Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

Irving Howe's hairpiece served as a pretty good shield, composed as it was of good old-fashion porcelain almost an inch thick. It was heavy and hard to lift up to meet the repeated blows, but Snowden found just enough strength in his arm to do it. Snowden's lid was at almost no risk of even chipping, because even though Waters's weapon was a blur as it rained down, up close Snowden could see that it was not actually a metal ax head at the end of the wooden stick but instead the question mark crook of a cane. Emboldened by the revelation, Snowden pushed Waters back with each pounding, yelling several fragments such as, "I mean you no — ," "I come in — ," "I'm trying to — ," "Oh for the love of God — ," all of which went unnoticed as Ryan Waters kept screaming, "Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!" at the top of his lungs.

A block stronger than a blow and Ryan Waters went down the short distance to his feet. It was a hard fall, a leg caught completely off guard shot out from beneath him and Waters went straight down on his tailbone. That crunching sound, it wasn't just a product of loose floorboards. Snowden almost leaned his toilet top against the wall and offered a hand, but instead offered, "Ryan Waters, I'm here to help you." Maybe Ryan didn't want help, at least from Cedric Snowden.

Maybe the look on Waters's face was just because Snowden pushed his own face to mere inches away and was talking in the lightest audible whisper to keep Lester from overhearing. Maybe it was simply the fact that this intruder knew his name that sent Ryan Waters running down the hall, but it didn't matter because, like that, Waters had scrambled away and was gone.

Snowden stood, gun in one hand, oversized potty protection in the other, stunned at the spurning of his offer. It took a good three seconds of Waters not coming charging back for Snowden to remember himself and chase after him.

It was the decor of the bedroom that caught Snowden off guard. It was a mess, more so than the rest of the apartment, but it wasn't the clothes that lined the floor that were so startling, it was the clothes affixed to nearly every inch of the walls. The man had taken women's panties and nailed them up as trophies. Huge panties, most of them, Snowden saw the big thick and dull fabrics and was imagining the big thick and dull women who'd been in them when Waters popped up from behind and slammed his cane full force into the back of Snowden's skull.

The reason Snowden didn't pass out was pure physics, and the luck that he'd looked up to see the drawers hanging saggy from the ceiling so that the cane hit where his head was the hardest. Snowden's legs did buckle, a hand did reach out to find this world again, but when Snowden righted himself, even Ryan Waters seemed a bit impressed as Snowden managed to lift the gun and point it at him.

They went into the bathroom because Snowden found the bedroom disgusting and he was the one with the gun in his hand. It was a good choice — it was the least cluttered room in the apartment and the slight smell of urine actually canceled out some of the more aggressive odors of the place. Snowden told Waters to sit down, nodded the gun barrel at the lip of the tub, and Waters did it. Now we're getting somewhere.

"Look, I am sorry for this little unannounced entry, but you have got to believe me, it could be worse. I've been hired to kill you. If you listen to me, I can help you save your life." Snowden used Lester's gun as part of his hand gestures and Ryan Waters stared at it like it was a ventriloquist's dummy. Sweat dripped down Snowden's face in a long stream, he could feel it. Only when he followed Ryan Waters's growing eyes to the floor did Snowden see that it was blood instead.

"Hey man," Snowden touched his scalp with his gun hand; his hair was like a wet sponge. "You almost freaking killed me."

"What are you bitching about? You're the one that just broke in my place, ain't you?" Waters asked. "Oh man, that's disgusting!" The last thing Snowden wanted to see, as his vision began to blur, was the face of revulsion on this man, curator of the bloomer museum. "Goddamn, brother," Waters cringed. "You're bleeding all over my floor. Why don't you put some toilet paper on that shit or something?"

Snowden the Snowman felt as pale and cold as his nom de guerre. Looking down at the blood referencing Pollock on his shoes, Snowden felt pathetic too, powerless to stop the flow, one hand refusing to drop the gun that kept his captive at bay, the other refusing to drop its heavy shield in case the first hand failed its objective.

"You want me to get a tissue for you?" Waters asked, grimacing.

"I came here to help you. There's someone out there who wants to kill you. You have to get out of town."

"Sure there is. I really appreciate you coming out here and sharing that with me. Could've just looked me up in the phone book, I'm listed, but you know, that's your thing, I can dig that. Come on, let me get that tissue for you. Maybe you should put that shirt in cold water so it don't stain."

It was a really nice shirt. A nod, more defeated than permissive, and Ryan Waters was wrapping toilet tissue around his fist, nearly two inches worth when he was done, which in no way buffered the blow when instead of wiping off the blood from the floor the little weasel chose to punch Snowden as hard as he could in his groin.

Males spent lifetimes watching other men simulate taking direct, deliberate, forceful blows to the testicles. Sitcoms, women's self-defense shows, children's movies, it didn't matter how inane or stupid the presentation, men would cringe every time they saw it because they knew somewhere out there this most painful, incapacitating of attacks was waiting for them. It turned out that Cedric Snowden's was biding its time in the bathroom of Apartment 24 of 433 West 128th Street, sitting patiently on the toilet like his balls were Godot.

There was the dropping of the toilet bowl lid onto the top of his own foot, but really, what were a few skinny little bones at a time like this one? There was the screaming, but that was later, that didn't even start till after Snowden'd collapsed to the floor, whispered dryly out of a wide-open mouth until his lungs regained their air and gave voice to him. Ryan Waters had already pushed past and closed the bathroom door by then, Snowden could hear the man placing furniture on the other side to keep it from opening again. By the time Snowden reasserted his status as biped, he could hear the desperate jiggles of Waters down the hall trying to open that tricky front door lock and abandon him.

The wood of the door was old, not very thick at all. Snowden flung open the cabinet under the sink in search of a monkey wrench to hammer through it, found only stacks of brown plastic pill bottles, noticed even in his frenzy that they were all nearly full, all prescribed to different women's names. I should have hit him, Snowden thought, not just to assert dominance but because this bastard deserves a pop in the mouth. Bottles spilled to the floor followed by a sweeping hand, but there was nothing useful behind them. Desperation growing, Snowden yanked open the mirrored medicine cabinet above, was taken completely off guard by the dozens of disembodied human teeth inside grinning back at him, plastic grimaces bobbing and swaying in excitement.

Snowden stared in disbelief at the collection of stolen dentures lining the glass shelves, each set floating in its own dirty glass, each set with its own typed name tag pasted proudly at the base, and whispered, "Oh this motherfucker needs to die," before turning to kick the door in.

The rage had come back and it was like, Welcome! Akwaaba! So good to see jou! With his full weight behind it, Snowden's foot made a big enough hole in the door's wood to reach his arm through. The dressers on the other side fell to the floor like they owed gravity money. Bursting into the hall, Snowden could see Ryan Waters still at the front door, both hands on the knob. On first sighting, Waters gave up his efforts, let go, and ran deeper into the living room. The knob kept turning wildly without him. Snowden wondered how many seconds he had before Lester would get the lock to work from the other side.