Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

Snowden closed his eyes, put his head down for what he hoped was a demonstratively reverential time before announcing his intention to read again with a long sigh. " 'Shit, you got to come quick. There's someone shooting in this apartment. There's screaming, there's all this shooting and shit you got to send someone quick. It's 425 West 116th Street, off Adam Clayton Powell. It's apartment 5E, that's 5E, I could hear the kids screaming right through the door! Repeat facts as necessary! Hang up!'"

"Jesus, you're not even joking, are you?"

"Look man, what do you want from me? It's cold, OK? It's raining, for chrissakes. I haven't even eaten dinner. And I didn't write this thing, did I? Like, maybe you should have given it to me earlier, huh? Don't blame me for that shit."

In response to Snowden's whines, Lester's arm swung back and Snowden prepared to be slapped, but Lester only pulled something from out his jacket, stepped within inches from him. The silent prayer, Dear God, don't try and kiss me again, was answered when instead Lester stuck the barrel of his snub-nose under Snowden's jaw, the rest of the gun hidden in his raincoat's cuff. "Turn around and dial the number." The metal reached Snowden's throat just as the operator's voice reached his ears. Snowden's tongue ran, from one to the other. When he was done, Lester put the gun back in his shoulder holster, hugged him. "That was. . inspired. You are a natural. I mean that," Lester whispered into his ear as he was pulling away. Then he hugged him again, gripping tighter.

The building was only a hundred yards away and a left turn at the corner. Lester hopped up the steps in perfect peppy rhythm, past the fifth floor where he pointed at an apartment door without breaking stride. The door to the roof was open by the time Snowden caught up to him, his own breath and heartbeat loud, their rhythms clashing against each other. It was raining harder. Water filled abandoned buckets of tar and made the loose shingles slip from under the feet when walked on. Lester went to the ledge at the rear of the building, leaned over like he could break the laws of gravity as easily as he did so many other ones. Seeing something he liked, he turned around and gave two thumbs-ups before walking back again.

"I'm really afraid of heights," Snowden told him when he got closer. Lester grinned, nodded, pulled the gun from his holster and stuck it sideways in Snowden's hand.

"Only natural, nothing to be ashamed of. Biological, I think. Just takes practice," Lester assured him. The gun had felt cold on his neck, but in Snowden's hand it felt hot, heavy. It made him want to shoot it. He could easily shoot Lester. The thought was comforting, that he was in control of his destiny after all because he could shoot Lester. It was just that after that he would have to shoot Marks too, and then things got a lot messier. There were all the children. There was also of course the fact that Snowden didn't think he was capable of shooting anyone, or at least in any place other than a limb or foot.

Lester wrapped his arm around Snowden and with gentle assurances pulled him to the back ledge, pushing him down into a squat once they got there. It felt good to Snowden to sit down. Even in the rain, even with the cold water finding its way quickly to the more intimate regions of his ass, it felt good, or at least better. They both sat leaning against the little brick wall just tall enough to give their lower backs support. Lester slapped his own bent knee, then Snowden's.

"Now the fun part. I'm going to ask you to turn around, kneel, then bend over the roof's ledge and look in the bastard's window. The trick is, once you're about to go over the edge you close your eyes. Otherwise you get nauseous. The apartment window's only a foot below the level we're sitting on. The trick is you got to lean as far forward as you can, OK? And bend your head down as far as it'll go. Once you get into position, then open your eyes, not before. Trust me, you'll feel much better if you do it that way."

"Lester, I get on my knees and lean forward as far as I can, I'll fall off the side of the building," Snowden said and immediately regretted it. Part of it was that he worried he had insulted the Chupacabra, part of it was he didn't want to give him any more ideas. "Why don't we just go to the back fire escape, peek in that way."

"Too risky, we could be seen. Besides, it's raining and you could slip on the wet metal and break your neck. Don't worry, silly, I'll be sitting on your legs. You're lucky, when it was just me I had to tie myself with climbing rope back to that vent. Come on, move it, they're going to be here soon."

"Who'll be here?"

"One thing at a time, I'll tell you in a minute. Hurry."

Snowden got on his knees. This was an appropriate position, because Snowden was praying, and since in moments of normalcy he professed not to believe in God, Snowden was praying really hard to compensate. Lester sat on his legs. The man's ass was sharp and bony and underneath it Snowden's shins were shredded into the gravel lining the roof. As Lester began pushing Snowden's shoulders forward over the edge, the pain was the only thing to hold on to.

"Pretend you're flying." Snowden tried, but it didn't work, so instead, hands gripping the rail so hard flecks of mortar fell five stories down like industrial dandruff, he tried for the less ambitious goal of pretending he couldn't fall.

When Snowden opened his eyes again, he realized he was crying. Despite that, he could clearly see the solidified air bubbles in the bricks only inches away. A glance up (or down) and there was the room and guy in question, Snowden's view was inverted but otherwise lucent and unobstructed. There was a knocking at the base of his spine.

"What's he doing?" Snowden heard lightly behind him. He was sitting and watching the television, as foretold. He was a moron. It was evident to Snowden on first glance, even from looking upside down in the rain twenty feet away through the window. There was a reason for the descriptor slack jaw. There were simple etymologies for the words lumbering and blockhead, staring at this subject's profile, Snowden was struck with the notion that it had been carved from an uprooted stump with a butter knife. There was a Wednesday class, during the history portion months before, when Lester made mention of the days when white would-be scientists would stroll 135th Street trying to measure black people's skulls to prove the race's mental inferiority. Looking at the mug on the guy through the window, Snowden — so much blood rushing to his head he could smell it — wondered if anyone had ever tried to measure intelligence via facial expressions as well. It seemed so obvious an indicator to him, hanging there watching the look on this guy's face as he sat inches away from the television scooping handfuls of cereal from out of the box and shoving what he could fit into his mouth, letting the remainder fall to the floor in front of him.

"Now that it's aimed right at me, I have to say this: You've got a really lovely derriere," Lester told him.

"What?" Snowden started squirming, trying to pull himself up again. Lester laughed, slapped him lightly on the region in question.

"Oh come on, just a joke. Just a bit of humor to lighten the situation."

Maybe he just wants me to hang here, Snowden assured himself. Maybe it was as simple as making a phone call and whatever the Chupacabra wants to happen was put in motion and nothing more will be asked. Snowden decided that could be true, chose to ignore the gun that had become a part of his hand. There was an optimist deep inside Snowden. No one could be more surprised than Snowden himself, but there was an optimist deep inside him, hidden in some dark, warm, waterproof crevice. As Lester tugged on his back and Snowden began pulling himself back up, this internal optimist decided to make its voice heard. I've been in worse situations than this one, most definitely. See, it's over, I didn't fall. I haven't done anything really serious. I'm an innocent, it's true. I don't even know what's going on.