Hunting in Harlem (20 page)
"That's fine, the bullet should pass right through him and still do the job. The way his body should look at the end of this,
no coroner will have reason to question it."
"But the cops, man. It ain't right, setting up the people sworn to protect this place. That's not the Horizon way." Snowden
was suddenly excited by the discovery of a rational argument by which the irrational might be swayed. "That ain't right! I
mean, did you even check this over with Congressman Marks. Congressman Marks has friends in the department."
"And those friends have enemies, and that's who's scheduled to show up tonight. Now be a good boy and bend over."
Snowden hung upside down over the edge of the building for six minutes, his sinuses taut and painful, his back aching and
promising great reprisals if he ever tried to straighten out again. He knew six minutes had gone by because at the top of
every one Lester complained about police tardiness, that someone should be there by now.
"This is deplorable. Really, what if an innocent really was being shot at? You think he'd have to wait this long on the Upper
East Side?"
Lester was so busy complaining he didn't hear it when the downstairs door buzzer was finally rung. The dunce did. Snowden
watched Barber rise from the couch holding his wallet, walking slowly backward so his eyes never had to leave the television
screen, buzzing them in without even checking the intercom.
"Really, Snowden, do you think? Because I've never lived on the Upper East Side. What was that?" Lester asked. That was a
bit of bad luck, because just as Snowden had begun to hope that the moron had his TV so loud that the police would come and
go without Lester's knowledge, a moment's pause in the starship action gave the apartment's doorbell silence in which to assert
itself.
"This is it, wait till he gets right in front of the door," the voice said from above Snowden. As if he could see the moment
the subject stepped into the proposed line of fire, when the guy did Lester continued with, "Shoot it."
Snowden wanted to shoot himself. The guy he was now pointing the gun at, he only had one dirty white sock on. From behind,
the brown crack of his ass peeked through his drooping sweatpants belligerently, threatening to go lunar with every step.
It was a sad life he was watching, and it made his life seem that much sadder that this boar was worth risking it for. "The
trigger, pull it or I'm dropping you!" Lester punched Snowden in the ass. Trevor Barber paused a yard from the door, stretched
his head so far back Snowden became afraid he'd see him, and over top of the sound of screaming Klingon the man produced a
fart so momentous even Lester heard it. Vicious abuser of the weak, unrepentant parasite of the downtrodden, now also freakishly
flatulent: Snowden suddenly wanted to kill him. Even so, it wasn't until he could feel Lester starting to let go of his legs
that Snowden fired the gun, and even then he waited until the moment the bastard got his door open and the cops had a chance
to see him clearly.
Snowden aimed at the patch of dried dirt by the trash cans far below on the ground. He saw the cloud of dust when the bullet
hit, then heard the echoes as the sound bounced off the backs of so many tenement walls. Then Snowden realized it wasn't echoes,
and that was when he looked back in the window and saw Trevor Barber dancing, except that that wasn't dancing. That was getting
shot. That was glass breaking on the back windows. That whining was the sound of bullets shooting by. That hot rain pouring
onto Snowden's face was him peeing himself.
By the time Lester pulled him back up, Snowden's mind was as much a mess as his clothes. Lester tried to hug him, calm him
down, but Snowden pushed the man away. The gun was not his friend, it was not a natural extension of his arm, and Snowden
slammed it down in front of himself and as it bounced yelped in fear at what he'd just done. Lester just picked it up, then
pulled Snowden by his arm out of there.
Snowden found himself standing atop an entirely different roof at least five buildings over and didn't remember walking there,
climbing over the small brick walls that divided each of them. Lester was talking. Lester was saying, "Snowden, listen to
me, I'm so sorry that I didn't just trust your judgment, your timing. I don't know what came over me, but I would never have
dropped you. You know that, right?"
"I let him get to the door, open it." Snowden finally started talking. Actually, this wasn't strictly true: Snowden had been
saying "shit" repeatedly since he reached solid ground, but now he was moving on to complete sentences. "I let him get to
the door. He opened it. They saw him standing there with his wallet in his hand and they shot him anyway. They shot him. They
shot him so many times."
"Oh my God," was Lester's response. He pulled away, walked hands to his head ten feet on only to say, "I can't believe it,"
and walk back again. Snowden, who'd taken to hugging himself, pulled his head up to watch the man. There were so many emotions,
too many things to be reacting to, moments and things to feel, but Snowden looked at Lester's shock and felt hope. He realizes,
he finally gets it, the insanity of all it all. He finally gets it.
