So Byron was doing a story in Harlem. He had already taped two morbidly obese black women, one of whom had actually reached
into her shirt and pulled a Kleenex from her bra to wipe her forehead during the interview, a detail he was particularly pleased
with. Byron had also collected tape of several large, sweating dark men, the kind he associated with Harlem, but while all
the sound bites had been good enough to edit down to the fifteen-second piece they were being collected for, he was still
searching for that one interview he needed to collect before they left for Chelsea and their next story. The interviewee with
a bit more color, the easy plug-in for the closing of the segment. One of those salt-of-the-earth characters places like Harlem
were associated with in the minds of the viewers, a much less refined and much more flamboyant character who would speak his
or her mind with little regard for restraint, propriety, or grammar. Byron Harding wouldn't have used the N-word. It was always
a shock, considering his understanding of Harlem, that it took so long to find the right one. When he saw the answer to his
problem approaching, a muscular, feral, brown-skinned man in a green suit covered in luminescent gold buttons and tassels,
all Byron could think was,
Jesus Christ a walking Christmas tree,
thanking the heavens that he worked in the age of color television.
When the camera crew charged in their direction, Bobby and Snowden spread with the rest of the crowd. Horus didn't even shift
weight from one leg to the other. Whether it was that there was no question in his mind that he was their target or he simply
didn't get out of people's way as rule was uncertain. Snowden watched him and he didn't even see Horus glance at the camera,
he was so captivated by the woman who came with it, the one with the makeup too heavy for the weather, the primary-color ensemble,
and the microphone.
"Sir, are you a Harlem resident?" the woman asked. Luanda something, Snowden recognized the woman from watching her in other
neighborhoods talking about their problems. She was usually the one they brought out when it had to do with Negroes. Next
to Horus she looked like a mannequin for children's clothes. Why were they all so short in person? Wasn't there one tall person
out there insecure enough to sacrifice all for fame too?
"Fine, fine lady, I am not only a Harlem resident, I am the salvation of folks who dream of being a Harlem resident. I am
the man who makes that dream come true. Horizon Properties, ask for Horus when you call. Horus, like the black god, not like
the thing the Lone Ranger rides on." Horus reached into his uniform and whipped out one of his business cards like the reporter
had asked for it, but as soon as she hesitanlyy reached out to take it, Horus whipped it away, held it up with two hands by
its corners against the camera lens. The look of the producer looking back at this fool: like he'd just won something. Smiling,
giving the camera and reporter the thumbs-up to continue.
The reporter, behind the press badge and mask of makeup, was Luanda Mullins, once ashy kneed like the rest of them, her own
baby-powdered chest the closest she ever got to white skin growing up in Spring Falls, South Carolina: how sick was she of
this shit? When am I going to just take this microphone and hit someone, be they coon or coon hunter? How can I make a difference
if by the time I'm in a position to do so I've given up so much of my soul? Luanda Mullins, reporting for WKPS News, leaned
the microphone forward to the latest amusement, promised herself to make a three-figure donation to the Urban League tomorrow
and an equally expensive visit to her massage therapist that night.
"Are you aware that a recent report done by the
New Holland
Herald
shows that residents of Harlem have a forty-two percent greater chance of accidental death than any other neighborhood?" Horus
took the information, curled his pointer finger over his lips and bowed his brow, but only long enough for the gesture to
be registered, snapping back immediately to his previous position.
"Well, as you know, Harlem's own
New Holland Herald
is a very respected paper with a long tradition - I myself am counted among its readers - but I would have to disagree with
the article itself, the way you're telling it. I am an extremely graceful individual, and if y'all are saying black folks
are particularly clumsy as a people, I got the names of several hundred millionaires in the NBA who might disagree with you."
The last comment almost got Luanda Mullins to laugh, an urge exacerbated by desperation not to do so. In exchange for his
lucid, if odd, statement, Luanda decided to offer him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there was a reason he was dressed like
that. Maybe the Universoul Circus was in town.
"So you don't think there's anything odd about it? Have you heard people saying it's the Chupacabra running around?"
