Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

"Get the hell away from me man, I don't believe this shit! You did this. You set me up!"

"Snowden please, this is a stressful situation, I know, but this is not really helping. This was just an accident, calm down."

"This wasn't an accident, none of them are accidents, they were you!" Snowden, overwhelmed enough that when the wall hit his back it was a surprise to him, darted the plunger forward to stave off an imagined attack.

Lester looked back, shook his head in disbelief, folded the chinos in his hand to a perfect re-creation of how he found them. Snowden saw himself reflected in the frown, saw that the one obvious madman in the room was the one who seemed poised to defend himself with suction and potty germs. The deluded one. Snowden dropped the plunger on the floor, put that hand to his head, started to apologize when Lester interrupted him jovially.

"Five-dollar bills! You know what, that is just too crazy. All night, ever since you came to me with this, really, I wondered if you already knew. It's so wild how your mind plays tricks on you because part of me thought you were just playing along the whole time." Lester, grinning, rubber-covered hands in the air in surrender, or as if he wanted to reach up and feel the moment. "You got me! You really did. That's so funny because at times I feared I might be leaving behind some sort of unseen connection on all these bits of social gardening, but I never would have caught that. I've got to tell you: You are going to be such a fantastic addition to the Horizon inner fold. Five-dollar bills; you must tell me how you came across that connection. Later, though. For now, finish cleaning up this place. Don't worry, I know you can do it. You've been doing a great job of removing evidence from crime scenes for months."

HE LOOKS A little. . peaked," Cyrus Marks noted. "Does he always look like that?"

"No, no, not at all. I think it's just the stress of the immediate situation. And I gave him a Valium as well." In response to a look, Lester followed with, "Just a Valium, just one. Just to calm him down."

Snowden was sitting on his usual chair in the lodge's basement classroom, the other two men were in front of him. Cyrus Marks with a brown yarn mane circling his head, whiskers drawn with greasepaint on his cheeks, a plastic cup of fruit punch still gripped in one felt paw as it was when Lester pulled him from the children's party. Snowden was silent. Snowden had nothing to say anymore. He kept thinking he would start talking again, but since they'd left Baron Anderson's it hadn't happened.

"If you're worried about the boy, don't be," Cyrus Marks consoled. "Of course he'll have some sad days ahead, but after that his future will be brighter than it's ever been. Lester already introduced. ."

"Jifar," a smiling Lester helped.

"Right! Jifar, already introduced him. A lovely, sensitive boy. Intelligent. You can see it in the eyes. He'll come here now, and he'll fit into the little Leaders League perfectly. Several of our young ones were the offspring of accidents."

"Almost all, actually," Lester clarified. Cyrus Marks nodded in agreement, leaned in closer.

"It really is an amazing program, now that you're moving closer to the inner circle I can tell you. Some of the best tutors in the city, museum trips weekly — we really take advantage of all New York has to offer. We're even planning a new language component, we'll have them fluent in French in two years. Plus, of course — did you tell him about the scholarship fund?"

"No! Not yet, I didn't want to spoil it. Snowden? Snowden? Can you hear me? You'll like this, listen."

"All of their college tuition will be paid for. Horizon has done better than even I could have planned. I'm selling vacant shells right now I bought at forty thousand dollars for ten times that! If the housing boom continues just a bit longer, we'll even be able to set up graduate school funds as well. Imagine that. Not only are we breaking poverty's cycle of ignorance and violence, we are literally producing the next generation of leaders right here."

"Why?" Snowden muttered. It was a breakthrough. Snowden said it several more times immediately after, each utterance bringing his mind closer to the surface. Cyrus Marks is dressed as a lion, he realized. The congressman is dressed like a lion but still reminds me of a hedgehog, only now he looks like a hedgehog dressed up as a lion.

"Why? I think I just explained a good enough reason to you. In the larger sense? It's time. Harlem, like so many black communities, has just been getting by for years now. We've been treading water, focusing on keeping afloat. Thing is, we've never swum ashore because so much of our energy goes toward overcoming the leaden weights — like your Mr. Anderson — that pull us down. It's simply time to cut them loose, isn't it? Move on."

"There's something wrong with my ears. I hear words, but none of it makes sense. Lester? I think it was that pill you gave me."

"I just gave you one Valium."

"Lester." Snowden turned to him not in search of a sympathetic ear but out of the hope that he was the less mad of the two before him. "What you're talking about, what you're both being all matter-of-fact about, it's crazy. You know that already, right? You're talking about killing people. Shit, you're talking about lynching! You can't commit. . atrocities and think that good can come out of that."

"Oh but Snowden, it does!" Lester said, looking to greet Cyrus Marks's gaze so they could nod back and forth their mutual agreement. "It's very sad, really, but if you look at history, you'll see that almost all drastic social improvement is the result of moments of inhumanity. It was the staunch disregard for the humanity of blacks and Indians that made America the great nation it is today. The world can be changed. A terrible beauty is born all the time."

Cyrus Marks, hand on Lester's shoulder, interrupted. "This is a new age, Mr. Snowden, we need new ways of doing things. My generation, the last of the civil rights warriors, we've done our part, but our way of thinking and fighting has become as old and weak as our bodies. We were raised to fight white oppression, and guess what? We won! Not every battle, but that war is basically over, as we knew it. Nowadays, black folks' biggest problem isn't white racism, it's ourselves. White people aren't breaking into our homes, attacking us on the streets, or selling drugs to our children, it's black people who terrorize us, isn't it? You don't fight drug lords like Parson Boone with marches, sit-ins, or rallies. Harlem doesn't need another mural or community center, another law or bill, we need new blood, new ideas to fight new enemies. That's why you're here. This is your destiny. This is our last stand."

"But I don't want to stand. I don't want to stand for anything," Snowden told Marks, but the congressman wasn't listening.

"Those coons, those liabilities who hold us back, will be eliminated! In their place, we're bringing the best and brightest of our people to make this place thrive again. We do a dark deed, my brother, but when the price is paid Harlem will become the shining jewel of the black world it was meant to be. Harlem is a symbol! Imagine what it would mean to all those other ghettos across the world if we could prove that it is possible for the oppressed to rise from the ashes, seize their own destiny, and thrive like never before. Don't you want to be a part of that?"

"Wow. . You're really fucking nuts, aren't you?" Snowden said. It wasn't even meant as an insult. It was an observation. Either way, the older man leaped from his seat and in an instant had both thick hands around Snowden's neck, his momentum knocking the two of them to the floor. Once there, Cyrus Marks continued trying to slam Snowden's head into the linoleum, the smell of his boiled cabbage breath stronger with every word.