Apex Hides the Hurt Read online

  “What?”

  “Give them a Q,” he repeated. He hung up.

  He got a check in the mail a few weeks later, but he wasn’t sure if that was for merely picking up the phone, or if they had used his contribution. Such as it was. Only when he saw the ads for the Q-100 did he get his answer. A Q. It was a name reduced to abstraction. To meaninglessness. It depressed him, the ridiculousness of seeing his whim carved into the culture. How’d you come up with that? Just sitting around and it occurred to me. What curdled in his thoughts was how easy it was, even after his misfortune. Nothing had changed.

  . . . . . . . .

  He feared he’d have to buckle up for another ride down shadowy sentimental lanes, but they didn’t go very far at all. She picked him up in front of the hotel, and they drove down the block, across the street, then on to the pier. They could have walked. The car nosed up to the guardrail at the end of the pier, the headlights draping a white shape on the water for a few seconds before she cut the engine. Couples and kids walked slowly on the asphalt, sucking ice cream and commenting on the stars in a Sunday-night daze. Back to work tomorrow. For a second he’d had an image of her steering them into the drink. For discovering the terrible secret, but of course it was only a terrible secret if anyone cared. And no one cared. Except him.

  Regina cleared her throat. And once more. She began: “The thing about him being sick started because he did fall ill soon after, and never got better. He died. So that got mixed in there over the years, but on the day of the actual vote, he was there. Yes.” She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and finally turned to face him, her eyes red-vined. “When can we expect your decision?” she asked, her voice crisp, almost bullying. More sheriff than mayor.

  “Soon,” he said. “I think I’m almost there.”

  “No surprise which way you’re leaning.”

  “You know that article was a piece of crap. Just some PR.”

  “I know,” she said eventually.

  He was in no hurry. He let her take her time. A hollow clanking sound, rigging animated by the wind, made its way across the water. Ghosts rattling their chains, he thought. Hey, ’member me?

  “It’s a wonder they were friends at all,” Regina started. “They had such different temperaments. What united them was their tragedy, if you think about it. And the idea that they could make something better.”

  He had pictured the scene repeatedly over the last few hours. Field walks in thinking it was business as usual. Him and his friend against Winthrop. Maybe humming a spiritual or something, fuck, he didn’t know. The kind of song you sing when you are about to be ambushed. A Caught Unawares song.

  Regina said, “Abraham had a family. And then the extended family of all the people who followed them here. He had responsibilities. Field didn’t have anyone. He’d lost his family back on the plantation. You have to understand where they both were coming from.”

  He thought: They put the law down to protect themselves against Winthrop. As long as they stood together on the city council, the two black men were a majority, and there was nothing the white man could do. They got it in writing, on the books, the way white people did it. And that would be enough, right? So they thought. What name to put to the expression on Field’s face when they took the vote? A Jeep made a U-turn behind Regina’s car, blinding him for a second. He had to admit that Regina had a distinguished profile. The blood of kings in her veins, nose and brow and chin of the brand that said: We make the hard decisions.

  Her hand went for the ignition, stalled on the key, then fell into her lap. “Man,” Regina said, “I don’t know what Winthrop promised him. Property? Money? They definitely didn’t talk about that on Easter or Christmas, when we used to sit around and the old folks would tell us the story about how we came here. How proud we all should be that we were related to such strong souls.”

  At the very least Goode got a few street signs out of it. He looked over at Regina. What was she hoping to accomplish, really, by bringing the town back to Freedom? To undo the double cross? Right the injustice. Only it was not the injustice he had been thinking of. “What are you going to do?” he asked. He didn’t know what he meant.