"What the hell is that? They like the Latin Kings? I'm from Chicago, I don't have no type of association with those dudes."
"No, it's an urban myth, a monster. Just, could you give us a comment on whether you think this might put a damper on its
current real estate boom?"
"Harlem is the savior of New York City, the top of the island because that's where cream rises, understand? There ain't no
problem up here. Where else in Manhattan you gonna go, you gonna get a beautiful brownstone for under five hundred thousand
dollars? Where you going to rent a fine two-bedroom for less than fifteen hundred? The only monster around here is me, sweet
thing, and I'm a monster of love."
The last sentence got edited. So did the bit with the business card. The rest didn't. Horus was shown in mute clips behind
the teaser ads in between the cartoons until the four o'clock news finally came around as promised. After that, aside from
the begrudging nod between six-thirty and seven P.M. to the entire world that somehow existed outside New York City, the segment
played regularly at twenty-six and fifty-six past the hour, sports then weather, then Big Daddy Horus breaking it down.
Every time he saw it, Snowden noticed something new about the moment as well, like Horus giving the reporter a long wink after
his "graceful" line, or the look on Snowden's own gray face behind Horus's right shoulder. That Snowden kept mouthing "oh
shit" to himself for the length of the interview, a fact that had not Bobby joyously pointed out Snowden would have remained
unaware of.
Every single time, at twenty-nine and fifty-nine past the hour, the anchors concluded with commentary on either Horus's personal
appearance or his visible interest in their windblown coworker. Every time they found this funny, more so as the evening continued.
By the news's final episode, the last representation of the present before reruns promoted the past again, the sports anchor,
a white man much too old for his haircut, followed the clip with the sole comment, "Thank you, General," and the entire cast
lost it. The weatherman, by breed a particularly jolly fellow to begin with, was literally caught off balance by the comment,
falling off his stool and to the floor in laughter, taking several once neat piles of notes with him. Laughter could be heard
coming from off camera as well, both before and after this minor accident. As the light dimmed on the set, Snowden could see
the outline of the four who remained seated, their heads bowed, their backs bouncing, each to the rhythm of their own hilarity.
For Snowden, it didn't get old either: that sinking feeling it evoked, the way it made his nipples poke firm and the top of
his lip sweat though no other part of him did. The growing certainty that he would spend the rest of his days in prison and
then in hell if the Christians were right about the afterlife. In Snowden's imagination Lester mouthed "loose lips sink ships"
as he "accidentally" pushed Snowden over his own building's banister.
"Look, I don't see what you're getting yourself worked up about. It's not like this is going to ruin the market up here,"
Bobby offered. "It sure as hell doesn't help, Snowden my man. People already have enough little horrid fantasies about Harlem,
but it's not like everything is over. It's just an anomaly, there're tons of old folks and users up here messing up the curve.
Look at it this way, with the housing situation as tight as it is, the more of them that knock off, the more places we got
to move people in. By 'any means necessary'"
"You know what? That's a cliche."
"No it's not, it's a quote. I am a literary writer, Snowden. I don't deal in cliches," Bobby dismissed.
Snowden ignored Bobby Finley, kept drinking. He'd started at two in lieu of pizza but threw up after the first telecast so
felt he had some making up to do.
"I wish I was Catholic," Snowden confessed. This time it was his turn to be ignored as Bobby desperately surfed channels for
something as absurd as Horus to keep his good mood going. Snowden wished he was Catholic because he wanted to do some talking.
He gave himself a count of sixty during which he would tell Bobby about his side project, about Jifar's dad and his final
song, even how he'd messed around with Piper and told her about it, that she'd blown the whistle and they were all surely
doomed now, them, the little Leaders, even Harlem. Bobby lay on his couch atop a layer of rejected pages of
The Tome.
Their sense of housekeeping - yet another thing Bobby and his soul mate had in common.
"I slept with her," Snowden offered. It was meant as an opening toward much greater revelation, a warmup.
