John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead Page A

him; wearing a press laminate is so gauche. After waiting in vain for Frenchie to finish his story or for one of them to acknowledge his presence, the man finally clears his throat and says, “Arlene said you were some writers from New York City.”
    “That’s right,” Tiny says, “We thought we’d git ourselves down yonder for this shindig.”
    “My name is Broderick Honnicut,” he declares, tapping the press laminate. “I’m a staff writer for the
Hinton Owl.
Thought I’d come over and say hello.”
    “Staff writer for the
Hinton Owl,”
Frenchie considers, raising his eyebrows at his colleagues. “Well, well. I think I’ve seen your byline.”
    “You broke the story on the chicken rustling ring, I do believe,” Tiny says.
    “Chicken rustling … ?” Honnicut utters.
    “The chicken-choking scandal,” Tiny corrects himself.
    “Turned out the cover-up went to the highest levels of government,” Frenchie breaks in, taking the baton. “The town barber was implicated, according to a high-level source.”
    “The alderman got caught with his hand in the cookie jar,” Tiny says.
    No need to mess with this guy, J. thinks. He just came over to be friendly and he gets this. It is going to be a long night if the boys are this cantankerous early on. He twists in his seat to ponder the red light.
    “Allegedly, Tiny,” Dave admonishes, “always remember allegedly.” He turns to Honnicut, smiling. J. knows he is about to set the guy up. “They’re just joking with you. Say, tell me: What’s the
Hinton Owl’s
motto?”
    “I don’t know what you mean,” Honnicut says, growing flustered.
    “You know what I’m talking about,” Dave explains. “Every paper has a motto. The
New York Times
has ‘All the News That’s Fit to Print,’ every great newspaper has to have a motto. Beneath your logo, there’s a motto, right? What does it say?”
    “It says,” Honnicut stumbles, “it says, ‘A Hoot and a Holler: The
Hinton Owl
Sees All.’ ”
    Dave smiles. “That’s catchy.”
    “ ‘A hoot and a snoot will keep you up all night,’ ” Frenchie says, and J. lights out for the food table. Because the red light is calling him. At the terminus of the buffet lies the sacred preserve of the Happy Hunting Grounds. Set above the cutting plate like a divine illumination, the red heating lamps warm the sweet meat. The red light is a beacon to the lost wayfarer, it is a tavern lamp after hours of wilderness black. J. experiences an involuntary physical response to the red light and begins to salivate. Sometimes he feels this in movie theaters, salivating at the glimpse of the red Exit sign. What a warm world it would be, he ponders, if we all slept under a red light at night.
    When he returns, plate tottering, a sodden Babel of flavor, J. notes that Honnicut has departed. J. is grateful—he couldn’t take much more of that. He looks around for One Eye, but can’t see him anywhere, not even in the food line. No matter. J. has important business. The potatoes have declined his invitation, but J. still savors the pliable tang of overcooked heads of broccoli, carrots in star shapes, decobbed corn in pearly water. And the prime rib, the prime rib, aloft in its own juice, mottled with tiny globules of luscious melted fat. He showers the meat with salt, as if there could be anything greater in the universe than beef drenched heartily with salt. He possesses teeth sharpened by evolution for the gnashing of meat, a digestive system engineered for the disintegration of meat, and he means to utilize the gifts of nature to their fullest expression.
    “This may be the New South, but they haven’t caught up to everything, thank God,” Tiny says. “This ain’t no vegetarian menu.”
    “Amen to that,” J. says.
    “Ben Vereen was coming here?” Frenchie asks, incredulous. His plate is immured by empty glasses, mutilated limes groaning at their bottoms.
    “It’s a living,” J. says. He gobbles prime rib and winces