The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead

Author:Colson Whitehead
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780307428288
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T10:00:00+00:00

CONEY ISLAND

SUCH A MULTITUDE of stenches means it must be summer. It’s the baking asphalt that adds that special piquancy. Discomfort without end, surely this planet is hurtling into the sun. Some cavort like idiots in uncapped hydrants, others head for the edge of town. South, to the beach where a broom of briny air sweeps away this miserable funk. So they fall to the bottom of the subway map, settling there like loose change in various denominations. What they will find under their feet will not be pavement but something shiftier.

ALL TOMORROW’S sunburns gather in wait. Heads dart to and fro as they seek the right spot. Homestead and land grab. This must be the place. Try to remember your personal formula for comfort on a beach, the whole towel thing. Sizzle on the griddle. How to serve man. Gritty evidence of the last visit to the beach clings to the neck of the bottle of suntan lotion. In unison ask, Can you do my back. The sun sets this melting pot to furious boil, brings it all to the surface, the ancient liaisons, the hidden complexions. That extra seasoning. The struggles of everyone’s ancient tribes are reduced to how their descendants fare against ultraviolet. People emphasize particular ideas they have about their bodies via too-tight tops, trunks, and T-shirts. Take it all off and don’t forget your favorite scars.

EVERYTHING disappears into sand. Objects get lost in sand the way people get lost in streets. There is refuge on the shores of the new world. This is the cozy retirement community for pull-up tabs that have not been manufactured in years, cigarette butts that have seen better days, limbs of crabs. Wood drifts over from native lands. Naturalized styrofoam bits recite pledges and names of presidents at the slightest provocation. Dirty gulls patrol beats, sidestep seaweed bums and their sob stories. Rumor has it someone over there is eating a sandwich. Scavengers peck away, undertake vain missions. Flies buzz and hop over the dead and the dead-seeming. The crazy guy with the metal detector zigs and zags in efficient search pattern or out of habit to avoid teenagers’ thrown projectiles. His take-home pay is quite astounding. The number of house keys lost this day will fall within the daily average of lost house keys. Hypocrites complain about the quality of the sand, as if they are not blemishes on its expanse, and scavengers, too, ripping little shreds of comfort from an afternoon.

FRONT LINE in the ancient blood feud between city and nature. What side are you on. Every grain a commando on recon probing for weakness and reporting back. Here are some places sand gets into: eyes, sandwiches, shoes, under beds, scalps, carpets, car floors. Crotches and brainstems and decision-making places. Kids with pails move this bunch of sand from here to there to undo the secret design of tides. Aeons in the making and now it’s all ruined. Rule is, violence on purpose and beauty by accident. Their

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