Colson Whitehead - John Henry Days

Lucien smiles. “Thought you might want to have that for your clip file. Keep it.”

Tiny says, “It’s a good omen. Could’ve been an obit — misadventure by buffet.”

“Thanks for the paper, Lucien.” J. knows One Eye has some kind remark or squint-related communiqué, so J. refuses to look in his direction. He gives Tiny his drink tickets and tells them he’s going to check out the fair.

He’s a few yards in when Dave Brown says, “Hey, Bobby Figgis — aren’t you forgetting something?”

J. turns around. His John Henry statue rests on the picnic table, presiding over a fief of half-filled beer cups.

He’s in. He walks past pastel menageries of balloon fauna with knot navels, is enticed to linger over rows of pies. This isn’t the Aryan Nation recruitment rally he thought it would be from what he saw last night and this morning. More black people than he expected; he’s doing a lot of the old afro-nod, the hello you give to folks when you get out of the city and into friendlier climes. He notices quite a few teenage couples, dressed in the hip-hop gear he’d see on any Brooklyn ave; there are even one or two hardrocks around, fronting. Cable allows every teenager, no matter how country, to catwalk into the latest styles. And maybe looking at these woods forces them to reach for what they see on TV as ghetto realness, and they cling to it. A life raft in this cracker wilderness. So they know who they are even when mowing the lawn. Hell, the circulation of the people he works for reaches everywhere, so he’s helped it along in his small way. Wrote about the new sneakers the rap crowd decided on this spring, interviewed Down Ready Crew just a month ago to abet the push for their first major label release. Even the white kids have a little flavor. There are older bourgie couples with small kids, the Range Rover crowd out for a weekend excursion. Of course we’re here, he thinks, but his New York prejudices still urge him to surprise.

The next trash can he comes to is full, overfull, topped with the last uneaten nubs of hot dog buns and crenellated paper plates with Rorschach ketchup smears, so he rolls up the Hinton Owl and stuffs it in his back pocket. Christ. He’s seen his name in the paper plenty of times, that’s his trade, migrating to where the work is and getting a byline at the end of the day, but he’s never been in the paper. He felt so good he’d almost forgotten about last night. And with his picture like that, stretched out like a KO’d heavyweight. The closest he’s ever come to being in print was when one of his college friends imagined himself as his generation’s Proust and stuck J. in under a pseudonym as a talented fellow who’d allowed himself to betray his talent. His pal denied the character was based on J. — after all, his name was name Ray, wasn’t it?

Sniveling Lawrence handing him the paper like that, and Dave Brown’s Bobby Figgis crack. In this anonymous fair, surrounded by the motley, he felt out in the open. Out here all exposed.

John Henry is too heavy. He feels like he’s been lugging him around for years. He wasn’t that heavy up in the caboose, but he started to get heavy as J. walked down the hill to the fair, and now he’s heavier than ever. Slighted anonymous muscles in his hand grumble. There’s no place to put him. He thinks, I got John Henry here in fine condition! Get your authentic John Henry here! How much would you like to bid, sir? No one else has one.

They’ve stuck to T-shirts, some kids have green foam sledgehammers, but he’s the only jackass walking around in spy sunglasses and Hawaiian shirt with a John Henry under his arm.

So where would Pamela be?

Not in the moonwalk. The moonwalk is a machine that takes children into its input and has three settings: jump, tumble and headrush. Once they have been output the children have been altered, possessing a new appreciation of solid ground. But the true heart of the lesson, J. thinks as he watches the gamboling and careening kids, is that reality is always waiting. Solid ground will rush up to meet you after your momentary escape. The Enchanted Castle has seen better days in more blessed kingdoms; gray patches cover puncture wounds in the plastic, half the turrets on top wiggle in asphyxiation, they sag, wobble at every pratfall of the children inside. Blue smoke chugs out of the gasoline engine pushing air inside. Perhaps a steam engine would be more eco-friendly

His arm is tired; he readjusts his grip on the statue and John Henry dangles upside down as J.’s fingers curl around his leg. Not a dignified pose for a legend, but… On the bandstand the bluegrass trio who performed during his last pass has been replaced by O’Leary the One-Man Band. Cymbals collide tinnily between his knees, he wheezes into a harmonica that’s hooked onto his face like emergency room apparatus, his banjo writhes, and an extra hand comes out of nowhere periodically to squeeze the tiny black horn at his hip. Is he singing John Henry? This is an instrumental, and the kinetic extravaganza before his eyes distracts his ears, he can’t make out the song. He moves through the bottleneck of O’Leary fans, soldiers past a stall of tie-dyed wall hangings and finds her.

He finds her in a wedged-in booth, an illegal space probably off the official map of vendors, between a tableau of assorted shriveled jerkies and a booth offering photographs of dead celebrities in glamorous poses. Pamela is having her palm read by an old white lady perched on a green-and-white plaid lawn chair. The fortuneteller is skinny as barbed wire, rusted as such, just as bent. She smokes a brand of cigarettes J. has never seen before, discounted tobacco calibrated to the region’s economic profile, an off-brand with on-target carcinogens. The weatherbeaten oracle notices J. and cuts off her prognostications, folds Pamela’s palm into her mottled hands and drinks deep from the seeker’s eyes. A might theatrical, J. thinks, but what can you expect from a lawn chair psychic?

Pamela notices J. as well and turns to ask the woman, “You’re not going to tell me how it turns out?”

She lights a cigarette with another cigarette and says, “What do you expect for two bucks?” leaning back into the soft slats of her throne.

“How’s the future looking these days?” J. asks as they retreat into people.

“She was just reminding me of something.” The muscles in her face un-ratchet. “Where did you go?” she asks.

“I was right behind you,” he says, “I thought you ditched me.” She denies convincingly. They stroll.

Into his hand is thrust a flyer for auto repair, a few seconds later a flyer for soul repair; mechanics and Christians alike work the crowd. He thinks, we are officially hanging out now, but what does that mean. Nothing. They’ve merely been thrown together at an odd occasion and talking and walking together is easier than being alone in a crowd. She doesn’t say anything. He feels like an ass. His eyes follow the barricade that runs along the tracks and he can make out half the arch of the new tunnel. Right now the one John Henry dug is hidden by a tent, but Pamela has steered them in that direction, so he’ll soon see the famous place. What all the hubbub is about. He knows the fair isn’t that big, but all this aimless cutting across the rows makes it seem like it goes on forever. His sneakers scud across crushed paper cups and they stroll through the fair.

“My father would have loved this,” Pamela says.

“Have you decided about the museum?”

“Not all this junk they’re selling, but the idea behind it.” She finally looks at J. “He would have loved it.”

“John Henry!” rolls the voice across the field. “I’m looking for John Henry! Are you out there?” Before J. can suggest they check out this next petty spectacle, Pamela charges ahead toward the shouting, where a small huddle has assembled around a contraption. The worn sign at its base urges, TEST YOUR STRENGTH, and a sheet of paper taped up for this occasion offers as postscript, JOHN HENRY CONTEST. J.’s eyes skitter up the length of the wooden totem, to the bell at the crest. At intervals along the way, obscuring the usual designations, newly taped-up shreds of paper read, WATER BOY, APPRENTICE, SHAKER, STEELDRIVER, and at the top, JOHN HENRY. Looking for John Henry, paging Mr. John Q. Henry,” shouts the barker. In a worn green suit, beneath the rim of a dusty brown bowler hat, he says, “Take a chance, take a chance, every swing might be your last.”