Hunting in Harlem

by Mat Johnson

  Snowden closed the door to the kitchen. He'd listened to the congressman's speech twice in practice, and while he agreed with it, he didn't feel the need to spend ten more minutes of his life listening to it again. There were so many of them in there, looking up at him, chewing his food and words. Snowden wondered if Piper had known any of the reporters in attendance and what she would have said about them.

  "This is it, the big moment, the culmination of so much work," Lester said from behind. Snowden turned to him. Lester in white. Patent-leather shoes so shiny they seemed made of melting vanilla ice cream, a matching fedora whose black band was his outfit's only dissent.

  "Horus - I don't see him out there. Did you even tell him I won yet?"

  "Of course I told him. Yesterday. Took him down to Chelsea Piers, stuck a suitcase and a ticket for a ten-day Caribbean singles cruise in his hands, then I told him. Went fine, nothing to worry about," Lester said. He was missing a molar about halfway back his mouth, you could only see it when he smiled real big.

  "Good. So he wasn't mad."

  "Oh he was absolutely furious. A real murderous rage, I'll tell you. But I managed to get him on the boat," Lester said. "Then I sat there watching the little bridge for four hours to make sure he didn't sneak off again. He should be cooled down by the time he sails back. The man's too great an asset to lose. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a sociopath with a sense of loyalty."

  Lester turned to look once more at his charge, noticed the strain in Snowden's face as he stared off toward the room ahead.

  "Mr. Snowman, you better get used to this kind of thing. When the congressman retires — and now that things are going well I really don't think that will be long now - you'll be in charge, most likely." Snowden looked up, saw Lester smiling a confirmation of what he'd just said.

  "Why not you? Lester, if the congressman retires, why wouldn't you take over the whole thing? You're the most qualified."

  "Oh, no," Lester waved the silly thought away from him, thought about it another moment before shaking his head. "I could never do that, all the planning and everything. That takes a gift. Besides, all that paperwork, all that time behind a desk. I'm more a man of the field," Lester told him. "I like to get my hands dirty."

  There was applause. Responding to his cue, Snowden pushed open the door and walked out. All eyes on him as he shuffled his speech on the podium, Snowden forced himself to look up at the room as he was trained to before he began.

  "I was once was lost," Snowden began, pausing to the count of two-Mississippi, "but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see."

  It was that easy. That African bass thrown into his voice for resonance, his pointer finger raised for emphasis, thumb resisting halfway up it as a nod to Martin Luther King, and all of a sudden he was a leader. The words kept coming, falling after each other easily, even the intonation came naturally. A couple of minutes in and he wasn't even listening to what he was saying, but that was OK because he was busy reading the crowd instead. "Yes, searching for tomorrow's leaders among yesterday's failures is dramatic and extreme, but what Horizon's Second Chance Program recognizes is that facilitating dramatic change in the ghetto is going to take the extreme." When the front door opened across the room, Snowden was in such a flow he instinctively raised his voice to keep the spell from unwinding. When Snowden saw the top of the black hat, then the uniform below it, he didn't stutter, he didn't lose one bit of his passion or speed. He just thought, Well, that's it. They've finally come for me.

  Starting to lose the attention of the room as the cop pushed his way to the front of the crowd, Snowden slammed his fist down on the podium for emphasis. Lester was the one who went to the officer, cut him off before he could get any closer. Snowden watched as the two clasped like family and asked himself, How could I ever question that this was meant to be} As Lester guided the officer back to the kitchen, Snowden nodded and smiled but didn't stop speaking for a moment.

  By the time Snowden heard the door behind him open again he was firmly into the stride of his conclusion and had forgotten his moment of panic. It came back to him, though, the feeling if not the specifics, when midsentence a tapped shoulder was followed by the ear-whispered, "We have a serious problem." When Snowden turned to look at Lester's face he almost didn't recognize it, having never seen it shaped by fear before.

