White Jimmy rode off with the boy in the direction of town.
An hour later as they packed up to flee their camp, White Jimmy told them that the mission had gone well. Until, that is, the merchant asked the boy what he’d been up to the last few hours, it being known around town that the kid had wandered from his parents’ farm that morning. And the kid popped his thumb out of his mouth, pointed it at Jimmy, and said his first words: “The niggers found me.” “As fair-skinned as Jimmy was,” Abigail wrote, “he was as burr-headed as the most Ethiopian among us.” He hightailed it out of the store. The homesteaders loaded up what they could and were on the road “with great alacrity,” as Abigail put it. “When we looked back, all the horizon was lit up as if by a giant bonfire. We knew they had set fire to what remained at our camp, and had we tarried, we would have been ash.” There was always that kindling problem of being black in America—namely, how to avoid becoming it.
Days later, they were here. In Freedom. So to speak. There were many lessons to be drawn from that story, not to mention a moral or two. That afternoon, he settled on one: Listen to the Dark. He was warming up to this Field character. The man had his head on straight.
The phone rang, and for the second time in a week he was talking to Roger Tipple. His old boss wanted to see how he was doing.
“Lemme guess. New Prospera—Albert Fleet, right?”
“On the money. He’s had a really good run this year.” Tipple knew he viewed Albert as a plodder. “How do you like it?”
He heard some ruckus in the background. “Sounds busy for a Saturday.”
Tipple sucked his teeth. “Got our nuts in a vise on this Saintwood Farms thing. These new kids we’re hiring these days, I don’t know.” He sounded genuinely nostalgic. “I’ve missed your joi de vivre and brilliant aperçus. That’s why I called—to make it clear that your job is still waiting for you whenever you want it. And also to underscore that Lucky is a very important client, and if you hook him up, we might even be able to get your old office back.”
“You’re just coming out and straight-up bribing me?”
“Bribe, shmibe, I’m telling it like it is.”
“What about, ‘Always be true to the product’?”
“Wise up—you are the product.” Tipple paused to let this apparently obvious concept settle in. “You know you’re the motherfucking man, man. Nothing wrong with hearing it out loud, is there?” The edge in his voice eased. “Bert Nabors is in your digs now, but he’ll understand if we tell him to move. He’s having problems at home, affecting his work, whatever. You should also know that we’ve thrown out the whole voucher system. Top dogs get unlimited car service weekdays. To work, from work, it’s all cool.”
He was more tempted than he cared to admit. Camaraderie. Perks. The very reason for the enormity of his hangover. Those Help Tourists had welcomed him as one of their own, and he missed that brand of companionship. He got a quick glimpse of the view out his old office window. Surveying all below. Everything beneath him. In a rush, he let out the breath he’d been holding in.
“We’re a handicap access building now, too,” Tipple added. “You’ll be very comfortable.”
“I don’t have a wheelchair.”
“I know. I kid. I kid because I love. And also because I am passive-aggressive. We’re not handicap access.” And that was that.
It was almost time for the barbecue. He was tugged toward home and office through Tipple’s phone call, then drawn out to Lucky’s barbecue. Lot of undertow around here for so much dry land. Goode and Field against Winthrop, Regina and Lucky versus Albie. Double crosses. Now Lucky and Tipple allied against him. Too bad Triangleville lacked the necessary oomph.
. . . . . . . .
They were in the woods, the whole team. A few months ago, Tipple had called him into his office to see if he had any thoughts pro or con re: a company-wide retreat to foster brotherhood, teamwork, any number of productivity-boosting notions. He must have been distracted because instead of making a slur, he merely shrugged, which was interpreted as support, and now they were in the woods, a few acres from a pig farm. Occasionally the wind brought the stench over.
