Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [14]
“I told you. I’m suing the damn college. I’m getting paid back for all those books. For what they did. They’re responsible.”
“Oh hell no. Don’t talk that lawsuit nonsense. I’m not waiting to get paid for some court to make a decision. This is going to cost you cash. Today.”
I agreed, got the money for him. Even untenured professors at private colleges make a decent salary, and you add up 10 percent of that each year for several years and you get a decent chunk. It was money I needed, but I needed the pain to stop more. When I came back in the room, Oliver had the white gloves on, had the thing on the coffee table. A rumpled pile of brown papers, folded up and ripped. I could see from the rough edges of the pages that the stock was brittle and disintegrating. Besides the fact that it was dry, it looked like it belonged out on my porch with the rest of the antiquarian cadavers. Oliver saw the disappointment in my face and the cash in my hand at the same time and found that a powerful combination.
“Okay, not mint condition here. Clearly not mint. And yes, there are some other issues. First, let’s get this out of the way: it’s not technically a slave narrative. I read through a bit of it. What I could. Early nineteenth century, but it’s not a slave narrative. The back is signed with the date and location. The guy’s born in a northern free state in the nineteenth century, so this is not a slave we’re dealing with here. Sorry. But regardless, it’s fiction. It’s got to be.”
Fiction! My mood improved. An African American work of fiction predating the Civil War was an equally impressive find. Depending on the quality of the story, it was possibly even a greater find than a memoir. Eager, palpitating, I took the box that contained the withering sheets into my hands.
“Well see, that’s the other thing. You might see different, that’s why I’m going to give you a good deal, but the manuscript is kind of, let’s say elusive. Nobody else today even wanted it. It was an estate sale, mostly art and furniture types bidding, but there’s other reasons. It’s more the notes for a book than a book itself. Parts of it are written like a journal, parts of it are just these disconnected scenes. There’s a lot of random scribbles in it too, and maps. But you don’t know; it could be useful. Look, we do this deal, I don’t want you to think I screwed you on this. I’m being up-front. So sure, the whole thing is a bit of a mess. But it could be your mess. Something to build a new collection around, maybe.”
Not letting my excitement completely abandon me and fully conscious that Mr. Benjamin was more of a literary hustler than a literary scholar, I lifted the brown and delicate linen cover. It was self-made and bound along its side in a messy hand stitch. On the page was the etching of a pale man, mulatto by feature and skin tone: his hair hinting at the slightest of kink, thin lips betrayed by a wide nose and the high West African cheekbones. The man was dressed in the frilled collar of the period. Drawn sitting at a desk. Beside him sat a periscope, a compass, and an open journal in which he was caught pleasantly getting his scribe on. The title read:
The True and Interesting Narrative of Dirk Peters.
Coloured Man. As Written by Himself.
Springfield, Illinois
1837
“See, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s a weird one,” Oliver continued, pushing his glasses back up his sharp nose and giving a good sniff as if that would jam them there. “I mean, what kind of black guy is named Dirk anyway?”
I knew immediately that it was true. That this was truly the autobiographical work of a living man. That Pym’s adventure must for the most part be true as well. Even before the days ahead when dates were researched, the censuses checked, the obscure biblical birth and property records investigated, I saw the text with its