Hunting in Harlem (23 page)

Ryan Waters saw that the paranoid schizophrenic who'd broken into his home was now running toward him grinning like a maniac,
and Ryan Waters got nervous. Ryan Waters ran too. Ryan Waters, on the iced metal landing, just didn't stop. Waters had so
much momentum as he slid out and over the railing that for a moment it seemed to Snowden like the man might fly across the
street instead of plummet down to it.

The sound that came from Ryan Waters's mouth as he fell was like nothing Snowden had ever heard before. Nor the thud when
his body hit the ground, the first time. People bounce, apparently.

Staring down out the open window, Snowden's own screams were interrupted by the shock of seeing Lester on his cell phone at
the opposite end of the block, standing by a mailbox as Wendell pissed on it. Lester looked down, then looked up, then gave
the thumbs-up before calling Wendell and walking off toward Lenox. Once the sight registered, Snowden spun around to see Waters's
doorknob still jiggling. The sound of the tumblers on its lock finally giving was the loudest thing he'd heard all day.

Horus walked in, closed the door behind him.

"Where is he? What was all that yelling? Why the window open? It's freezing out there." Horus pushed past him to get a good
look out the window. "Oh hell no, you didn't. See, that ain't no way for a black man to die. I thought you were gonna to hit
him in the head with a toilet lid?"

"What are you doing here?" Snowden stepped cautiously backward away from Horus and the open window.

"Why you looking at me that way? Oh let me guess, so you thought you was the only one had some special projects. I get it,
you thought it was over, that you'd already won, didn't you? See, I'm here in case they needed a real man to get the job done.
Hey, don't think this means I'm like your backup or something. More like quality control. Yeah, 'quality control,' I like
that. You better act like you know. Skills like mine gets recognized."

TESTIFY

CEDRIC SNOWDEN, IN the closet, in the dark, on the floor, behind the coats, armed with only one lighter, a portable phone
on which he kept hitting Redial, and the remains of four different packs of cigarettes. By the time she picked up her phone
his battery was giving its death beep and the tobacco smoke was so thick Snowden realized he couldn't stop crying even if
he wanted to.

"I don't care what the hell they're offering you, I don't care what you think you're going to get out of this, you got to
get out of there now! Why the hell has the phone been busy for six hours!"

"I was on the Internet. Who is this?" Piper knew who it was, but she felt the question was still her prerogative.

"You don't even understand, oh yeah you think you do but you don't know what they have planned. I don't know what they have
planned, but I do know you don't need to be there. You don't even like children." The phone battery was beeping faster, Snowden
heard it as the desperate rhythm pushing his pleas forward.

"Fuck you, I have a maternal instinct. Look," Piper sighed, "sex is a funny thing, we both know that. The intimacy, it's inherent,
even when you'd like it not to be. It creates social discomfort later. I know Horizon is sort of your pissing territory, and
I can imagine you'd find my arrival very threatening."

"Piper, listen - "

"Snowden. I'm a big girl."

"Marks is the devil," Snowden said, but it was a parting shot, he'd already remembered she wouldn't listen to him. He couldn't
imagine Piper listening to anyone who had something to say she didn't want to hear.

"The congressman is not the devil. The devil makes you sign a contract - I got a handshake deal. I never make my soul part
of the negotiations, anyhow"

"Fine. Look, there's actually one more thing." It took Snowden the entire ritual of illuminating his hiding space with his
lighter, igniting one more cigarette from the pack with a long dry gasp strong enough to turn two centimeters to ash before
daring himself to ask it. "You think, I don't know, that maybe I could swing by? I could really use a hug right now."

"I'd like to say yes, but . . . no. That wouldn't really be for the best, don't you agree? That reminds me, have you seen
or heard from Robert lately? He doesn't answer his phone no matter when I call."

"Bobby? I don't know what the hell's going on with him. Look, I'm not trying to get into your pants. I mean, honestly that'd
be nice, but what I really need - " Snowden caught his tongue, held it down while his thoughts caught up with it. "Hold up.
Why the hell are you calling Bobby, anyway?" Snowden demanded, only to spend the rest of the night trying to figure out if
his phone had died or if she'd hung up on him.

Two days later, hours into the afternoon, the doorbell rang. Snowden wasn't surprised at all; the phone had been ringing for
hours the day before and even that morning, and when you considered the four appointments yesterday and three this morning
that Snowden had simply not shown up for, you would assume that someone would eventually come calling. At first Snowden's
inaction was out of shock and hysteria, but after a couple of naps his motivation for immobility had evolved into resistance
and passive aggression. He just sat, watched the same cartoons Jifar used to. The door buzzer went off, Snowden heard it and
realized that had to happen eventually. He just never expected it would be Bobby Finley's voice coming back through the intercom.

