Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

Giving up on trying to smile, Bobby Finley started walking away instead. Snowden yelled his apologies behind him, but they were like wind in Bobby's sail.

In the absence of fraternal comfort, there were new vices to be had, sober ones that didn't lead to memory lapse, the will to perform self-sacrificial acts, or any form of confession in general. For instance, the new Snowden was an ardent smoker. At least a pack a day, never the same brand twice, as life was short and he wanted to keep the entire nicotine world available to him. The packs he didn't like Snowden smoked even faster, eager to get to the next one. They made him feel calm. Their death-bringing gifts gave him a new, rather ordinary mortal fear to occupy his mind and replace more flamboyant ones.

The other vice, Snowden found even more addictive, was pretending that what he and Lester were doing was morally right.

Dangerous, yes, Snowden knew that, could feel its seduction, that it was just the easy way to deal with what was happening. Yet there it was. Going away but never for too long. The only thing that made all the chaos grow fat and heavy and fall stilled to the ground was to imagine it. Lester was right. Therefore those deaths were no tragedy. Therefore Snowden had done nothing wrong. Minutes could go by when Snowden could sustain this reasoning. Snowden went back to the Lenox Lounge and saw that woman Maisy still waiting tables and her face had healed and Snowden'd felt that reasoning take over him, sipped his soda, and had his delusion reaffirmed every time he saw Maisy smile so easily. Felt the same thing in ecstatic pangs as he stood at the lodge's third-floor window and watched Jifar run screaming with child joy in the backyard along with so many other uniformed kids. No matter the free fall Snowden felt when guilt finally crushed the pillars of this logic, those moments before were his most peaceful. Ever. The fantasy was not just that he'd done nothing wrong, but that that he'd done something right, daring, and bold. That the universe had a discernible order of negative and positive and that he'd been blessed with the purpose of contributing to the good of it.

The strategy necessary for successful urban renewal was rather simple, or at least appeared so, having been repeated with nearly every Wednesday class of the Horizon Second Chance Program.

First, urban renewal must happen as a mass movement, entire ghetto blocks must be seized simultaneously by decent people, taken over and converted to outposts of hardworking, taxpaying folk. The problem with attempts to reintegrate the middle class back into Harlem in the past was that they came as lone pioneers and were invariably mugged and otherwise discouraged into moving by the lumpen without making a dent in the local culture of poverty. Take heed from Roanoke, colonization works only when settlers arrive in droves.

Second, decent residents must have pedestrian access to the subway system that is the city's lifeline without having to pass through ghetto staging areas (otherwise known as "bad blocks"). They must be able to commute to work and New York City's amenities without risk of personal safety. Otherwise they were virtually trapped in their homes, small islands surrounded by a hostile ocean.

Third, designated areas should be dead-ended. A basic strategic consideration, this not only ensured there was only a finite territory to convert but also took care of the larger issue of "walkthroughs." There was no point converting an entire block to decency if random thugs roamed up and down it, if burglars could pass unnoticed, staring up through residence windows to glean the contents inside. This is what made Mount Morris such a prime location to begin the terraforming of Harlem: It was back-ended by the park, behind that was just the hospital and then nothing but industrial ruins and raised lots till Park Avenue's train tracks.

Once "good blocks" had been solidly established, they would slowly spread beyond their original perimeters. As one block filled, the next would be occupied, continuing the link beyond. When that pattern was established, new satellites would be started, maybe toward the north around Strivers Row and Hamilton Heights, maybe south closer to Central Park. The Horizon position was that this revolution wouldn't even need that many people, as Harlem was already populated by a vast majority of decent, hardworking folk. The monied newcomers would just be replacing the Terrible Tenth. Eventually, all the links would meet. Then the struggle would be over.

All of this, which in class Snowden had found compelling in its own right, became even more engrossing when he was forced to sit in Lester's office and watch the man tape his map of Mount Morris to the wall, each property marked individually with either a green smiley face or circled repeatedly with red lines. Lester in lemon, the white shirt like the pith just below the peel, saying things like, "If we could just get rid of the bastards squatting at 671 West 117th, we could link the 3200 block of Lenox to Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard!"

The files covering Lester's desk were numbered with addresses corresponding to the map's angrily circled residences and were attached with photos of the actual subjects — mug shots and surveillance shots.

"So, come on, the suspense is killing me." Lester tittered. "Who do you want to hunt first?"

Like a high diver preparing for the jump, Snowden was so far in his mind that all that noise, all the sounds of large objects banging the walls in the hall outside, all the screeches of children that accompanied them couldn't reach him. Lester loved this. Lester saw the concentration of his protege and thought this was impressive, this was the sign that great things were about to be done, said so out loud too, though that was ignored along with the rest of the clatter.

Snowden had a plan, that much was clear. Snowden would do his absolute best to execute it as well, that was also evident. What was probably less clear, at least to Lester in his banana peel shoes, was that Snowden had no intention of killing anyone. Snowden had figured it out. Snowden had the answer. He would just tell the targeted bastard this time. I have been sent to kill you, he would say. Get out of town or be dead.

"This is exciting, isn't it? Gives you a sense of power, right? There are some real scumbags in there to pick from, rapists, there's even a guy who served for kidnapping at 209 West 118th and that's a really important block so that could work great."

First, Snowden's pick had to be somebody who wouldn't try to kill him just for breaking into his apartment, preferably somebody small with no violent history.

"You know, don't feel you have to limit yourself to felons. There are a lot of petty menaces in the pile as well. If you want, I can find you good a one."

A true criminal, but a puny, cowardly one, and just in case Lester decided to take a more proactive role than his assigned one as lookout, the chosen target had to be a complete and utter scumbag as well. Just in case — it was a dangerous mission.

"They don't even have to have a prison record. I mean, you yourself are proof that's not a defining factor in moral character. I've got a ton of 'quality of life' crimes in here. I've got a guy on this very block who gets in his car at six-thirty every morning and turns his radio on full blast — it wakes the children, it's just criminal. We've tried calling nine one one, stealing his radio, his car, he just pays the fines, replaces them, so trust me there's no other way. Not trying to push you in any direction, but you'd be doing us a real service. Otherwise I won't be able to fit him in till next Thursday."

There he was. Ryan Waters. Even among all those pictures of all those little weaselly bastards, this guy stood out like the refugee of another, elfin species. Ryan Waters. He looked like a jockey's runt son.