The Ballad of Black Tom

When Malone recovers, he returns to Red Hook to confront Suydam. He approaches Suydam’s tenement building, but Black Tom stops his from entering. Malone recognizes him as “the Negro from Harlem” (103) and has to search through his notepad to find his name. Malone notes that the man’s demeanor has changed from docile to defiant. When he asks if the man has buried his father yet, Black Tom responds cynically, saying that the city refused to release the body. Malone leafs through his notebook and finds the name Charles Thomas Tester. Black Tom tells Malone that since his father died, he no longer goes by that name. Malone scoffs and tries to intimidate him, but Black Tom ignores the threats. Instead he tells Malone that he is going out to Queens to procure a book for Suydam. Malone knows he is talking about the Supreme Alphabet.

As Black Tom leaves, Malone becomes inexplicably dizzy. He hears a loud droning noise and feels nauseated, momentarily losing his vision. When he comes to, Black Tom is gone. A young woman tries to tell him what happened, but Malone cannot comprehend her language: “Why hadn’t he ever learned how to speak with these people?” (106). Still reeling from the strange encounter, he finds a patrolman with a car and follows Black Tom to Queens.

When Malone arrives in Queens, he finds people crowding the street. He tries to make his way through the crowd, but everyone seems to be in a trance. He finally sees that they are looking at a deep pit where Ma Att’s house used to be. Malone cannot believe his eyes; he was there only a week before. He asks people what happened, but they only describe the same symptoms he suffered when he confronted Black Tom: nausea, dizziness, a low droning sound in their heads.

Malone interviews a woman who says that she screamed when she looked out of her window and saw a Negro entering Ma Att’s home. She says she feared for her children’s safety. The man left the house, tucking something in his coat. He turned toward the house and opened some kind of abyss. She said she felt sick and dizzy and terrified; she could hear her daughter crying in the other room but could not go to her. When she woke up from the trance, the entire house was gone.

Malone knows that Black Tom has the book, and he knows that he must find a way to get the police force down to Red Hook without telling them about the supernatural occurrences. He tells his superiors that Suydam and Black Tom are running an illegal immigrant ring and that the Negro has kidnapped Ma Att. When the force hears that a black man has kidnapped a white woman three stations immediately converge on Red Hook.