Read Online John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead - Free Book Online
Authors: Colson Whitehead
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slid up and down, others had walls of metal grating that allowed her to see the other bins, the stuff of other people, bicycles of dead children, histories of upholstery, lamps from bolder decades, dartboards and family portraits. She couldn’t judge spaces. They asked her if she was storing a studio or a one-bedroom or a two-bedroom, and she told them she was storing a museum.
After visiting a dozen storage places, Pamela decided on Dalmon, which is only two blocks from her house. Only two blocks away her neighborhoodchanges; Tenth Avenue broods near the river, where the city has different priorities. Dalmon has reasonable rates and even offered to move the material for her, at a small cost. It is very convenient. She met the movers the following Saturday at her father’s apartment in Harlem. The movers were two young Dominican men who smiled a lot at her throughout the job, nice guys. She showed them the boxes that contained her father’s John Henry museum and they urged dollies up the brownstone steps, coaxed carts through door frames, gouged walls. Pamela left the furniture, the plates, the rest of her father’s things for the landlord to clean up, fuck him. The movers drove their van downtown and banished the boxes from her immediate responsibility.
No one wanted it. She made a few inquiries, called universities. Tuskeegee, Howard. She got lost in voice mail, mailed letters that did not receive responses.
She stalled out that spring. Pamela temped aimlessly, a migrant worker harvesting words per minute. The agency called her early in the morning if they had anything for her; otherwise she watched television in her pajamas and contemplated the bills from the storage facility, which distilled her hatred for John Henry into a convenient monthly statement.
Haunted by stuff. Hunched over ramen, in the same clothes she’d worn for days, she felt dazed. She was on the patch. She was off the patch. She was on the gum and smoking in between. She didn’t go out that much, partly because she couldn’t afford to, partly because going out did nothing for her mood. Her friends understood, her friends told her it was natural. It was part of the grieving process. Therapy diffuses: everyone knew the cant, the correct diagnosis. It was natural. It had nothing to do with her father, however, it had to do with John Henry, the original sheet music of ballads, railroad hammers, spikes and bits, playbills from the Broadway production, statues of the man and speculative paintings.
She thought about not paying the bills. When Dalmon finally unloaded the stuff (there must be auctions for such things, an entire culture based on the commerce of the dead or bankrupt, what did they do with what they bought), it would be like they were selling John Henry, not her father. This argument never got very far in her head. It was her father. She paid the bills on time and stopped eating out as much.
In May Pamela received a call from a representative of the town of Tal-cott, West Virginia. The months after her father’s death marked the longest stretch in her life that she had not heard the name. The woman on the phone was very kind. The town was planning a festival to celebrate their town andJohn Henry and wanted to know if they could buy her father’s collection of material. She hated the name Talcott and refused, even though it was the obvious solution to her dilemma. The woman, Arlene, was persistent but Pamela did not budge. It wasn’t a matter of money; they made a generous offer. She knew there were reasons, probably pertaining to the so-called grieving process, that she did not want to relinquish her burden.
In the end the matter was decided by the arrival of a handsome invitation from the Talcott Chamber of Commerce. Perhaps a few days out of the city would help her make up her mind.
J catches up with Dave Brown in the parking lot of the Talcott Motor Lodge. The night is clear and naked and swarming with so many anxious stars that
After visiting a dozen storage places, Pamela decided on Dalmon, which is only two blocks from her house. Only two blocks away her neighborhoodchanges; Tenth Avenue broods near the river, where the city has different priorities. Dalmon has reasonable rates and even offered to move the material for her, at a small cost. It is very convenient. She met the movers the following Saturday at her father’s apartment in Harlem. The movers were two young Dominican men who smiled a lot at her throughout the job, nice guys. She showed them the boxes that contained her father’s John Henry museum and they urged dollies up the brownstone steps, coaxed carts through door frames, gouged walls. Pamela left the furniture, the plates, the rest of her father’s things for the landlord to clean up, fuck him. The movers drove their van downtown and banished the boxes from her immediate responsibility.
No one wanted it. She made a few inquiries, called universities. Tuskeegee, Howard. She got lost in voice mail, mailed letters that did not receive responses.
She stalled out that spring. Pamela temped aimlessly, a migrant worker harvesting words per minute. The agency called her early in the morning if they had anything for her; otherwise she watched television in her pajamas and contemplated the bills from the storage facility, which distilled her hatred for John Henry into a convenient monthly statement.
Haunted by stuff. Hunched over ramen, in the same clothes she’d worn for days, she felt dazed. She was on the patch. She was off the patch. She was on the gum and smoking in between. She didn’t go out that much, partly because she couldn’t afford to, partly because going out did nothing for her mood. Her friends understood, her friends told her it was natural. It was part of the grieving process. Therapy diffuses: everyone knew the cant, the correct diagnosis. It was natural. It had nothing to do with her father, however, it had to do with John Henry, the original sheet music of ballads, railroad hammers, spikes and bits, playbills from the Broadway production, statues of the man and speculative paintings.
She thought about not paying the bills. When Dalmon finally unloaded the stuff (there must be auctions for such things, an entire culture based on the commerce of the dead or bankrupt, what did they do with what they bought), it would be like they were selling John Henry, not her father. This argument never got very far in her head. It was her father. She paid the bills on time and stopped eating out as much.
In May Pamela received a call from a representative of the town of Tal-cott, West Virginia. The months after her father’s death marked the longest stretch in her life that she had not heard the name. The woman on the phone was very kind. The town was planning a festival to celebrate their town andJohn Henry and wanted to know if they could buy her father’s collection of material. She hated the name Talcott and refused, even though it was the obvious solution to her dilemma. The woman, Arlene, was persistent but Pamela did not budge. It wasn’t a matter of money; they made a generous offer. She knew there were reasons, probably pertaining to the so-called grieving process, that she did not want to relinquish her burden.
In the end the matter was decided by the arrival of a handsome invitation from the Talcott Chamber of Commerce. Perhaps a few days out of the city would help her make up her mind.
J catches up with Dave Brown in the parking lot of the Talcott Motor Lodge. The night is clear and naked and swarming with so many anxious stars that
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