  She said, “Maybe he didn’t get anything concrete. Maybe it was enough that it was the most prudent thing for the community they were building. That,” she said, pointing at the end of the pier, the dark water, “that was going to make or break this place. Supply lines. He knew that. So why not change the name. Right?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said. He’d been trying to get into the heads of those two men, but was having a hard time. They lived in a completely different context. What did a slave know that we didn’t? To give yourself a name is power. They will try to give you a name and tell you who you are and try to make you into something else, and that is slavery. And to say, I Am This—that was freedom. He imagined the vote again. Did they come to blows? Did they curse? What name to give to the smile on Sterling Winthrop’s face. Jagged syllables and sharp kickers all the way. And what name to give to the lack of surprise on Field’s face. Because he must have known from the beginning of their trip that some brand of doom was waiting for him up here. Or not waiting, but dogging his every step, like it always did. His shadow and true companion.

  “I wish I could ask them,” Regina said wistfully. “I wish I had been there when they first arrived and looked around and said, ‘This is the place.’ It must have been beautiful. It was Abraham that came up with Freedom, did you know that? Field was of his own mind, of course, with some cockeyed idea, but the people decided to go with Freedom.”

  He asked what Field’s suggestion had been.

  It took her a minute before she was able to recall it. Seeing his expression, she shook her head in gentle dismay, her lips pressed together into a thin smile. “Can you imagine thinking that would be a good name for a place where people live?” she asked.

  . . . . . . . .

  Any handy road atlas describes the long tradition of noun names, adjectival names, that yoke abstraction to dirt, where we can get our grimy hands on it. Confluence, KY, Friendship, LA, Superior, CO, Commerce, OK, Plush, OR. Hope, AR, naturally. Oftentimes these names can also be found on the sides of packages of laundry detergent or abrasive cleaners, so generous and thorough is the sweep of their connotation. Freedom, needless to add. Can’t forget Freedom.

  Truth or Consequences, NM. Hard to knock such brave and laudable candor. Such ballsy defiance to the notion of salesmanship. Pity the poor board of tourism for Truth or Consequences, NM! Death Valley, too, won points for its plainspoken delivery. Seeming to say: It’s not like we didn’t warn you.

  There were towns whose names were like thieves, attempting to pick the pocket of history, but instead became punch lines to jokes about the perils of juxtaposition. Milan, MN, Lebanon, OK, Dublin, IA, Brooklyn, OH. As if history came equipped with tiny snap-on hooks, was lightweight and portable and could be thrown up on available surfaces to accent the scheme of any room.

  There was also a long tradition in naming places for great men, or at least men who believed in their greatness. He’d always had a soft spot for Amerigo Vespucci, who got lost while looking for the Indies and hit nomenclature’s Big Kahuna instead. Unless there was a gent named Europo he’d never heard about.

  He couldn’t argue with America. It was one of those balloon names. It kept stretching as it filled up, getting bigger and bigger and thinner and thinner. What kind of gas it was, stretching the thing to its limits, who could say. Whatever we dreamed. And of course one day it would pop. But for now, it served its purpose. For now, it was holding together.

  . . . . . . . .

  He didn’t want a drink, or need a drink, or particularly want to see the man again, but he found himself walking to the hotel bar. His meeting with Regina had taken care of all the mysteries save one.

  The place was graveyard quiet, as it had been the first night. Everything restored. He saw that once again, Muttonchops pre
sided over his musty realm, wilted rag in one hand for a scepter, old-school Afro his one true crown. As usual, Muttonchop’s face came pre-frowned. When he saw his customer enter, his hand swatted the tap and the beer roiled down into a mug. “You look like a man who’s looking for something he ain’t sure he wants to find,” the bartender pronounced, “or if he does, ain’t sure he knows what to do with it.”

  But he was not going to waver this time, and he held Muttonchop’s stare. “I have no idea what that means,” he said. “I just want to know one thing—do you ever take a day off, or are you here every day standing in judgment of everyone unlucky enough to get thirsty in this fucking hamlet?”

  Neither man moved for a long time, the time it took for the silence to relent and allow it to be possible to actually hear the head on the beer pop away, called up into the fizzy hereafter. Finally, Muttonchops withdrew, wrapping his rag around his fist. “I take two days off—my birthday, and that of my wife. People of this town can count on that like they can count on the dawn. Other than that, we’re here every day. Me tending to the bar, and she cleaning the rooms. Just like it’s always been.”