"You get it," Snowden said when Lester returned.
Lester smiled back at him. "Are you kidding? I get it! I totally get it. The wallet, letting them get a glimpse so they thought
it was a gun when they heard the shot. The Amadou Diallo shooting, right? I'm just . . . I mean . . . awe. You improvised
that hanging there? Forget Bobby Finley, you're the artist. All I can say is, 'Wow' An
homage?
They went back to the Lenox Lounge. Lester insisted on this, and then he walked so fast Snowden could barely drone stiffly
behind him. As soon as they were inside, Lester wrenched off his coat, yanked his watch, and laid it faceup on the table.
"We stay till at least one," Lester said as he ripped through his organizer in search of the leather pouch, cursing till he
found it then shooting off to the bathroom.
Lester came back a half hour later, sat down at the table, and then nodded for another half. They weren't sitting in the same
seats as before. This was a good thing because their new seats where secluded far in the back by the leopard-print wall, and
Snowden was just coming back to himself enough, was just starting to worry about less significant things like the fact that
he was sitting in a public place absolutely soaked, in part by his own urine.
"Drunks. Make great. Alibis," Lester said. It took him a couple of minutes, eyes floating in their lids, but he got it out.
Snowden ignored him. He didn't feel like listening, he felt like drinking, and he wanted to do that and watch her. She was
still there, working. She was still there and her face still looked like someone had used it to kick the dirt off his boots,
and Snowden was glad she still looked like that. He wanted to remember every detail of the abused face, every pus-bloated
curve, every darkened shade her makeup failed to camouflage. Take that as the image you remember from this night, Snowden
begged himself. Those fists will never hit that face, Snowden kept forcing himself to acknowledge. It offered little solace,
but a little was something so he kept doing it. Slamming it down with six-dollar shots of whiskey until the logic made more
sense.
Even by Snowden's standards he was exceptionally drunk by the time the watch admitted it was one o'clock. It was a belligerent,
deceitful device, and he was pretty sure it had paused a few times when he wasn't looking (eleven twenty-seven, for instance,
went on forever, and it had been twelve forty-nine for generations). Snowden fell asleep watching it, woke up thirty-four
minutes past confused about where he was and what reality everybody was using, the one from his dream or the other one he
now could recall only vaguely.
Trying to stand up, it was pretty clear that by consensus the world had changed its rules of gravity and nobody had bothered
to tell him which pissed him off but Lester was saying something about "be careful" so maybe that's what he was talking about.
The bladder said bathroom first, then when he was walking back out it was her again at the table collecting her tip and saying
"Thank you" and Snowden said " J
u
s t be careful who you love next time" but it was loud and she didn't quite hear him.
Outside Snowden remembered more about who he was, the place, the time, all that. And what he was doing. He was walking, each
step deliberate - got to land on the foot's ball, lift the knee up high enough, do the right then left or left then right
but never the same legs consecutively. It got easier every time he got it right. Then there was where he was going. Snowden
was going back there. Snowden was going to tell them what happened, apologize, all that. Shhh, don't tell the sober mind,
just keep walking.
Snowden trudged south on Lenox. The brownstones, they lined both sides of the street, leaning in and bearing witness with
so many eyes. This is how it was supposed to happen. The night smelled of burning wood and Snowden knew this could mean only
one thing, barbecue, but he stayed course anyway. He was tired, but the weight of his burden propelled him forward. He was
lost, but then there came the sirens and they called to him, gave him the sign of flashing red lights and Snowden knew they
were waiting for his arrival. Destiny was so amazing, even in this state there was room for awe at this. Just when Snowden
feared he'd been led asunder another vehicle would coming running by, its lights and call demanding that he follow, moving
so fast it was pretty clear whoever was driving was hungry too.
As Snowden got closer, the smell of smoke-roasted meat grew stronger, so that by the time he turned the corner and saw all
the red and blue lights flashing on top of their vehicles, Snowden was starving, pushing toward them despite the fact that
the fog made it hard to breathe. There was a whole house on the corner on fire, but that made sense because there were a lot
of people there to feed, and it was that new flophouse, which was fine because nobody wanted it here anyway. People were gathered
halfway down the block from it.
