Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

Everyone at the bar either seemed to know who Lester was or pretend they did. He even called their waitress by her first name and she wasn't wearing a tag, either. She smiled and said, "Knob Creek, right?" and Lester said, "Thanks, Maisy," and that's it, not a word to the fact that though she couldn't have been much older than thirty she had teeth missing on the top and bottom of her left side. Not one mention that, despite the clear complexion provided by pancake makeup, parts of her face were so swollen it looked as if there were plums in utero under its surface. Lester took the fact that Snowden was looking up at all to once again try to engage him in conversation.

"Not trying to pry or anything, but your file says your father was a Panther in the early days."

"Oh, OK, so I have a file. And that's in it."

"Yes it is. Well, I've been thinking about that the last couple weeks, about your father, your apprehensions. You know, his involvement in the Black Liberation Army after the Panthers crumpled means your father was one of the few who held on. That's amazing that he was still in the BLA up till his last arrest in the early eighties, hardly anyone was. That's a true believer, you see what I'm getting at? A warrior for the people. That was part of why we selected you: It's in your genes. You really should take pride in that, use it as inspiration. This is your chance for redemption, renewal. You get to make up to the world what it lost when he passed away."

Snowden liked that idea. If the world needed another bitter, drunken Cedric Snowden to sit around and complain about how it and its inhabitants had betrayed him, Snowden felt very capable of taking his father's place.

"To renewal!" Lester toasted, finally lifting his glass and Snowden's hopes, then dropping both back down again, nary the drop of whiskey removed. In disbelief and defiance, Snowden swallowed another double of the same, determined to make himself useless if no alternative presented itself.

"Renewal has to be the most beautiful, the most unexpected thing life has to offer. Things fall into ruin and you think, That's it, it's over. But you hold on long enough and you see that even the worst things fall apart, eventually. This joint we're sitting in, it was closed till last summer. Now look at it. See that mirror behind the bar?"

Snowden was very familiar with the mirror behind the bar. Snowden had been waving a twenty at it for nearly five minutes now in the hopes Maisy would recognize the universal symbol and send replacements for the fallen soldiers standing hollow on the table before him.

"It's hung up there sixty years, since when Billie Holiday played here on the regular. Had a nicotine film on it a centimeter thick; you could barely see through it before they renovated. Had to use razor blades to get it off. Now look at it. So clear you can see the future in it if you look hard enough."

Snowden was rescued. More for the batde. He tried to order reinforcements for his ally, but Lester declined, asked for a glass of water instead since the pretzels made him thirsty. Maisy didn't smile this time and Snowden was immediately awash in regret that he'd been caught registering her condition the visit before. In response, his tip was far, far more than her service merited and still failed to emit more than the rumor of a grin in response. Same drink still full in one hand, Lester pointed toward her receding presence before reaching for his snack.

"Take Maisy. Renewal, that's what she needs. Breaks your heart, doesn't it, seeing decent, polite folk like her walking around like that? It's an affront. Can you believe she's homeless?"

Snowden looked over at the woman making change at the register behind the bar, got excited, "See, that's it! That's where we got to put our energy tonight! We got to hook her up with a place to live. She's decent, you just said, right? She got a job. Right now, couple more drinks, that's what we need to get into tonight."

"Oh no, you misunderstand me. She has a lease. She has a Horizon lease, a lovely fifth-floor two-bedroom with original tile in the bathroom — I cleaned the grout myself. But two weeks ago, I was dropping off some late tenant's clothes at the women's shelter and there she is, Maisy Williams who works at the Lenox Lounge, walking past the lobby to do her laundry in the basement, looking even worse than she does now if you can believe it. See, Maisy has a nigger. He moved in with her this year — so far she's visited the shelter three times since. Three times, and once the year before. Always the same thing. Comes in beat the hell up, heals, goes home, doesn't press charges. At this point, she wants to kick him out but won't because she thinks he'll kill her. He will, of course, if it continues on this tangent."

"She told you all that?" Snowden asked.

"No, no, decent folk like Maisy don't go spreading their pain like that, man. They know it's wrong, see? Not only would they not perpetrate insanity like that, they're ashamed of even being a victim to that mess. The social worker who takes the donations from Horizon told me this info — he wanted to know if I could evict the bastard. See, this nigger, he's got no job, he's just sitting up in her apartment all day, smoking weed and playing video games on her television. Orders pizzas every night, the exact same time too during the opening montage of the Star Trek reruns on Channel Nine. This bully, he even has whores over after that, calls them out the phone book and screws them right there on her bed, doesn't even change the sheets before he passes out."

Snowden collapsed further with every additional detail offered. He took care to swallow the remainders of every bottle before him before breaking the silence.

"Lester, how the hell do you know all that?"

"The apartment's on the top floor. The windows are tall, nearly all the way to the ceiling. If you go on the roof, lean over the edge carefully, you can look down into the rooms through the space above the curtains. You'll see, we're going there now," Lester said, slapping a hand on one of Snowden's near vertical shoulders. Lester looked at his other hand, shrugged before sheepishly pushing his drink across the table. "You want to finish this? At six bucks a glass, I just hate wasting."

Nine streets south and half an avenue over, it was raining. Sloppy, uneven precipitation that left Snowden with the feeling that the universe was giving up just like he was, that it wasn't even bothering to perform consistent weather anymore. Lester, several steps ahead since they left the bar, finally paused to aim his watch at the light from the street lamp. Walking ahead even faster, Lester stopped farther down the block at the meager shelter of an open pay phone.

"I can't be out in this climate. For real, I get pneumonia easy," Snowden said when he reached him. From his black raincoat, Lester pulled a leather organizer, located a folded piece a paper that he then pressed into the closest of Snowden's limp and swaying hands. By the time Snowden pulled it up the page was already darkening and distorting from the water on his cold, rain-pickled fingers.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"What in God's name do you think you're supposed to do with it? Just stop the bitchy moron act, OK, Snowden? It's not cute. Read it back to me," Lester snapped. This was Lester nervous. Spend enough time with someone, you get to see his interpretation of all the standard emotions. Snowden could think of several common ones he hoped he'd never see Lester demonstrate.

" 'Nine-one-one. Shit, you got to come — '"

"Oh bullshit, Snowden, that first part's the freaking telephone number. Tell me you did not know that. The sentence, just read the sentence. And act it this time. It has to sound completely real, understand me? They tape emergency calls, they'll review it later, so do it right."