  Bobby Finley sat on the top of the Mount Morris watchtower with a bullhorn, a child hostage, and at least a thousand hardback copies of the same book soaked in gasoline. This last number was an estimate and varied considerably depending on whether you asked the crowd of firemen, the crowd of EMS workers, or one of the many representatives of the police. It was a clear and sunny day and Bobby was really buoyed by this, because after all the exhaustive work preparing for this moment, rain would have really put a damper on things.

  Jifar, kicking his legs as they hung over the railing and pointing, was the one who saw Snowden coming, just another exciting addition in the growing spectacle of the day. The boy deserved a good show, Bobby felt, after being such a good sport about the heavy lifting and the fumes and everything. The two of them watched in great amusement as Snowden broke from the crowd and started climbing up to them, leather-soled shoes loosing their purchase on the metal beams wet from the dripping Great Works, tie flapping desperately over his shoulder in the wind.

  "Let him go," was the first thing Snowden said when his head poked over the edge. Jifar looked at Snowden's huffing sweaty face and stuck his tongue out. As nervous as Bobby was, it was actually good to see the man.

  "Yeah, I need your help with that." Bobby pointed at the mountain-climbing harness already tied around Jifar's waist. "I didn't want him slipping climbing down so I need your help lowering him."

  Snowden looked at the rigging on the boy like it was some sort of pedophiliac bondage gear, asked Jifar if he was hurt in such a tender voice that the kid just laughed at him. Jifar was sitting on white paper Snowden recognized to be the loose pages of The Tome, strewn everywhere like kindling.

  "He's fine, and don't worry, it'll more than carry his weight. It's on a rather ingenious pulley system," Bobby said pointing up. Snowden saw the dark color of the other man's jeans and realized they were soaking. It was also then that Snowden noticed that Bobby had his favorite lighter in his hand. "The two of us have been hoisting up boxes and gas cans twice that weight all afternoon without the slightest problem."

  "That shit was dope," Jifar confirmed. "You should have been here!"

  Snowden reached down and patted Jifar on the head, in part to see if the boy was as wet as The Great Works that were piled everywhere around them. Satisfied to his dryness, Snowden walked closer to Bobby, motioned for them to both move farther along the perch for privacy.

  "This is sick, Bobby. You got me, just like you demanded, now let him go." Snowden didn't even have to whisper for privacy, another batch of approaching sirens covered his voice for him. Looking down, even at this distance, Snowden could recognize some of the press people he'd been sermonizing only minutes before, some with their little hors d'oeuvres plates still in their hands. Marks had barked at Lester immediately for interrupting Snowden's speech, but their guests would have noticed the sounds and lights of the emergency vehicles climbing up the little hill right outside the window anyway. Forget shrimp, everybody knew a lazy journalist's first love was a newsworthy spectacle.

  "Oh, you can go too, just help me get the kid down safe and do me a little favor once you get on the ground again. I don't blame you for what happened, Snowden. I don't. I blame myself for creating the situation. I sure as hell blame you for the part you played, but you're going to have to deal with your conscience in your own way. This is just my way of offering repentance, making the best out of the situation," Bobby said, holding up the lighter, knocking off the lid with a snap, and just as fast closing it again. "Tell me something though, does that look like pretty much all the media whores from your little coronation down there, or should I wait another
minute before I get started?"

  Snowden looked down. There seemed to be even more of them. Two news vans had appeared, both racing to raise the masts of their broadcasting antennas. "Don't do this, man," Snowden told him. "You have a cause that really needs you, your intelligence, your passion."

  "I don't have a cause, not like that anymore. What cause could be worth it if it ends up with people like Piper Goines dead?" Bobby asked, then smiled and waved to the crowd below, clearly enjoying himself. He finally has an audience, Snowden realized.

  "So that's it. You're just going to light yourself on fire as some medieval self-punishment. You're just going to give up on life like that, Bobby." Snowden frowned his distaste. "That is so stupid."

  Bobby stopped waving, stopped smiling too, just turned and stared at him for few seconds before gaining a slight grin again. "Don't you see? This isn't about giving up. This is about love. This is about sacrificing myself for the one thing in the universe that actually is worth believing in."

