As he stood in his devastated showroom, the daily calamities of 125th Street, the honking and profanity and screams, fell away. Hot day but he got the chills. Right: The last time the room had been this empty was the day he signed the lease, and half of it was still the bakery next door. He hadn’t knocked through the wall yet. How had he gotten by with so little space! He had prospered and so had the showroom. If he had to do it over, he’d put in stairs to the basement and turn it into a second showroom. For lighting and rugs. Keep the furniture upstairs, but flip Dining and Recliners. It had been bugging him—to have the customer hit Living Room first, with some dandy Sterlings arranged there up front, then Recliners before they got to the other collections.
It was nice, that day he signed the lease and got the keys and it was his.
Good bones. Good bones holding everything up, like the ancient rock beneath Manhattan. Why had he stayed away? This was his kingdom. The thing to do would be to take over the second floor and expand upstairs. That way he could enlarge his office, Marie’s. They’d outgrown those spaces, no question. It was unlivable up there now. He had to call Marie about the tenants’ intentions—who was staying, who was already gone. The third floor wanted to stick around, he knew, except for Mrs. Ruiz. She and her kids had gone to stay with family in Washington Heights and were not returning. Did Marie say that Albert was out of the hospital? She might have. He should send a card.
No, it wouldn’t hurt to ask Jimmy Gray about expanding the store upstairs. Logistics. The cost. Insurance wasn’t going to cover it. It’d be expensive. He needed money. He had some. He’d need more. He had ideas. Martin Green, other stuff. With the store out of commission he had to bring money in. Keep his mind occupied. He had some ideas. The City tried to break him. It didn’t work. He was genuine Manhattan schist and that don’t break easy.
The Dumas Club was not as lucky as the furniture store on the corner of 125th and Morningside. The June fire reduced it to a lonesome shell and consumed the two buildings next door. They were condemned, and eventually the three lots were purchased by a Virginia-based developer with tri-state ambitions. The residential building that went up years later didn’t fit with the rest of the block, the bright orange bricks were a bit too loud, its character overall dull and bereft of style. The city had recovered, they had survived, the future was here, and it looked like crap. The neighbors complained. It wasn’t what had been there before, the people said, we liked the way it used to be. They always said that when the old city disappeared and something new took its place.
About the Author
Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which also won the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City.