Underneath Everything by Paul Marcy Beller

Author:Paul,Marcy Beller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: 2015-04-20T16:00:00+00:00

The pictures showed beat-up cardboard boxes full of paper. Even if there was something valuable in there, she definitely wasn’t taking care of it. The whole thing screamed scam, except for the price. Each box was up for fifty dollars. Not bad for a long shot. Since the auction didn’t end until December 26th, and there were no other offers, I bid fifteen dollars on the 1901 box and went to bed.

I settle into my desk chair and refresh my email to see if there’s any action at happyelizabeth, but the browser freezes, so I force quit. And while I wait for the computer to fake sleep and wake up functioning, I do my weekly rotation. I lift my Sanborn map from the nail behind my bed and lay it flat on my comforter, put the 1929 panoramic from Jake in its place, center the 1868 Colton original my parents gave me for my Bat Mitzvah above my dresser, and rehang the Sanborn above my desk. If I wasn’t worried about sun-bleached spots, I’d keep the Sanborn above my bed. It’s the only one I bought myself. Not that the Colton map isn’t nice, but my parents don’t get it. My mom probably picked the Colton map because it has ornate borders and decorative lettering. Jake probably chose the panoramic because it has a cool point of view. And it does. No doubt. But that’s sort of the problem with both of them. All these mapmakers—Colton, even Kitchell—they all had an agenda. Colton was a New York publisher who used fancy metal plates for his engravings because he wanted to build a good reputation. Kitchell fought the government to finish his map because he wanted to document New Jersey’s topography. But the Sanborn maps, they’re transparent. Stark lines for streets. Unadorned boxes for buildings. Crisp block lettering, bare as bone on the white sheet. Nothing pretty. No agenda. Nothing but the real thing.

Which is why I want to find that missing sheet of the 1901 map so badly. Because even though Westfield Township was formed in 1794, it didn’t finish forming for another hundred years or so. Garwood took some land from here, and Cranford from there. Same with Plainfield, Clark, Scotch Plains, and Fanwood. Westfield was pushed and plucked and starved and prodded until1903, when it finally pushed back. The town charter was signed, and the borders have barely shifted since. If I could just find that missing sheet, I’d have a near-perfect version of the earliest town outline.

My computer is taking forever to reboot, so I head down the hall to the bathroom, shove the shower handle all the way to the left, and step in, hoping to rinse away the restlessness—the itch under my skin that came alive on the cliff last night.

The first splash of scalding water hurts, but after a minute my muscles relax and my shoulders slump. I slide soap over my arms and across my collarbone, down my stomach, over the rise and dip of my ribs, and around my hips—the places where Hudson touched me.

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.