Hunting in Harlem Page 17
"A morbid bunch, aren't they?" The other man had a place card in his hand, picked up two more to read before selecting the seat next to Snowden. He looked boring and the kind of person who enjoys sharing his gift of boredom with others. Snowden nodded, wished there was something at the table he could pretend to be preoccupied with.
"Well, it's nuts, the way everybody's bugging out. I guess they don't really believe it. Because it's not true," Snowden offered, began busying himself with the pockets inside of his coat as if there was something in them.
"They don't believe it can happen to them. They're not poor, uneducated. Plus," the other turned smiling, "who doesn't love an urban legend? Especially black folks."
"Menthol cigarettes were genetically engineered to be especially addictive to blacks."
"Right, I remember that one. Tropical Fantasy soda was produced by the Klan to make us sterile."
"And the Klan makes all those crown air fresheners too, and Snapple, that's why they have little k's on every bottle," Snowden told him.
"The government tracks us by giving us an even fifth digit number on our Social Security numbers, and whites get an odd number," the man said.
"Right, right! And they're the ones who infected us with syphilis just to see the effects."
"Well, no." The guy paused to frown. "No, that actually happened. You know, it was called the Tuskegee Experiment."
"Oh, that's right, that's right. I knew that. It gets confusing."
"The important thing is that they're joking about it. They're not buying into it. They're buying houses instead. I'm just happy for Congressman Marks, he really deserves this. He's had a hard time of it, over the years, it's good to see things finally working out."
"You know the congressman?" Snowden turned to get a better look at him.
"Oh yeah. I've know him for years. He was my parole officer, long ago, if you can believe that. If you can believe I was ever nineteen with no greater aspiration than to tag up subways with a squiggly nom de plume."
Snowden looked to the table, saw "Lincoln Jefferson" on the card in front of the man.
"You're the guy that wrote the article. The article about the accidents."
"You read that? That's the good thing about having a stupid name, people remember. My dad, he sold beauty products to salons, he swore by it. His name was Bill but just for that he had it legally changed to Thomas. Yeah, that piece was the least I could do for the congressman. It's a good thing to see all this happen for him. I don't know how well you know him - you're one of the Second Chance proteges right? Lester pointed you out. Lester deserves this too. Shit, Harlem deserves this."
"You know Lester too?" Snowden's question at first just got dismissive laughter in response. Lincoln swiped his drink off the table, leaned forward into Snowden's ear. The room was getting so crowded that others were searching for their assigned seats as well. Snowden now wanted them gone, back to their callous laughter.
"Shit man, I was working for Mr. Marks writing press releases on his first election bid when I was going to journalism school up at Columbia, when he lost his wife. I was there when he got the call." Lincoln Jefferson looked up for a moment before continuing, made sure no one was hovering unseen behind him before going on. "Raped and murdered, can you believe that shit? What a way to go. Riverside Park, in the morning no less, down in the bushes below the wall. Didn't die quickly, either. Bled to death, throat cut. Something like that, the only thing you can hope for is that she was unconscious the whole time."
"That's beyond rough." Snowden could think of no better comment to make. He wanted to say, "That's no excuse," but that wasn't appropriate. Lincoln nodded, then shot to the left to pull two drinks off a passing Wolof's tray.
"I mean, we all got our sob stories, but that's just beyond. Lester too. He's had his share of low times. His lover passed last year. Jesse Himes, a sweetheart. Everywhere he went he'd bring this little dachshund, had sweaters and shit for it. Overdose. I knew he'd struggled with it for years, but still, the guy couldn't have been more than forty-five. I thought Lester was going to crack after that, but he didn't. Both of them are like that, that's why they've always worked so well together. Most people, you hit them with so much adversity, they just split in half, lose it. But these guys, they still got the dream keeping them going. They believe in this place, in making our world better. Now look what they've imagined!" Lincoln, both glasses still in his hand, motioned around the room and then at Snowden before drinking them.
Bobby could admit it: The evening was not going as he'd planned. It had indeed been planned, over a week of creative and intensive effort, so at least he could be certain it was not due to lack of initiative. The reason was as simple as it was unhelpful: In the meeting of "girls," planning simply didn't work. Attractiveness coild not be learned, nor could the amount of personal wealth and power it took for some woman to ignore one's physical deficiencies. Bobby felt that he had just enough physical positives (height and clear skin) that he could compensate for what he lacked by using confidence, ease, and charm, but he seemed unable to successfully convey those attributes either. So Bobby relied on what he could master, words. So Bobby relied on cue cards.
For each of his three premier opening lines, Bobby had written three realistic responses, then equally impressive ripostes, repeated this until he felt confident that he had mapped his way from casual banter to a full-fledged discussion. By the end of the week, the three sets of possible conversations were represented in triangles of blue cards on his walls, taped to the spines of The Great Work on the shelves. Then he memorized them.
