"he aint paid no bill so you can forget"

“There are tales that are remembered and tales that are forgotten, but all tales are born to be told. They demand it; the dead become tales in order to live. Their eternal life is in your mouth” (305).

Allmon was born to tell a tale. At the end of the second interlude, C.E Morgan writes, “And now the boy, as dark as his father is light, gazes down at the city and its brown river that seems far too wide and far too deep to be swum but, oh children, it was swum” (189). The prescience in the speaker’s tone makes Allmon’s tale feel both predestined and obviously repetitive of a life lived not too long ago. It is as if the speaker knows he is doomed from the start.

After his grandfather, the Reverend, died, his sermons would reveal themselves in dreams. His sermons often spoke out against contempt and reminded people of the bills that black people still have to pay to right history’s wrongs. In the Reverends mind, they all owed their black ancestors justice; to die a negro meant to sacrifice for them. One Sunday, when he asked church members to amend the unpaid dues many of them had chosen to forget, he told them, “You’re gonna say: If Jesus wasn’t born no negro, he died a negro. What part of the cross don’t you understand” (220)! Jesus sacrificed himself to save others from sin, and that sacrifice is what made him a negro. It was up to them, the congregation, to repay that bill in justice, as well as the many other familial bills that followed. 

Even after hearing the Reverend’s warnings, Allmon spent his whole life feeling lost and at the mercy of his circumstances. While it may have been true that he had little opportunity to succeed, he let others determine his worth and succumbed to the wealthy white men of the south. He made himself a pawn, rather than a player, and after the death of his mother, he was so scared of falling victim to the same fate that he left Cincinnati. Years before he crossed the river, the Reverend came to Allmon in a dream. “’Stop!’ the Reverend said, and the stars stilled about his head, hovering. He pointed a gnarled finger at Allmon. ‘Don’t you step across this line, boy! This line got drawn for you, and only the Lord can take it away’” (280)! Many years passed from the time of the dream to the time he crossed the river, but the warning loomed as he travelled in the bus to Kentucky. He would drift in and out of sleep to his mother’s voice asking “Allmon, what have you done? It’s like she knows you left the old telescope in the house on purpose. Only an idiot would do that, or someone intentionally trying to get lost” (285). The truth was that Allmon was already lost and even more resentful. He would tend to Hellsmouth as a way of getting the life he deserved, but the horse merely acted as a distraction. He asked himself, “…Is this really what you want? To crouch in the shadow of that tree and divvy up her earthly possessions: her bridle, saddle, her blanket, and her whale’s heart? Is this really what you want” (464)?

It took Allmon losing everything, including his only son, to demand his soul and worth from Henry Forge. However, rage and needless want disguised itself as destiny and only caused him more pain. Henrietta died without teaching him how to love. In his guilt, he realized that “He had used her like meat and then left her to rot” (506). The cry that Henry let out for Samuel as Allmon tried to take his son back felt foreign, “The wail rises and encircles the farm, it grips Allmon’s head round. It travels through the rolling pastures, wends through boughs of trees, swings over old graves and the heads of the dark, startled horses. But Allmon has lived for so long, for more than six lifetimes, he thinks he can move steadily through it” (537). In the middle of the fire, his feet become heavy with dread. He knows that he could never feel a love like that again. He remembered the Reverend’s warning in his dreams, “A pinprick pierced the skin of Allmon’s mind. The Reverend was right; I should have never crossed that river” (513). As rage made way for clear thoughts, he realized his destiny was to make his mother, grandfather, himself, and everyone before them heard. He put his son down, called to God and said, “I am a sinner. I broke love and sold my child to the highest bidder, but I will ransom his life and his son’s life with my own. Reverend, lay me down gently. Please ask Momma to forgive me. I forgive her. Dress my body in Sunday clothes and anoint my mouth. Let my life speak, then they will finally know me. I am not afraid any longer” (540). As soon as he fell, Hellsmouth came into view. The horse that may have known Allmon’s tale from start to finish symbolically “…sank into her haunches and reared, her legs cycling as if to turn the very wheel of the sky. She was almost perfect. She was ready for more” (540). Hellsmouth was Allmon’s serpent, guiding him down a path of sin but also of revelation. She was the gatekeeper to both heaven and hell, and she ensured that Allmon’s tale was seen to its end.

