Read Online The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead - Free Book Online
Authors: Colson Whitehead
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You can always tell the hungry ones by how they move. Case in point, this one approaching the bridge. Her steps give her away: she has appetites. Her whole history hordes behind her with its unfashionable area code and immigrant spices. The names of her streets commemorate the city’s less famous heroes. Mayors and back-room fixers. None of the syllables that built this city, just seeing their names on her mail leaves her famished. Sometimes the wind shifts and ferries aroma across the river. You’re hungry, admit it. Grab your forks and knives to get your piece of it.
MULTIPLE BRIDGES but this is her favorite. Various anchors hold the island in place so it won’t drift away.
You’d try to flee, too, if everyone heaped their dreams upon you. Pack mule and palimpsest. It starts out slowly. At the entrance religious types hawk bean pies and religious literature to cars stalled at the light. Cars wait to enter the borough, she steps on the bridge to exit. Level at first, lulling her. A bridge takes a while to get to the heart of its argument and for a while she is seduced by honey talk, but then she looks to the side. Hardly noticed the gentle lift, but then she looks to the side and she’s waist level to buildings. Up in the air before she knew it. Admire the bridge for its exemplary rhetoric, necessary for this rather spectacular leap of faith.
FREE PASSAGE. The only toll is what you need to be rid of. Deposit it in conveniently placed receptacles. Respect the honor system. Refugees pass her going the other way and she wonders what they know that she doesn’t. Forsaking what she seeks. Concrete walkway becomes wooden slats and less assured. Going back in time. Farther on it becomes a rope bridge probably, how else to explain their swaying. American flags scare-crow atop the arches. What we’d give for an energetic ripple now and then, it would stir our souls. Nary a breeze this moment. Then she’s over water. After land, after industrial waterfront, peek through slats to see the river. Time it right and your spit will hit a tourist on the boat.
LET’S PAUSE a sec to be cowed by this magnificent skyline. So many arrogant edifices, it’s like walking into a jerk festival. Maybe you recognize it from posters and television. Looks like a movie set, a false front of industry. Behind those gleaming façades, plywood and paint cans. Against it we are all extras. Walkers add incremental wear and tear to footwear. Joggers speed past walkers, seeing nothing but their inner skylines, long indifferent to the miracles around them. Bicyclists speed past them all, spinning spokes, a different species. He makes up lyrics to his song, humming and snapping his fingers. People who whistle in public get rebuked by glances. Parents shield children with their bodies to protect them from passing crazies. Under her headphones her favorite music is ironic commentary on the spectacle around her. The chorus especially denouncing this panorama with witless enthusiasm. A different atmosphere up here, favoring alternate evolutionary paths. The birds do what they will, equipped with wings.
HER LAZY PROGRESS along the bridge is tracked for half an hour by a man in an apartment. Each time she stops, he tries to figure out what she is looking at, thinking of. To be with her, her companion across this thing. Unwitting prop in one man’s mania. One speck among many specks. At junctions emergency boxes offer aid but there’s no way help would arrive in time. Break down in the middle of the desert. Outlaw territory, between places. Need a tuneup, prescribe this walk. Pop a gasket here and you’re on your own. Broken police call boxes report to nowhere. Pick up the receiver to reach a precinct that burned down years ago. What is the nature of the emergency. Shrugs travel poorly through fiber optics. And no one to stop you from tracing a beam to the edge and leaping into space and water. No one could stop you. Traffic slows to rubberneck, other
MULTIPLE BRIDGES but this is her favorite. Various anchors hold the island in place so it won’t drift away.
You’d try to flee, too, if everyone heaped their dreams upon you. Pack mule and palimpsest. It starts out slowly. At the entrance religious types hawk bean pies and religious literature to cars stalled at the light. Cars wait to enter the borough, she steps on the bridge to exit. Level at first, lulling her. A bridge takes a while to get to the heart of its argument and for a while she is seduced by honey talk, but then she looks to the side. Hardly noticed the gentle lift, but then she looks to the side and she’s waist level to buildings. Up in the air before she knew it. Admire the bridge for its exemplary rhetoric, necessary for this rather spectacular leap of faith.
FREE PASSAGE. The only toll is what you need to be rid of. Deposit it in conveniently placed receptacles. Respect the honor system. Refugees pass her going the other way and she wonders what they know that she doesn’t. Forsaking what she seeks. Concrete walkway becomes wooden slats and less assured. Going back in time. Farther on it becomes a rope bridge probably, how else to explain their swaying. American flags scare-crow atop the arches. What we’d give for an energetic ripple now and then, it would stir our souls. Nary a breeze this moment. Then she’s over water. After land, after industrial waterfront, peek through slats to see the river. Time it right and your spit will hit a tourist on the boat.
LET’S PAUSE a sec to be cowed by this magnificent skyline. So many arrogant edifices, it’s like walking into a jerk festival. Maybe you recognize it from posters and television. Looks like a movie set, a false front of industry. Behind those gleaming façades, plywood and paint cans. Against it we are all extras. Walkers add incremental wear and tear to footwear. Joggers speed past walkers, seeing nothing but their inner skylines, long indifferent to the miracles around them. Bicyclists speed past them all, spinning spokes, a different species. He makes up lyrics to his song, humming and snapping his fingers. People who whistle in public get rebuked by glances. Parents shield children with their bodies to protect them from passing crazies. Under her headphones her favorite music is ironic commentary on the spectacle around her. The chorus especially denouncing this panorama with witless enthusiasm. A different atmosphere up here, favoring alternate evolutionary paths. The birds do what they will, equipped with wings.
HER LAZY PROGRESS along the bridge is tracked for half an hour by a man in an apartment. Each time she stops, he tries to figure out what she is looking at, thinking of. To be with her, her companion across this thing. Unwitting prop in one man’s mania. One speck among many specks. At junctions emergency boxes offer aid but there’s no way help would arrive in time. Break down in the middle of the desert. Outlaw territory, between places. Need a tuneup, prescribe this walk. Pop a gasket here and you’re on your own. Broken police call boxes report to nowhere. Pick up the receiver to reach a precinct that burned down years ago. What is the nature of the emergency. Shrugs travel poorly through fiber optics. And no one to stop you from tracing a beam to the edge and leaping into space and water. No one could stop you. Traffic slows to rubberneck, other
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