Hunting in Harlem

by Mat Johnson

  "The Chupacabra," Snowden confirmed. Jifar stared up at him for a few moments to decide if he was being believed or taunted, decided he didn't care and started nodding vigorously in the affirmative.

  "I thought your boy said he only went after people in Washington Heights. He's coming down below 145th Street now?"

  "Mannie Ortiz says he started all the way up Inwood, like 220th Street or something."

  "So he's working his way down."

  "Yup. Mannie Ortiz says Harlem's just lunch. He's going to have dinner on the Upper West Side."

  "Why not the Upper East Side? They're richer."

  "He's following Broadway. Mannie says he sleeps along the tunnel of the one and nine trains during daylight."

  "Little man, can I tell you something? Mannie's your friend, but he's full of chocolate. You shouldn't believe everything Mannie Ortiz has to say about the world. There's no such thing as a Chupacabra. It's a story, a myth. It's like . . ." Snowden was going to say Santa Claus but caught himself, unsure where Jifar stood with that phenomenon. "Like Spider-Man. It's just made up." The look Jifar gave him, the in credulousness, the pity, made Snowden fear it was a reflection of his own face moments before.

  "No, lots of people talking about it. Lots of people thinks it's the Chupacabra, not just Mannie Ortiz. Adult people. His big brother Vernon, he's in the eighth grade, and a boy in his class saw it running around 135th Street station. They shot at it."

  "But they didn't hit it, did they?"

  Jifar shrugged a no.

  " 'Cause it ain't real. Don't worry about monsters, or anything else. You want to be safe in life? Just stay happy, try not to stay poor when you grow up, and watch your step, and you'll have nothing to worry about. It's that easy," Snowden told himself as well.

  BOBBY FINLEY, POET, ROMANTIC

  "I WROTE PIPER a poem," he said.

  It had been three months since they'd moved her in. The weeks after were peppered with Bobby's territorial talk about his apologetic calls to her answering machine, laments that he was never home to receive her call in case she was shy about leaving a message on his, and then mention of the woman ceased. Snowden knew from this that Piper Goines had never called Bobby back; the thin man was not the type for quiet victory. So then two months went by and Bobby started up again and Snowden realized he hadn't conquered his obsession, just his need to talk about it.

  "It's totally her poem, too. It's her; I used her actual voice for it."

  "Where you get her voice?"

  "Off the phone."

  "So you've been calling her."

  "Oh yes, I told you she gave me her number." By this it should be noted that Bobby meant that he'd taken it off the back of the Horizon receipt form she'd signed. Snowden had given it to Bobby on his request, as well as a pen and his own back as a writing surface. Snowden was impressed with the intensity of Bobby's fixation, that not only could he ignore that fact, he could also ignore that Snowden knew the truth as well.

  "Damn, boy. Congratulations. You finally got to talk to that woman."

  "Yeah, right? Well, not in person, I left a message. Then I got recordings of her voice off her answering machine, she changes the message all the time. I just mixed the words together on my computer."

  Bobby's contention was that showing up unannounced at her office at the New Holland Herald the next day was not stalking, it was just being practical. He had several reasons for this, the most creative was that if she received an unsolicited package with a tape inside it, as a reporter she might think it was a lead on a kidnapping, and he didn't want to disappoint her. By coincidence - one of those amazing coincidences the universe doles out to keep its inhabitants on their toes — Snowden had been instructed by Lester just the day before to place two ads at this very same paper. This was less of coincidence when you considered that Bobby had overheard Lester's instructions and apparently planned to tag along for moral support.

  The ads, handwritten in Lester's small linear script along with font instructions, sat in Snowden's breast pocket with the message:

  Folk of Harlem!

  Are you considering moving away from the area? Retiring? Going back down south or to the Caribbean? Whether you're a home owner or a renter, contact Horizon Property Management to assist your transition. Cash bonuses for all referrals.

  and

  Folk of New York!

  Coming back to the dream of old Harlem? "Let Horizon Property Management help you make it a reality. Buyers or renters, call now.

