Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

The genius is the balance of it all, in spite of such harsh surroundings a medium is found. Civilized man stripped forcibly of wants and left only with essentials. What at first appears a horrific circumstance reveals itself not only to be sustaining, but to offer the greatest freedom of all. Nirvana via situation. Stunning. Absolutely.

All this was Piper Goines's interpretation. And she should be qualified to review literature: She wrote for a newspaper.

"That chapter where he learned how to cook the rice by sitting it overnight in the coffee tin with a handful of snow, the whole thing about how many centimeters it should sit in relation to the heater, that was just gorgeous. I loved that," Piper admitted, blushing.

Surprisingly, the new-found intimates spent very little time actually discussing The Great Work. Perhaps because it was so precisely written, so thoroughly read, it mooted any questions or possible debate. Bobby certainly had no inquiries into the source or merit of Piper's interpretation. He found absolutely nothing questionable about it. It was exactly like his own.

They spent the evening talking about Piper Goines's life, Piper Goines's passions, Piper Goines's artistic ambitions. Throughout the night's procession they huddled at the back of their table in whispers, mostly hers, both their plates ignored despite the Dogon who acted pissed off every time he came back to reclaim another untouched course.

Enamored. By the time guests were asked to rise, grab their coats, and climb to the top of nearby Mount Morris for a final champagne toast, Piper had had enough to drink and not nearly enough food to absorb it. Bobby felt the same way and hadn't had a sip since sitting down. They lined up with the others for the door, snickered at the group's annoyance at the forced march up a mountain that was only half a block over and only half a block from base to summit. At the stairs, Bobby offered his arm for balance despite the fact that he was far too slight to ever stop her from falling. Piper kept her hand there after they were down.

"Do you remember that Mount Morris Park was where the main character did the eulogy in Invisible Man?" Bobby was never more in his element than he was at the moment. Piper stared forward, squeezed his arm. It hurt a little, but not nearly as much as he enjoyed it.

"The hill itself is an outshoot of bedrock, glacial. The Dutch called it Slang Berg. It means 'Snake Hill.' You can imagine why the brownstones' original realtors renamed it." In the park, there were no more snakes, that went without saying. All other predators had been discreetly removed by the Fruit of Islam security force hours earlier, after which the Mount Morris Historical Society lit and laid out handmade earthen oil lamps from Mali along the path.

The view from the top — they might have been only up five or six stories but there were no tall buildings around them and Bobby and Piper stood with a fresh glass of champagne along with the rest of the crowd, admiring the lights of upper Manhattan.

Piper said, "You know what? I have to admit, I never thought this place could be this beautiful. Maybe I hoped, but I never thought."

"That was built to look for fires, since this is one of the highest vantage points in Manhattan," Bobby said pointing to the iron crow's nest that towered fifty feet above them. "Some guy, it was his job to sit up there all day — rain, cold, it didn't matter — and look for smoke to tell the firemen."

Bobby leaned in so she could follow his line of vision perfectly, used this as an excuse to place his cheek against hers. Needing to hold it there, Bobby went on to aim her vision uptown to the building past Sugar Hill where Hughes himself had once lived, along with Du Bois, Locke, Hurston, and many of the others. Piper said, "Cool," and then Bobby tried to kiss her. Piper kissed him back. Then she hugged him tighter than it was cold and said, "This has been so much fun. I'm drunk. Are you drunk?"

Bobby Finley, Robert M. Finley himself, was so high his feet were dangling. Bobby Finley was looking at the night continue as it was planned, a final speech, a final toast, the fireworks rigged to go off above them as a last nod to celebration, and he knew he was floating. One of the rockets shot up, and unlike its exploding mates, it kept going. That was Bobby. His hand locked into place at the shallow of Piper's back, he felt like he really was flying, and with his hand on her Piper was flying with him. Bobby Finley was so high he'd forgotten what the ground looked like. He stayed that way too until Piper said, "You know what, I'm sorry, I better get going. Snowden's not here and we're supposed to be leaving together."

The crowd was leaving too, going back down again. Piper moved with them, walking the fastest, leaving him to watch until she was a little person far, far on the street below. Bobby suddenly remembered what the ground looked like again. Brown, hard, inescapable. He was filled with its growing image as he came crashing back down.

BOBBY WOKE UP and thought, I got lucky! Bobby blinked into being and he didn't recognize where he was and he was naked and he could feel the crusted remnants of the party in his skull and in that instant before his lids stopped their flutter Bobby Finley thought, I got lucky with a girl and now I'm at her strange apartment! and then realized he had, in fact, passed out on his bathroom floor again, just this time with his head toward the door instead of toward the Irving Howe.

There was a phone ringing. Just to shut it up, Bobby went to it. Her voice said, "Oh my God, did I wake you up? I woke you up."

There was that bliss again. Unadulterated, immeasurable. The moments of the night before feeding him joy, almost worth the moment later when Bobby was gutted once more with the memory that she was Snowden's whore, and all the joy poured painfully out of him.

"I was there, at your place, this morning. I didn't hit the bell, it was like seven. I couldn't sleep last night, I was so charged. Robert, I had such a good time. I left you a package, though, outside your door. I got your name on the directory, someone was walking out so I just, you know, came up. Don't think I'm a freak, OK? I wanted to thank you for the book before I forgot. When I put something off for a minute, it can be months, a year before I get around to it. Right?"

Listening to Piper's voice over the receiver brought visions to Bobby's mind. Although he'd never actually read the Kama Sutra, suddenly Bobby could imagine what the poses looked like, imagine them very easily with Snowden and Piper as the sweating, heaving partners. Positions as absurd as a world that would do this to him.

"So did you and your lover Snowden have an exciting evening last night? He's not there now, is he?" There was a halfhearted intention at lightness, at carefree flirtation, it was just that the amount of sugar needed to make his voice not sound bitter was beyond Bobby's means for the moment.

"What? No. I just crashed. I was so tired. I just. . I had such a good time talking to you, I was pretty much exhausted. From the whole night. I didn't see him; I don't know where he is. He's probably off working on his Special Project, right?" There was derisiveness there. Bobby liked that, in theory, but he didn't know what she meant so asked for clarification.

"You know, that's what he calls the overtime work he does for Horizon, cleaning out the apartments and stuff. It's what they have him doing for extra credit in that little competition you've got going there. It's just grunt work. I'm sure whatever extracurricular assignment they have you doing is far more interesting."

"Oh yes," Bobby said, but Oh no was what he was thinking. Snowden had soiled his soul mate, now he was secretly slipping past him in the Horizon game as well. What kind of world was this where genius meant so little, where mediocrity was so often the champion? What was the worth of a species that recoiled from the brilliant and rejoiced in the dull? Another question: Was it the hangover that was hurting his head like that, or the force of the overwhelming dread that had besieged him?