Colson Whitehead - Apex Hides the Hurt

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Seems like old times, he said to himself, cozying up to the desk after avoiding it for two days. “A History of the Town of Winthrop” opened with a painful crinkle. He would be prepared for his meeting that afternoon. He was a professional.

He skipped around, and after a few pages of stuff like “that famous quality of generosity that distinguishes the Winthrop family” and “Once again, the Winthrops came to the rescue in a time of need,” he checked the copyright page and confirmed his suspicion. The book had been commissioned by the Winthrop Foundation. He relaxed. He’d always rather enjoyed corporate pamphlets. They did not tax his attention overmuch. You always knew how they were going to end. Winning over the town librarian for sympathetic press wasn’t too much of a task, he figured. A set of leatherbound Shakespeare would do it. He wouldn’t get the inside scoop, but maybe he didn’t need it.

The Winthrops made their fortune in barbed wire, not too bad a gig at the end of the nineteenth century. Land grants, land grabs, you needed something cheap to keep everything in, and keep everything out. “With the zeal of a true American entrepreneur, Sterling Winthrop found customers among the region’s farmers and homesteaders, who delighted in the inexpensive alternative to costly timber. Even the railroad enlisted the aid of Winthrop’s fine wire to keep its lines free and clear.” Innovative product, niche market, sure, sure. He jazzed his fingers on the desk excitedly. This was something he could understand. Not exactly what he was looking for, however.

Gertrude Sanders, master of the librarian arts, channeled the pioneer zeitgeist with flair, aplomb aplenty. No equivocating for Gertrude. “Where others saw untamed wilderness,” she enthused, “Sterling saw endless bounty and prime opportunities.” Underdeveloped land, in the modern jive: a lowly parking lot where high-rises deserved to tower. The river provided a way to move the goods. And the place was empty. Mostly. “After winning over the area’s main inhabitants — a loose band of colored settlers — Winthrop opened up his factory and started producing his famous W-shaped barb, which can still be seen all over the county. Grateful for this fresh start, they passed a law and named the town Winthrop, after the man who had the courage to dream.” Attracting a labor force to the town, building a community, all the usual Town-in-a-Box starter-kit stuff. Had Gertrude ever tired of the Dewey decimal thing, she would have been a shoo-in for a marketing job back East.

All that hokum. He continued to flip around. If they had created a law to change the name of the town, that meant there must have been a name to change it from. No point going to the trouble of rebranding unless there was something to rebrand. He needed to know what it was. He learned a few things, as his fingers journeyed where silverfish feared to tread. He learned about the strange mosquito plague of 1927, which ended as swiftly and mysteriously as it started, leaving none unwelted. A nearby pond was home to a very rare frog, celebrated and documented in scientific journals. A chilling woodcut confirmed the amphibian’s most celebrated characteristic — an almost human gaze that could only be described as “pleading.” He was about to return to the beginning when a familiar voice kicked in his adrenaline. After a single exposure, he had developed a Pavlovian response.

“Housekeeping!” She loosed her little fury against the door.

“I’m okay!”

“I need to get inside!”

“I’m okay!” he repeated. He marveled at the ridiculousness of this response, but kept his fingers crossed.

“You are preventing me from doing my job!” The two black stalks of her legs interrupted the light from beneath the door. It occurred to him that she might have an organic defect in her brain. But then she bellowed, “What are you doing that is so important!” and he decided that her problem probably claimed provenance in both nature and nurture.

He resolved to wait her out. She appeared to sense this, employing a primitive, animal awareness, growing quiet save for her quick, shallow breathing. “I will return!” she said after a time.

An hour later he was in the lobby, on the lookout for his ride. The desk clerk had called up to inform him that Mr. Winthrop would pick him up at noon. Actually, the clerk had used the word fetch . He saw the scenario plainly. The white-haired scion, heir to a barbed-wire empire, dispatches the limo and receives him in a smoky drawing room. That Winthrop gaze lasers in on him when he enters, but what the man is thinking exactly cannot be determined. They pose in the burgundy club chairs. Over the man’s shoulder, beyond the window: the rolling estate, sprawling, undulating, alive with force. Winthrop complains about gophers, proposes solutions, and such are the tribulations of his world, eradicable by pesticide bombs. Over brandy fresh from decanters, the old dog makes his case for the Winthrop name, for tradition, for the old ways which are the best ways. His guest wears out the knees on his pants from spontaneous fits of genuflection.

So went the narrative he concocted in the lobby of the Hotel Winthrop. The job still had its paws on him. Dipping a cup into reservoirs and tasting the waters was part of the gig. If he could swallow it, the rest of the world would, too. Nomenclature consultants were supposed to have universal stomachs.

He closed his eyes, and realized the extent of his trepidation. Meeting Winthrop was no problem. He knew the type. But he was back on the job after so long, and his fingers trembled. He made them into fists in his pockets.

The desk clerk said, “Sir.”

He limped out. The black Bentley crouched at the curb like a big lazy bull. A white head with little white hairs steaming off it emerged from the driver’s side. “Hey, nice to meet you,” the driver said. “I’m Albie.” Albie wore a faded red jogging suit. Sweatbands sopped heartily at his wrists and forehead. He got the impression that Albie had just finished a few laps or had been chased by a creature. Albie said, “Hop on in.”

The backseat was filled with grocery bags. A laundry-detergent spout poked out, the frilly plastic end of a bag of bread, celery stalks. “Why don’t you hop up front,” Albie offered, “and move a few of these things.” Albie knocked a cut-up supermarket flyer off the seat, and last week’s paper, and an ice scraper.

He climbed in, good leg first, and tried not to get his wet feet on the flotsam below the seat. “You can just shove that stuff under the seat,” Albie said.

He shoved and settled.

“Bum leg?” Albie asked.

“Bum leg.”

Albie nodded. “Been raining like this since you got here, huh? You must be bad luck or something.” The man smiled. “Albie Winthrop,” he said.

He shook the man’s hand. Moist was the word.

They pulled out and a little dribble of coffee sloshed out of the Grande Admiral in the cup holder. Cheap plastic cup holders were not standard issue on Bentleys, he gathered, inspecting the weird little monstrosity gaffer-taped to the dashboard. Where the consumer comfort industry failed, Albie stepped in, and some time before, apparently. There were a bunch of old brown stains on the carpet. He resisted the urge to lean over and check how many miles were on the car.

Albie smiled. “Got back into town this morning,” he said, “or else I’d’a come by before to meet you.”

“Lucky told me you were off racing your boat somewhere?”

Albie’s head bobbed. “Not my boat, no, aw,” he cackled. “Haven’t had a sailboat in a long while. My old buddy Percy’s boat. I’m first mate whenever he goes out. ‘First mate Albie reporting for duty, capt’n!’ ”