  Rereading them, Snowden wondered if a white person would get the meaning of "folk" and realize they were being excluded. On further thought, Snowden wondered when was the last time any white person had gone to a newsstand and bought the New Holland Herald. There was no reason for them to read it. With blacks writing at the top newspapers in the country, with endless glossies devoted to African-American interests and life, there didn't seem too much reason for black folks to read it either. That's why Snowden never felt embarrassed by how bad it was, or guilty at taking pleasure reading it aloud. Snowden felt confident in the assumption that no one else was listening.

  The walk to the New Holland Herald' became eventful once the two came in sight of the new Disney Store on 125th and Frederick Douglass. The state of righteousness Bobby'd been stuck in for weeks, Snowden knew it would set him off, but since the paper's office was on the other corner, it was unavoidable. In preparation, Snowden had attempted to ensnare Bobby into the more nuanced debate about the corruption allegations involving the Apollo, the other landmark they were passing, but the smaller man would have none of it.

  "Fucking bloodsuckers. Fucking mind-numbing smiley-faced Jim Jones Kool-Aid bloodsuckers up here to siphon what little money we have with their poison blankets shaped like plush corporate logos," Bobby started chanting. Snowden found the worst part of talking to Bobby when he got like this was that Bobby would take Snowden's own opinions but become so froth-mouthed fanatical that Snowden felt forced to claim the opposition for the sake of keeping the discussion in the realm of sanity.

  "Well, they've provided some jobs up here, and it looks good for the one-two-five, as far as attracting investment," Snowden said and immediately resented Bobby for this, for making him defend the mouse.

  "Right, like six jobs at eight dollars an hour. Up, you mighty race!" It was amazing how he could do that, hyperventilate and talk at the same time. Several women paused with their bags in front of Lane Bryant and McDonald's Express to take in the licorice blur vibrating past them, his voice modulating with each word between stage whisper and scream. Snowden was waiting for somebody to offer a wallet to stick in Bobby's mouth so he didn't bite his tongue off, "Goddamn leeches, riding up in their Trojan horse to suck the green right of the place, then they'll go back to Anaheim and do a Pocahontas on Sally Hemings, turn that into a love story too."

  "It will attract people to Harlem. That's the point of what we're doing, right?"

  "It attracts white people to Harlem. That's the point of it. It says, 'Look, no broken windows, the canary's alive and well.' Then they take over the last bit of the island that they're not in the majority. That's the plan. We'll all get pushed to Newark and they'll get this back again, and to them it will just be a loaded name and a bunch of cool brownstones. They'll even open some jazz theme clubs to remember us by, like they do with fake villages on the lands they got from the Indians."

  Snowden said, "Healthy canaries are a good thing. They send the message that the air's all safe to breathe," but nothing more. Snowden took the talk of race as a sign to shut up and just keep walking. Snowden always took the talk of race as a sign to shut up and keep walking because he'd never figured out how to discuss the subject without stating the obvious, sounding bitter, or like a sellout, doomed however he approached it. Talking about race was like trying to have a serious argument about the existence of the Easter Bunny: No matter what position you took, you always ended up sounding either thick or mildly insane.

  By th
e time they reached the office of the New Holland Herald, Bobby was so worked up that he was forced to lean against the wall of the abandoned building next to it in order to regain his composure.

  "I should burn that bastard down," Bobby wheezed. "It would probably take out most of Harlem USA with it but, you know, 'by any means necessary.'" He tried to light a cigarette but was breathing too hard and ended up in a coughing fit, limply cursing the class warfare of the tobacco companies as he put it out against his foot, pocketing the filter so as not to litter. Inside, the two men parted when Bobby was directed to the offices upstairs and Snowden to the classified desk on the first floor. Bobby parted with, "Don't wait up for me," managing a wink before succumbing to another fit of coughing, pausing on the long wooden stairway as others quickly went around him.

  The clerk behind the counter seemed ecstatic to see Snowden, looked so relieved to have a break in the monotony of the otherwise empty room, its dust, its faded furniture. The guy didn't even take his money, he held it for a moment, yes, but then when he read the copy he smiled and nodded as if he'd been the target of a harmless joke and handed it back. Piper Goines stood in the room behind him, looking good like that. Snowden smiled, she smiled back, remembered him and came over.

