The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead Page 0,52
with the knocking of his thoughts, which rattled around his skull like dice. He hadn’t thought of a future beyond a reunion with his family. On the third day, he concocted a scenario—a couple of years as a cook, then saving up for his own restaurant.
Soon after Clayton started picking at the orange groves, Chet’s Drive-In opened up on a broken stretch of county road. He looked through the slats of the truck on the way to work, waiting for that red, white, and blue explosion of the restaurant’s facade and steel canopy. They hung the banners, the signs sprouted along the road to tease, and then it opened: Chet’s. The young white waiters and waitresses wore smart green-and-white striped jumpsuits and smiled as they ferried burgers and shakes out to the lot. The slick jumpsuits encoded virtues—industry, self-reliance. Those fancy cars and the hands sticking out to receive. It was inspiring.
True, Clayton had never eaten in a restaurant and over-esteemed the grandeur of the joint. And perhaps his hunger nourished the idea of owning a dining establishment. As he ran, the vision of his restaurant—walking among the customers to ask how they enjoyed the meal, checking the day’s receipts in the back office like he’d seen in movies—kept pace with him.
On the fourth day he was far enough that he decided to hitch. His Nickel dungarees and work shirt were a sight. He swiped work clothes from a clothesline after he saw a battered pickup grind away from a big white farmhouse. He cased the house for a spell and snatched overalls and a shirt when he thought it was safe. An old woman on the second floor watched him lope out of the woods and grab them. The work clothes had been her late husband’s and repurposed by her grandson. She was glad to watch them go because it pained her to see them on another person, especially her son’s boy, who was cruel to animals and a blasphemer.
He didn’t care where his ride was headed as long as it took him a couple of hours’ distance. Clayton was starving. He’d never gone this long without eating and didn’t know how to remedy that, but miles were the most important thing. Not many cars passed and the white faces scared him, even if he was bold enough to take to the asphalt. There were no Negro drivers; maybe Negroes didn’t own cars in this part of the state. He finally forced himself to stick out his thumb when a white Packard with midnight blue trim rounded the bend. He couldn’t see the driver but Packards were the first cars he learned to recognize and he had a fondness for them.
The driver was a middle-aged white man in a cream-colored suit. Of course it was a white man, how could it be otherwise in that car? He wore his blond hair parted and had silver squares of hair at the temples. His eyes changed from blue to ice-white behind his wire-frame eyeglasses, depending on the sun.
The man looked Clayton up and down. He beckoned the boy inside. “Where you headed, boy?”
Clayton said the first thing that popped into his head: “Richards.” The name of the street he grew up on.
“I don’t know it,” the white man said. He mentioned a town Clayton had never heard of and said that he’d take him as far as he was going.
Clayton had never been in a Packard before. He rubbed the fabric next to his right thigh, where the man couldn’t see: It was rippled and yielding. He wondered after the maze of pistons and valves under the hood, what it’d be like to see how the good men at the plant had put it together.
“You live there, boy?” the man asked. “Richards?” He sounded educated.
“Yes, sir. With my mama and daddy.”
“Okay,” the man said. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Harry,” Clayton said.
“You can call me Mr. Simmons.” Nodding as if they had an understanding.
They drove for a while. Clayton wasn’t going to speak unless spoken to and kept his lips squished to keep something stupid from flying out. Now that it wasn’t his two dumb feet moving him, he got agitated and scanned for police cars. Rebuked himself for not staying out of sight longer. He pictured Freddie Rich at the head of the posse, holding a flashlight, the sun gleaming off the big buffalo belt buckle Clayton knew so well—the sight of it, the clatter of it on the