"Where you been? And why the hell is Piper trying to get in touch with you?" Snowden asked, hoping the sound of his suspicion
would be relayed along the crackling system.

"Don't be a jackass. Lester sent me, he wants you to come back to work now."

"Lester can go to hell." Snowden had pushed the Talk button so hard he'd jammed his finger.

"Don't worry, if there's a hell I'm pretty sure Lester is already going there. Screw work, I'm here to take you to church
with me. Get dressed and meet me on the steps of Mt. Zion around the corner."

Snowden was very excited about getting saved. In his lifetime, Snowden had met many saved people and even the ones in prison
seemed fairly happy and Snowden was definitely not a happy man right now. Plus, Snowden found he was finally ready to believe
in something, something bigger than himself, something huge to hang his load on, and he no longer feared it would crush him
because his burdens were doing a pretty good job of that already.

Bobby Finley was standing at the base of the gray steps, nodding politely at the men going inside and helping the older women
with a balancing hand between car doors and the entrance even though they didn't look as frail as he did. When Bobby saw Snowden
coming, he turned around and started walking inside, pausing in the lobby for Snowden to follow, then heading up to the balcony.

"I think you'd better call in," Bobby whispered on the stairs. "At least tell them you're sick or something. You don't want
to get on their bad side." Through a glass door and onto the balcony, the only other person was the organist. She waved, winked.
Bobby did the same.

"Cuz, I barely seen you around the office for over a month, so who are you talking to? Trust me, I know how crazy they can
be," Snowden snorted his incredulity.

"No you don't. Listen, you might not have seen me hanging around lately, but I call in, I make all my appointments, pick and
drop off my keys at night. I've been busy."

"You been busy," Snowden said, recognizing Bobby's self- involvement as much as his face.

"Yes. I've been doing a lot of thinking and a whole lot of writing. I started a new book, actually."

"Piper Goines asked me about you, she was trying to find you too. What you got going on with her? Just tell me, does it have
anything to do with Horizon?"

"Sorry, my relationship with the lady is private." Bobby held out his palm like a cop stopping traffic.

"Oh, it's a relationship now, look at that. With a lady, no less," Snowden chuckled as he took his seat. It was a bitter sound;
it made his nose itch when he made it. Snowden had other sarcastic, ill-humored comments to make, but when he looked out below
and saw the coffin laid lengthwise before the altar he forgot them. "This ain't regular services."

"Snowden, it's two-thirty Friday afternoon. I doubt there's a religious institution in Manhattan having regular services at
this moment."

"Man, I cannot believe this. I hate funerals, I don't even plan on having one of my own. How the hell you expect to convert
me to the One True Faith if you don't bring me to a proper sermon?" Snowden kicked up his feet on the chair in front of his
own, sighed loudly enough for one attendee down below to stare up at the two of them. In response, Bobby reached his arm around
his coworker sympathetically until the man below nodded his empathy and returned to his own mourning. Snowden was as shocked
by the gesture as much as he was by how soothing it felt.
See, that's all I really
need,
he told himself.
A good hug.

"I'm not trying to convert you to Christianity, Snowden. I'm not even Christian myself."

"Then what the hell do you want? I don't see your black ass for weeks on end and then you decide to reappear. Why? What do
you want from me?"

Bobby looked back, waited for Snowden to stop breathing so hard so he would listen.

"I want you to hear my confession."

One sound Snowden doubted would be tolerated at a funeral: hysterical laughter. Bobby's elbow to Snowden's stomach was the
only thing that kept both from finding out exactly what that reaction would be.

"I'm not listening to your confession," Snowden said as he rose. "Don't dump your crap on me, I got my own problems."

"Snowden, I've committed murder."

Snowden sat back down again. This wasn't because he wanted to listen to more, because he really really didn't, not one word,
not one tiny little fact, not even the sentence he'd just heard, it's just that Bobby said it so loudly that more heads from
below were looking up and now Snowden was the one worried about attracting attention.

"Jesus man, what the hell is wrong with you? Do you have to confess right here, with the guy's family right below?" Snowden
whispered.

"Not him," Bobby said, pointing till Snowden knocked his hand down. "I don't know anything at all about that guy, he's a complete
stranger."

"If he's a complete stranger, then why the hell are we here?"