Negroes love some barbecue. Wooden horses had been erected. Snowden, who was finding his ongoing batde simply to keep his
eyes open complicated by the gray air, couldn't find the line for the serving area, where to get the paper plates or plasticware.
But he did see Bobby in the middle of the street at the very front. Oh friend of friends, so good to see a face of love on
a late Harlem night. Bobby would know how to get a meal ticket, where the beer tent was.
"Where's the food, man?" Snowden put his hands on Bobby's neck, shook it. Bobby's head bounced a little, but the skinny man
didn't even bother removing his grip from the FDNY barricade, let alone turn and offer a response. This was not good at all.
Snowden was tired, and if he didn't get an answer, goddamn it, he was going to turn around go home, eat leftovers.
"Bobby, where's the food?" If Bobby knew he wasn't saying. Snowden felt pissed but powerless. Bobby was black and motionless
and shiny from sweat, staring forward and up like he was watching a movie. Snowden wanted to punch him, but Bobby looked too
much like a tar baby to risk it.
PIPER WAS BEING followed.
From the first time she showed up at the smoking ruins of Mumia Abu-Jamal Memorial Halfway House he identified her, noted
her presence. Then she kept coming back. On her third visit, as she walked around the site taking yet another set of photos,
he walked with her, unnoticed, staying directly behind her the whole time. On her sixth recorded visit back to the scene of
the fire, when Piper ignored the police tape's yellow order not to cross its line, he was there waiting for her. He watched
intently as she forced herself through the space where the temporary fencing almost met the wall. He was disgusted by the
soft, rounded gut that revealed itself when her shirt became stuck on an odd barb, but he crossed the street to get a closer
look anyway. To see exactly what she was looking at. As Piper moved through the blackened remains of windows and walls, he
kept careful pace with her on the sidewalk beyond. Wondering what she was thinking. Fuchsia fedora pulled down low, raincoat
collar up, pretending to walk his little wiener dog.
What Piper was thinking, in order of least to most importance: If I don't eat that lo mein today it's going to go bad; look
for something suspicious; how the hell am I supposed to know what looks suspicious; thank God I finally got assigned a real
story; the only reason they gave me this story is Gil Manly is covering the police shooting of Trevor Barber; I bust my ass
every day for this paper and now they're cutting me out of Harlem's most newsworthy event.
The last thought was the one that resonated the most, whose hum had endured since she'd listen to Cole Jr. dole out the stories
four days before. The Trevor Barber shooting was
the
big story; the NYPD shoot an innocent, unarmed black man every year or two and it's always
the
big story. Piper's big story was she was being denied it. The ripples of that fact grew as they moved farther away from the
source, leaving questions in their wake. These questions varied greatly in their complexity, creativity, and merit but were
uniform in their destructiveness as well as their subject matter: the worth and prospects of one Piper Goines. To drown them
out, Piper began creating new ones of her own. They were good ones. They included such enticing distractions as: Why would
a building that's just been built burn down as fast as a nineteenth-century log cabin? Isn't it a little convenient that the
bane of this community was thwarted before it could even fully open its doors? Who will champion justice for the three parolees
who died if I don't?
"Oh snap, it's Sherlock Homegirl!" was Dumbass's response as he clanked away at the pipes under Piper's bathroom sink with
his immaculate tools. He'd been eavesdropping on her and his wife's conversation, his rare visit to the third floor sparked
by a brown water stain that had appeared on his office ceiling directly below. "Sister of my love, just because you didn't
get the story you wanted doesn't mean your fire is going to magically become more than just that. The dryer in the basement
had a bad cord, they already said so on TV. That police shooting is already dying down anyway. I mean, the mayor himself reported
the guy had a bunch of sexual assault convictions. Who cares about a hood like that?"
"Jesus Brian, those were supposed to be sealed juvenile records, the mayor broke the law just by leaking them, and they were
almost a decade old. Are you going to tell me you're as gullible as those cynics think?" Piper rolled her eyes for emphasis.
