Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Author:Colson Whitehead [Whitehead, Colson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2023-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

SIX

They were tearing up the street outside the Martinez Funeral Home again, exposing the layers beneath the black asphalt. The jackhammers did not stop, the racket went on for hours, and it was as if the noise from out of the hole was that of the machine of the city and you could now hear the true operation of the metropolis. The noisy industry of valves and pistons, the great gears grinding against each other, the clack and snap and bang. Maybe after midnight in the hours of crime and sleeplessness you may hear it, too, if you listen closely: a distant whir or rumble.

When he woke it was dark and quiet. After his visit to 107th Street, Pepper had returned to the McAlpin to check out Lucinda Cole’s room. It had been trashed; he wanted to see what he could find in the mess. The hotel hadn’t cleaned up—probably waiting on the insurance company. Get the film company to pay, then your insurance: double-dip. What Pepper saw was not the aftermath of a party, as described. A vase had detonated against the full-length mirror on the door, shattering them both. The floor lamp had been ripped from the wall and bent in half—the shaft was too thick to snap completely. This was rage.

By the time Pepper got back uptown, his headache had evolved into an insistent, malevolent throb. Ideally a headbutt demolished the victim’s soft tissue—the nose was the most popular target—but he’d caught the plane of Pope’s forehead and knocked something loose inside his own thick noggin. He swallowed a bunch of aspirin, staggered into bed, and when he opened his eyes the street work was done and it was night.

He cut across 143rd and down Amsterdam to meet Zippo. His time on Secret Agent: Nefertiti made him think the massive lights on the south side of 140th Street were part of a film. A different sort of production was underway. The red, white, and blue banner strung from the eaves of the five-story buildings read HOMES 4 HARLEM. Ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new city housing development that wasn’t supposed to look like public housing, as if using orange brick instead of red would confuse people.

David Dinkins jabbered at the podium. He was one of Charlie Rangel’s and Percy Sutton’s cronies, probably bucking for a city hall job now that Beame was in charge. Pepper’s distaste for Dinkins owed to the man’s naïve opinions on “the crime problem.” Crime isn’t a scourge, people are. Crime is just how folks talk to each other sometimes.

The sidewalk civilians were good, law-abiding types, churchy-looking men and women in their fifties and sixties. A few young moms thrown in. He assumed they were mothers—what else could motivate them to stand in the cold but the possibility that their loved ones might get it better than they had it?

Dinkins wrapped it up and gave the mic to a man he introduced as former district attorney Alexander Oakes. Pretty boy. Pepper had seen him on the news a few times, applauding the white man beside him at appropriate moments.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.