From what he could glean, extrapolate, or otherwise mischievously fantasize from the brochure, Red Barn Retreat had been a successful dairy operation some years ago. Then it passed into the hands of heirs who had few kind words to say about farming, and the whole joint was overhauled. The milking equipment sold to the highest bidder, the livestock hustled into vehicles and obscure futures. The exteriors of the buildings were preserved for the feelings of country purity they engendered in the hearts of visitors, while the interiors were chopped up into spaces more appropriate for corporate workshops. The new cattle the place attracted grazed on inadequacy. It was hoped that after a stay at Red Barn—two to seven days, depending on the severity of the situation—the visitors might have learned a different diet, one rich in the nutrients that promoted thinking out of the box and team-playering. It was hoped that all would leave better cows.
Attendance at Red Barn that weekend was mandatory, but everyone knew better than to expect him to participate in the weekend’s activities. He would not repeat the words of the Actualizing Consultant they brought in for the weekend. He would not close his eyes, fold his arms across his chest, fall back, and trust that one of his colleagues would catch him. He was performing spectacularly, and no one was going to make him do anything that might jinx that. Tipple or one of the other managers might have entertained the thought that he’d step in here or there to help out the guys, lend the gift of his experience, but he made it clear from the outset that he would not stray from the sidelines. His names were all the example he was willing to offer.
He spent a lot of time avoiding assorted props. In this room, there were boxes of Kleenex for the inevitable weeping, and then down the hall he’d find straw floor mats, to facilitate the cross-legged confessions about damage inflicted during childhood. Foam weapons lined the walls of the gymnasium, for safe discharge of gladiatorial aggression. It was not clear to him why those assorted clubs and maces were kept behind glass, under lock and key.
That first night he went straight to his room and hid there all night. He thanked God that he got his own room. He had imagined, as they filed onto the bus that ferried them from the city, some sort of summer-camp arrangement of rowed bunk beds. It was enough that he had to work with these people. He was not interested in what they said in their sleep.
He heard his colleagues rise, rinse, gobble breakfasts. To kill time before they left on their first confidence-building exercise of the day, he changed the Apex on his toe, which at this point was a grisly sight. The daily, sometimes hourly stubbings had taken their cruel toll, and this morning the nail came off with the adhesive bandage, glued fast by dried blood. As he watched, fresh blood seeped up out of the skin. Had Apex been a little more poorly manufactured, it would have slipped off in the shower or in a sock and he would have been aware of the horrible transformation going on under there. Had Apex been shoddier, he would have changed it sooner, but the adhesive bandage looked as fresh as the day he had put it on. The wound had been leaking blood, pus, whatever, but it had all been sopped up by the bandage. His colleagues were out in the hall, or else he would have cleaned out the wound right then. He made a mental note to swab it with antiseptic later. He put a new Apex on the injury. It looked good as new.
When the door to the meadow slammed shut for the last time, he figured the coast was clear and decided to venture out for a walk. Then through the kitchen window he saw the junior staff jog by, shirts off, commanded by this type-A character with a megaphone. They were chanting something, but he couldn’t make it out. More time to kill. He prowled the plant and eventually found himself in the library, the contents of which consisted of what had been left behind. Mostly business self-help, with titles like Be the Network and The Buck Continues: Shifting Accountability in Corporate Hierarchies.
Drawing from Red Barn’s e
xtensive collection, he programmed a film festival of five PR videos. Four of them featured the same narrator, a gentleman of bass enunciation. If his voice had been any lower it would have been magma. The narrator of the fifth video had much less to work with, timbre-wise, but the company had hired some real whiz kids for the graphics end, so that made up for it. Apart from that, the videos were more or less identical, juxtaposing heavy breathing over accordion management, value chains, and rightsizing with exuberant footage of assembly lines, shimmering HQs, beaming customers. A thin broth indeed.
