Harlem Shuffle

by Colson Whitehead

Rob Reynolds, the manager of the hotel, had arranged a nice refuge for himself. There were no windows, so he created them—tasseled curtains, identical to those in the finest suites upstairs, framed painted Venetian scenes. After the afternoon rush, he liked to think that was him under the hat, steering a gondola down salty boulevards in silence.

According to May, John had stuck the hand of her Raggedy Ann doll into his mouth so she grabbed it away, and he was overcome by loss.

A saying of his mother’s, about nights like this. She only got telegrams when it was bad news, and so his mother called that chilly night at the end of August a telegram, to warn you summer was over. Rip it up and throw it in the trash but you got the message.

One was fast and one was slow, and it was the same for stickups and stakeouts. Stickups were chops—they cook fast and hot, you’re in and out. A stakeout was ribs—fire down low, slow, taking your time.

do no wrong. Now the customers were going Argent, with those clean lines and jet-set emanations. Take that Airform core, zip it up in the new Velope stain-resistant fabric—they really knocked it out of the park. “You know the Manhattan Project, where they brought in the world’s top scientists?” Carney asked his customers. “That’s what Argent did, but with stain-resistance instead of the A-bomb.” That was usually good enough for a sample bounce on the cushions.

“A hundred years ago,” he said, “this was a cow pasture—all of this. Midtown. Times Square. Then someone had an idea, and built, and bought more land, and built. Some things pan out. Some things don’t. The Van Wycks didn’t build here on Seventh Avenue. They built there.” He pointed toward Sixth. “The one on the east corner. If this was a cow pasture, that was a mud puddle. Now look at it. You don’t have to be first. Second is fine. If you have an eye for what’s going to pan out, second is fine.”

Johnny Dandy starring Blake Headley and Patricia De Hammond had been running on Broadway at the Divinity Theater since Memorial Day weekend. Critics had meted their blows and yet. The dialogue and action were so shrouded in euphemism, so opaque in meaning and intention, alternately dull and worrisome, that no one could decide what the play was about, if they understood it, let alone enjoyed it. Was this tragedy or farce? Such a faithful reflection of existence proved irresistible. Every night a pantomime of modern life unfurled before a sold-out house.

If attended to promptly, the new space-age fibers in the Templeton Office carpet prevent stains.