  "Excuse me," she said. "Does that guy Robert M. Finley still work with you? Because I've been getting these calls on my phone from Robert M. Finley ever since I moved in, he doesn't even leave messages anymore, he just keeps calling and then hanging up on my machine."

  Bobby was upstairs leaving Ms. Goines a surprise. Snowden was downstairs, trying to convince Ms. Goines to associate the word persistent with the name "Bobby Finley" instead of the word psychopath, not making any headway with his argument until Piper realized that Bobby was the one who looked like a human snow crab and not the creepy one with a head like a rottweiler.

  "Bobby's a really smart guy, funny. It's just that we're not from here, we work a lot, he was just trying to reach out. We're from out of town, don't really know anybody in the area, you know how it is. He's good people. He gave you his book, right?"

  "That's right, that's right. Actually, I tried to read that thing but couldn't get past the first page. It didn't seem to make any sense, like there'd been misprints or something. I probably just didn't read it close enough," Piper was the one making the guilty face now. Snowden nodded at this like a mistake had indeed been made, staring at her, trying to think of a way to tell her that the man they were talking about was at this moment at her desk. Piper watched as Snowden struggled to say something and got tired of waiting.

  "So you don't know anyone. You kind of know me," Piper told him. "You've already been to my place, you might as well come back over and we can have dinner sometime. I'm on my way to Ephesus to cover the protest meeting about the Mumia Abu-Jamal Memorial Halfway House, the one the state's trying to open by Mount Morris Park, but there's tomorrow."

  "Memorial House? Mumia Abu-Jamal hasn't even been executed yet."

  "I know! Sick bastards."

  In moral law, there was definitely an edict about dating your friend's obsession.

  "If you're worried about your buddy, I'm sure he's a nice guy, but I'm never going out with him. That just ain't happening."

  Snowden appreciated Piper's plucky initiative, her persistence. It meant that every time he felt a pang of guilt for accepting her invitation he could tell himself he'd been forced into doing so, take some of the bite out of it.

  PIPER GOINES SPEAKS

  THE THING THAT really pissed Piper off about living in the apartment above her sister and brother-in-law was that she had to walk through three floors of their home to get to hers, and even though she loved them they were materially driven intentional archetypes of the bourgeoisie, something Piper once even said to their faces months before their wedding only to have them high-five gleefully in response, dancing circles together in their boutique clothes as they waved their status symbol watches in the air in victory. Their home was a museum of all the class accoutrements they'd collected in just seven years working as a tag team: rich woods, fabrics, and leathers placed on rugs so expensive that having them on the floor was indulgent insolence. Piper kept redecorating but it didn't matter, by the time she reached the top floor her home seemed a slave quarters in comparison.

  They were like twins, her sister and her mate, one identical mindset compensating for the fact that they looked nothing like each other. As obnoxious as they could be in tandem, Piper had produced more tears at their wedding than the collective attendants. It was the natural order of it that got to her, that maybe there was somebody out there to perfectly match each individual. That maybe there really was one person out there perfect for her.

  Piper's sister and brother-in-law were arrogant about their relationship too, but equally arrogant, so it took nothing away from the symmetry. If they were the type, they would have used the term "soul mates," but they weren't so called themselves "power couple." Since moving in, Piper came to call them Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass. In response, Dumbass, or Brian as he was known to the others in his life, usually referred to Piper as Assata Shake'n'Bake, Rosa Park Avenue, or Sister Soul Food, depending on how the spirit moved him. Dee, known to all as just that, preferred to call her sister Audre Lorde Have Mercy. It wasn't that they hadn't read the books, they just didn't feel them like that.

  Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumber. Dee born in New Haven, Brian in Providence. Dee the vice president of Jack and Jill's Connecticut chapter, Brian the treasurer of the Rhode Island contingent. Brian and Dee trading locations so one could be a Bulldog and one be brown at Brown. Two memberships to organizations named with three Greek letters, both with two A's bookending them. Three years apart, but how many early encounters until the First Friday where fate connected them? A shared hotel, Virginia Beach, spring break weekend? A shared ferry from Hyannis Port? Piper wondered. Piper wondered if the narrowness of Shark Bar hadn't made their world even smaller, how long those uneventful encounters would have continued. Piper stopped wondering if her own counterpart was entering her life, repeatedly and unnoticed: It was too painful.