Running From One's Father: Allmon Shaughnessy

In the Sport of Kings, one of the main questions is “How far from your father can you run?” While Allmon Shaughnessy’s father is not present throughout much of his life, the novel continues to show his attempts to rebel against his father’s identities and values. However, as hard as he tries, he is often not able to escape his father’s actions and repeats them. 

            During Allmon’s early life, since having a white parent was looked down upon in his neighborhood, he would lie to his young friends and say his father was black (195). Allmon’s mother, Marie, claims to love Mike, Allmon’s father, but he only causes her heartbreak by continuously leaving and being a poor father, while also not sending Marie and Allmon support money. Furthermore, the Reverend dislikes Mike and says without sympathy, “You pick up white trash, your hands get dirty” (208). This negatively impacts Allmon and encourages him to not be like his father, even though he loved him at one point.

Allmon continues to be let down, which also leads to this resentment. For example, he says “he waited…for Mike to come…for anybody to save them, but nobody did come, because nobody does” (250). In response to Marie bringing up Mike, Allmon says, “Fuck him” (268), emphasizing Allmon’s outward resentment toward his father and his desire to be different from Mike. To contrast his father not wanting to try to help Marie, he tries to help and save his mother by running and dealing drugs for Aesop. He tells his mother, “We’re gonna get back on our feet. I’m gonna get some cash. Don’t worry about nothing” (272). Additionally, by this point in the novel, Allmon also refers to white people with derogatory terms such as “white dykes” (279) or “white fuck” (281), which is different from his younger years. Mike’s actions caused Allmon to rebel against his father’s identity. 

Allmon also has dreams of a better life, unlike his father, and he tries to make it a reality by making the deal with Henry. Allmon says that “[he] wants what [Henry] has” and that “[he] has the rest of [his] life to make [a name]” (321). He tries to make this a reality by making the deal with Henry to stay away from his daughter with a possibility of receiving ten percent of Hellsmouth’s earnings. However, while he tries to be better than his father, he ends up repeating the same action of his father by leaving his son, which causes much of Allmon’s grief in his life. He made a deal with Henry, and in turn, he was not there for Henrietta and his child.  Allmon realizes, “He had used [Henrietta] like meat and then left her to rot. I am Mike Shaughnessy’s son after all” (507). While Allmon attempts to have success by rebelling against his father’s actions, he repeats one of the most tragic of them all. Not being able to escape his father further leads him to kill himself. 

The Ladder of Evolution

“Evolution is a ladder, and our aim is to climb it as quickly as possible,” (Morgan 105).  While reading The Sport of Kings I found myself thinking about this quote a lot.  One of the reasons for this is because the theory of evolution plays such an important role throughout the novel.  To Henry, it means everything when it comes to horse breeding.  He dedicates his entire life to breeding the perfect thoroughbred that will not only win the triple crown and represent the peak of equine evolution, but establish and solidify the Forge’s family name and legacy.  To Henry, Hellsmouth is the physical representation of everything he has ever worked for.  The horse is also Henry’s biggest act of rebellion against his father because it stands against everything Henry’s father wanted for his son and family name. This is important because I view the Forge family name as another ladder of evolution that, throughout the book, Samuel, John, Henry and Henrietta try to climb. 

