by Mat Johnson
Inside the Horizon office, Snowden could tell it was Halloween because Lester wore a black suit, orange shoes, plastic ghost cuff links, and a large pumpkin on his tie with a smirk much like Snowden's own.
"The importance of style is not to impress, nor to conform to the expectations of the masses, Snowman. It is to manifest an aspect of your soul externally."
Lester walked around his office whistling. It made him seem relaxed. Too relaxed, it suddenly seemed, and Snowden was hit with the guilty thought that Lester had seen Piper's article, that he knew where she got the idea and, when he least expected it, Lester would fire him. It was an attractively paranoid thought, but it made Snowden smile to himself at its absurdity almost immediately. Everybody knew no one read the New Holland Herald. It was absolutely dreadful. That was the existential beauty of the paper: It was reading material for illiterates.
"Can any child, or at least one that a Horizon employee recommends, be admitted to the little Leaders League?" Snowden asked to get his mind off of it. This question had actually been planned in bed that morning, made moot by Baron Anderson soon after, and was only offered to inspire further questions, as it did. Snowden, in the mood for the catharsis of confession, told Lester all of it. What the boy's beatings sounded like through the floor, the shade of Jifar's bruising the night before, how gentle the kid was, Baron Anderson's implicit threat of blackmail, and even a description of what the bastard's voice sounded like singing "Brick House."
Into his folded hands Lester nodded. Snowden was down to the detail that the hairy freak had the nerve to reek of Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo when Lester stood up to close his office door, went to the file drawers behind his desk, and opened one.
"That's the apartment directly below yours. Is that B. Anderson?"
"That's him. That's the guy, Baron Anderson."
"Arrested 1989, Disposal of Stolen Property. Again in '93 and '97, same thing. The guy's a fence. He works at a pawn shop at 117th and 2nd."
"How do you have all that? Did it come up on his credit report when he applied for the apartment?"
"We have information on all our residents with criminal backgrounds. You wouldn't believe how helpful having strong connections with the parole board can be, with a mission like ours. Look here, Mr. Anderson has been investigated twice in the past four years by Child Welfare for endangerment. Two different social workers," Lester read. Snowden kept waiting for something that pointed to some great Explanation, something that would solve the situation and absolve him of further action. "Apparently the man is very neat." Lester looked up, impressed. "Both visited in response to complaints by neighbors. No female relatives to take the boy in, no easy answers. Neither case worker saw fit to recommend difficult ones, either. Very clean, though. They both mentioned that."
"That's great. The geniuses at Child Welfare. See, that's why I would never bother calling those people in the first place, they just make things worse. Cleanliness. Oh, the place is really clean, so . . . whatever. Cleanliness is what matters." In response to Snowden's remarks Lester checked his fingernails, shrugged like it might be possible to argue that point successfully.
"Look, you really want to address this situation?" Lester asked. "You really want to take care of it, like a man, and put this guy in his place? Then it's not a problem. I know how to handle so-called men like this: You put the fear of God in his black ass, if you'll pardon me. If it means that much to you, we'll just go in there and make him understand in his own language that if he doesn't stop taking out his aggressions on the boy, we'll take ours out against him."
Snowden was laughing at it, the image in his mind, the insanity of it. "OK, I like it. No really, it is very good. The only thing is, we're not exactly the type to inspire 'the fear of God,' are we? The fear of gosh, maybe."
"Snowball. Don't underestimate the cowardice of bullies, or the element of surprise. I have keys to all the Horizon properties, correct? Next time he has one of his bathroom concerts, we'll arrive. Tonight, for instance, would be perfect. We're having a Halloween party for the students, just tell this boy to come, get him away from this. It's dirty work, there's no shame in flinching from it. Trust me though, a threat to their own mortal coil is the only thing bad people understand. This will work; it always does. Think of it as property management in its purest form."
Snowden, whose only alternative idea was to get Jifar to shove a couple of five-dollar bills in his dad's pocket to attract the Chupacabra, said, "Sounds like a plan."