The hours passed. His foot—not just the toe, but most of his foot—pulsed with a dull heat. It was hard to tell who the videos were for, whether the true audience was prospective clients or the producers of the videos themselves. Beneath the bravado, he detected a strong undercurrent of sadness. The narrators protested too much, promised too emphatically; the more stunning and intricate the montages, the more exuberant the editing, the more stirring the orchestration, the less he was convinced. Did they believe in their work, or were they just howling at the heavens? Or howling into mirrors? And his co-workers outside, huffing in circles, chanting slogans and credos, what did they believe? From time to time, his names popped up in the videos, and when they did, he jumped. As if he had been suddenly accused of something.
He needed air. He heard cheerleadering from the front of the house, so he exited out the back, catching his toe on the threshold and cursing. It did not take him long to find himself in the woods.
At first it was quiet. Such was his frame of reference that he likened it to the deep silence that follows when a refrigerator stops humming. Only him and the apartment, alone, the end of the fridge’s hum the departure of a guest he hadn’t even known was present. He continued down the path, which terminated at the lip of a gloomy, mottled marsh. He heard the words of the woods. Animals, insects, small branches disturbed by unseen creatures. The more he listened, the deeper he tumbled into the noise. For a few minutes he allowed himself to be swayed by the sales pitch of nature.
What was it that they were supposed to find out here in the woods that did not exist in their normal landscape? What was out here that was not more readily accessible back home, in his city, with a lot less hassle, with a bright label and easy-to-read instructions and convenient disposable packaging? He ticked off a list of attributes. The appearance of that moss was not ratified by the team after fevered interrogation of focus groups. That frog would not be removed from the shelves and discontinued if it flopped. That pollen was not suddenly hip because it had been seen on the carapace of a celebrity insect. The mating call of those insects was not actually a cover version performed by studio musicians because it was cheaper than buying the rights to the original recording. How pure it all was.
Then he cursed himself. Nature is a strong brand name. Everybody knew that. First thing, Nomenclature 101. Slap Natural on the package, you were golden. Those words on the package promise ease from metropolitan care, modern worries. And out here, if you opened things up, underneath the cellophane, what did you find inside? That fruit has splendid packaging, it has solid consumer awareness and is an animal favorite. Its seeds will be deposited in spoor miles away and its market dominance will increase. Splendid and beautiful petals are great advertising—the insects buzz and hop from all points every weekend to hit this flower-bed mall. Natural selection was market forces. In business, in the woods: what is necessary to the world will last.
His foot throbbed. He heard the shouting of the men. They cried, “I am an original hunter! I am an original hunter!” Probably they were wearing loincloths. It was a wonder any work got done at all, given the extent of their issues. Certainly this retreat was no escape. Not for them, not for him. This swamp was no more pure than the city they had left behind. He dealt in lies and promises, distilled them into syllables. They were easier to digest that way. But these woods had their own hierarchies and lies to maintain. This place lived on promises, too. City, country: everywhere emptiness sat waiting in boxes, waiting to be opened. Every single thing in his vision was biodegradable. Which was cool. Because 100 percent recyclable material, people really dug that these days.
He stepped away from the cloudy water and his footing gave way. As he struggled for balance, he skipped awkwardly into the mud. He felt clammy hands caress his feet as they reached through his sneakers. He looked down and at the same time took a deep whiff. He remembered that the next farm over handled pigs. Look at him, he thought. Top of his field, cock of the walk: up to his ankles in pig shit.
. . . . . . . .
Truth be told, most of the time he didn’t know what white people were talking about, but from the references to insourcing and gainsharing, he hypothesized that the two guys sitting across from him on the shuttle bus had just returned from a confab on corporate values. The words they used were strange, odd souvenirs, tiny fragments that had been chipped off an alien business meteorite. This was language from outer space. They wore leis. Some wore more than others, and he gathered that the flower necklaces were the unit of measure for reward. When Jack dropped into the seat next to him, it was impossible not to notice his comparatively paltry garlands. “I only speak when I have something to say,” Jack blurted sheepishly. His face reddened.