The pyramid scheme didn't work. On Bobby's first run-through, at the Buders' residence, plate of okra and plantain held high to shield his heart, he was faced with the chaotic impossibility of it all. Lovely-seeming woman, hair pulled back in an intelligent knot, dressed in riding boots, jodhpurs, a hunting jacket. She seemed perfect for the "Let me guess, you thought this was supposed to be a costume ball — so you came as the most beautiful woman in the world" tangent. She was not. While she didn't tell him to piss off or reach for her rape whistle, her response hurt Bobby more than the times in his life those other things had happened to him. She did nothing at all. She didn't smile, she didn't frown, she didn't tell him to go away. The only thing that kept Bobby from repeating the line louder was that she did look over at him as he said it, only she looked away just as casually when he was done. Sipped her drink, tapped her feet to the light music. After a few seconds, Bobby turned around and went back outside.
Climbing back in the saddle, telling himself he'd drawn his joker for the night, Bobby's next target was a woman he selected because she was as tall and slight as he was. Wrapped in evangelically natural fibers, hair just as coarse, uncompromising and severe, she seemed someone who would appreciate Bobby's intellectual and radical passion. It turned out she appreciated the company of her existing acquaintances much more. Bobby really felt he was making inroads, getting five stages down with his "All this evening needs is Van Vechten to save it for prosperity, right?" tract, when another woman walked up to them, said "Sharon?" and struck up a completely different conversation that in no way involved or acknowledged his existence. It wasn't even a particularly driven conversation. There was a lull, an awkward silence into which Bobby tried interjecting commentary, but the second woman just started talking over him once more, about how hard it was to find parking. Again Bobby simply turned and walked away, more defiant in his defeat this time, pretending the women cared enough that the gesture could be taken as an insult.
He would burn the cue cards later. He would take great joy in burning them, slowly, individually, and he wouldn't feel guilty about lighting them on fire, either. He would try harder, smarter. If it was a matter of confidence, there was always hypnotism to strengthen his mental state. If he truly reeked of failure and desperation as he was beginning to fear, he would buy pheromones to mask the taint. Success could always be attained through detailed orchestration.
She started talking before he could get up. "So you're here. I saw your name there, I wondered if that was you, if you were going to show."
"Look, now I'm sorry about that tape. If - "
"No, you look. I finally picked up your book the other night, I figured I'd see you here, and I told you I'd read it. To be honest, I picked it up a couple of times and couldn't get through the first couple of pages. So I finally did. It's . . . it's amazing. Absolutely amazing. I've read it twice already. I got so much more the second time, it's so rich, I could just keep going back. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It's genius."
Bobby tried to contain his emotions, his imagination, failed at both miserably and instantly.
Bobby in bliss. He really had found her. Piper Goines was the one, he'd been right all along and she was more than he'd ever been capable of imaging. Piper Goines was his soul mate, but she was so so so much more than that, he could see this now. Piper Goines was what Bobby Finley wanted even more than love itself, what he'd ceased daring to even hope for. Piper Goines was his reader.
The food was good, but the pain in the ass was that people kept standing at the front of the ballroom and talking. It kept Snowden wondering: Was he the only one who found the speeches to be so unbearable? When were they going to shut up so he could really get down to burying his sorrows with what was on his plate? One speaker would finally end but Snowden wouldn't even have worked his way through a mouthful before someone else was talking, again with the thank-yous, again with the congratulations to Horizon Realty and Harlem, again with the history lesson nobody needed about the bright days of the past and the assurances about the equally glowing future, personal anecdotes thrown in. Picking at his chicken with his hands (what? what? we're all folk here!), Snowden was tempted to shove it in his ears instead. If it didn't taste so good, if he wasn't basically on the job at the moment, he would have done it. Swear to God. Everybody else was probably just as lit too. Who would notice?
First that lead cop was up there, the head of the precinct, talking about how safe the neighborhood was, about the drop in crime in the last two years, the last five. "Safe for who?" Snowden wanted to ask him, but the cop went on to clarify, point out that there had not been one incident of violent crime or robbery against any of Horizon's home owners in over a year, well below the city average. The Thirty-second Precinct was very proud, he said. What else would he say? Ladies and gentlemen, I really don't know what the hell I'm doing. The streets are run by the animals. Drug lords like Parson Boone still have more control up here than I do. Kill the poor. Applause came from the crowd when he finished, relief from Snowden. Barely a biscuit buttered and the next one was up there, this time the rep for the parole officers.
Oh, the round of applause this guy got, just looking at this loser Snowden could tell it had to be a stacked house. Rolling his eyes, Snowden suddenly wishing someone at his table was paying attention to him just so he could register his disgust formally. The PO made the point of saying he held the same union rep position Cyrus Marks had so long ago, then proceeded to clumsily reclaim all of the credit for the falling crime rate from the previous speaker. They were on them, you could be sure. They were diligent, protecting us all from the wolves. They knew "what them bastards are up to, let me tell you." No mention of the fact that his union had failed to stop the city from buying the old nursing home around the corner to use as the site for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Memorial Halfway House in the coming year, as Lester had been complaining privately for weeks now. No attempt by the speaker to hide the fact that his own ambition outdistanced even his host's accomplishments — the impersonator even called the congressman up from his dinner table to force the room into a premature show of appreciation, not letting him sit back down until they'd posed together for a picture.