Samuel starts the evolution of the Forge family name by moving west into Kentucky and building a family farm.  From there, all the way up to John Henry, the Forge’s are content with their way of life and refuse to change anything about it in any way shape or form.  However, Henry sees opportunity and potential for greatness and decides he’s going to “evolve” and “climb the ladder” quicker than anyone before him has done when it comes to establishing and advancing the family’s legacy.  And even though his father is strictly against it, he does it anyways and begins to establish the Forge name within the horseracing community.  This didn’t come as a surprise to me, especially when I related the quote at the top of this post to a specific moment early in the story.  On page 86, Henry helps his father remove a mistletoe from a very important family tree by holding the ladder steady.  When John Forge begins to climb the ladder, he looks anxious and uncomfortable, which prompts Henry to ask “Father, are you afraid of heights?” (86).  This question gets no reply but Henry quickly realizes that this is the case.  He almost offers to climb the ladder for him but ultimately doesn’t because he is too engrossed in what’s unfolding before him.  He is seeing his father scared for the first time in his life and it is evident his father isn’t comfortable again until both feet are on the ground.  To me, this scene is a perfect representation of the quote at the top of this post, and both Henry and John’s thoughts on the “evolution” of their family name.  It is clear throughout John Henry’s part in the novel that he isn’t comfortable with change or “scaling the ladder.”  He believes that the Forge’s must continue what they have always done in order to preserve and establish the family name.  Henry, on the other hand, isn’t scared to “scale the ladder” and do something different because he knows it’s something he must do if the “family tree” and family name will survive and thrive. 

The Inescapable Family Line

One of the main themes of C.E. Morgan’s “Sport of Kings” is summed up in its opening, “How far away from your father can you run?” (3), as the origin stories from both the Forge and Shaughnessy family lines show the children being unable to escape from their fathers. In this way, there is a parallel between Henry Forge and Allmon Shaughnessy, as both are driven by ambition that only creates parallels between themselves and their fathers. Henry resembles John Henry in his racism and way of raising his daughter. When Henry begins to homeschool Henrietta, he notes, “The reality is White men saved Black people in this country,” (128). This is nearly the exact thing John Henry tries to teach Henry when he says, “The black race has always depended on our guidance to steward them into lives worth leading” (50). Thus, in living by the same ideals, Henry as an adult proves to be very similar to his father. In a similar way, Allmon turns out to be like his father when he leaves Henrietta even after she tells him she is pregnant, choosing the money Henry offered him over taking care of his family, as he walks into the trailer and “didn’t look over his shoulder” (374), showing that he was leaving with no intent to return. This is a similar move to what his father made as Allmon notes that his father “came and went” (192). This shows the same apathy toward family Allmon shows when he leaves.

These similarities lead to the novel’s climax where both desire to be something other than their fathers, as the similarities between their fathers becomes clear through the loss of Henrietta for both characters. In Henry’s case, he reads Henrietta’s journal entries which bring him to the realization, “he had never rebelled against his father” (520). In noticing the lack of having “rebelled,” Henry appears to understand the negative ways his father shaped him. Similarly, Allmon realizes leaving Henrietta was similar to what his father did as, “Marie got used and abused by Mike Shaughnessy just like Henrietta got used and abused” (524). In using comparing the “abuse,” Allmon draws this parallel between his father and him.                               

However, Allmon’s killing himself and Henry’s final thoughts show that there is no escape from becoming like your father, as neither can steer themself in a new direction. Henry appears to still be striving for perfection, as his final observation is of Hellsmouth, noting “She was almost perfect. She was ready for more” (540). In saying she was “ready for more,” it is clear he is not finished trying to force his horse into perfection. Similarly, Allmon kills himself because he “left nothing to chance” (540). In saying this, he notes that he does not want to risk further becoming like his father by continuing his life. In this way both men seem unable to escape their fathers’ ways. Thus, the ending of the novel appears to suggest the answer to that beginning question: “not far.”

