There was the dropping of the toilet bowl lid onto the top of his own foot, but really, what were a few skinny little bones at a time like this one? There was the screaming, but that was later, that didn't even start till after Snowden'd collapsed to the floor, whispered dryly out of a wide-open mouth until his lungs regained their air and gave voice to him. Ryan Waters had already pushed past and closed the bathroom door by then, Snowden could hear the man placing furniture on the other side to keep it from opening again. By the time Snowden reasserted his status as biped, he could hear the desperate jiggles of Waters down the hall trying to open that tricky front door lock and abandon him.
The wood of the door was old, not very thick at all. Snowden flung open the cabinet under the sink in search of a monkey wrench to hammer through it, found only stacks of brown plastic pill bottles, noticed even in his frenzy that they were all nearly full, all prescribed to different women's names. I should have hit him, Snowden thought, not just to assert dominance but because this bastard deserves a pop in the mouth. Bottles spilled to the floor followed by a sweeping hand, but there was nothing useful behind them. Desperation growing, Snowden yanked open the mirrored medicine cabinet above, was taken completely off guard by the dozens of disembodied human teeth inside grinning back at him, plastic grimaces bobbing and swaying in excitement.
Snowden stared in disbelief at the collection of stolen dentures lining the glass shelves, each set floating in its own dirty glass, each set with its own typed name tag pasted proudly at the base, and whispered, "Oh this motherfucker needs to die," before turning to kick the door in.
The rage had come back and it was like, Welcome! Akwaaba! So good to see jou! With his full weight behind it, Snowden's foot made a big enough hole in the door's wood to reach his arm through. The dressers on the other side fell to the floor like they owed gravity money. Bursting into the hall, Snowden could see Ryan Waters still at the front door, both hands on the knob. On first sighting, Waters gave up his efforts, let go, and ran deeper into the living room. The knob kept turning wildly without him. Snowden wondered how many seconds he had before Lester would get the lock to work from the other side.
The sound of a window creaking open was the answer to Snowden's unformed prayer. Go, Ryan Waters, do all of us a favor. When Snowden reached the living room, Ryan Waters was already halfway out onto the fire escape. Escape me. Incompetence was Snowden's plan B, as always. Oh Lester, I'm sorry, but that wascally wabbit was just too much for me. Snowden for the first time in so long felt the muscles below his cheeks contract and realized he was really smiling. In growing glee, Snowden ran toward Ryan Waters to help him out, to make sure he made it down to the ground safely before Lester could see. It was just that Ryan Waters didn't know that.
Ryan Waters saw that the paranoid schizophrenic who'd broken into his home was now running toward him grinning like a maniac, and Ryan Waters got nervous. Ryan Waters ran too. Ryan Waters, on the iced metal landing, just didn't stop. Waters had so much momentum as he slid out and over the railing that for a moment it seemed to Snowden like the man might fly across the street instead of plummet down to it.
The sound that came from Ryan Waters's mouth as he fell was like nothing Snowden had ever heard before. Nor the thud when his body hit the ground, the first time. People bounce, apparently.
Staring down out the open window, Snowden's own screams were interrupted by the shock of seeing Lester on his cell phone at the opposite end of the block, standing by a mailbox as Wendell pissed on it. Lester looked down, then looked up, then gave the thumbs-up before calling Wendell and walking off toward Lenox. Once the sight registered, Snowden spun around to see Waters's doorknob still jiggling. The sound of the tumblers on its lock finally giving was the loudest thing he'd heard all day.
Horus walked in, closed the door behind him.
"Where is he? What was all that yelling? Why the window open? It's freezing out there." Horus pushed past him to get a good look out the window. "Oh hell no, you didn't. See, that ain't no way for a black man to die. I thought you were gonna to hit him in the head with a toilet lid?"
"What are you doing here?" Snowden stepped cautiously backward away from Horus and the open window.
"Why you looking at me that way? Oh let me guess, so you thought you was the only one had some special projects. I get it, you thought it was over, that you'd already won, didn't you? See, I'm here in case they needed a real man to get the job done. Hey, don't think this means I'm like your backup or something. More like quality control. Yeah, 'quality control,' I like that. You better act like you know. Skills like mine gets recognized."
TESTIFY
CEDRIC SNOWDEN, IN the closet, in the dark, on the floor, behind the coats, armed with only one lighter, a portable phone on which he kept hitting Redial, and the remains of four different packs of cigarettes. By the time she picked up her phone his battery was giving its death beep and the tobacco smoke was so thick Snowden realized he couldn't stop crying even if he wanted to.
"I don't care what the hell they're offering you, I don't care what you think you're going to get out of this, you got to get out of there now! Why the hell has the phone been busy for six hours!"
"I was on the Internet. Who is this?" Piper knew who it was, but she felt the question was still her prerogative.
"You don't even understand, oh yeah you think you do but you don't know what they have planned. I don't know what they have planned, but I do know you don't need to be there. You don't even like children." The phone battery was beeping faster, Snowden heard it as the desperate rhythm pushing his pleas forward.
"Fuck you, I have a maternal instinct. Look," Piper sighed, "sex is a funny thing, we both know that. The intimacy, it's inherent, even when you'd like it not to be. It creates social discomfort later. I know Horizon is sort of your pissing territory, and I can imagine you'd find my arrival very threatening."
"Piper, listen — "
"Snowden. I'm a big girl."
"Marks is the devil," Snowden said, but it was a parting shot, he'd already remembered she wouldn't listen to him. He couldn't imagine Piper listening to anyone who had something to say she didn't want to hear.
"The congressman is not the devil. The devil makes you sign a contract — I got a handshake deal. I never make my soul part of the negotiations, anyhow"
"Fine. Look, there's actually one more thing." It took Snowden the entire ritual of illuminating his hiding space with his lighter, igniting one more cigarette from the pack with a long dry gasp strong enough to turn two centimeters to ash before daring himself to ask it. "You think, I don't know, that maybe I could swing by? I could really use a hug right now."
"I'd like to say yes, but. . no. That wouldn't really be for the best, don't you agree? That reminds me, have you seen or heard from Robert lately? He doesn't answer his phone no matter when I call."
"Bobby? I don't know what the hell's going on with him. Look, I'm not trying to get into your pants. I mean, honestly that'd be nice, but what I really need — " Snowden caught his tongue, held it down while his thoughts caught up with it. "Hold up. Why the hell are you calling Bobby, anyway?" Snowden demanded, only to spend the rest of the night trying to figure out if his phone had died or if she'd hung up on him.
Two days later, hours into the afternoon, the doorbell rang. Snowden wasn't surprised at all; the phone had been ringing for hours the day before and even that morning, and when you considered the four appointments yesterday and three this morning that Snowden had simply not shown up for, you would assume that someone would eventually come calling. At first Snowden's inaction was out of shock and hysteria, but after a couple of naps his motivation for immobility had evolved into resistance and passive aggression. He just sat, watched the same cartoons Jifar used to. The door buzzer went off, Snowden heard it and realized that had to happen eventually. He just never expected it would be Bobby Finley's voice coming back through the intercom.