Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

"Exactly. That's what we are trying to do here at Horizon — stop the brain drain in our community, stop the financial drain as well, build something we can all be proud of. I know I don't look it, but I'm old enough to remember what the Herald was like before the white papers would hire our best and brightest. It resounded. It was important. It covered issues the way no other source could."

"So there's your answer. I want to help bring it back to that point. My goal is to make it something to be proud of again."

"And how would you do that? That's actually the second question, so feel free to elaborate." Marks leaned back in his chair to provide room for her answer.

Piper felt very free to elaborate. There was her plan to dump the tabloid's front-page articles in favor of a full-page illustration cover with teaser lines like the Village Voice, there was her plan to switch from underpaid hacks to clip-hungry interns from New York's top journalism schools who would work for the same peanuts but actually be good, there was her plan to publish short stories and novel excerpts, in exchange offering mere exposure as payment. Piper kept going. There was a wall of self-restraint within her, it was great and wide and as tall as her mind's imagination, but unfortunately it was made of paper and already shredded from all the times she'd plowed right through it. Still, there was a pause for air when she noticed Cyrus Marks's look of amazement and thought that might not be a reaction to the ideas but the fact that she'd just mentioned at least two dozen of them in less than three minutes.

"Well, the Herald could reach its potential again," Piper tried to conclude. "I mean, I guess with these things you just have to have patience."

"Oh, no I don't. I don't need patience," was Marks's response. Piper wasn't surprised at the statement because Cyrus Marks looked to her like a man who believed he didn't need patience. "We, as a people, have had too much patience too long for our own silliness. No, what I need is you. In charge of the Herald, raising the standard, doing all those ideas you just said. So I might as well continue on to my third question. If Olthidius Cole chose to retire in the next year which he has — if he didn't want his son to assume full control of the mantle — which he doesn't, apparently — and if it was within my power, would you consider becoming the new editor in chief of the New Holland Herald}"

"You know, that's a lot of ifs." J/'this was a joke and Snowden was behind it, if this was some sort of passive-aggressive revenge for any past grievance Piper might have cost him, Piper would hurt him. Physically and with great vigor.

"There are no ifs. I've been an investor in the Herald for years now. As of an hour ago, I just upped the percentage a bit. Called in a favor from a friend, you could say."

" I. . I really don't believe this. But say I did, say I did believe this. Say I believe you're going to call me out of the blue, someone you don't even know, and give me a job that I might on paper seem barely qualified for. Say I don't think this is a sick, sick prank, then what's the price? What do you want from me in return?" Piper wouldn't sleep with him, Piper wouldn't put one cell of his body near her own. When you want something so bad sometimes you ask yourself what you'd do for it, but it turned out that no, she wouldn't do that. But where was the line? Piper asked herself, because there was one and it probably wasn't that far away from there.

"You are qualified. Pavez said you did a lovely job editing the Columbia Spectator, and this really isn't that different, is it? Everyone I spoke with attested to your character. So to the 'price.' Just a little project I'd like you to get off the ground. Of course it will involve dropping what you're working on and cutting back on your Herald hours in general, but I assure you you'll find this worth the sacrifice. It deals directly with creating the next generation of black journalists, a talent pool that ten years down the road the Herald can pull from. So, Ms. Goines, I actually have one extra question for you: How good are you with children?"

SNOWDEN WAS A new man. Unfortunately, that man was a paranoid, guilt-ridden wreck of one. Don't kill people and think you can remain the same. This new guy, he was completely sober, had stayed so since the morning he'd awoken in clothes that reeked of smoke and it had taken till late afternoon to remember why. The new one didn't watch television, either, not out of any social purist motivation, it was just that even the most escapist of shows ran ads for the news he was trying so hard to avoid in the first place. Snowden was a new man. He didn't like the one he'd become, but the more Snowden thought about it the more he realized he didn't care for the one he'd been before, either.

As a reward for his loyal service, Lester was assigning Snowden the best properties, throwing him the best clients at the day job, happy-face customers with seven years of clean credit, 30 percent down, and low consumer debt. Snowden spent every encounter with these fine happy-face buyers petrified they would spin around with badges and cuffs instead of checkbooks and pens. Be a good realtor and just keep walking through the empty rooms smiling, Snowden kept telling himself. Say stuff like, "The thing that's really wonderful about this," and point at something.

Solace was sought from Bobby Finley but not found. This was because Bobby Finley was not found, either. Eventually Snowden remembered clips of a conversation they'd had when they ran into each other outside the Mumia Abu-Jamal fire, but his state during the encounter had left the images and audio distorted. Since Bobby refused to answer his door when Snowden came around, or even return his calls, it was a safe assumption that his behavior was in response to some forgotten slight Snowden may or may not have intended. It was only when Bobby didn't show up for work for days that Snowden decided not to take the silence personally.

Further concern was somewhat banished when Lester said he'd seen Bobby Finley, that Bobby was just adjusting to the strain of the job and would be out of the office during regular hours indefinitely. Snowden just didn't like the way Lester said it. The mounting fear that Bobby was in fact dead, however, was shown to be groundless, irrational even, as Bobby Finley was seen exiting a property only doors away from the one Snowden was showing. Very much alive, with his own set of prospective buyers in tow, shaking his own set of hands.

"Yo nig, where you been?" Snowden asked. Bobby walked down the townhouse steps, put his clients back into their taxi-hack downtown. Snowden's own were deciding on whether to see the three-bedroom condo two blocks south or take this Uptown opportunity to walk over to the Studio Museum instead. Snowden ceased pretending to care either way and ran from them toward his coworker.

Bobby Finley didn't run from him, he just didn't acknowledge Snowden's calls or cease walking in the opposite direction, Snowden's hand on his arm the only thing that stopped him. He'd lost weight. Snowden would have never guessed that Bobby had any weight he could misplace, but now saw that both the padding under Bobby's eyes that kept him from looking haunted and the thin layer of flesh that kept every single vein in Bobby's throat from showing had both gone missing.

In response to the earnest concern of, "Yo man, where you been?" Bobby Finley had only a shrug and a drained smile to give. When more was demanded, Bobby gave the weak excuse, "I'm sorry, I've been busy. I'm writing."

"I thought that shit was supposed to make you happy. You don't look happy. You look like a burnt scarecrow."