Colson Whitehead - Apex Hides the Hurt

What was all this struggle? He answered himself: There was not enough room to be heard and understood. Every name competed against every other name for attention. (He could not bring himself to call the reward of this competition by its true name, love.) To be heard — because if it was not heard how could it be said to exist? People were always saying, “You have to get your name out there,” and in that moment for the life of him he could not understand what those words might mean. We spent our lives trying to keep our true names inside and hidden, because if they were let out we would be known and ruined.

In front of a newsstand, looking up at the sky as if it were a vast eternal mirror, he saw all the logos and names, and saw himself as some brand of mite lost in the pages of the musty encyclopedia of the world. Galanta and Apex, Percept and Rigitol. If he severed the golden tethers that kept these things close to this mortal world, to their mortal meanings, imprisoned as products , these names were the names of heroes who had performed miraculous feats. These names were the names of ancient cities where great battles had been won, where the words culture and civilization had first been formed by human mouths. But we reeled them in and kept them close to this muddy earth, and on the shelves of supermarkets they were artificial kneecap lubricants, sponges equipped with abrasive undersides, aerosol sprays that magically banished static cling. Such disreputable gods.

Isn’t it great when you’re a kid and the whole world is full of anonymous things? He coughed into his sleeve. Everything is bright and mysterious until you know what it is called and then all the light goes out of it. All those flying gliding things are just birds . And etc. Once we knew the name of it, how could we ever come to love it? He told himself: What he had given to all those things had been the right name, but never the true name. For things had true natures, and they hid behind false names, beneath the skin we gave them.

Constellations wheeled around him, lit up under the auspices of the electric company. He stood beneath them in this mess, limping around the valley of the names. Star watchers were fucked. There were too many stars in the sky to name them all. They were bright and keen, but had to make do with letters and numbers — B317, N467, T675—until they earned their names.

Until then, anonymous and barely there at all.

A name that got to the heart of the thing — that would be miraculous. But he never got to the heart of the thing, he just slapped a bandage on it to keep the pus in. What is the word, he asked himself, for that elusive thing? It was on the tip of his tongue. What is the name for that which is always beyond our grasp? What do you call that which escapes ?

If he closed his eyes and fell back, would someone catch him? He decided to try it.

HE IMAGINEDa town called A. Around the communal fire they’re shaping arrowheads and carving tributes to the god of the hunt. One day some guys with spears come over the ridge, perform all kinds of meanness, take over, and the new guys rename the town B. Whereupon they hang around the communal fire shaping arrowheads and carving tributes to the god of the hunt. Some climatic tragedy occurs — not carving the correct tributary figurines probably — and the people of B move farther south, where word is there’s good fishing, at least according to those who wander to B just before being cooked for dinner. Another tribe of unlucky souls stops for the night in the emptied village, looks around at the natural defenses provided by the landscape, and decides to stay awhile. It’s a whole lot better than their last digs — what with the lack of roving tigers and such — plus it comes with all the original fixtures. They call the place C, after their elder, who has learned that pretending to talk to spirits is a fun gag that gets you stuff. Time passes. More invasions, more recaptures, D, E, F, and G. H stands as it is for a while. That ridge provides some protection from the spring floods, and if you keep a sentry up there you can see the enemy coming for miles. Who wouldn’t want to park themselves in that real estate? The citizens of H leave behind cool totems eventually toppled by the people of I, whose lack of aesthetic sense is made up for by military acumen. J, K, L, adventures in thatched roofing, some guys with funny religions from the eastern plains, long-haired freaks from colder climes, the town is burned to the ground and rebuilt by still more fugitives. This is the march of history. And conquest and false hope. M falls to plague, N to natural disaster — the same climatic tragedy as before, apparently it’s cyclical. Mineral wealth makes it happen for the O people, and the P people are renowned for their basket weaving. No one ever— ever —mentions Q. The dictator names the city after himself; his name starts with the letter R. When the socialists come to power they spend a lot of time painting over his face, which is everywhere. They don’t last. Nobody lasts because there’s always somebody else. They all thought they owned it because they named it and that was their undoing. They should have kept the place nameless. They should have been glad for their good fortune, and left it at that. X, Y, Z.

. . . . . . . .

The Help Tourists stood over him, stunned, pebble eyes blinking, before they helped him up. There they were, getting their freak on, and then something like that happens. New Fast-Acting Buzzkillzz — When Everyone’s Having Too Much Fun. He assured them that he was okay but maybe it was time to go. Poor Beverley insisted on her aid. He did not need physical assistance, but nonetheless. They staggered down the street and she attempted to draw him out with two jokes. He didn’t get either one and unsuccessfully feigned comprehension. His palms were smeared with a mixture of grit and spilled margaritas, a shameful mud.

At the door of the hotel, he gave quick thanks, abandoning her on the curb despite the obvious fact that she would have assisted him to his room and afterward. The night had not turned out as planned for all involved.

There was one more indignity in store for him.

His room was clean.

The clothes folded and tucked into drawers, the flecked cups in the bathroom banished and replaced by cellophane-covered cousins, the paltry lozenges of soap replenished. A lemon zesty tendril tickled his nose. The only mark of disorder was the DO NOT DISTURB sign, which had been rent evenly in two and placed in the middle of the quilt. The housekeeper had placed it just so, the pieces touching at a forty-five-degree angle and elegantly framed by the edges of the bed. A tableau of victory. She had been a worthy opponent, and he lamented this second defeat, so quickly after the last one. Reminded of his misfortune after blissful forgetfulness for a few days, and then bested by a feather duster: it had been a brutal twenty minutes.

He showered, inspecting his body for bruises and marks. Nothing to the eye. Except for the site of his most famous injury.

He fell asleep quickly but it didn’t last. An hour later he was staring at the ceiling and he knew he was going to have a hard time for a couple of hours. Cleaned up, straightened up according to the house style, his room was returned to its familiar strangeness, and he remembered his first night in the hotel. Back where and when he started. How had he ended up in this place? Not this particular room, but place . No one to call. No one to ask for advice, or even calming nonsense about the events of their day. Sure, he could point to his hospitalization as a clear marker of Before and After, but he recognized such distinctions as counterfeit. His course had been set long in advance. This place was the sum of old choices, the heap of his years. In that nameless town, he asked himself, what was he going by lately? What name was he traveling under? Perhaps his banishment to this place was only fitting. Unavoidable.