It was a bad idea. At the time Snowden agreed to it, it was a bad-yet-tempting idea, but the tempting part didn't last long. After Snowden had walked an excited four-foot Chupacabra (or four-foot mutant frog —Jifar wasn't married to any one interpretation of his costume) over to the Horizon little Leaders League Halloween Party, after it had gotten dark outside, Lester's plan no longer seemed tempting at all. It was just bad. Snowden left his boss voice mails hinting at his new opinion, but there was no return call. Snowden was on the phone to give it one more try when he walked from his kitchen to his living room and saw Lester right there. Sitting on Snowden's couch. Legs folded, dime-size embroidered black cats hissing a line up his gray socks. The only changes to his earlier attire were black gloves and a matching hair net that made it look like a giant spiderweb had formed over his head.
"See? I know how to enter quietly. Mr. Anderson does sing a bit loud, doesn't he? I just heard him in your bathroom. You were right, a weak baritone under the delusion he's a tenor. Dreadful. Let's go get him."
Lester's hand on Baron Anderson's doorknob moved slower than the minute hand on his watch. When the door finally cracked open, the whining first bars of "Let's Get It On" jumped out. They walked inside. Lester started taking off his shoes so Snowden imitated him. The stench of sesame oil was so strong it conjured images of sesame seeds as big as almonds. The apartment was dark, nothing but the light from the windows and the illumination coming from the bathroom down the hall. From it, Baron Anderson yelled, "We are all sensitive people / With so much to give!" Lester lined up both sets of shoes along the door perfectly before rising, walking toward the light, the sound, the man.
"There's nothing wrong with me!" Baron Anderson declared into his microphone, and then Lester kicked open the door.
Lester walked into that bathroom like it was a hotel lobby. His first action a deft swat to the power button on the stereo machine by the tub. "We are the ghosts of Halloween past!" he declared into its silence. Baron Anderson covered his genitals. Considering the situation, Snowden thought this was a rather odd first response. That Lester was smiling as much as he was, that was odd as well.
Anderson noticed Snowden behind the odd man, cursed directly at him as he moved a hand from his groin to grab the side of the tub to lift himself up to attack. He managed to make it to the bent-kneed position of an upright Neanderthal before Lester could remove his snub-nose pistol from his coat and push it to the side of Baron Anderson's head.
It was a bad idea. I don't put myself in the middle of these situations, Snowden assured himself, these situations hunt me down and swallow me.
"Now you relax. That's your job right now, relaxing. Lay back down. You ask nice, we can even turn on the hot water if you start to get cold. It is kind of cold in here, isn't it? You cold, ghost?" Lester turned back to Snowden to ask him, pushing his gun farther into Baron Anderson's temple as he did so.
"I'm fine, sir," Snowden told him. Snowden was near the toilet. It called and teased him as every liquid inside Snowden all of a sudden wanted out.
"Good. Now everyone's comfortable so we can talk. See, we got a problem. You know what that problem is? Do you know?"
"I don't know what the fuck your problem is but I'm — "
Lester had large hands for a man his size. Laid perfectly flat and slapped quickly across Baron Anderson's face, his head shooting back as if it had been hit with equal force by a large timber product, oak or elm. Lester's hand, however, was just soft enough that it left
no mark beside a moment's blemish.
"No vulgarities, thank you. So, as you might have guessed, our problem is you. Let me explain. You see us here." Grinning, clearly enjoying his own performance, Lester motioned back and forth between himself and Snowden several times before continuing. "We are good people. We are among the people trying to make something for the folks in this community. We are the people who make, you see? You, on the other hand, are of the people who take."
"I didn't take nothing - " Another hit. If Anderson paid better attention, he could tell when the blows were coming because the gun lifted off of his head slightly right before the impact.
"Metaphorically. You are a drain on our community. Better example: You know the word nigger? Do you know why it's so offensive? Because it refers to people like you. People hear the word nigger and they get that disgusting image of you in their minds."