"Well, I killed complete strangers. So for the last month I've been coming here every day to complete strangers' funerals.
I mean, existentially speaking, one complete stranger's as good as the next. Snowden, I'm the one that burned down the Mumia
Abu-Jamal House."

"No you didn't," Snowden assured him.

"Yes I did. It was arson. It was me. Three people died, people I didn't know, had no grudge against. It's OK, I know you believe
me, you saw me there. I know you weren't that drunk."

"I saw nothing, I don't know nothing," Snowden had said this to himself so many times in so many ways lately that there was
actually a part of him that believed it.

"Lester told me to. He didn't say it in that many words, but basically he told me to. He had the whole place cased out, its
weaknesses, everything. He told me nobody'd be there. You know what? Not that it makes me any less culpable, but I don't think
he really cared that those men who died in my fire were there at all. I'd turn us all in if I wasn't absolutely sure those
poor kids in the league would get totally lost in the shuffle. And to be honest, I'd sooner kill myself than go back to jail
again. I mean, what purpose would that serve, anyway?" Bobby asked, shifting in his seat with his discomfort from the thought
of it.

"It's nothing," Snowden offered him.

"What?"

"What you did, don't worry about it, it's nothing. Nothing at all. That's how you have to look at it," Snowden told him.

"Snowden, I'm not out here messing with you. This isn't some kind of joke, I'm being serious." Bobby managed to lean even
closer. "I broke in and lit a basement fire below a wall of subgratle insulation and now three people who cried and laughed
and loved are dead. Just because a couple of ex-cons cared more about a dream for a community than the people who actually
lived in it. Snowden, I killed three human beings."

"I know who you killed, I read the paper. You killed a guy who used to call up people and claim they had outstanding balances
on their credit reports to get their MasterCard numbers."

"Dio Demilo. He had a nine-year-old daughter Tio in foster care he wanted to win back when he got on his feet. I guilted Lester
into letting the poor girl into the Little Leaders League. She cries in the middle of tutorials - your little friend Jifar
told me that."

"The other guy, the bastard who used to work at the post office, he would go break into homes that submitted hold-mail requests,
he was a scumbag."

"Greg Tanen, he was first arrested for drug possession at the age of - "

"Nigger shut up. Just shut up. Stop doing this to yourself, it's stupid. You don't think they would have caused more misery
on their own if they'd stayed around? You can't bring them back, so just stick with your dream. Accept it as the worthwhile
cost. It's the only way."

Head wagging with pity, Bobby Finley bent forward, reached under his seat, and yanked out a plastic cooler. Snowden made the
oath watching him that if there some kind of burnt body part inside that he was going to start screaming, regardless of the
consequence. "Peanut butter and jelly?" Bobby held out to him.

"Bobby, why in God's name do you have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sitting under this church bench?"

"Peanut butter and jelly just sits better. I tried using balogna, figured it has a lot of preservatives so it would stay good
under there for a couple of days, right? Gave me the shits something fierce."

"You know what pisses me off the most about all this?" Snowden demanded.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand. Why would you be annoyed at all?"

"Because here I am basically agreeing with you about all the stuff you yourself are always going on about. I'm seeing you
in pain and I'm telling you what you need to hear. I'm giving you an out, I'm repeating your schtick back to you and somehow
you're still managing to sit there with that smug look on your face like I'm the idiot."

"I'm sorry that's how you feel." The way that peanut butter looked sticking to Bobby's mouth, the smacking noise it made as
he talked, it wasn't helping Snowden's mood in any way.

"Those guys died and that sucks, but Harlem just got that much closer to being the promised land. Any means necessary,' right,
like Malcolm X used to say."

"Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Turns out that's bullshit. Turns out the means just might be the most important part.
You were right all along, Snowden. Belief isn't safe. Look man, that's really why I asked you here," Bobby said, swallowing
the rest of his mouthful, wishing he'd brought some milk to go with it. "I've watched you almost a year now, and you don't
believe in anything! Not in God, not in humanity! You have no higher cause than your own and yet you still manage to get out
of bed every morning without losing it. You want to help me? Then tell me, Snowden, tell me how do you do it. How do you keep
from being blinded by ideals?"

"Are you nuts? I want to be blinded! You're supposed to be guiding me, inspiring me with your faith! You were always the one
who had the answers," Snowden tried to remind him.

"Yeah, and now my answer is you. Tell me, Snowden. I want to believe nothing, but I'm just not a natural so you're going to
have to help me. Give me your secret," Bobby pleaded, but it was useless. His best chance at nihilism was already gaining
momentum, moving physically and ideologically away from him.