Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

"Dear God you have to stop him." Bobby's face had lost so much blood Snowden imagined it tingled.

"Me? What's this got to do with me?"

"If that animal goes in there and starts slobbering over her, he won't just ruin my chances, he'll disgrace the honor of Horizon Realty itself! Besides, he'll listen to you. He respects you more than he respects me," Bobby insisted.

"Now why the hell would you think that?" Snowden asked incredulously.

"You know. Because you killed someone."

Piper Goines was moving into the condo on the third floor of the brownstone. The couple who owned the rest of the townhouse stood on the main floor guarding their domain, entwined at the bottom of the steps like dried vines, wearing matching sweatshirts and overalls as if they were doing the lifting. Behind them this place, Snowden walked slowly just to get a better look at it. Most of the brownstones they refilled were shells, houses scraped out and abandoned, cut into single-room-occupancy flophouses decades ago. Places of construction, dust and drywall, their architectural details hidden or stolen or replaced with modern finishings by the returning middle class. But this townhouse was how they all were supposed to be: intricate woodwork angling through the double doors, spinning lattice icicles above the archways, fireplaces snug in tile, cake-tin moldings along the ceiling above, the stained-glass mosaic of the back window, and all of it original. Snowden the agnostic saw it and couldn't help but think for a second of God. That God had made them build mansions for millionaires who never came, so that there was no one but their slaves to fill them. That this was his reparation. That Harlem was God's gift to black people.

Snowden walked up the ornate stairway with the stuffed bear in both hands, Bobby straining behind him with his arms wrapped around a narrow armoire. The wall going up was lined with paintings and Snowden was admiring them when he heard their owners yelling up from below.

"They're originals. Including the frames. Why don't I just get those out of your way." The brown and blessed, moneyed and mobile, Snowden couldn't remember if he'd moved this couple in or just so many of their type he could no longer see individuals. The female of the breed sprang into the narrow space alongside him, started taking the artwork off the wall before they could even get by.

"Negroes get a couple Henry Ossawa Tanners, think they running the Met," Bobby offered when they finally made it to the apartment, closed the door behind them. This was Bobby Finley: If the people they were moving had more blue-collar tastes, Bobby would make fun of their prints and assembly line African sculptures. If their possessions were more sophisticated, Bobby would attack them for their bourgeois pretensions. Bobby was militant about being middle of the road. "She probably thinks Monet is 'the root of all evil.'"

"First of all, that's my big sister you're dogging," a woman's voice responded, its owner following it out of the kitchen. "Second, even if I agreed with you — which I do — it wouldn't be right for me to say so since she's also flipping your bill. If it was up to me, I would have just got some bums off the corner to do the job for beer and pizza." The comments came coated in good humor, but Snowden could still see Bobby acting shaken, his lips fluttering before his words started bouncing through.

Standing before Bobby Finley, Piper Goines seemed like a separate species: better bred, better fed, better raised. Apparently taller than Bobby (he stooped so much, it was hard to tell even with him coiled next to her), Piper was round in face and arms, making her look both soft and strong at the same time. The curves below her waist that Horus coveted were lost in the folds of Piper's mud-cloth skirt, material as thick and wrinkled as elephant skin. Her beauty was in her face, the nose that dripped down into a smile of bright teeth and dark gums, but her strength shone all over her.

It seemed obvious to Snowden that Bobby Finley, who fit in his uniform like one french fry in a potato sack, was not in the same league as Piper Goines. Literally, figuratively, she seemed too much for him. If this was Bobby's ideal partner, Snowden deduced his concept of the perfect human relationship must be based on the model set by the praying mantis.

"Hey, don't worry about it, my sister's a freaking Republican," Bobby responded. This might have been a good return, had Bobby not nearly said "fucking" and only caught himself after the first syllable, or had a sister at all. The last bit was immediately revealed as false when Piper asked, "Oh yeah? Is she older or younger?" and Bobby answered, "Medium."

Snowden broke in only to save him. "Madame, you got some nice furniture and all, but oak? Don't you think it's a little. . how do you say. . heavy? You know, Wal-Mart does some lovely things with plywood nowadays."

Snowden just got the first laugh. So that's how that started.

"See, this brother knows how to get a good tip," Piper Goines pointed out to Bobby. "He understands you have to charm a client." Her hair hung in soft bush behind her head, too much Euro in her blood to make a proper Afro.

"Ms. Goines, you have my humblest apologies. I'd like you to have this as a peace offering," Bobby leaned forward, The Great Work in hand. Snowden hadn't noticed it on him, but with the way his outfit fit, Bobby could have concealed a whole library inside its folds.

"Oh. OK. Is it any good?" Piper reached out and took it from him, inspected its front and back, flipped the pages like that would tell her something.

"I hope so. I wrote it." Bobby beamed back at her.

"Cool. I write too. I just started as a staff reporter for the New Holland Herald " was Piper's response, and Snowden looked up to see Bobby's earnest reaction, as if they hadn't sat around his apartment on several occasions drinking while Bobby read the rag aloud and goofed on it. "What the hell, you go put this on the window ledge in my study and when I get a chance, I'll read it."

From the look on Bobby's face, Snowden could tell he was confused. He seemed to think Piper just said "I love you" from the way his lips quivered, his eyes instantly teared. Bobby's speed in disappearing down the hall to perform the task was the only thing that saved him from melting down completely before her.

As soon as Bobby was gone, Piper Goines turned to Snowden, grabbed him by his wrist and smiled, "OK, muscle man, I've got another task for you to do besides standing there and looking cute."

"You want me to sit down?" Snowden asked. There was guilt over flirting with Bobby's latest obsession, but it was reduced considerably by his certainty that he would take it no farther.

"I got some heavy boxes in the living room I want you to help me peek into, figure out what's inside so we can move them to the proper room before you abandon me."

"Ah, but my Nubian queen, that's why you're supposed to mark your boxes when you pack them," Snowden smiled back at her as Piper began to drag him toward the front of the apartment.

"You're right, moving man, I could have done that, but that would take away the thrill of surprise," Piper told him, squeezing Snowden's arm and winking over her shoulder on the last words.

Horus Manley was on his knees facing the wall, head in his hands. Bobby walked quietly behind him to drop off The Great Work by the window, thought Horus was praying until he turned around and saw that he was actually holding something to his face. It was a shiny emerald fabric, poking out of the spaces between his fingers and rumpled in a bunch around his snorting nose.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bobby demanded. When Horus took the cloth away, Bobby saw a look of pure joy, an innocent, ecstatic excitement as Horus quickly stuck a finger to his mouth, lightly shushing him.