Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [45]
We lifted ourselves back up to the trucks. Now that I had their complete attention, I replayed in detail what I had seen the first time.
“Come on, Professor, what the hell is it?” Booker Jaynes demanded. “Some kind of monkey? Some kind of Neanderthal? Or just men, the CIA or something?”
“It’s the twelfth tribe of Judah,” Jeffree asserted as he stroked his goatee, nodding to Carlton Damon Carter, who stood behind him in our circle, reviewing his video footage. It was not clear that Jeffree actually believed this, but it was obvious that he liked the sound of it, its biblical and Diasporan overtones. We huddled in a makeshift tent, a tarp pulled between the roofs of two trucks and hung over the sides to keep the wind out.
“It’s definitely government shit,” Garth added, sounding like a weary big man preparing for a fall. “It’s the feds that built that, dog. If not ours, then someone else’s. Believe me, I know: I used to work for the government.”
“You worked as a bus driver, Garth. As a bus driver for the city of Detroit. That hardly qualifies you as an expert witness on the government,” Angela said with a roll of her almond eyes, and it was almost possible to see the air deflate out of the big man, sending him drifting into the corner. He gave me a look of sympathy from over there, but all I could do was marvel at her power.
“No,” I boomed, trying to assert my own. “This is nothing like that. Whoever it was that I first saw, whoever it was that built that tunnel, it’s not something modern, not something that’s been seen recently. No mechanical equipment we know of built that tunnel. It looked almost natural. It looked old.” I leaned on the last word, let it hang in the air for a minute. When I saw I had them, I dug in and declaimed.
“Look, folks, as you know, I am not here by complete accident. I am with you, on the crust of the Cape of Good Hope, because that is where I believe the events cited in Pym from two centuries past took place. Historical precedent. Whatever it is out there, it has been noted before. We are simply the first to experience this phenomenon since the chasm—”
“Excuse me.” Jeffree, who had been whispering with Carlton Damon Carter, turned around to interrupt. “Before we get any further with this, this cave—since I was the one to discover it, I believe it should be referred to as, um, the Jeffree Tube. Yes. So if you could refer to it as the Jeffree Tube from this moment forward, I would appreciate that.”
“So are you meaning to imply some form of ownership here?” Angela stopped him, pointing her finger in a way that threatened permanent ocular trauma to its target. “You must be, if you’re already invoking naming rights. You don’t even know what this thing is besides a big crack in an ice block and already you’re claiming it as your own property?” There she was. This petite woman, small but centered. Her beauty alone would have made some men† cower, but along with the way she paced the tent, the way she shook her arms violently as she spoke, she erased any questions of stature. The woman at dinner had been less assured and a bit reeling, but already Angela had grown stronger. With Nathaniel. Like a beautiful blossom growing in horse manure.
“Hey, sister! Sister, please!” Jeffree jumped forward, his hand stretched out in suppressing motions, his face giving off his best impression of an individual hurt and affronted by false accusation. “I’m not saying I own it outright. You the one said our contract with ______ Cola says that the Creole collectively owns what we scrounge on our off days. I’m just saying, since I found it, I should be able to name it. That’s all.”
That’s all. That’s all you need to start a fight among a bunch of people sacrificing everything to get rich, to build a legacy. The largely deflated Garth Frierson still had enough air in him to float out the tarp as the conversation grew steadily more heated.‡ In the mix of things, amid the accusations and retractions, Captain Jaynes left the space. When he returned,