"I'm not the problem! That child molester behind - " This time it just took a hand pulled back to shut Anderson up.
"No lying," Lester said before leaning in closer. "We know how you been treating that boy. The beatings. The insults. Evil. It is the moral responsibility, the job, of the strong to protect the weak. How small are you, how weak must you be, to ignore that?" Baron Anderson didn't look weak to Snowden at all. In fact, Snowden found the man rather threatening despite his current situation. All he had to do was imagine the retribution the man would exact later to see him as strong. Of course, there would most certainly be retribution after this performance. Lester was a fool, or insane. The only reason Snowden didn't stop him was that the damage had already been inflicted and there was nothing to do but enjoy this section of the disaster that would surely unfold.
"I'll assume for a minute that you don't know any better, that you were raised by a beast who did the same. That is a travesty; one can only hope that you will fight to change your ways, because either way the cycle will be broken. Our people can't afford another generation of males raised by wolves to drag us down. Don't you see that? We simply can't afford to waste our energy on people who act like you. So I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Can you keep a secret?" Anderson nodded in response.
"That's good, because this is a big one. OK, here it is. It's about accidents. The thing about accidents is that the cops never bother to look further. It's not like on TV - the police simply don't have the time. As long as there's no reason not to, they just take it on face value and go on to more pressing matters. No investigation, no autopsy, nothing. But that's not my secret, here's my secret: You keep treating your boy the way you been, the next accident's going to happen to you." Baron Anderson was crying now. Not sobbing, just tears. Angry ones, like a pot boiling over. He was shaking as well; the way Lester had his hand around his neck, it was like he was trying to keep him still. "Since we are decent people, were giving you one more chance, one more opportunity to find salvation and change your ways. If we hear any more crap about you mistreating that angelic little boy, though, see as much as a bloody knee, then we're going to kill you. You having an accident is as easy as — ghost, get me that sing-along thing."
Snowden went over to where the karaoke machine sat on top of the toilet basin. It was as big as the thing it was sitting on, covered in colored knobs that had been lit and flashing when they entered the room. Snowden picked it up. Might as well break it, Snowden agreed. As long as they were here.
"Give it to me."
Snowden walked over. Still sitting on the edge of the tub, Lester kept his gun on their host, had one blind hand out to receive it.
"It's heavy," Snowden warned him.
"I know what I'm doing. Give it to me, I can handle it," Lester told him. Snowden decided to agree with him, just because he wanted to go home and have this be over. One hand armed and occupied, Lester reached down underneath the middle of the machine with the other, balanced it against his arm. Lester turned back to Anderson, unsmiling. "If this monstrosity just happened to crash down into the water and give your life a little poetic justice, no one would think to look for any other cause of death, or want to." Baron Anderson, naked and fetal in the gray water, flinched, but it was because Lester didn't really have a good handle on the karaoke machine, and its falling weight alone was capable of damage. "Put this back now. It is important to respect the property of others." Snowden walked forward, tripped on its industrial cord. It was not enough to send him falling, but was enough to do that to the large electrical appliance in Lester's hand.
To his credit, Lester compensated with his arm as the karaoke machine jolted away from him, but it was his overcompensation that sent the appliance backward, down into the tub in little hops as it bounced off Lester's desperate hands. All he succeeded in doing was knocking the power button back on, giving it a moment to flash frantic and scream wordlessly before going down into the bathwater of Baron Anderson.
The white flashes came from the front of the machine as the water poured in the ventilation holes in the back. The blue flashes came from where its cord met the socket in the wall, streaks that left smoke and brown marks on the surface around it. Snowden, who kept shooting his hand toward the plug only to pull it back when an electric flame shot out again, was in part relieved when Lester held him back from trying. Past him, Snowden could see Baron Anderson sharing his favorite place with his favorite possession. He wasn't shuddering violently as Snowden expected. Instead, Snowden watched as Anderson remained nearly still throughout the ordeal, every muscle clenched in unison until the lights went out.