The Endured Loneliness

           It has been said by author Angelica Baker that All the Living “is essentially a study in human loneliness,” and I agree. Loneliness is a prominent theme throughout the novel in times where Aloma is separate from Orren, but also when she is with him. He spends all day dutifully attending to the farm, while Aloma runs the house. This increases the already large separation between them, they are both lonely but find no comfort in each other. Orren states, “you been gone a whole lot,” and Aloma is surprised he has even noticed her daily absence (106). In the same argument, Aloma states, “when I do see you, you don’t have anything to say,” proving that physical proximity alone is not a sufficient cure of her loneliness (106). Later, Aloma restates this, “It’s like you’re leaving me without leaving your own damn property,” to which Orren defends, “I’m just digging deeper in what you think’s an empty well, but all the while you’re looking out” (160-161). This theme of lack in their daily lives and the difference in their desires has led to this rift. Orren is concerned about their primary needs, such as providing food and shelter, while Aloma craves more. She craves true companionship, but also to play the piano, a desire he seems to never understand and provides her one with a sound “spoiled like a meat” (5). Orren never even bothers to watch Aloma play, therefore he “did not know this part of her” (99). They both resolve to endure the loneliness and expect nothing less from each other, Aloma watches Orren “disappear into the dark in a way that was becoming familiar” (62). Loneliness is further normalized throughout the novel, with Bell stating in his sermon that “nobody’s immune [to loneliness] after the cradle” and even cites Jesus’ loneliness in the desert (79).

Eventually, the lazy tolerance that both Aloma and Orren first live by fades into “more collision than cohabitation” (88). Their primary interactions shift to either fighting or sex, but even then “the door to him did not open” (109). No matter how close they physically are, the loneliness in both of them never subsides. Aloma wants nothing else but to escape to a place she does not know in search of her salvation which “was not in a location” (187) while Orren seems content to slave away on the farm, never obliging to her increasing desire to leave. Their resolution to marry still does not cure their loneliness, they begin fighting within the second they return for the first time as a married couple. Aloma has “settled in to endure” her loneliness (90). The novel suggests that loneliness may often never be overcome.

Searching for the Remedy for Lack

Throughout the novel, the dreaded and restless feeling of lack lurks not-so-subtly within many of the characters but is seen most profoundly within Aloma. The progression of the novel’s “plot” is driven by her sense of lack and subsequent efforts to resolve it: her decision to live with Orren because of her dissatisfaction with her current state and job, her work as the church’s pianist to appease her true passions and combat the boredom and imprisonment she feels within the house, her feelings for Bell because of the longing left unanswered by Orren, her decision to marry Orren because it has been a problematic missing factor even from the time she first arrived at the farm, and so on. However, despite her efforts, she still seems to be struggling to come to terms with this idea of lack by the end of the novel and rather than overcoming it, she resigns herself to it, accepting that any efforts to curb that lack would be futile or temporary because “the world [couldn’t] make her happy for more than a minute at a time” (197).  

            Part of me felt the slightest bit of hope for the characters towards the end; Aloma and Orren finally marry so perhaps things could get better for them, Aloma has hopes to rent a piano and offer lessons, rains comes to satisfy the crops and quench their thirst, and a new life is born in the form of a calf. Even amongst all of these things, however, I felt that that hope was an attempt to find some happy ending, no matter how small, in a novel perhaps not meant to have one, as if even I were tormented by the lack and looking desperately for any tinge of remedy to fix it. I thought, for a brief second, that I had finally understood why “a living dog is better than a dead lion” because what really matters is the hope that things will get better, the hope that one day the lack will fade into extinction.

Ultimately, however, all I saw were the negatives of those false positives: marriage is not going to change anything for Aloma and Orren, it “stirred up nothing new” for Aloma after all (193), her plans to offer piano lessons are really just plans until she makes something of them, rain cannot bring the promise of anything (profit, food, etc.) beyond the fact that the crops received water, and the mother cow ended up dying. She already seems to have lost hope in the idea of marriage changing her relationship with Orren following the fight on their wedding day, recognizing that her wish to not fight “this day or ever again” was a “useless” statement charged with “longing and futility” (196). The novel even concludes with Orren leading Aloma “back out of the woods […] and up to the old house” (199), away from the very woods she once found she’d prefer to stay in “for a long time before ever wishing to return to the house” (93). Maybe I am being too negative about it, and am missing out on all of the hope present in the novel’s conclusion, but I finished the novel wondering what the permanent and true remedy for lack is, if such a thing exists, and if the answer really is hope, can that really be enough?