Dumbass didn't know what he was talking about. Piper would consider that a general assessment of her brother-in-law's worldview,
but in this instance it applied more specifically. Brian hadn't spent the afternoon shifting through files at City Hall, pulling
evidence on past building code violations of 437 West 121st Street's contractor. Brian had no idea who Maverick Construction
was, let alone that it had been cited on four different occasions in five years for using subgratle insulation, including
Propex, a highly flammable form now banned. Brian hadn't spent the week learning what burn points or burn patterns were, or
had a connection from his alumni association who worked in the arson division whisper that there'd been only one of the former,
and the latter was defined by the ignition of the insulation in the interior basement walls. The fire had shot up a crawl
space that went - against several building codes uninterrupted from the foundation to the roof. No one else knew these things,
either, or, she hoped, would until the
New Holland
Heralds
next edition.
Brian also didn't hug Greg Tanen's mother every time she broke down describing her son's life, see the photo from Quinn Jefferson's
prom where he smiled as big as the date his arms could barely wrap around, or listen on the phone as Dio Demilo's sister kept
repeating, "He was just turning around his life, you know?" so Piper tried to forgive him for saying the following:
"An armed burglar, a telephone con artist, and a habitual car thief, and a center that was going to bring more of the same
if it stayed open the rest of the week, I mean, come on. It's messed up, sure, but you can hardly be surprised the Red Cross
isn't handing out Kleenex on 125th Street."
"I don't know if you know this, but not everybody got to have both parents around growing up, OK? Not everybody got to belong
to Jack and Jill. There are actually some people out there who don't have private school educations, who didn't get to go
to college, or have their frat brothers hook them up with high-paying jobs for the rest of their lives."
"No! Really?" Brian jumped up, leaned out the bathroom door to see Piper sitting on the couch in the living room, his shirt
wet and monkey wrench in hand. "Are you sure about this? Oh my God! Honey, quick, get me Cornel West on the phone. Underprivileged
black people — why, who knew of such nonsense? I tell you, once my man Cornel hears about this, there's going to be some changes
around here!"
"Leave me out of this. Do you want onions in this?" Dee asked her sister. Dee was in the kitchen cooking omelets. They weren't
for her. They were for Robert M. Finley, author of
The Great Work,
and for her sister who would leave them on the skillet and pretend to reheat them when he got there.
"Yeah, but could you caramelize them separately before adding the eggs to the pan?"
"Oh right. Isn't that funny how someone who claims not to cook knows how to properly prepare caramelized onions?"
"I can't cook," Piper told her, "but if I could cook, that's how I'd do it. I hate it when they throw in pieces of raw, crunchy
onions. It's tacky. Who wants to seem tacky?"
"I thought you weren't interested in this guy," Dumbass chimed in. "This is the mover, the guy you wanted me to punch in the
mouth if he kept calling the house a couple months ago, right? See honey, I told you it was that guy. So what, he broke down
your defenses?"
"This is not someone I'm interested in, OK?" Piper protested. "This is a talented published author, someone whose work I admire.
We had a very long, very enjoyable conversation at the Horizon Ball, and he turns out to be a very sweet guy. He enjoys my
work as well. We have an artistic connection."
Brian came back out from under the sink again for this one. "Wait a minute, he told you he likes your paintings? Those paintings
in there, the ones I've seen? Fascinating," he said, hand on chin. "This guy must really be in love."
"Stop," Dee ordered, distracted by her attempt to wrap both ends of the egg evenly underneath it as instructed. "You guys
want to talk about art, look at this, this is art. You sure you don't want these on a plate? I'm feeling very homemakerish
at the moment. I could make a garnish with toothpicks and turnip shavings."
When Piper's phone rang, Dee picked up because she was the closest and it was her habit if not her privilege. By the time
Piper had risen to take it out of her hand, the person had hung up. Dee handed the dead phone to Piper anyway, along with
the message that Robert M. Finley, author of
The Great Work,
had canceled.
"Forget him. That's rude, that's not how a man handles things. If he was considerate, he would have called hours ago," Brian
offered. "If you want I can still go and beat him up. Uh, he was that real skinny one, not that big, mean-looking bastard,
right?"
"No, it's not like that," Piper responded. "The guy like had this huge crush on me. I mean, why would he just blow me off
after I've gone to the trouble of preparing a meal and everything? Did he say he was sick?"
"No, he didn't say anything. Just, 'I am Robert M. Finley and I will not be leaving my apartment.' Then he hung up."
Piper ate both omelets. Then she went back to work, more determined than before. It was difficult reaching contacts on a Sunday,
but she searched the Internet for home numbers. On her next job interview, if they asked her what her weakness was, Piper
would say, "I work too hard. I'm too thorough. News is the compilation, synthesis, and disbursement of information. I can't
stop looking until I know everything, and there is always something more to know, another facet to uncover, which changes
the view of the whole. I live for deadlines," Piper would tell them. "It's the only way I can stop myself from looking."