  "Bobby, you idiot, you're about to kill yourself for the biggest cliche there is."

  "Yes, Snowden, but then considering my life, that's an irony, which makes it all better."

  Bobby was right about one thing, Snowden concurred, getting Jifar to the ground was effortless. The boy floated below them screaming in glee the whole way, his blood replaced long ago by adrenaline. When Jifar got to the ground a female cop ran forward from the barricade to get him, and as soon as he was detached Jifar ran away from her as fast as he could, through the crowd and down the hill back toward the lodge because he was a good kid and followed his instructions. Once he was out of sight, Bobby pulled a box cutter from his pocket and handed it to Snowden, then pointed to a tarp hiding something the size of a car at the far wall of the plateau, behind the crowd.

  "You're a goddamn fool," Snowden told Bobby before starting to climb down again.

  "Just go open those boxes, first thing," the fool said, dripping.

  When Snowden reached the ground safely, the crowd couldn't help but show its disappointment. This was supposed to be a news event. Without a hostage, the man on the fire tower was just another crazy nigger in Harlem. It was five fifty-five P.M., there were cameras here ready to go live, if the nut was going to call in this whole thing to 911 and drag an audience out here, the least he could do was keep the show going another five minutes for the six o'clock lead-in. As Snowden was ushered through the mob, reporters pushed their mikes past his police guardians. "Who is he?" and "What does he want?" they were all asking. As if on cue, and possibly so since the lunatic was looking at his watch right before he said it, the man above announced that he had something to say, and that at 6:01 he would deliver it, which all the telecasters greatly appreciated.

  Snowden was led away to the open ambulance before the cops returned to the front. He could still smell the gas all the way back there, even with the wind blowing in the other direction.

  "People of Harlem, people of New York, people of the world. My name is Robert M. Finley," Bobby began, yelling into his megaphone. Yelling even louder at Snowden at that exact same moment was the congressman, with Lester and Wendell beside him looking equally grave. "He obviously orchestrated this entire scenario!" Marks was saying. "Tell me what the hell he's planning on saying!" Over his balding head, Snowden saw the tarp only a few yards away. It was green, heavy canvas, probably military surplus. Looking at it, Snowden thought Bomb! and jumped off the gurney past his employers in its direction.

  "I'm here to tell you about a woman, the love of my life, even though we got to share so little of it together," Bobby's amplified voice said. A crowd of reporters thought at the exact same time, Everybody loves a love story. Snowden reached the mass, yanked off the tarp to reveal at least twenty boxes.

  "Her name was Piper and she was beautiful and fate stole her from me. Piper Goines was robbed of a life of promise, a life of love, a life of accomplishment," Bobby continued. His overexuberance with the gasoline had left his cue cards blurred, but this speech he felt etched inside of him. Far below him, Bobby Finley could see Cedric Snowden opening the first box. "She deserved more, she deserved the chance to live a full life, the kind I, a humble novelist, once imagined for her. I am here today to bestow that imagined existence unto you, the blessed readers, so that through your hearts and minds Piper Goines might in some way continue living. Please take a copy of my manuscript, The Orphean Daze, with you on the way out, they're available from that gentleman there in the back," Bobby said, pointing at Snowden. It was like his finger had reached out and turned every member of the crowd's head simultaneously. Even the television cameras turned, and they were broadcasting live.

  "Thank you for giving Piper Goines, and our love, a chance to live eternally. I couldn't afford to print that many, so you might have to share. If there are any pages missing, contact the Kinko's on 111th Street. Thanks again for coming," Bobby concluded, putting the bullhorn down politely before snapping on his lighter and holding it to his chest, igniting everything.

