Colson Whitehead - Apex Hides the Hurt

Panting at this point. He wiped the sweat from his eyes. A jagged thing readjusted itself in his gut. The others in the room applauded as if their lives depended on it. He imagined that all of them had their true names written on their name tags. That would be something. That would be honest, he whispered to himself. LIAR. BED WETTER. These two sitting at Mandala’s table, the British firm making so much noise recently. If everyone could see everyone else’s true name, we could cut out all this subterfuge and camouflage. The deception that was their stock in trade, and the whole world’s favorite warm teat. ROMANTIC. FAILURE. EMPTY. He coughed and shuddered and pulled his lapels tight. It wouldn’t have to stop with this room — what if everyone everywhere wore their true names for everyone to see. Of course it began at birth — by giving their children names, parents did their offspring the favor of teaching them how to lie with their very first breath. Because what we go by is rarely what makes us go. GRIFTER. SINNER. DOOMED.

Mandala won for Best Slogan, for “We Put the Meta in Your Morphosis,” which had really helped that new health-club chain get a leg up. The losing nominees marshaled their fake smiles and waited until no one’s eyes were upon them. A pale young man walked to the podium and made a joke. Everybody laughed. Witty repartee and anecjokes for everyone. He noticed that Bart Grafton was trying to look down Bridget’s shirt. She giggled at something Bart said. He didn’t care — it allowed him space for his thoughts. CRIMINAL. WHORE. The man at the podium was named VICTIM, and surely after he received his award his life would resume its natural course of misadventure. Bart Grafton leaned over and advised, “Hang on to this one — she’s good first-wife material.”

PEDERAST announced the nominees for Best Name — Medical. All the really cool stuff these days was in pharmaceuticals, that’s what they kept saying around the office, especially the younger guys, when given a girdle or denture account and cursing their lot. He never cared what kind of account he got. It was all the same. He looked down at himself and saw that he’d sweated through his shirt. Wring it out and watch his fluid self fall to the floor. Bridget saw him loosen his tie and said, “It’s all in your head, baby.”

He heard them call his name as he slipped out of the room.

FUGITIVE.

. . . . . . . .

The last hour of the barbecue, he kept hearing the words “half-price margaritas” in the breeze, as if it were the mating call of a local bird. He’d never seen the official itinerary for the evening so he didn’t know about the final activity of the day until the shuttle buses deposited them outside the Border Café. It was a Mexican joint that belonged to that robust tradition of lone ethnic restaurants in the middle of nowhere, beloved by the natives in direct proportion to the lack of competition. The chips were greasy and delicious, and the promised margaritas of a firm, sandpaper variety that smoothed the bristled edges of the brain. Scrape, scrape, shuttle bus, shuttle bus.

He identified that manic vibe common to Last Nights. Last night of vacation, the out-of-town convention, the school year, the summer camp. A distinctive thrum. Look at them, look at them, he marveled. The Help Tourists rooted through the declining hours of their stay in Winthrop, attacking with various success the final items on their weekend’s to-do lists. Some of them sought that last piece of evidence pro or con moving here. Others held out hope for a deadline hookup, others made resolutions on how to fix their lives once they got home, unexpectedly emboldened by the simple facts of a new perspective. In the meantime, there were half-price margaritas and popular songs whose lyrics, they discovered in surprise, they knew by heart, even if they didn’t know the names of the songs. If only they could carry a tune, he told himself.

Lucky had manned the grills like a maestro, juggling direct heat and indirect heat, lean cuts, fatty cuts, veggies, and patties of different water density and thickness with admirable dexterity. Lucky was a born leader, and a born griller to boot, he had to give the man his due. He’d heard no complaints, and had none himself. The sauce had been especially tenacious, in both aftertaste and residue. A quick look around the Border Café tendered proof, around mouths and cuticles, to its steadfastness, its defiance against untold assaults by moist towelette.

He was not unstained himself, and fit right in. He had made a few new buddies. Tipped off by the newspaper, some of them felt comfortable enough to walk up to him while digging at potato salad on their cardboard plates, or gnawing basted hindparts. They asked about his job. How was it going? How much did he make? These characters were not his usual brand, you might say, but he enjoyed their little interactions. Gerald from Unisol, pasty and pale, who was getting his braces off next week. Lily Peet-Esposito, a half-pint brunette from down South, whose true personality kicked in after three drinks, and who was a connoisseur of jokes describing the cultural misunderstandings that arose when religious leaders of different faiths unexpectedly found themselves on life rafts and desert islands. Jim Lee, who was a lot more hip than he let on, a real student of the culture actually, and liked to time each beer according to a peculiar inebriation system of his, finishing off the last drop with an officious, “That was exactly one hour!” And Beverley, of course, who obviously wanted to sleep with him, patting his arm and laughing at his dumb stories when he was quite anecdote-poor these days by any honest measure. She’d shown up at Aberdeen HQ in a short leather skirt that had been an interesting if perplexing choice in the full afternoon glare of the barbecue, but had become, in the fullness of the evening, a most appropriate addition to the festivities, forward-looking, visionary even, in its erotic promise.

He’d had a not-terrible time hanging out with them that day. The night before in the hotel bar, too. Two margaritas in, surveying his new comrades, he had a sudden notion of this last week as socialization boot camp. An artificial environment created to prepare him for his reintroduction to the world. Work Task of Some Complexity. Social Interactions of Various Types and Degrees of Difficulty.

Come back, we miss you. You are forgiven.

All these ragged good times were a sales pitch for Winthrop 2.0. Honey-tongued and hard to resist. Which explained why Lucky had declined to lay out some elaborate appeal in his office, hocus-pocusing with computer graphics and laser show and swelling music why he should vote the Aberdeen way. Everything around him was Lucky’s appeal. The Help Tourists, Albie’s bleating, Regina’s wan earnestness, the inarguable common sense of Lucky’s plans and blueprints — every minute since he arrived had been a rhetorical prop in some way. From a clinical nomenclature perspective, this was a no-brainer. These people were already living in New Prospera whether they knew it or not.

Dreaming Is a Cinch When You Stop to Smell the Flowers. Dreaming Is a Cinch When You Crush All Enemies. Dreaming Is a Cinch When You Bathe in the Arterial Spray of the Vanquished.

He was surrounded by extras sipping tequila drinks, bit players in an infomercial for a lifestyle. All this can be yours for the low introductory price of. . Were they aware of this? Did it matter? They were used to commercials, commercials were a natural feature of existence, like rain or dawn. Winthrop the Elder had forced his vision onto this land and his people, and Lucky was no different. Sure their methods were different. But their motives, goals, the results — timeless medicine-show shenanigans. Were the smoke and mirrors even necessary, he wondered? New Prospera strutted on the quicksilver feet of futurity. It was progress, and progress was Windex, Vaseline, Band-Aids: pure brand superiority. Beyond advertising. Why advertise when the name of your product was tattooed on hearts and brains, had always been there, a part of us, under the skin.