Colson Whitehead - John Henry Days

Pamela nods.

“Well then, I take it you had a nice time at dinner last night? Sorry I didn’t get to say hi in person, but I was just on the run the entire time. Would’ve liked to have held it here of course, but we just don’t have the uh appropriate venue at the moment. Arlene took care of you all right?”

“About my father’s collection—”

“I’m sure you’ll see this afternoon what a great addition it will make to our community. There’s the monument, of course, overlooking the tunnel for about twenty-five years, they put it up for the centennial, the Ruritan have had a little stand up there, but for what we’re thinking about the museum, your father’s collection would be a real plus. I read that inventory you faxed Arlene, it’s pretty impressive, what he acquired over the years. Had his own museum up there in New York?”

“He ran it out of his apartment. Had a little sign up and people were supposed to just walk in off the street.”

The phone rings. Cliff looks at it, looks at Pamela, lets it ring, drips hands onto his thighs. “Sure. We’d give it a great home down here. I could show you the plans we had drawn up, but we sent them back to — this architect we hired hadn’t seen our proposed site, got the shape of the lot all wrong, but he’s working on it. Maybe I’ll have a copy sent over to the motel anyway so you can see. It’s the old A.M.E. church, it burned down a couple years ago and the plot has just been sitting there. It’s town land now and it’s not too far from here. Talcott’s just too small, unincorporated, that’s why we’re stepping in here, Hinton is.” The ring is the ring of eighties office phones, and sounds ancient to Pamela, almost prehistoric. The row of buttons along the bottom of the phone are translucent squares and fill and blink with yellow light when a call comes in. The ringing stops. “No way they have the resources over there,” Cliff continues, “and we have Route 20 right there and the traffic from the national park. Figure it’s just like turning on a light bulb. Flick that switch and we’ll have all sorts of visitors coming through here. Arlene talked to you about the money?”

“I think the money is great. It’s very generous.”

“But you, what’s the saying, you can’t put a price on memories, right?”

Janet pops her head in. “Sorry, Jack, that was Bob, he says he’ll see you there.”

Cliff frowns at the interruption. “Of course I’ll see him there, if I wanted to take the call I would have picked up …” He smiles quickly at Pamela and remembers something from his to-do list, asks, “Hey, Janet, is this okay?” He glances down at his clothes, pulling at seams.

“It’s fine, look great,” Janet says, ducking out.

Cliff nods to himself. The motion passed, the ratification of his ensemble spurs his heart. He says, “Sorry. So … It’ll all have a nice home here, you can be sure of that. We have a lot of stuff already, this is after all the true home of John Henry and we have a lot of stuff passed down through the generations. We’re all railroad people here and the father passes it to the son. It belongs here. You should have seen what we said to the Post Office when they wanted to bring out the stamp in Pittsburgh. We wrote them, boy, this is John Henry’s home. And when we heard about your father’s collection and how we were thinking of making this an annual thing every July, we looked at that inventory you sent and we just knew. It was like a light bulb going on in our heads. Light bulbs. Haven’t had any other offers on it, have you?”

“You’re the first to take an interest in it, that’s why I came down here. I’m just paying the storage space on it now, to tell you the truth.”

“So you closed up the museum when your father passed on?”

“Couldn’t, just don’t have the time to run it.”

“I understand perfectly, you’re a young lady, have your life to live in New York. Pardon me — hotline, got to take this … Hello, honey. No just put whatever doesn’t fit in the fridge and we can take it out later … did you call Arm and see if he needed a ride over?”

Pamela’s attention drifts to the wall of photographs again, to its constellation of affection. Her eyes dart between the faces of the father and the son. The nose and ears passed down between generations. What else is passed down. Resemblance is only the start of it. Most of it happens under the skin. There are other things, you squander them, use up what is good not knowing it is good before it is all used up. Then what are you left with? Nose and ears.

Convenient interruption to this line of thought, Cliff moves over and sits on the edge of his desk, closer to Pamela and now partition between her and the photographs. He says, “Sorry about that. Where … yes, your father. That’s why we’re so glad you came down. We’re trying to do the same thing. Teach the people about John Henry, educate the people about the history of the region and the history of Hinton and Talcott. When you see what we have organized today, you’re gonna have a kick. We have two men from town going to have a steeldriving race, all sorts of music and things, we hired this band from Charleston, I haven’t heard them but they sure come highly recommended, play a lot of music from the region from what I understand.”

Is she staring perhaps a bit too blankly? Cliff purses his lips and shifts his tone. “But we don’t want to rush you,” he says, smiling. “You just have a good time this weekend and enjoy yourself with all that’s going on. Didn’t expect you to hand it over right now, did we? That’s why we brought you down here, so you can see for yourself what we’re doing down here. Think of it as us carrying on your father’s good work, what he was trying to do with his own museum before he passed on. No universities or anything contact you about his collection?”

“It’s not exactly like people are clamoring me.”

“Heh. It’s kind of specialized.”

“What are you going to charge?”

“I thought Arlene already discussed the figure,” Cliff murmurs, rearing back with a where did I put my glasses expression. “We’ve gone over the number quite a bit, I think—”

“Not pay, I mean charge.” Something new to her in her voice. What did she care? Here she is asking. “For the museum. What kind of admission are you going to charge people to see John Henry.”

He relaxes. “Oh that. It’s kind of early, but if you’re worried about that, don’t worry about that, it won’t be cheap I mean it won’t be expensive. Most of the people come through here, it’s families on vacation, families with kids and that kind of thing. Most of the admission would go to upkeep. The physical plant, the, preserve the physical condition of the exhibits themselves. Want to put a first-rate burglar alarm in there, too. Don’t know if Arlene told you had a break-in at the Visitors Center and someone made off with one of the sledges we had on display. Probably just some kids having fun and I can understand that, I have a son of my own and he was a bit of a hell-raiser but it was the property of a private citizen who let us put it out there for the visitors to see, so we’re very concerned about the security issue. So one thing we’re going to put our fees to is protecting the displays, make sure nothing happens to the items your father went to such great lengths … Is that a real huge concern, the fee? I mean is that a deal-breaker?”

“No, I — just wondering. My father didn’t charge. I think he just wanted the company, to tell you the truth. But the sign he put up, you almost had to be already looking for it to see it.” Her head darts toward the photographs on the wall. “Is that your son right there?”

“That’s Armand.” The collapse of his eyebrows and emergence of fault lines in his brow mark an emotion swiftly put into check before his smile asserts itself broadly, victorious over turbulence. “Quite a football player before the accident. You should have seen him play.”