  Snowden stood looking at the blaze, knowing that it was coming having failed to prepare him. The tower was like one massive match, the inferno a thick ball at the top of it. There was so much movement on the surface of the flame it was impossible to see what was happening inside of it. Fire was so beautiful even as it was horrific, Snowden could see why Bobby had always liked it. Snowden was so captivated by the sight, the way it swayed, the black smoke trailing above as a beacon to millions, that he failed to notice the mob stampeding toward him until it was too late to avoid being knocked to the ground. Stomping across Snowden's screaming body, it clawed and it tugged, it yanked and it pulled, all in its ravenous frenzy to get its hands on the hot new novel by one Robert M. Finley.

  NEW BEGINNINGS (ENDING)

  WHEN OLTHIDIUS COLE Sr. finally announced to Olthidius Cole Jr. that he was retiring and leaving the New Holland Herald in his son's complete control, Olthidius Cole Jr. thought that was a really good thing, because if that had not happened soon there was a good chance he would have come into work one day, taken off all his clothes, and started screaming. Still, neither he nor any of his employees truly believed the old man would let the mande be pried from anything but his dead, cold hands until that last box was packed and Olthidius Cole Sr. was walking down the staircase with it, weeping and wheezing in equal measure.

  The celebration began immediately. Tears continued for the rest of the evening, mostly of joy this time. The ones that weren't were confessional, cathartic, were tinged by the context of victory. Raises were announced, the Web site revealed, the new computers finally carted up from their hiding place in shipping. A real design team would be hired immediately. Freelancers would be paid the living wage of a dollar a word instead of forty bucks an article. The paper would go double-size biweekly to provide the opportunity for work to be properly matured and edited. Predictions of future victory were declared by all in attendance, a dawn of new quality was heralded, Harlem was entering a new era and its favorite periodical was going with it! The keg was tapped at about nine-thirty, but it was midnight before the headquarters of the New Holland Herald was emptied.

  By eleven-fifteen the following morning, it was officially the same shit all over again. Only half the workers showed back up at their desks; the rest were late. Olthidius Cole, the sole one by that name in the office anymore, had to listen to three people he'd personally seen stumble into a cab and tell the driver, "Sugar Shack!" call in and claim "flulike symptoms" with utter earnestness. The first submissions on his desk that day consisted of three film reviews from the New Holland Heralds senior entertainment editor, all of which began, "This movie is really good. It shows a lot of positive images of black people. You should go see it." The next piece the new editor in chief braced himself to read was an article by a regular freelancer on an altercation outside the Harlem Heat nightclub. The first sentence was, "Renton Johnson got shot, in front of the tittle bar at night." Olthidius Cole read no further. He was too s
tunned to continue. His head hurt too much, and it was his turn for crying. All these years he'd assumed that the poor grammar, bad writing, and spelling errors the staff of the New Holland Herald produced so consistently were because of the low pay, deplorable working conditions and, of course, the fact that they hated his father as much as he did, and all this time they really were as incompetent as the old man said.

  The new boss sat in his father's former office with his head down and wrapped in his arms on the desk, his own things still on the floor in front by the door where he'd first dropped them. There came a point, a couple hours in, when he'd accepted his situation, when it didn't even seem so unbearable anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to stand up and go face his staff knowing what he knew, so he just kept his position and took a nap instead, hoping to wait them out till the end of the workday.

  When the last person had left for the night, fluorescent lights silenced behind them, Olthidius Cole crept out of his hiding place, grabbed the day's submissions from his secretary's in-box, and shot back in his office. The last of them read from beginning to end, the younger Cole began to calm down again. It wasn't that bad, really. It was bad, but not so bad that it made him question his calling. The New Holland Herald was just like any other floundering entity, no worse. There were a couple of writers who were really good, there were a bunch who were OK, and then there was a minority who needed to be eliminated immediately. It wasn't like doing that would be easy, some of these hacks were staff, had been at the paper for decades, people who'd given him gifts of candy on childhood visits, kisses on the cheek up until the day he too came to work here. It wasn't like these people had voice mails from headhunters at Knight-Ridder to fall back on. Unfortunately, none of that mattered. Revolution meant disregarding individuals for the sake of the whole. The New Holland Herald simply couldn't afford them anymore.