immediately regretted the question, was about to apologize when Lester continued.
"I knew he was a registered sex offender. We found that out after we bought the property. Specifics? Of course not. But there's
only one cure for people like that, isn't there?"
Lester stopped sweeping, looked over at Snowden for him to take over the exercise, then took his seat against the wall.
"Well that's the thing, am I right?" Lester continued. "You take almost any block in Harlem, almost any apartment building,
and out of every hundred people, ninety are basically decent, hardworking folk just trying to take care of their own. But
that ten, the drug dealers, the thugs, thieves, and rapists, those that abuse their children directly and through neglect,
the ones who have no respect for others, civilization, society, all of these parasites set the tone that everybody else has
to live by. 'The Terrible Tenth,' I like to call them, that keeps everybody else down."
"At least, with this bastard's death, it's down to 'The Terrible Nine Point Nine Nine Percent' now," Snowden said, immediately
regretting the callousness of the statement. Lester just smiled though, sat there puffing on his cigarillo, watching his smoke
rise around them.
The night ended with beer, two forties held one in each of Snowden's arms like he was headed for a party. Walking up his building's
steps, Jifar was in his path. The boy was laid out on his dirty landing with paper and crayons. It was one o'clock in the
morning.
"What are you doing?" Snowden asked him.
"What's it look like I'm doing? I'm drawing."
"Drawing what?"
"I'm drawing the Chupacabra." The paper had been cut from the side of a brown paper bag, on it was the image of a green fanged
thing with too many arms.
"You got school tomorrow, you need to be in bed. What's a Chupacabra?"
"It's the monster eating people in Washington Heights. Mannie Ortiz knows someone who saw it. If I do this good, we're going
to give it to the police so they can catch him."
"Why aren't you in bed, little man?"
"I'm locked out, and I left your key in my room, in my hiding space," Jifar admitted.
There was music vibrating the door of Jifar's apartment. After a while, Snowden gave up on knocking, just started kicking
it until the sound stopped and the peephole darkened.
"Come get your boy," Snowden said into it. The door began unlocking.
"Nigger, you woke me up." Baron Anderson in his gray WELCOME TO NEW YORK, NOW GET OUT T-shirt and wrinkled Y-fronts. Snowden
attempted to continue the discussion but Anderson walked out in the hall in his bare feet yelling, "Get the fuck in here,"
grabbing his boy by his arm and disappearing again, the door slamming in back of them.
The final sound sent other doors along the floors slowly unlocking, other heads leaning out doorways to stare at Snowden as
if he was the villain. Snowden ignored them, reached down and rolled up the picture, forcefully shoved each crayon back in
the box, imagining he was cramming them up the father's nose instead.
BOBBY FINLEY, THE GREAT WORK
AFTER CLASS SNOWDEN would go over to Bobby's house and they would get drunk. The game was to go to a new bodega each time
and get 160 ounces of the cheapest beer they could find. They called it a game because to acknowledge that it was all they
could afford was depressing. Then they would spend seventy-five cents on the New Holland Herald and Bobby would read the misprints and more egregious grammatical errors out loud. At first, Snowden didn't know what the
big deal was, at least the paper was trying, but some of these bloopers were just too ridiculous and after a while they were
both laughing until they just couldn't anymore because it hurt too much. This would usually be followed by a discussion on
the future of black people, hopeful or pessimistic. Both had majored in African-American studies during their college careers,
one of many similarities they were discovering. If
"I knew he was a registered sex offender. We found that out after we bought the property. Specifics? Of course not. But there's
only one cure for people like that, isn't there?"
Lester stopped sweeping, looked over at Snowden for him to take over the exercise, then took his seat against the wall.
"Well that's the thing, am I right?" Lester continued. "You take almost any block in Harlem, almost any apartment building,
and out of every hundred people, ninety are basically decent, hardworking folk just trying to take care of their own. But
that ten, the drug dealers, the thugs, thieves, and rapists, those that abuse their children directly and through neglect,
the ones who have no respect for others, civilization, society, all of these parasites set the tone that everybody else has
to live by. 'The Terrible Tenth,' I like to call them, that keeps everybody else down."
"At least, with this bastard's death, it's down to 'The Terrible Nine Point Nine Nine Percent' now," Snowden said, immediately
regretting the callousness of the statement. Lester just smiled though, sat there puffing on his cigarillo, watching his smoke
rise around them.
The night ended with beer, two forties held one in each of Snowden's arms like he was headed for a party. Walking up his building's
steps, Jifar was in his path. The boy was laid out on his dirty landing with paper and crayons. It was one o'clock in the
morning.
"What are you doing?" Snowden asked him.
"What's it look like I'm doing? I'm drawing."
"Drawing what?"
"I'm drawing the Chupacabra." The paper had been cut from the side of a brown paper bag, on it was the image of a green fanged
thing with too many arms.
"You got school tomorrow, you need to be in bed. What's a Chupacabra?"
"It's the monster eating people in Washington Heights. Mannie Ortiz knows someone who saw it. If I do this good, we're going
to give it to the police so they can catch him."
"Why aren't you in bed, little man?"
"I'm locked out, and I left your key in my room, in my hiding space," Jifar admitted.
There was music vibrating the door of Jifar's apartment. After a while, Snowden gave up on knocking, just started kicking
it until the sound stopped and the peephole darkened.
"Come get your boy," Snowden said into it. The door began unlocking.
"Nigger, you woke me up." Baron Anderson in his gray WELCOME TO NEW YORK, NOW GET OUT T-shirt and wrinkled Y-fronts. Snowden
attempted to continue the discussion but Anderson walked out in the hall in his bare feet yelling, "Get the fuck in here,"
grabbing his boy by his arm and disappearing again, the door slamming in back of them.
The final sound sent other doors along the floors slowly unlocking, other heads leaning out doorways to stare at Snowden as
if he was the villain. Snowden ignored them, reached down and rolled up the picture, forcefully shoved each crayon back in
the box, imagining he was cramming them up the father's nose instead.
BOBBY FINLEY, THE GREAT WORK
AFTER CLASS SNOWDEN would go over to Bobby's house and they would get drunk. The game was to go to a new bodega each time
and get 160 ounces of the cheapest beer they could find. They called it a game because to acknowledge that it was all they
could afford was depressing. Then they would spend seventy-five cents on the New Holland Herald and Bobby would read the misprints and more egregious grammatical errors out loud. At first, Snowden didn't know what the
big deal was, at least the paper was trying, but some of these bloopers were just too ridiculous and after a while they were
both laughing until they just couldn't anymore because it hurt too much. This would usually be followed by a discussion on
the future of black people, hopeful or pessimistic. Both had majored in African-American studies during their college careers,
one of many similarities they were discovering. If
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