Next, publisher Olthidius Cole rocked his weight from one hip to the other till he was up at the podium, taking his turn and liberties. Pancake cheeks flapping, pockmarks almost whistling from the amount of hot air pumping through. Snowden didn't find the publisher's rant nearly as amusing in person as it was on the cover of every issue of the New Holland Herald. After a few minutes of trying to make sense of Cole's seemingly random images, proclamations and denunciations, Snowden gave up. Around him, the "happy faces" picked at the carcasses on their plates, carrion shreds on their greasy cheeks. This is who Horizon was clearing the way for, Snowden marveled. The gluttonous cast as saviors.
Snowden needed to feel good again. Snowden needed to find Jifar, get a chance to be alone with the boy for the first time since he dropped him off months ago, tell him he would rescue him. Realizing that this was his chance, Snowden excused himself to the bathroom and headed upstairs to the lodge's second floor instead. That's it, he would adopt the boy, set things right again. He would serve out his year at Horizon, let Bobby win the job and brownstone, and take Jifar with him. Set up shop in Albany. Maybe get a recommendation from Bobby to counteract the prison record. Or tonight, they could go tonight. Snowden could get a job somewhere under the table, illegal immigrants did it all the time. They'd get a little apartment, Jifar'd have his own room, they'd be happy.
"But I don't want to go," Jifar told him, his eyelids barely parted. Jifar was as awake as Snowden was sober. Snowden stood next to the boy's top bunk mattress. There were drawings taped to the wall next to it that Snowden could tell were Jifar's without looking at the signature. Behind him, Snowden heard some of the other boys whispering and told them sternly to go back to sleep, waking several more up in the process.
"What do you mean you don't want to go? I'll do it, I'll be your new dad now. You don't want to go with me?" Snowden asked. He was starting to tear up. He felt silly but that just made him more upset.
"All right. If I have to, I'll go. Can all my friends come with me?" Jifar nodded to the other boys around the room, the ones pretending to sleep through this. "Will we have a Dragonball-Z Meglo Jungle Gym set in the backyard like the one here?" Jifar blinked, rolled over, and was quickly back in dream before Snowden could answer.
Defeated, Snowden stopped in the hall bathroom, its septic smell alone bringing back some of his senses. At the sink, he kept splashing water to his face as if on its surface lay all his difficulties, a film enough tries could rinse away. When he turned off the tap, the sound of an evacuating bowel in the closed stall behind him told him he wasn't alone before the voice did.
"Snowden?" Lester asked. Snowden said yes, covered his eyes with his hands so he could roll them. "I love those shoes you're wearing. Are those Florsheims?" Lester continued. Snowden confirmed this.
"Yes, I thought so. Florsheim makes an excellent shoe, always have. You know, the heat's died down a bit. It's hunting season again. There's going to be a tragic accident tomorrow night, about eleven p. M. . I'll pick you up at nine-thirty. You should probably wear sneakers instead."
The Great Work refuses summarization, defiantly.
The Great Work was never intended to be reduced below its 374 page form.
If one were to be so callous, so impetuous as to strip it of its weight, to disregard its intricate artistry and hack it down to a list of mere events, harpoon those damaged, bleeding chunks together into a lifeless time line, one would probably come up with something much like the following:
A social worker from Galveston takes a job as an employee counselor in an isolated logging camp in central Alaska. The company that hires him is too cheap to hire an actual licensed psychologist for the job. It's also too cheap to hire a competent clerk at their home office in Anchorage, and a careless error by an uncaring temp results in the main character arriving at the camp two days after the e
nd of logging season, as opposed to the beginning of it. The entire site is empty, something the social worker doesn't figure out until his pilot (the camp is accessible only by biplane) has already flown away. It is scheduled to remain vacant until "breakup," when spring comes and the ice melts and work can be done once more, which is seven months after his arrival.
Amazingly - and this is really a tribute to the mastery of craft of one Robert M. Finley - all of this happens on the first page. The rest of the novel is set in a closet.
As the company relies on cell phones, there's no way for him to contact the outside world. All but a misplaced barrel of rice has been removed from the kitchen to discourage the seven-foot-tall, eight-hundred-pound grizzlies that inhabit the region from breaking in again. There is no running water as the pipes are frozen (it's negative ten degrees Fahrenheit outside), but there's plenty of snow. The furnace will not work, but the electricity's on and he finds one plug-in heater powerful enough to keep a closet forty-eight degrees above zero.
Much of the novel is description. Much of the novel follows his batde to get as close as possible to the heater without lighting the fax cover sheets he's stuffed in his clothes for warmth on fire. They say that the Eskimos (who don't like to be called that as it is an Indian derogatory term meaning "raw fish eater") have twenty-seven words for "snow." Perhaps to underscore the uselessness of the English language to capture this environment, Finley uses just that one word, snow, so many times that the reader becomes so numb from it, it's as if they'd shoved their eyes into a mountain of the stuff.