The doorbell rang and Piper's first thought was,
It's him.
Jumping down the steps, surprised at her elation, the nature of it, trying not slip or produce a rhythm that betrayed excitement.
At the door, it wasn't him. It wasn't Snowden either. It was just odd.
The reason Piper unlocked the door wasn't that she recognized the man. She did, but he wasn't the type with whom familiarity
bred comfort. He looked like someone who would hurt someone. He didn't look particularly mean, not like he brought pain out
of any sadistic enjoyment or malice. It looked like his nature, as if soft things bruised and hard things just broke in his
hands. No, the reason Piper opened her door was that not even the most criminally insane would come to do someone harm dressed
like that. Like an admiral in the Martian army.
"You're Horus, aren't you? The underwear freak. Did Robert send you over with those?" Those were flowers. Birds of paradise,
Piper assumed a dozen, their screaming red beaks just adding to the messenger's otherworldly presence.
"You mean Bobby? Hell no. I was sent here by the man. The man!" Horus pushed the flowers forward. When Piper didn't react
by actually taking the massive vase, Horus just pushed it toward her farther till she did, then removed a letter from inside
his jacket.
" 'Former Congressman Marks of New York City's Fifteenth District and current high chairman of the board and COO of the Horizon
Foundation, hereby formally invites you to join him in a moment of fine conversation at the company office this very evening.
On behalf of Congressman Marks, I, Horus Manley, his humble servant, have been empowered to both invite and escort you. Let
me add that the congressman would be greatly honored by your presence, and that he apologizes in advance for such short notice,
as it in no way was intended as a slight against your person.'"
Finished, Horus stood frozen, eyes skyward, arms behind his back.
"What? You mean now?"
"Yeah, that's right, now. Look - I want you to look at it, it's all there. It's all true, see? Except for that servant part,
I'm more a junior partner if you want to get real about it."
Piper spent most of the walk marveling at her judgment's complete inability to overpower her curiosity, even for long enough
to say the word no. Horus spent most of their walk talking. A bunch of teenagers passed, at least ten of them, goose-down
jackets puffing them up like blowfish, and one yelled out to him, "Who's your tailor? Marcus Garvey?" but Horus was not to
be interrupted. Horus was from Chicago. Horus was a legend in that town. As a baby, Horus took Old English with his Enfamil.
Finally noticing the lack of response, Horus turned his sentences into the form of questions.
"So what's that Bobby shit? I thought you were kicking it with my man the Snowball."
"Robert's a kindred artistic spirit. I'm enamored with his literary skill, that's all." In a wave of practicality, Piper thought
to ask if Horus was also going to walk her home but stopped when she couldn't decide if he was really that less scary than
anything else she might run into.
"I like the way you talk, you talk real educational. So you into brothers that write. I write too, you know that? I got me
a book, it's going to be printed and everything." Horus snapped his fingers, pointed at her. They were long digits, each joint
its own distinct ball. Horus's knuckles looked like he used them to walk on.
"That's great. What's it about, who's publishing it?" There were moments in conversations that Piper found for whatever reason
to be particularly strained or laborious, when she thought,
How am I ever
going to get through this? How am I ever going to string enough words to get
through to the other side}
"Well, OK, you see it's not really one of those get published kind of books. I'm thinking of getting it photocopied and spiral-bound
at Kinko's, though, that's what I'm thinking of. It's called
People I'm
Gonna Kill When I Get My Gun.
It's not actually a story in the traditional sense. More of a list, I guess you could call it. Yeah, it's a list. People who
pissed me off, people who tried to fuck me over, play me for a sucker — you get the idea. I started it when I had to take
this . . . class-type thing. It felt so good, I just kept working on it after I got out again. See, I do a name, then a strategy,
you know, break it down line by line. Don't get the wrong idea, it's more a fantasy thing. I mean, I been had my gun since
I started it, I just kept the tide 'cause it sound so good. Man, I get in a zone, you'd be scared how I pump out them pages!"
"I bet I would," Piper said through clenched and smiling teeth. Don't run, she kept telling herself. Nuts are like rabid dogs,
trying to run away from them only makes things worse.