The final Help Tourist tromped inside and the shuttle bus detached itself from the curb. None too soon. Everybody was hungry and smelled charcoal on every breeze. The sky was sweet and clear. It was a good day for grilling, he decided, an assessment that possessed the sure weight of universal truth.
Jack pointed at the newspaper and told him that he liked the article. They’d all seen it before he did. He had wondered, as he waited in the lobby for the shuttle bus, why people seemed to stare at him, pinioning him in place, before nodding knowingly. A bit too simpatico for his tastes. He chalked it up to routine paranoia and dismissed it from his mind until he passed the stack of Daily Registers sitting by the front desk.
The picture was harmless, somehow capturing his face betwixt outer expressions of inner turbulence—his sundry boilerplate frowns, twitches, and sneers. He looked halfway human. The text was a nightmare, however, headline to kicker. MAKING THE CASE FOR NEW PROSPERA: CONSULTANT VOWS TO “KEEP IT REAL” the teaser crowed, before embarrassing all involved for eleven paragraphs, finally limping away with a merciful, “‘I think New Prospera is a great name,’ he said, flashing a toothy smile.”
That Jurgen had made up everything in the article was no surprise. Unanticipated, however, was the cumulative effect of degradation, achieved sentence by sentence, detail by horrible detail. Did he really “wink knowingly”? Had he truly “patiently explained the somewhat wacky world of nomenclature consulting”? He hadn’t been patient in years, and from an early age had understood that winking testified to fundamental character flaws, bone-deep and incurable weakness. The Daily Register. He had not been aware it was possible to subscribe to the very abyss.
Two-thirds of his current client list would be mightily disappointed. He pictured Albie and Regina trading sighs and grimaces with each other, grateful for an excuse to be even more aggrieved than usual. He did not look forward to explaining that no, he was not in Lucky’s pocket, as they had suspected from the beginning. First thing after the barbecue, he’d give them a ring. Next afternoon at the latest. Depending.
Jack turned to gossip with another Help Tourist about the tits of the team leader in that morning’s Actualization Exercise. Relieved for a few minutes’ respite from making noises with his mouth in response to noises made from other people’s mouths, he took a gander out the window, leaning his head against the glass. They passed Portasans, bulldozers, and brick piles, symbols to him of condos on the rise. Had that been undeveloped land before, or a place where people used to live? Replacement housing for those who replace. The intrepid pioneers in the seats around him might live in those houses, climb the stairs that were now just empty space, cut the grass that wasn’t even seeds yet. This is New Prospera. Move it or lose it.
He felt an elbow in his ribs. Jack confided that he and his wife had decided to take the plunge. Lucky had won them over. Last night after the square dance—an unlikely success, per the scuttlebutt in the hotel bar—the Camerons walked back to the shuttle bus, fingers entwined, until both screamed at once, “I think we should move here!” This place was magic, they decided. Who cared if it didn’t have a name? “Pass up on an opportunity like this?” Jack assured him. “Not again, no siree.” Heck, they had even seen a house they liked, a nice ranch house on Regina Street. “It’s a little cheaper on that side of town,” he explained. “A steal.”
Others had been converted as well, Jack confided. Dolly and some of the wives had partaken of the free spa treatment that morning, and in the mud baths someone let slip that they had talked to a realtor. Turned out they’d all talked to a realtor, or rather the realtor, as Lucky had chosen one go-to guy for his visitors this weekend. Who cared if he used the exact words and phrasings, couple to couple? The wives were more open than the men about this momentous event, differences among genders and whatnot, but Jack knew for a fact that one or two other guys on their shuttle bus were also taking the plunge. Like they were in a secret club or something.
He had been feeling better, but suddenly relapsed in his hangover and his fingers clambered over the glass after a way to open the window. IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, reprimanded red lettering. He resorted to mentally picturing himself in fresh air, then in fresh air over the town of Winthrop, looking down on all the shuttle buses gathering from all points, from country routes and isolated lanes, for a common purpose. Eventually all the shuttle buses would converge on a particular spot and initiate a reaction.