Free Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson

work, The Tome, was just not meant for public consumption. With no readers, Bobby had intentionally started writing for no one. The only other
     person who got close to the 478 pages of The Tome was Snowden, who liked to use its pile to rest his beer on. The Tome was the first example of the principles of the "Robert M. Finley Emulsion Literary Theory," a theory that Bobby himself had
     invented. To any he could engage in a discussion upon the concept, Bobby often remarked that he was nearly twenty pages into
     its treatise, but that he would not reveal it until it was completely ready, and then as a mass E-mail. At its simplest (and
     despite hours of detailed explanation, the simplest version was more than Snowden could comprehend), it was about not actually
     writing, but showing, highlighting, and amplifying the poetry of the universe around us. Something about humans being imperfect,
     so avoiding themselves as a source. From what Snowden had heard of The Tome during impromptu drunken readings, it seemed to be collections of random conversations, stream-of-consciousness, and chapter-long
     descriptions of street noise. His second forty ounce near gone, Bobby would talk about the line between genius and insanity,
     the importance of walking close to it. Snowden just wished he would walk on the other side. Bobby swore, though, that with
     the right drugs opening your mind, you could dance to it.
    At moments, Snowden found the intensity of Bobby Finley inspiring, something he could just sit and drink in front of for hours,
     and Bobby's intelligence gave it both a voice and elegance. After a while, though, it could get plain boring. Sometimes Snowden
     feared that when Bobby got excited (as he did) and pulled out a copy of The Great Work to quote, the thousands of others on the shelf would come collapsing down as well, crushing them. Just another fatal accident,
     and then Lester would be in here cleaning up, blank faced, except this accident would get press for the sole reason that it
     was so absurd. The earnest cream puff anchor on Channel 9 news would run the teaser, "Man Crushed by Dreams," during commercials
     only to offer the story as an almost lighthearted piece slipped in after the sports and weather. Snowden's own apartment was
     only a block away, and Bobby had even suggested that they go there sometimes, but since Snowden had already given Jifar his
     own set of keys it didn't seem right, the boy there, them drinking. If the kid wanted to see that, he could stay downstairs.
    Those keys had been meant for Bobby in case Snowden got locked out. However, drunk, resting on the space cleared off Bobby's
     makeshift couch, Snowden didn't see the use anymore in getting another set made for Bobby. Not only would they most certainly
     be lost in the debris that blanketed every surface and floor, but there were other, even more compelling reasons not to. The
     most obvious was that while Bobby had implied that the burning down of his mom's boyfriend's house was a one-time incident,
     and while the fact that he was walking a free man certainly testified to the fact that a judge and jury agreed so, the burnt
     crap that emerged from beneath the surface anytime Snowden adjusted the mess around him contradicted that. While the majority
     of it seemed to be charcoaled packs of matches, black and flailing, the variety of what Bobby chose to ignite was nearly impressive.
     Plastic silverware, just the eyes in an entire issue of Talk, a collection of small colored plastic dinosaurs. Snowden began hunting for new finds, curved round and twisted by the heat,
     every time Bobby went to the bathroom. Based on one of his findings - an entire collection of male doll heads apparently disfigured
     and guillotined before melting in some postapocalyptic revolution - Snowden began to believe that Bobby was actually going
     out and buying things specifically to burn them.

LEARNING
    A LOT OF people died in Harlem. This didn't surprise