Free Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson Page B

name tags handwritten in crayon, one on the frame of each mattress. They
     must have built them in there, that was the only way they could have fit, and now he was going to have to take them apart
     just to get them out. As always, Snowden packed the children's things separately in the specially stamped boxes. On Lester's
     request, Snowden also created a different box for each child. They were now enrolled in Horizon's Little Leaders League and
     Lester intended to relay their possessions to them that night.
    Finished, joining Lester in the master bedroom, Snowden was amazed at the contrast in size. The bed was a king yet looked
     like a little island in the center of the vast room. The mirrors on the walls and ceiling made the space seem like a loft.
     Lester caught Snowden looking at the costumes lying out on the dresser: a full-body skin of latex with holes for the head,
     hands, feet, vagina, anus; a leopard leotard whose tail erectly saluted; the mandatory French maid outfit but in red leather
     this time; countless others obscured below them and shackles straight out of Roots on top.
    "She was a whore," Lester clarified, throwing the bulk into a fresh lawn bag, stomping it down with his purple snakeskins
     to make room for more.
    Back to God. It was as if he existed. It was as if he was making up for a century of hands-off management, was considering
     a new policy of snatching up the unjust and using Harlem as a testing ground. It was a source of comfort, that the bad would
     be punished. It explained things: Maybe, when Snowden swung on his father and the man just died, maybe that was why. Maybe
     God was a brain hemorrhage sometimes. It offered solutions to unsolvable problems: This fate could await Jifar's father as
     well, some moisture on the bathroom tiles and faulty high-voltage wiring ready to claim victory for a vengeful lord, and then
     one more child would be free of a monster. More troubling was the universal implication of the theory Snowden had begun to
     imagine. It wasn't long before he began judging himself and his own actions.
    Weeks into his special project, Snowden went up on the roof, unhooked the line he had less than two months before connected,
     then called Time-Warner to get his cable legally this time. The DMV tickets for the rental car, he paid them. He cursed the
     City of New York Transportation Authority for their contrived alternate-side-of the-street parking, but he admitted his sin
     and paid them anyway. Snowden's entire collection of Black Tail (April/May, August/ September, October/November, and the double-size Juneteenth Collector's Edition) went in the trash. Snowden
     even found himself keeping his apartment unusually orderly, fixing the stopper on the Irving Howe so you didn't have to hold
     the handle to flush, replacing the shower curtain with a plain, mildew-free print, hanging up the framed pictures that had
     from the day he'd moved in been resting on the floor against the wall. Eventually he would die and someone would be in his
     apartment as well. The saddest thing, those little tasks undone.
    This rest of the world could not be controlled. In light of his new awareness of death's proximity, its random appetite, Snowden
     looked for safety, found none. On the job, carrying large, visually impairing objects down the steps, Snowden lost the confidence
     that if he simply dropped a foot blindly to the space below, there would be a stair there waiting for it, ready to carry his
     weight and the weight he was carrying.
    Bobby: 'You look like a little girl trying to figure out if the water in the pool's too cold."
    Undaunted, Snowden kept dipping down his right foot only, testing for purchase with his toe before investing the rest of his
     weight on the platform. The last step on any flight, the one right before the landing, was particularly worrisome to the newly
     spooked Snowden. His view blinded by whatever crap he was forced to lift at the moment, he kept fearing that he