In the dark, Snowden said: "Oh shit I think we just killed Jifar's dad."
Lester shuffled through his pockets blindly, responded by illuminating the room with a penlight. They walked over to the tub together. The dim yellow glow encircled Baron Anderson's face. It stared intently at the side of the tub from beneath the water.
"Accidents happen. You just tripped on a cord, no reason to suffer for that. Go down the hall, wipe off everything you touched with your hands as we came in."
"I didn't touch anything," Snowden said. This was a plan. Plans were good in times like this one.
"The inside front doorknob, the space in the middle of the wall where you leaned to take your shoes off. I saw you. Start with this door here and that monstrous noisemaker." Lester laid his flashlight down on the sink, aimed up toward the ceiling. It didn't give much light but enough as their eyes swelled out of necessity.
Snowden rubbed hard. Snowden rubbed his way toward freedom, up and down the length of the door, in places he could have possibly glanced standing. Lester took Anderson's pants from where they sat on the toilet seat, unfolded them, picked up the coins that fell to the floor. Finding the wallet, Lester laid it on the sink's rim before putting the pants back. Pulling his own wallet from his jacket pocket, Lester worked carefully trying to open it with his leather gloves on but gave up and took them off. The faux Caucasian skin of latex gloves covered Lester's hands. "Germs," he said when he caught Snowden looking, and began counting his money, whispering the sums as Snowden waited to move past him to rub down the murder weapon in the tub.
"Just give me a second. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five," Lester said as he tallied his bills. Snowden was still, yet still managed to become frozen.
"What are you doing?"
"Well, we don't want this looking like a robbery, do we? Not even a murderer would resist stocking up on spending money on the way out the door. Makes it look more like an accident, and that's good for us. It's what's best for the neighborhood." Lester put the bills together neatly and placed them into Anderson's nearly bankrupt wallet, folded it up, and stuck the contents back into the pants. Snowden took a deep breath after moments of no breathing at all, his lungs as preoccupied as the rest of him.
"But why . . . why did you use all five-dollar bills?" Snowden managed.
Lester, realizing that the other had no intention of passing him and getting on with his job, relaxed back into the middle of the small room once more.
"What? Does tha
t really matter right now? No reason. All right, then, the only ATM I can use Uptown without the dollar-fifty surcharge only carries fives - better to serve the broke, I imagine. Banco Republic, crappy services but the interest rate on checking is way better than Chase." Lester laughed. Snowden didn't. Snowden was too busy grabbing the toilet plunger, aiming the rubber end like a sword at Lester's head as he backed out into the hall.
"Get the hell away from me man, I don't believe this shit! You did this. You set me up!"
"Snowden please, this is a stressful situation, I know, but this is not really helping. This was just an accident, calm down."
"This wasn't an accident, none of them are accidents, they were you!" Snowden, overwhelmed enough that when the wall hit his back it was a surprise to him, darted the plunger forward to stave off an imagined attack.
Lester looked back, shook his head in disbelief, folded the chinos in his hand to a perfect re-creation of how he found them. Snowden saw himself reflected in the frown, saw that the one obvious madman in the room was the one who seemed poised to defend himself with suction and potty germs. The deluded one. Snowden dropped the plunger on the floor, put that hand to his head, started to apologize when Lester interrupted him jovially.
"Five-dollar bills! You know what, that is just too crazy. All night, ever since you came to me with this, really, I wondered if you already knew. It's so wild how your mind plays tricks on you because part of me thought you were just playing along the whole time." Lester, grinning, rubber-covered hands in the air in surrender, or as if he wanted to reach up and feel the moment. "You got me! You really did. That's so funny because at times I feared I might be leaving behind some sort of unseen connection on all these bits of social gardening, but I never would have caught that. I've got to tell you: You are going to be such a fantastic addition to the Horizon inner fold. Five-dollar bills; you must tell me how you came across that connection. Later, though. For now, finish cleaning up this place. Don't worry, I know you can do it. You've been doing a great job of removing evidence from crime scenes for months."