Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

Back to work, walking down the apartment's hall for the first time, Snowden saw the children's room. This was a shock because usually, when they showed up to clear a place out that had housed children, that presence could be felt immediately just by the collage of toys, books, and drawings they left behind. This apartment was spotless. A sparse, mature space without a sign of anyone below legal drinking age. Yet here it was, this kids' room, a narrow area with two bunk beds on either side, barely enough room for an adult to walk between them. Four name tags handwritten in crayon, one on the frame of each mattress. They must have built them in there, that was the only way they could have fit, and now he was going to have to take them apart just to get them out. As always, Snowden packed the children's things separately in the specially stamped boxes. On Lester's request, Snowden also created a different box for each child. They were now enrolled in Horizon's Little Leaders League and Lester intended to relay their possessions to them that night.

Finished, joining Lester in the master bedroom, Snowden was amazed at the contrast in size. The bed was a king yet looked like a little island in the center of the vast room. The mirrors on the walls and ceiling made the space seem like a loft. Lester caught Snowden looking at the costumes lying out on the dresser: a full-body skin of latex with holes for the head, hands, feet, vagina, anus; a leopard leotard whose tail erectly saluted; the mandatory French maid outfit but in red leather this time; countless others obscured below them and shackles straight out of Roots on top.

"She was a whore," Lester clarified, throwing the bulk into a fresh lawn bag, stomping it down with his purple snakeskins to make room for more.

Back to God. It was as if he existed. It was as if he was making up for a century of hands-off management, was considering a new policy of snatching up the unjust and using Harlem as a testing ground. It was a source of comfort, that the bad would be punished. It explained things: Maybe, when Snowden swung on his father and the man just died, maybe that was why. Maybe God was a brain hemorrhage sometimes. It offered solutions to unsolvable problems: This fate could await Jifar's father as well, some moisture on the bathroom tiles and faulty high-voltage wiring ready to claim victory for a vengeful lord, and then one more child would be free of a monster. More troubling was the universal implication of the theory Snowden had begun to imagine. It wasn't long before he began judging himself and his own actions.

Weeks into his special project, Snowden went up on the roof, unhooked the line he had less than two months before connected, then called Time-Warner to get his cable legally this time. The DMV tickets for the rental car, he paid them. He cursed the City of New York Transportation Authority for their contrived alternate-side-of the-street parking, but he admitted his sin and paid them anyway. Snowden's entire collection of Black Tail (April/May, August/ September, October/November, and the double-size Juneteenth Collector's Edition) went in the trash. Snowden even found himself keeping his apartment unusually orderly, fixing the stopper on the Irving Howe so you didn't have to hold the handle to flush, replacing the shower curtain with a plain, mildew-free print, hanging up the framed pictures that had from the day he'd moved in been resting on the floor against the wall. Eventually he would die and someone would be in his apartment as well. The saddest thing, those little tasks undone.

This rest of the world could not be controlled. In light of his new awareness of death's proximity, its random appetite, Snowden looked for safety, found none. On the job, carrying large, visually impairing objects down the steps, Snowden lost the confidence that if he simply dropped a foot blindly to the space below, there would be a stair there waiting for it, ready to carry his weight and the weight he was carrying.

Bobby: 'You look like a little girl trying to figure out if the water in the pool's too cold."

Undaunted, Snowden kept dipping down his right foot only, testing for purchase with his toe before investing the rest of his weight on the platform. The last step on any flight, the one right before the landing, was particularly worrisome to the newly spooked Snowden. His view blinded by whatever crap he was forced to lift at the moment, he kept fearing that he would confuse the final stair with the landing, or the landing for the final stair, and that this miscalculation would result in a fatal fall. One could drown in a thimble of water (or cereal bowl — Brian Lane, 853 East 134th St., Apt. A19). One could break one's neck just by landing headfirst on a steel-toed shoe (Pernell Harris, 432 East 116th St., Apt. E4). Uncertainty guaranteed, Snowden walked slowly. Horus, twice the boxes in hand, just pushed by, calling Snowden a "pussy" when the laggard cringed at contact.

It was nearly ten weeks before they got to do anything as a group besides lift furniture, then training began, late but as promised. Lester announced the change in schedule before handing out checks in the back of the van. "Come to the lodge front door at nine A.M., dressed like a real estate agent." During nearly every coffee and lunch break for at least two weeks before, Horus had been putting forth his personal conspiracy theory that the whole program was a big scam, that they would never promote ex-cons to agents, that there was no townhouse to be awarded, that they just wanted the cheap labor and to make the sick joke of the banana uniforms. It began as an obvious ploy to throw the others off, but every time Horus made mention of it Snowden found himself succumbing to that delusion as well, despite the contradiction that there was no reason to import cheap labor to Harlem.

The Horizon Property Management office was just one small storefront in a converted stable; the corner brownstone it was attached to was originally built for the Slang Berg Explorers League, a short-lived gentlemen's club that derived its name from the original Dutch tide for Mount Morris. While the lodge was built in the same architectural style as the other brownstones of the Mount Morris Historic District (as all were the product of architect Richard Morris Hunt, better known for his contributions to Carnegie Hall), it was obviously too big to have been intended as a regular home, bulbous around its edge like it was pulling away from a block it had outgrown. There was an abandoned cinder-blocked shell attached to it, but the contrast just added to its grandeur. They all knew it was Cyrus Marks's residence, they all hoped to get a chance to be seen by him. Bobby had even practiced bending down to shake hands so it looked more like a bow than an acknowledgment of how much shorter the old man was. It made sense that Marks should live there. If you could have your pick of any house in Harlem, and were not burdened by modesty, this would be the one.

Wednesday morning, ten to nine, they stood outside, ready for the next phase in their ascension. Snowden had bought his suit the day before at Sutler's, Nineteenth between Fifth and Sixth. It was black, a retired tux rental, he wore it with a red tie and hoped the others didn't notice the strip on the outside of the pant legs. It was the best he could do for under $150. Bobby's suit was expensive. Snowden could tell, but Bobby bragged about it anyway. It was his reading suit, the one he'd bought to wear standing in front of bookstores, award ceremony podiums, glossy magazine shoots, and in the darkened room of a coveted interview show. That didn't happen and now it didn't fit anymore. It was baggy. Bobby'd forgotten to wear a belt so kept the coat buttoned even though it was hot and June, kept his hands in his pockets to keep his pants up while attempting an air of confidence.