  Piper: impeached as Basilius from the NAACP Youth Group after calling former leader Walter White a "bleached coon" during the introductory address at the Teen Summit in Niagara Falls, a painful event compensated by years of bragging rights. Earlham College, class of '92, Fight, Fight, Inner Light, Kill Quakers, Kill. The best editor B.L.A.C.'s newsletter would ever claim. Greek affiliation: once sucker-punched by a Kappa Sweetheart at a Ball State step show. Ten years later and single, some false alarms but no children, no furniture that cost more than a day's salary. A job she loved and was good at. Hope. In painting, an art freed from ambition. A refusal to ever buy a cat as a companion, or let herself get to the point where she'd be tempted to.

  Dee, Dumbass; hers an artistic and slightly cool career that didn't really pay for her lifestyle, his a dull career playing with money that paid for them both. For fun they bought things and went to foreign resorts that called themselves "spas," hung out with other finance men and their creative wives. At night they planned to breed others just like them. For fun Piper went downtown, paced bright openings and got just drunk enough that her work looked better than theirs, took a cab home and hoped secretly that the driver would complain that her destination was Harlem so she could fight a little injustice on the way. If they were away, Piper would simply come in the front door and go to sleep in their living room, look around at how beautiful and comfortable it was and admit that she was as jealous of their lifestyle as she was disgusted by it. They never got too sad because they were sure about life, and as bankrupt as their value system was, it would never force them to accept its insolvency. It was impossible to own everything, and as long as there was more to acquire they would have faith that further acquisition was the key to happiness.

  Piper got happiness doing, not buying, which worked out well because her job gave her a lot to do but hardly any
money to buy anything with. If evenings were disheartening, it was in morning that she found her victory. Just waking up and being happy about your life when you remembered it was a damn good thing, but actually being excited about the work in the day to follow was the richest possible blessing. She loved her job and the moments it gave her: when she was typing and felt like the mute were given the ability to scream through her to the page, later when it was on the newsstands and she could look and see her own mark on the world. Seeing her name in print made her feel alive, made her feel immortal. She was connected by a continuum of newspaper issues going back week by week to the time when this paper brought news of Jim Crow and lynchings, called for boycotts of the whites-only-staffed department stores on 125th Street. No handmade Persian rug felt better underneath you than a purpose.

  While Piper liked to think that she rose an hour early just for the opportunity to whistled past Dumbass on the stairs as he tried to numb himself for another dehumanizing day of numeric servitude, getting to the paper before her coworkers served a more practical purpose. The New Holland Herald, the last great lion of the preintegration news media, was a paper of many distinctions. Unfortunately, its most current was the fact that it had to be the only twenty-thousand-plus periodical in a major urban area to have only one computer in the entire company. Copy was manually typed in the office by staff writers, submitted by fax or in person by freelancers. Corrections were made on the page, or for the occasional major changes the writer was forced simply to rewrite the work. The publisher Mr. Cole's recited response to requests for computers was, "If James Weldon Johnson didn't need one when he was writing in this very room, then neither do you." On Wednesday all of the articles were taken to a printing service, where typists rewrote the entire edition word for word and laid it out into a template that had been created years before. Often, the section tides failed to match the copy below them as articles were arranged in random order. It was a standard sight to see an article on poor nutrition in public schools under the header DINING OUT complete with the illustration of a man and a woman in formal wear, martinis in hand. The edition was quickly copyedited because the whole thing had to be done by four-thirty P.M. or the paper was forced to pay overtime, which was a sin worthy of dismissal. Since the typists were going so fast that they were not even reading what they duplicated, it was impossible to catch every mistake. In the past this practice had led to several rather dramatic copy errors, the greatest one of Piper's tenure being the obituary headline that read MR. GAVIN WYATT, 79, LIES, which resulted in a two-week campaign of irate phone calls from his descendants, all of whom insisted he was an honest man.