to avoid losing his upcoming gig. The act doesn’t fool Malone, and he reveals that he knows about Tommy’s theft from Ma Att’s book. Tommy feels exposed and fears Ma Att’s retaliation. He asks Malone for help, but the latter refuses saying cryptically, “Guns and badges don’t scare everyone” (25).
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Tommy takes his father, Otis, who is usually bedridden, to the Victoria Society to tell him about his encounter with Robert Suydam. The club caters to Caribbean immigrants, and Tommy has to give his friend Buckeye’s name, who is from Montserrat, to get in. Given the Victoria Society’s fearsome reputation, Tommy is disappointed to see that it is nothing more than a tearoom. He assumed it would be full of dangerous gangsters and realizes his prejudice against the West Indies immigrants led him to believe the rumors.
Otis is skeptical of Suydam’s offer and warns Tommy that, as a white man dealing with a Negro, Suydam must have ulterior motives. Tommy knows this but believes can handle whatever Suydam has planned. Otis gives Tommy a straight razor, saying “‘I don't care if you have to spill blood to do it, but you get out of that house at the end of the job and you get back to me’” (34). The fear in Otis’s voice gives Tommy pause; it is a side of his father he has never seen. When they return home, Otis teaches Tommy a song that he calls conjure music as another form of protection for Suydam’s party.
Part 1, Chapters 1-3 Analysis
LaValle’s novella is a reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1925 short story, “The Horror at Red Hook,” in which Detective Malone investigates Robert Suydam and finds him leading a horrific cult ritual in the dockside neighborhood of Red Hook. Lovecraft describes the neighborhood’s dark-skinned residents as depraved, grotesque demon worshipers who act as Suydam’s minions. The story’s supernatural climax involves Suydam’s minions resurrecting his corpse as an offering to an undersea version of Lilith. Lovecraft uses highly racist language directed at blacks, Asians, and other non-Europeans in his story, and LaValle responds to this by telling the story from a black man’s point of view, which puts the racism of the era into perspective. Charles Thomas Tester is not a character from Lovecraft’s story and none of “The Horror at Red Hook” takes place in Harlem. Though LaValle retains some important elements of Lovecraft’s story, The Ballad of Black Tom is an original story in its own right.
In the first three chapters, Tommy Tester is a light-hearted, confident young man. He loves his father, has a best friend, and is content with his life as a small-time hustler in Harlem. He is more intrigued than frightened by the strange events he witnesses and thinks he can outsmart Ma Att by having his father, who is illiterate, tear out the last page of the Zig Zag Zig book. “This is how you hustle the arcane” (19), he boasts in Chapter 2. Tommy has learned to navigate the dangers of being a black man in New York, but he seems oblivious to the powers of the supernatural. This will change over the course of the narrative.
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