Colson Whitehead - John Henry Days

John Henry dropped the ten-pound hammer,

And picked up the twenty-pound sledge;

Every time his hammer went down,

You could see that steel going through, Lord, Lord,

You could see that steel going through.

John Henry was just getting started,

Steam drill was half way down;

John Henry said, “You’re ahead right now,

But I’ll beat you on the last go-around, Lord, Lord,

I’ll beat you on the last go-around.”

What’s this guy singing? He’s choking on the stubborn plug of meat. John Henry, John Henry. He works on the C&O Railroad. He pushes puff, he is going for the record. His muscles must be jumping out of his skin. It won’t move, it sits like a bullet in his throat. No oxygen for me, thanks, I’ve had enough. Luke Cage the Marvel Comics superhero had bulletproof skin. At one point he had a sticker book where he kept stickers of Marvel Comics superheroes, they jumped out of the page, dynamic, Avengers Assemble and all that, muscles on full ripple, Luke Cage the jive-talking ex-con. This is what we get. Your whole life is supposed to flash before your eyes and this is what I get. Step into the light. Red light? What was up with that yellow shirt he wore anyway, some sleazy guy in a disco laying lines on the ladies, Luke Cage. He finds it incredible that in this crushing and collapsing time, he has the time to think these thoughts. But they say your life flashes before your eyes. I’m a sophisticated black man from New York City and I’m going to die down here. With cicadas, they got cicadas down here, don’t they. I want roaches, real crumb-eating fucks from out of the drain.

The boy sings,

John Henry told his shaker,

“Big boy, you better pray

For if I miss this six-foot steel,

To-morrow will be your burying day, Lord, Lord,

To-morrow will be your burying day.”

The men that made that steam drill

Thought it was mighty fine;

John Henry drove his fourteen feet,

While the steam drill only made nine, Lord, Lord,

While the steam drill only made nine.

John Henry went home to his good little woman,

Said, “Polly Ann, fix my bed,

I want to lay down and get some rest,

I’ve an awful roaring in my head, Lord, Lord,

I’ve an awful roaring in my head.”

Isn’t there something he is supposed to do? He feels like he is falling from a height. He can’t think of it. He can excrete twelve hundred words in two hours and yet he can’t think of any last words. How about an epitaph? He can’t get farther than his name and the pertinent bookend dates. He slaps the table to get their attention. Their drinks jump. He sees a restaurant sign, yellow and deep blue, on the wall of a restaurant, on the walls of infinite restaurants. Who wants to be the guy in the picture turning blue? Black folks turn blue? Look for the telltale signs. Pictographs. Certainly public service announcements, like road signs and airport signs, need a simple language. Simple message, simple expression. Is that a journalistic axiom? He can’t remember, and yet it sounds so official. Nobody notices his death. Sensation of falling. Who wants to be the blue guy in the choking picture on the wall of a cheap restaurant? Where is this place’s sign? There must be laws about the placement of the signs, eating establishments must post them in convenient places. Federal law, but then maybe they vary from state to state. States’ rights! States’ rights, these people love their states’ rights, signs on fountains, back of the bus, Rosa Parks. This place will fucking kill him. He should have known better. A black man has no business here, there’s too much rough shit, too much history gone down here. The Northern flight, right: we wanted to get the fuck out. That’s what they want, they want us dead. It’s like the song says.

The boy sings,

John Henry told his woman,

“Never wear black, wear blue.”

She said, “John, don’t never look back,

For, honey, I’ve been good to you, Lord, Lord,

For, honey, I’ve been good to you.”

John Henry was a steeldriving man,

He drove in many a crew;

He has now gone back to the head of the line

To drive the heading on through, Lord, Lord,

To drive the heading on through.

He stops falling. His body bursts and he is jerked up out of his seat. Involuntary Physical Response: the signs people keep on their lawns to repel burglars? He jumps out of his seat. My eyes must be popping out my head like some coon cartoon. His hands point to his throat. Can’t these people see what’s going on? The boy keeps singing. The pain is in his throat, around his throat and he would like them to make it stop. All these crackers looking up at me, looking up at the tree. Nobody doing nothing, just staring. They know how to watch a nigger die.

The first blow shattered half the bones in the boy’s hand and the second shattered the other half. There was no way he could stop his hammer from coming down the second time. He was swinging his next blow before his first struck the bit. That night in the grading camp someone said that they could hear the boy’s scream all the way on top of the mountain and down in the shafts, louder than the sound of blasting. The boy’s hand was all chewed up. The doctor would have to cut it off. The shale dust settled into the blood and melted into it like too-early snow. The other driver dropped his sledge and his shaker told one of the water carriers to run for help. They had stopped singing. This was time out of the Captain’s timetable.

John Henry looked down at the boy. He had the build, but anyone could see he wasn’t a shaker. Too much of the rabbit in him. The boss had told him the boy was a shaker on the west end and had been reassigned to fill in for L’il Bob. L’il Bob had been coughing fiercely the last few days and needed a day of fresh air to clear out his chest. He kept a bucket by his cot for what he spat up. No one mentioned miner’s consumption, the black rot of the lungs caused by the foul air. Between the smoke from the lard and blackstrap candles, the rock dust and the blasting fumes it was a miracle they all weren’t sick after a year in a tunnel. There was still time. L’il Bob didn’t want to get caught coughing and lose his grip on the drill bit. It turned out the boy hadn’t been a shaker on the west end; he’d carried water, and only for a week. What you needed were steady hands and speed, but what you needed most of all was faith. The sledge came down and drove the drill bit into the rock and the shaker had to twist the bit between blows to loosen the dust in the hole and keep the bit level for the next blow. Two quick shakes and a twist made the rock dust fly out of the hole. You had to have steady hands and speed, but you had to have faith. You had to know that the driver wasn’t going to miss and smash your hands and ruin them. You had to hold it straight. John Henry and L’il Bob understood each other, which is why John Henry didn’t like breaking in a new shaker. You had to hold it straight or you’d never hold anything in that hand again. The boy did fine for half the day, but then John Henry could see him get lazy or lose attention or maybe he just realized how crazy the job was. The candlelight was dim and useless. The candles in their hats sometimes snuffed out suddenly, the Lord blew them out, and the hammer fell mightily in darkness. The shaker’s hands better be where they had to be when that happened. If the bit got dull, or the hole got too deep for a six-foot bit and they needed an eight-foot bit, the shaker had to replace it without letting the steeldriver miss a blow. The rhythm was all. L’il Bob did his work well. The boy did fine for a long time. But then he was slow, that one time, and the bit was not level. No question he would lose that hand.