  His higher cognitive functions derailed by Muttonchop’s statement, all he could say was, “I’m not thirsty,” and retreat to his room. There was only so much he could accomplish during his visit.

  There were just a few hours to go. He did not rest. For old times’ sake, he decided to order a cucumber sandwich. For symmetry’s sake. No one answered the phone, however. It was just as well.

  As he packed, he had to admire Field for his principles, if not his understanding of the way people live. The man could read a map, read a compass, lead the people out of the wilderness, but he’d never make it as a modern-day nomenclature consultant. Given the choice between Freedom, and his contribution, how could their flock not go with Goode’s beautiful bauble? Field’s area of expertise wasn’t human nature, but the human condition. He understood the rules of the game, had learned them through the barb on the whip, and was not afraid to name them. Let lesser men try to tame the world by giving it a name that might cover the wound, or camouflage it. Hide the badness from view. The prophet’s work was of a different sort.

  Freedom was what they sought. Struggle was what they had lived through.

  Apex was splendid, as far as it went. Human aspiration, the march of civilization, our hardscrabble striving. Brought it all under one big tent, gathered up all that great glorious stuff inside it. But he had to admit that Struggle got to the point with more finesse and wit. Was Struggle the highest point of human achievement? No. But it was the point past which we could not progress, and a summit in that way. Exactly the anti-apex, that peak we could never conquer, that defeated our ambitions despite the best routes, the heartiest guides, the right equipment.

  His contract called for his clients to keep the name he gave them for one year. Who knew? They might even come to like it. Recognize it as their own. Grow as comfortable with it as if it were their very skin.

  As he fell asleep, he heard the conversations they will have. Ones that will get to the heart of this mess. The sick swollen heart of this land. They will say: I was born in Struggle. I live in Struggle and come from Struggle. I work in Struggle. We crossed the border into Struggle. Before I came to Struggle. We found ourselves in Struggle. I will never leave Struggle. I will die in Struggle.

  . . . . . . . .

  He left the envelope at the front desk. It was addressed to the city council. He gave the white guy at the desk ten bucks to return Gertrude’s manuscript to Beverley. Which was a bit of a cop-out, but it was time to get out of town. As he dragged his bag across the lobby, he locked eyes with Muttonchops, who was framed in the doorway of his domain, slowly massaging a martini glass with a brown cloth. He gave the bartender the finger, and picked up his pace a smidgen as he beat it through the doors, clomping along on his bad foot, absurd as usual.

  The bus stop was right outside the library. Former library, actually. He waited and listened to the extravagant racket coming from behind the plywood. They must have arrived at dawn, the expert army of craftsmen-proselytizers come to enlighten the heathens. Double or nothing the store would be open for business by day’s end.

  Over the weekend, an edict had come down from HQ that all COMING SOON OUTFIT OUTLET signs were to be twice as big as before—how else to explain the gigantism of the new sign bolted to the fence? The old sign was heaped on top of a dumpster, cracked over shards of broken bookcases and institutional chairs. He had to admit, the new sign possessed a certain majesty, and would be visible from even farther away. The next version would probably be visible from space.

  There had been a moment a few hours ago, as he was lying in bed waiting for the morning to come, when he thought he might be cured. Rid of that persistent mind-body problem. That if he did something, took action, the hex might come off. The badness come undone. He thought, plainly speaking, that he’d lose the limp. Nothing as dramatic as the cripple flinging his crutches into the air before dashing himself to the floor and break dancing, but still. Something, anything.

  As the weeks went on and he settled into his new life, he had to admit that actually, his foot hurt more than ever.

  Also by Colson Whitehead

  The Intuitionist

  John Henry Days

  The Colossus of New York

  FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JANUARY 2007

  Copyright © 2006 Colson Whitehead

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2006.

  Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:

  Whitehead, Colson, 1969–

  Apex hides the hurt / Colson Whitehead.— 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Brand name products—Marketing—Fiction. 2. Names, Geographical—Fiction. 3. City and town life—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3573.H4768A85 2006

  813'.54—dc22 2005049391

  www.anchorbooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-307-27978-1

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