Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

Mr. M. R. Linden brought his typical level of passion to his lecture topic of the day: creating and facilitating a bidding war on a property. M. R. Linden kept using that word for it, war, repeating it regularly with visible relish, the tick-sized beads of his sweat re-forming every time he wiped them away. The basic point was simple: Force the buyer to bet not simply on the worth of the property but also against the net worth of the fellow bidders, and the settlement price inflates to a figure all parties would have laughed at at the beginning of the seduction. M. R. Linden's technique, that's where the beauty was. The "missent" faxes and E-mails, assisting the banks in preapproving loans far beyond the interested parties' intended mortgage range "just to be sure," the early "steadfast" bidding due dates that induce high offers to serve as mere starting points when the date magically became malleable again. When Linden concluded, Horus was so moved he provided a one-man standing ovation, one that M. R. Linden took solemnly and with much grace, offering a simple, courteous nod before turning his cell phone back on and departing with the same swiftness he arrived with. Silk that fine made no sound no matter how thick the legs it covered or how fast they walked away.

The Chupacabra was dressed in purple, a melanzana suit lined with golden pinstripes, violet dress shirt, gold socks and tie, his processed hair ever wet and parted to the other side on this day for no given reason. Lester began his portion of the day's lesson as he often did.

"Why are we here? Are we here to make money?" The way Lester said it, the disgust on the final word made even Horus respond in the negative, give his one-word answer with nearly as much conviction as he had just shown at the prospect of ripping people off. Snowden looked over at Horus, looked at the tiny pupils dotting the whites of his eyes, and was convinced you could bring in fifty different insane ideologues in as many hours, each contradicting the last, and Horus would believe every one of them equally. There was a gang lord somewhere in Chicago missing this guy. There was a neighborhood out there were he remained, as myth, a resident.

"Then what are we trying to make here?" By this time, Lester had preached the Horizon message so many times he could come in cold, not having lectured since the week before, and his crowd was still warm for him.

"Community," two said in unison. Snowden remained silent, engrossed with staring at the floor, imagining what hell would be like beneath it.

"I think I heard a whisper. I said, I think somebody forgot and left their radio on because I heard the whisper of a word but I don't know what it was."

"Community!" the three screamed. Snowden felt nauseous but yelled with the others anyway just to move the day on so he could go home and cry again.

This goal asserted, Lester began to diagram the preferred Horizon buyer, a status not achieved by a high bid but based on the other assets this prospective resident brought to the community. At the top of the list were families with children, nuclear and otherwise, in which the adults were heavily invested in those children's education and lives in general. These were given a happy face on the blackboard. Four quick strokes done effordessly, not since Michelangelo had there been a freehand circle as true as this one. Conversely, parents and/or guardians who were involved in their careers and/or social lives at the expense of the children's needs, or adults whose children had an established history of antisocial behavior, were given a thumbs-down, a symbol Lester took the time to draw, knobs for the four folded fingers and the nail on the downturned digit included. Same-sex couples and households where the adults had an ongoing record of community involvement were given a happy face as well. Same-sex couples, particularly male ones, Lester explained like he wanted his class to write this down, on the whole were more likely to invest in their property and its general appearance, those without children having a much greater disposable income and time to invest in the community in general.

Credit ratings, no matter how disparaging, should be considered only if they displayed a clear weakness of character. Credit card debt, in fact, could be erased with the purchase of the house, included in the price of the home and then passed back to the client as a rebate to assist him in lowering his interest payments, getting him on the right track to afford the household maintenance cost he might not be prepared for.

Lester was in the process of telling them how to enable a happy face buyer with bad credit to circumvent the bank when someone knocked on the door behind them. All turned, all surprised, because while they'd certainly heard a door knocked on in their lifetimes, they had never heard this one. Snowden, closest to it, got up and walked to it when no one else did. It had opaque glass at the top of it, and the light was on brightly in the hall leading to the stairs beyond, and Snowden could see a little brown head at the bottom. Swinging the door open, it wasn't Jifar but an even younger boy who walked in wearing the little Leader sports coat and went to Lester with a note in his hand. The child was no higher than Snowden's belly button and at no more than six years of age could not have written the message he was offering. After reading it, a blank-faced Lester picked up the child and held him at his side like a monkey as he walked out and closed the door behind him.

"He's coming back, right?" Horus asked no one. "Cuz, yo, I did the homework. Whole time I was in school, I think I did the homework maybe once. Y'all read that stuff? I loved that shit."

Bobby enjoyed the fact that both his and Snowden's seats were just far enough behind Horus's that he could offer mocking glances and not get his face punched in.

"I knew you'd love that one," Bobby offered, the smile he was wearing hidden in his voice.

"The Art of War," Horus said, turning around to hold up the title to them as if on their desks were not two identical copies. "I heard about this shit before, but yo, I didn't think I could relate like that. That part about training the harem, that's for real. I seen that before, no joke. Back Chi-Town, there was this pimp down by the old stadium, a Ranger, had a stable just like that. Killer hoes. He trained them, I bet he read that shit. Straight up, cold-blooded killer hoes. Sounds funny but I ain't even joking. I seen them jack a nigger up before, right in front me. That's all a general is too, a pimp getting you to sacrifice yourself for what he wants, just like a ho."

Snowden was actually disappointed when Horus's take on the philosophy of Sun Tzu was interrupted by Lester again at the door, this time saying class would be canceled for the day and made up the following Thursday, when the only move on the schedule was a studio coming up from ninety-third and Columbus. By the time the three had rebuttoned their jackets, repacked the briefcases they'd appropriated just for this occasion, Lester was nowhere to be found. Upon walking out the door, Snowden could hear the unusual sound of a television coming from upstairs.

It was a lovely day with only a few hours wasted. There was a deep blue above them that stretched all the way across to tenement horizons. There was elation on the part of Bobby and Horus, and they insisted on sharing that with their inexplicably gloomy competitor. The president was supposed to arrive today, they could go now instead of waiting for their lunch hour. Horus, determined not to let Snowden slip home, clamped a hand on Snowden's slumping shoulder as they passed his block, kept it there firmly until they'd walked two streets past it.

With no radio present to inform them otherwise, they walked over toward the Adam Clayton Powell building to see the former leader, but more to participate and witness the spectacle it would create. It guaranteed to be an impressive one because this was a president so beloved by black people that he was referred to with some regularity as "the first black president." Unfortunately, this was not because the white man had shown an emotional commitment to the black community, though he had, but because he grew up on welfare in a broken home, was raised by his mother, couldn't keep his dick in his pants, and had a penchant for big bootie women, but when you'd never had a president to call your own you didn't get particular.