I am a sinner,
he heard himself saying. The engravings, the monks' self-mutilation and torture, Snowden understood them now. Catholics could
drink as much as they wanted too, the religion was made for him, he could only hope he'd remember his conversion tomorrow.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Bobby asked, but there was already pain there. There was already a mental image because,
even though he wanted it to be different, at the vague reference "her" it was Piper Goines he thought of.
For Snowden's part, it was simply stunning how quickly his desire for self-flagellation and revelation abandoned him. In the
moment between when punishment was instigated and the blows were to come, it had absconded, leaving a flow of dread to fill
out the cavern burned by desire. "Oh shit" once again emerged as Snowden's mantra.
"Look, I mean, you were right about the whore thing. Totally. She was just not your 'one.' I think this just proves that more
than anything."
"You fucked her." Bobby had picked up his lighter, was practicing opening the lid and lighting it at the same time with just
a snap of his fingers. Perfect every time. Snap and then whoosh and then there was this flame as long as an erection, blue
and narrow, lighting up Bobby's face and the room beyond it. The sight turned the remaining waste in Snowden's bowels to liquid.
Hearing his intestines gurgle like a novelty straw, it was with some awe that Snowden noted,
Wow,
I'm so scared I'm about to poop myself.
Lying seemed a better alternative.
"Yo, my man, it was after, after you said you wouldn't have anything to do with her. Days past, you already made it clear
you wasn't interested, that she was not the one. I ran into her at a bar, we got drunk, it was awful. An awful, skanky thing.
I was immediately ashamed of myself. I just tell you this to, you know, confess my sin to you. I am so, so sorry. And you
were right, she's a bad, bad person. And she hurt me, she hurt me too. I got seduced, then she used me, and it hurts, man.
It really does. I just wanted you to know that you were right all along. She's evil. I just should have listened."
Bobby said nothing, his face boiled featureless. Snowden hung, waiting to be cut down with a response. After a few more snaps
of the lighter, Bobby finally put it away, leaving his arms dead at his sides. Snowden attacked his forty. It was full, but
he would empty it, use it as a polite excuse to call an end to the night instead of simply sprinting out the door like he
wanted to. Bobby stood staring at him, his arms not even swaying at his sides, as Snowden's bottle went straight up in the
air like he was balancing it on his lips.
"She just wasn't the one," Bobby repeated back to him, minus all intonation. "I was clearly mistaken."
Snowden didn't even bother mumbling out a response. Bobby's words seemed the kind of thing someone says aloud just to hear
the truth resonate.
The ache in his eyes was the only thing that got Bobby to start blinking again. His body, tired of waiting for its orders,
took over. Bobby suddenly became animated and stepped toward him. In response, Snowden took the proactive measure of bracing
for the blow. When Bobby merely grabbed Snowden's empty bottle and headed for the kitchen, Snowden didn't abandon his expectation
or stance: arms wrapped around his head's top and bottom, both knees pulled up to protect his chest and abs.
I am not a coward, I am Armadillo
Man,
Snowden told himself. Waiting for the pitch and the forty bottle to come flying, Snowden watched through the gap between his
elbows as Bobby placed the empty in the trash, pulled a full bottle from the refrigerator, opened it with that rubber thing
by the sink before walking back to him. Snowden's muscles relaxed and fell to the floor like dead rose petals, his smile of
appreciation just that much wider because the gesture was unexpected.
It was that smile that woke up the brain that had for the last minutes been simply floating passively in Bobby's head. Impulse
outgunned restraint and Bobby pushed the bottle past Snowden's hand, turned it over, and began pouring the contents into his
guest's lap. Then he just held it there, staring into the eyes of the other.
It was not the gesture that scared Snowden, it was that Bobby's eyes weren't even angry. His mouth was breathing heavily and
his chest bounced below it, but his eyes were dead like there wasn't a damn thing their owner could do that would disturb
them. They were all mad, the men of Horizon, even the best of them. Snowden remained seated, took the glare and offered his
own learned numbness in response to it. The beer soaked Snowden's pants, the couch, and the papers around him. The sound as
it left the bottle and made its way to the hard floor died down, and then Snowden listened to Bobby's breathing even clearer
until he decided to walk off down the hall.