Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

Originally, Snowden assumed Bobby's faith was nothing more than a clever ploy, a work of performance art meant to create the impression that he was the most committed of the three of them, but after weeks of testing this facade with conspiratorial cynicism, Snowden conceded defeat just to get him to shut up. Bobby used the slightest doubtful whisper as an excuse to spew Horizon propaganda back. Fevered, ecclesiastic ramblings that could often be interrupted only by running away from him, which on two occasions Snowden had literally been forced to do. Bobby Finley could spin firm logic from the mist of romance. Both times Snowden had chosen to run were because Bobby was starting to make sense to him.

Bobby was good with words. He was a writer. Not a very successful one even by his own admission, but a published one nonetheless, a novel he'd called The Great Work. One of these copies Bobby Finley presented to Snowden, who out of a sense of grudging obligation tried to read it, and after several motivated assaults did manage to push through to the third page. This fact irritated Snowden, as it was his habit to take pride in his assertion that he loved reading everything: romance, mystery, science fiction, sometimes even the newspaper.

Not only did Snowden fail to get beyond the very opening of The Great Work, he also realized — as he struggled for some polite compliment to offer Bobby afterward — that he had no idea what he'd read. The book's sentences seemed to make sense individually. They had verbs and adjectives and nouns, but reading one after another only compounded his confusion. The sole blurb to grace the back cover said". . creates an emotional response. .," which Snowden had to agree with, as his emotional response had been to scream and want to hurl it across his apartment. Instead, upon reuniting with Bobby, Snowden smiled and said, "I've never read anything like it!" to which Bobby's response was to snatch the book out of Snowden's hands and start frantically wiping away imaginary fingerprints from its cover.

Bobby Finley was a passionate man, obsessive, covetous. The most absurd proof of this, in Snowden's opinion, was Bobby's take on love and women, or rather the woman. The one: the mythical creature that was Bobby's other favorite obsession, his imagined soul mate. Snowden discovered this particular delusion while the two were stuck in traffic on the BQE and he asked the skinny man, "Have you ever been in love?" It was a question simply meant to throw Bobby off guard, to get him to stop quoting from the Horizon-recommended Social Construction of Community just long enough to let the ringing that had started to vibrate in Snowden's skull subside into a light hum. The question was fortuitous, fateful even. It revealed the only subject guaranteed to distract him.

At some point in his lonely life, fermented by years of awkwardness, rejection, socially and governmentally enforced isolation, Bobby Finley had decided that the reason things between him and every woman he'd ever been interested in had gone horribly wrong was that he was destined for one perfectly matched mate and no other. Bobby shared this with Snowden like it was simple fact, swatting it away as if it was merely one more annoyance fate had burdened him with. Despite the casual manner of his revelation, it was quite a while before Bobby himself changed the subject again. About two weeks. Sometimes even tempting Snowden over to his apartment with promises of free beer just so he could continue his monologue.

In that time, exhausted but amused, Snowden had actually grown attached to the emaciated man, and having shared the company of several women and fallen in love with something about each one, tried in moments of sympathy to dissuade him. "Promiscuity is good," Snowden explained to his surely less experienced compatriot. "Variety isn't just the spice of life, it's the point of it." It was an argument destined for the disproportionately large yet deaf ears of Bobby Finley.

"Complementary, you see? We'll be like one of those gold necklace sets in the Penney catalog, the ones shaped like two jagged sides of a broken heart." Bobby was thirty-four years old and usually wearing a banana-colored work suit when he said things like this. Snowden was so embarrassed for the man he wished it were true.

Snowden spent the morning getting his physical at the company doctor's office up on Striver's Row, didn't get out until half past noon and only went straight back to work because that's what the other two guys had done when they went for theirs in the weeks before. He found the Horizon truck at the address given, already returned from picking up the day's customer from Connecticut, its back gate open and a quarter of the haul already removed. Walking up its narrow metal ramp to get inside, Snowden found Bobby, too, nearly obscured in the rear among the shadows of boxes and dressers.

"She's here. Piper Goines, our client, the lady we're moving. She's her. She's the one."

Bobby was talking in near whispers. Until he stepped farther out of his hiding space, Snowden wasn't certain Bobby had even been talking to him, nor was he entirely sure after. Bobby's usual plum skin seemed drained, ashen. There was a cigarette in his fingers that he dragged on, then shook his head like someone had just defecated on his tongue.

"Then why do you smoke?" Snowden asked him.

"It's the only thing I'm allowed to light on fire anymore."

This was not the first time that Bobby had suspected he'd found "the one," not even in the few weeks since he'd revealed his mythology. There'd been the woman Bobby'd been in line behind at the Jamaican take-out place on 125th, the one he'd followed for four blocks before realizing she couldn't possibly be "the one" from the vagaries of her gate. There'd been the woman glimpsed momentarily standing at the 79th Street station platform as Bobby'd whisked by on the 2 express downtown. By the time he'd taken the local train back up, she was gone. This had provided conversational fodder for days. These past events, however, had always left Bobby in a cheerful mood, elated, prone to say really pathetic things like, "It must mean I'm getting closer," or to go into his theory that the reason he had never met her before was that he was destined to come to New York City to do so.

In response to Snowden's glare, Bobby said, "I'm not hiding, I'm preparing. First impressions are of extreme import. Being characterized negatively, or incorrectly, could have devastating results down the line. I am trying to avoid a tragedy here." Snowden noticed the yellow notepad sitting on the chest-high pile of boxes as Bobby put his cigarette back in the side of his mouth and lifted a pen from behind his ear.

Snowden climbed aboard, looked for something to carry, even considered grabbing a good-sized television for the chance to peek at what Bobby was writing before choosing a large teddy bear instead and just asking.

"Notes. I'm writing out possible conversation directions so that I'm prepared with something that demonstrates my capacity for witty banter."

"Why not just be yourself?" Snowden smiled, shrugged to him.

"Because that is a cliché," Bobby sighed. "Look, this is no. . 'round-the-way-girl whose affections can be bought with a howyadoin' and a Pepsi. Piper Goines is clearly a person of refinement. A woman of sophistication and substantial beauty," Bobby said back to him.

"The boy's right, Snowball. You should see the ass on this bitch," Horus declared coming up from behind. Snowden turned to catch Bobby's reaction, but the skinny man had disappeared deeper into the truck behind the stacks of furniture.

"Straight up dog, I'm about to get me some of that!" Horus continued. "I'm going to be all up in that booty, you watch me. I'm going to bang it hard. I'm going to bang it greasy? Horus crinkled his nose above his smile as if even he was somewhat disgusted by the image. After he'd hoisted a bookshelf onto his back, Horus trudged off again, cursing in delight with every step. Snowden turned around and grabbed the teddy bear with the intention of following him into the house, and Bobby was standing exactly where he was before, same footing and everything.