Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

The balloon operators quickly diminished from reassuring figures to smudges of color you had to squint to differentiate. They were high enough that both the East and Hudson rivers could be seen as mirrored strips all the way south toward their meeting, glancing north that wet slash that separated Manhattan from the Bronx looked like a fresh cut, like the freed island was moments away from floating over toward New Jersey.

Snowden gripped the side railing so fiercely he became certain he was going to break a piece off, counting down from twenty and looking at his feet when the urge to roll up in a ball threatened to overcome him. It was several minutes into his own drama before he noticed that the other two participants in the Second Chance Program were holding the edge with equal vigor. Even Lester, dressed in a patchwork suit that expressed every shade between pure white and dark brown, had wrapped himself tightly around one of the cables that attached their basket to the floating ball above, his other bejeweled hand resting atop a gentleman's cane, a hesitant nod to fashion. The only one not holding on was the congressman, and that was Snowden's first impression that the man was insane. Even when they came to the end of the balloon's tether, the tension sending them swiftly east and bouncing from the wind's pressure, the congressman just bent what little legs he had and remained standing, hands in his pockets.

"The Second Chance Program will make you real estate agents, but you'll become more than that, much more. I'm giving you the biggest thing you never had, what every man needs if he's going to accomplish great things in his life. I'm giving you a mission." Marks walked forward, stopped in front of Lester and held his hand out without looking, pausing until his subordinate figured out what he wanted and put the cane into it.

"See that down there at the bottom, that cluster of skyscrapers off to the left?" Marks pointed the stick south. "That's Wall Street. There used to be a real wall there, hundreds of years ago in the seventeenth century. The whole of New York City fit below it, on that tiny tip of land. The rest," the congressman made a sweeping motion with the cane that included all the eye could see in its entirety, "was trees, brush, and Indians. The first blacks on this island were forced to live right by that wall, on the woods side, unprotected. Allowed to farm and mind their own only because they'd serve as a buffer in case the natives attacked. The sounds of their slaughter as an alarm system."

Congressman Marks shook Lester's cane over the edge as he talked, his grip light and floppy. If that thing fell, somebody far below would die a painful and posthumously embarrassing death, but Marks clearly wasn't thinking about this, too focused ahead to see the world around him.

"They've always done us like that. As the city's grown, they've always displaced us, pushed us to the periphery. See the dome of Madison Square Garden? That land was ours. Used to be the Tenderloin District, but now it's the Garden, the post office, Perm Station. That complex farther up there, that's Lincoln Center. It sits on land that used to be part of a black neighborhood called San Juan Hill. Do you know what happened to the community that lived there? We were evicted. These were people who'd spent their whole lives there, entire families, an entire neighborhood destroyed, but the developers didn't care. Central Park, the same story. Used to house us and some poor micks, the rich whites seized the land and threw everybody out on the streets to make that park happen. Always pushing us farther to the perimeters. You see, that's why we have Harlem. We had nowhere else to go. It was the only place they would let us live anymore: past the park, all the way at the top of Manhattan island where they hoped they could forget about us." Marks was pointing Lester's cane down at 110th Street, the northern edge of Central Park, leaning so far forward that it seemed he might jump out the basket to get there.

"This used to be a nice place," the congressman pleaded, his tone casually defensive, righting himself and walking away from the edge once more. "It was far from perfect, but we had our own doctors, our own services, our own stores. There was money here, circulating. Then desegregation came, and everyone who could afford to leave, did. Poverty and their own racism were the only things that kept the whites from coming in and seizing the place, but even that's changing now. They're running out of space once more, prices are so high everywhere else that they're even prepared to ignore their fear of us. So that's were you come in."

Snowden watched the man's ring as he lectured. It was as thick as a chestnut, gold dark enough that it held a red hue. Every time he made a point he felt particularly important, Marks had the habit of slamming that ring into the nearest hard service available, the clang reinforcing his punctuation.

"You, my handpicked warriors, are needed. Harlem is more than a place, it's a symbol. It's our Mecca, it is our Jerusalem, the historic cradle of our culture, the ark of our covenant as Africans in this Western world. It must be protected, by any means necessary," Marks declared, ring banging. "This is our last chance. If we don't get this place together, attract our own people to come back and make it vital once more, history will repeat itself. Gentlemen, we at Horizon Realty are not going to stand by and let them push us out this time. So it stops here!"

"It stops here!" Lester repeated, nodding, smiling. A gust of wind sent the balloon dipping sharply to the right, but Lester merely gripped a cable with both hands and kept grinning, undaunted.

"It stops now!" Marks called, this time all but Snowden loudly responding, Snowden himself having only just enough sense to mouth the words.

"This is where we make our last stand, great black warriors of the new millennium! Together, and with the help of all the people we'll recruit to stand among us, we'll bring back the renaissance that once defined this place. We shall not be moved!"

"We shall not be moved!" repeated the chorus.

"Harlem is ours!" Marks yelled, spittle shooting forward, tears dripping straight down.

"Harlem is ours!" the others responded. Snowden closed his eyes, unsure if Harlem was his, or if it was if he really wanted it, and began praying aloud for a safe landing. Cursing aloud that this was his last chance at something better. Nobody noticed, though, with all the clapping.

IN THE WEEKS of moving Horizon's clients into their newly acquired homes, Bobby made a practice of going to the back of the truck and selecting the biggest, heaviest beasts — things Snowden spent the morning looking at and thinking, If I can just get through this day without lifting that, I just might make it — and trying to lift them, carry them down the little ramp and into the property all by himself. Bobby Finley looked like a skeleton dipped in chocolate; his strongman spectacle was intensely unnerving to watch. Snowden would be standing behind him cringing, offering unaccepted help, sure the skinny man's arms would simply distend from the strain, that his femurs would snap in two from the struggle.

The most disturbing thing about Bobby's behavior, in Snowden's opinion, was that he wasn't even doing it to win the house or job at all, that there was no spur of competition driving him. Bobby didn't care about the brownstone, never brought it up. His only comment if someone else did was, "Fate will decide who's best suited to lead us." Bobby didn't care because Bobby actually believed in what Lester and the congressman were telling him, bought into all of it from the start. Horus was the same way, never questioning, never complaining, but Snowden found this far less remarkable. Having seen Horus eat, Snowden doubted the man questioned what he consumed at all.