Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

"Look, you want to do an illustration for the X-Men story, that's fine. Copyrightwise, I'm still saying it's not legal, but I doubt those corporate bastards would have the heart to sue you, so what the hell, go for it."

"Cool!" the boy said, but that's all he did. He wasn't moving.

"Good-bye," Piper hinted.

"Good-bye," the boy mimicked, hand running down the dog's head as they both stared intently back at her.

Piper flopped her bag back on the desk, located her seating chart. One thing she'd already learned about the little urchins is that they didn't respond well to "Hey kid."

"It's Jifar, right?" Piper asked. The boy smiled politely back at her. "So what do you want? Why are you just sitting there looking at me like that?"

"We're supposed to. We're supposed to watch out for you, make sure you're OK," Jifar said. He seemed very proud of his duty.

"We?" Piper began asking, but Jifar nodded and looked conspiratorially to the dog and Piper lost all motivation to pursue that line of questioning. "Why don't you just go now, OK? I'm doing just fine, thanks for your concern, but I got my real job to get back to."

"I'm sorry, I can't. I promised. I told Mr. Snowden I'd watch out for you, so please let me, OK?"

"Oh, here we go. That's just great. Look, you tell Snowden from me that I can watch my own back, OK? You tell him that, and then you kick him, right in the shins."

"What are shins?"

"Nothing, I was just joking. Don't worry about him, I'll take care of it. You just work on the art. You play your cards right and I'll have you syndicated before puberty."

When Piper returned to her block that night she saw a man trying to shove a package under her front door. Piper wasn't prepared for the sight but didn't need to be. It was who it was that caught her so off guard, and more than that how excited and nervous she felt just seeing him there. Robert M. Finley didn't even notice her coming. Piper was already at the bottom of the stoop when he saw her between his legs, stood upright, then pulled his pants from were they were lagging.

"You're late. More than two months late, actually," Piper managed. She wished she was darker. She wished that she had enough melanin to inure her from obvious blushing forever. Piper was fairly sure certain she wasn't blushing just at the sight of him, but simply by questioning if she was blushing or not was enough to increase the chances she was exponentially.

"Hey, hi, I'm here to. . I mean I wanted to ask you if I could get the master key to the Harlem Outcry news boxes because I have a bunch of Great Works I need to give away." He wasn't expecting her or he was even more awkward than she'd remembered. "It's just, you know, I did call that morning to cancel," Bobby said. "I had a lot going on in my life at that moment. I'm here now, so can I get that key?"

"Pick it up in the office. What's that?" Piper poked the air toward the large envelope jammed a third of the way under her front door.

"Nothing."

"Not nothing. Something. What is it?"

"I brought you a gift." Robert M. Finley turned again to the package, spent an equal amount of energy trying to pull it back out again. "Please, take this, read this. My number's on the last page. When you get to it, call me."

The envelope pushed into her hand had to weigh five pounds. Before Piper could even manage a firm grip, Bobby was past her, pausing only to give her cheek the quickest peck it had ever received before moving on.

"Wait! What is this? This is the book you were telling me about, isn't it? The Tome, right?"

"No, this is an entirely new one. This book I wrote for you." The last sentence Robert M. Finley delivered more to the steps than the woman standing on them.

"Oh my God, I think that is about the sweetest thing anybody's done for me in I don't know how long. Wow. I've never been in a book's acknowledgments, let alone dedication."

"No, you don't understand. Not the dedication, the whole book. Read it, call me so we can talk. Please, if you still want to," he said, nodding at the manuscript in her hand.

"I don't understand. Come on, you're coming inside. You're already here, we can talk now. We'll order food. I'm paying." Piper reached in her pocket and pulled out a rumpled twenty as proof of this statement.

"No," Bobby said to her, but he wasn't walking away, either.

"Well, why the hell not?" Piper wanted to know.

"Really, I got a lot to do. If I'm going to get rid of these extra copies of The Great Work, it's going to take me all night, even if I can get Lester to let me use the moving truck and Snowden to help." Piper just stared at him, lips sucked up into a disdainful ball on the side of her face, so Bobby kept talking. "I mean, I own 2,871 copies of it," Bobby confessed. He couldn't figure out if Piper's look of incredulity was because of the amount or his entire excuse in the first place, so he started up yet again. "OK, fine, I have to go because I know I'm a socially awkward person, and I had one of the best, most fulfilling conversations of my life at the Horizon Ball and based on past experience I'm pretty sure if I stay here much longer I'm going to ruin any chance with you I might have. Because you make me even more nervous than usual. Because I find your beauty, in every sense of that word, literally stunning. If I could but beseech fate to be so generous as to offer me the opportunity to build a love with you, then that amour would resound with the — "

"Jesus Christ, are you reading off a cue card?" Piper uttered in disbelief. Bobby looked even more shocked to see it in his hand than she did, despite the fact that he'd been staring down at it during his entire monologue.

"Let me see that!" Piper demanded, started stepping down after him. Bobby backed up, ripping it into desperate little pieces as he went.

"Look, I'm sorry, I was supposed to memorize that. That's what I'm saying, I'm nervous talking to you. When I write something out, I can reread it, edit it, make sure it's exactly what I want to say. Look, just read the book, OK? It's about us. I mean, it's about what we could be. It starts right now, with me sticking this novel under your door, and follows our relationship over the next six decades. It's called The Orphean Daze. It's a love story. . See, I told you I shouldn't be talking before you read it! I can see you getting creeped out already!"

"Oh my God, that's so not true, I'm not creeped out at all! I'm just. . looking forward to reading it," Piper said. She was lying about the first sentence, underplaying the second. Front door locked carefully behind her, Piper wasn't even done climbing the stairs before she was on to the second page.

Snowden was very happy in his closet. Happier than he'd been in years. The closet was great because there was only one door and no windows so nobody could sneak up on you, and it was too small for anyone to be hiding in there with you as well. The closet was great if somebody did break in your apartment in the middle of the night because they'd just think the place was empty, and even if they did open the closet door, if you went to sleep underneath a pile of dirty clothes like Snowden did they would never find you. In the closet, when you turned out the lights, you were invisible.

Snowden had his phone in there, a couple of bags of flavored tortillas, and boxes of snack cakes; it was great. He had eleven different brands of cigarettes and eleven different cigarette lighters he'd assigned to them with careful consideration. He had a couple of books he'd been meaning to read for years and was at around page 11 in all of them, he had an AM radio with only one earphone so he could find out the time and weather and never drop his guard. He had caller ID so he knew who was calling before he picked up, before the voice said, "Cedric Snowden, this is Congressman Marks."