The Intuitionist

Lila Mae spends much of the next day rereading Fulton’s Intuitionist texts, newly aware of his racial identity. She is certain that these texts would never have been published if his race had been known—or, his ideas would have appeared under the name of a white man who stole them. She also feels a strange feeling of betrayal; she thought she chose Intuitionism, but Intuitionism chose her, by virtue of her blood’s destiny.

Two days later, it is the night of the Funicular Follies, the Elevator Guild’s annual industry banquet. Politically, it is an enormously important event for both Chancre and Lever. Lila Mae never attends this banquet, but she is here tonight, responding to an invite from Natchez who promised “a surprise” for her. Thinly disguised as a member of the kitchen staff, Lila Mae has little reason to fear that anyone will recognize her: “They do not see her” (153).

Among the entertainment acts are the Safety Girls, a group of dancers affiliated with United Elevator, a major elevator manufacturer. This is relevant because it means Chancre has aligned with United, rather than the company’s biggest competitor, Arbo.

After the Safety Girls perform, two of Lila Mae’s white colleagues appear in blackface and join the stage for a minstrel show called “Mr. Gizzard and Hambone.” As the two perform hideously racist caricatures of Black men, the inspectors in attendance laugh uproariously, even and especially Pompey: “His mouth is cracked open with laughter. He slaps the table and shakes his head” (155). Meanwhile, the Black kitchen staff stays silent, including Lila Mae, who deceives herself into believing that her only reason for saying nothing is that she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself: “She thinks the other women are so beaten that they cannot speak of the incident, when all of them, Lila Mae included, are silent for the same reason: because this is the world they have been born into, and there is no changing that” (156).

For the final part of the show, Chancre climbs the stage dressed as Elisha Graves Otis to perform a reenactment of the debut of the first Safety Elevator at the 1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. As Lila Mae watches Chancre grossly subvert this historic moment in the hallowed collective memory of elevator inspectors, the Internal Affairs agent, Arbergast, slowly approaches. He believes he may recognize Lila Mae. But at the moment he places his hand on her shoulder, the Safety Elevator replica crashes, sending Chancre to the ground with serious injuries. In the commotion, Lila Mae escapes from Arbergast’s grasp.

In an interlude set decades ago, Lila Mae’s father, Marvin Watson, studies engineering in pursuit of becoming an elevator inspector. At that time, however, businesses refuse to hire Black elevator inspectors. Instead, he gets a job as an elevator operator at a department store. One day, a white elevator inspector refuses to inspect the elevator with Marvin nearby because he is Black.

In the present, Lila Mae calls Chuck on a payphone. He tells her Chancre is in the hospital with a broken leg, and most observers believe Lever is responsible and possibly even working through Lila Mae. Lila Mae tells Chuck to get close to Arbergast to determine the exact forensic causes of the Fanny Briggs crash.

Still certain that Pompey is responsible for sabotaging the Fanny Briggs elevator, Lila Mae tails him. Natchez joins her and agrees to help her clear her name if she helps him retrieve the black box. Natchez also confirms he is responsible for Chancre’s crash at the Follies. Lila Mae and Natchez watch Pompey knock on a door and enter a discreet building. Outside, there is a car stopped, and the driver is the same man who abducted Lila Mae—one of Chancre and Shush’s henchmen. Pompey exits in a workman’s uniform, and Lila Mae and Natchez tail him to a building at 366 Eighth Avenue.

That night, Natchez brings flowers to Lila Mae at the rundown hotel where she is staying. They plot their next moves: Lila Mae will confront Pompey, and Natchez will sneak into Lift magazine to take photographs of the Fulton journal pages sent to Ben. Lila Mae, whose physical attraction to Natchez continues to grow, asks him if he wants to get dinner. Natchez politely declines, adding that he wants to take it slow and gently prodding Lila Mae about being “one of these modern city gals” (189). He promises to take her out the following night and kisses her on the cheek.

The next day, Lila Mae confronts Pompey at his apartment, which to her surprise is only two blocks from her own. Before she can knock, the door opens to reveal Pompey’s wife and two sons—Lila Mae assumed he had a wife but did not realize he had children. Once the wife and children leave, Lila Mae accuses Pompey of sabotaging the Fanny Briggs elevator. When he denies it, Lila Mae counters that she followed him yesterday and thus knows he is involved with Shush’s criminal enterprise. Eventually, Pompey admits that Chancre pays him on the side to clean up after Shush’s elevator maintenance crews, who always do a bad job.

Lila Mae calls Pompey out for breaking the law and, more importantly, his elevator inspector oath. Pompey dismisses her appeals to duty, adding that he has two sons and refuses to see them grow up in a crime-ridden area steadily on the decline. He grows more defiant:

What I done, I done because I had no other choice. [...] You come along, strutting like you own the place. Like they don’t own you. But they do. [...] I was the first colored elevator inspector in history. In history! And you will never know what hell they put me through. [...] You had it easy, snot-nose kid that you are, because of me. Because of what I did for you (195).

The scene ends, and an interlude tells the fictional story of Roland the Carpenter, who in the 13th century built the first two-story churches. He is worshipped as “the patron saint of elevator inspectors” (197).

In the present, before Lila Mae’s dinner date with Natchez, she decides to help him out by infiltrating Lift herself and photographing Ben’s pages. She easily slips past the night watchman, claiming to be there on an elevator inspection appointment. Upstairs, the newsroom is empty, and Lila Mae finds Urich’s desk. As she takes out her miniature camera, Ben suddenly appears and says, “You must be Lila Mae Watson” (202). Lila Mae is confused that Urich seems to be expecting her. He directs her to the journal pages. After leafing through them, Lila Mae is certain they are Fulton’s. Moreover, the notes seem to confirm that the black box works.

In talking to Urich, Lila Mae realizes that the battle between Chancre and Lever, Empiricist and Intuitionist, is really nothing more than a proxy war between United and Arbo, the two biggest elevator manufacturers in the world. Chancre’s campaign is backed by United and Lever’s by Arbo. Lila Mae is taken aback. Urich continues: “Did you think this was all about philosophy? Who’s the better man—Intuitionism or Empiricism? No one really gives a crap about that. Arbo and United are the guys who make the things. That’s what really matters” (208).

Urich also reveals that it was Arbo’s men, not United’s, who broke his fingers and told him to lay off the story. Their reasoning was that, if the black box is a hoax, a story about it will eventually make Arbo look bad. Thus, Jim and John, the men who searched her apartment, belonged to Arbo and Lever’s camp all along. What’s more, Urich shows her a photo of one of Arbo’s top “consultants,” an imposing corporate henchman named Raymond Coombs—or, as Lila Mae knows him, Natchez. In a final reveal, Urich shows Lila Mae why everyone’s put her at the center of the hunt for the black box. On one of the journal pages, Fulton wrote, “Lila Mae Watson is the one” (211).

Suddenly, Jim and John appear. As Jim strangles Ben, Ben kicks a chair into John’s path, buying Lila Mae some time to escape to the street.