Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead

okay!”
    “I need to get inside!”
    “I’m okay!” he repeated. He marveled at the ridiculousness of this response, but kept his fingers crossed.
    “You are preventing me from doing my job!” The two black stalks of her legs interrupted the light from beneath the door. It occurred to him that she might have an organic defect in her brain. But then she bellowed, “What are you doing that is so important!” and he decided that her problem probably claimed provenance in both nature and nurture.
    He resolved to wait her out. She appeared to sense this, employing a primitive, animal awareness, growing quiet save for her quick, shallow breathing. “I will return!” she said after a time.
    An hour later he was in the lobby, on the lookout for his ride. The desk clerk had called up to inform him that Mr. Winthrop would pick him up at noon. Actually, the clerk had used the word
fetch
. He saw the scenario plainly. The white-haired scion, heir to a barbed-wire empire, dispatches the limo and receives him in a smoky drawing room. That Winthrop gaze lasers in on him when he enters, but what the man is thinking exactly cannot be determined. They pose in the burgundy club chairs. Over the man’s shoulder, beyond the window: the rolling estate, sprawling, undulating, alive with force. Winthrop complains about gophers, proposes solutions, and such are the tribulations of his world, eradicable by pesticide bombs. Over brandy fresh from decanters, the old dog makes his case for the Winthrop name, for tradition, for the old ways which are the best ways. His guest wears out the knees on his pants from spontaneous fits of genuflection.
    So went the narrative he concocted in the lobby of the Hotel Winthrop. The job still had its paws on him. Dipping a cup into reservoirs and tasting the waters was part of the gig. If he could swallow it, the rest of the world would, too. Nomenclature consultants were supposed to have universal stomachs.
    He closed his eyes, and realized the extent of his trepidation. Meeting Winthrop was no problem. He knew the type. But he was back on the job after so long, and his fingers trembled. He made them into fists in his pockets.
    The desk clerk said, “Sir.”
    He limped out. The black Bentley crouched at the curb like a big lazy bull. A white head with little white hairs steaming off it emerged from the driver’s side. “Hey, nice to meet you,” the driver said. “I’m Albie.” Albie wore a faded red jogging suit. Sweatbands sopped heartily at his wrists and forehead. He got the impression that Albie had just finished a few laps or had been chased by a creature. Albie said, “Hop on in.”
    The backseat was filled with grocery bags. A laundry-detergent spout poked out, the frilly plastic end of a bag of bread, celery stalks. “Why don’t you hop up front,” Albie offered, “and move a few of these things.” Albie knocked a cut-up supermarket flyer off the seat, and last week’s paper, and an ice scraper.
    He climbed in, good leg first, and tried not to get his wet feet on the flotsam below the seat. “You can just shove that stuff under the seat,” Albie said.
    He shoved and settled.
    “Bum leg?” Albie asked.
    “Bum leg.”
    Albie nodded. “Been raining like this since you got here, huh? You must be bad luck or something.” The man smiled. “Albie Winthrop,” he said.
    He shook the man’s hand. Moist was the word.
    They pulled out and a little dribble of coffee sloshed out of the Grande Admiral in the cup holder. Cheap plastic cup holders were not standard issue on Bentleys, he gathered, inspecting the weird little monstrosity gaffer-taped to the dashboard. Where the consumer comfort industry failed, Albie stepped in, and some time before, apparently. There were a bunch of old brown stains on the carpet. He resisted the urge to lean over and check how many miles were on the car.
    Albie smiled. “Got back into town this morning,” he said, “or else I’d’a come by before to