"Sure, yeah."

Up the drive we found our way to a side door. OJJJ rapped and the door opened on a chain. A face looked us over.

"Yo, it's me."

"Who that? OJJJ?" The voice came from somewhere behind the silent face, which only peered at us.

"Shut up-let me in."

"What's up with your boy?" said the peering face at the chain.

OJJJ nodded at me. "He cool."

"Don't keep my man OJJJ standing," said the hidden voice. The door shut again long enough to free the chain, and then we pushed inside. A yellow party bulb cast its glow over a loose ring of men on folding chairs, around the grinning coils of a space heater. The four of them were more than OJJJ had expected-one more in particular. OJJJ turned back for the door the instant he saw the man he hadn't wanted to see, but it was too late, we were in, and the door was blocked.

The man stood and smiled at OJJJ and held out his hand. OJJJ ignored it, didn't face him directly, but turned to another in the circle and made a wheedling appeal. "Damn, you let Horton come here just to set me up? That ain't right right."

"Horton said how you took him off, OJJJ." The same voice had invited us in. "That ain't seem exactually right to us."

"Shut up up, man. Fuck you even listen listen a ill thug like Horton?" a ill thug like Horton?"

Horton let his hand fall. "I ain't no thug like you, boy."

"You come round here to take us off, OJJJ? Who your ghost-face friend?"

With that OJJJ had reached the limits of language-that was what his grimace seemed to say as he tugged the pistol from the interior pocket of the coat, from which the glass pipe had come and returned. It was a snub revolver, as dated as the cars on the street. OJJJ might have bought it at the same thrift shop where he'd bought the suede-front, if thrift shops sold pistols. He fired it, or anyway it fired, on its way out of the coat, shattering plasterboard panels on the ceiling. Dust rained, chairs clattered, the report seemed to ruin my eardrums, only they lived to pulse in pain with the music. Between the first shot and the next every man had time to shout fuck fuck, but after the second anything was drowned by Horton's bellowing. Blood seeped through Horton's interlaced fingers as they gripped his knee, and as in a child's game he moaned "You got me, you got me, you got me!"

I put on the ring and became invisible. No one noticed. OJJJ stood inert, enthralled by the work he'd done on Horton's knee, but the gun went on moving, jerking back and forth, shaking in tensed fingers, not firing for now. Someone chanted shit, shit, shit shit, shit, shit. I moved to OJJJ and in the great act of physical courage to that point in my life kneed him in the balls and twisted the gun from his hand-he doubled and vomited so quickly it was as though I'd relieved him of the task of withholding the bile, as though vomiting had been his purpose here from the start.

The pistol was gulped into my invisibility for an instant, but it seared my hand, heated from the combustion of firing-it was a primitive thing, barely more than a nugget of steel and dynamite made for flaring fire in a certain direction, for giving out its jolt, and it had done its work and was a coal. It burned me and I dropped it. Only it wasn't done. It fired once more as it cracked to the floor, then spun there to a stop in OJJJ's splash of thin green puke. The third bullet found OJJJ's neck. He gulped and flopped backward and grasped his neck as Horton had his knee, and as he gulped his body flopped and spasmed, and his mouth shaped words which likely didn't exist. Or if they did he couldn't say them. That bullet shut him up.

Me, I ran, I booked. I was ten or twelve blocks down Shattuck, past whining sirens, when I smashed face-first into the shoulder of a tall black woman who'd lurched into my path and realized that the series of magnificent collisions I'd barely avoided were the fault of my invisibility. She was twisted around by the impact, and I staggered and nearly fell. As I recovered I wriggled the ring into my palm. When the woman spotted me she swung out in instinctive anger the blow and boxed me in the eye with a heavy jeweled ring, which served nicely as brass knuckles. "Watch where you're going, child!" I couldn't blame her and couldn't explain, only rasp bewilderment. I put my hand to my eye and ran again, Doily's ring in my pocket now. The sparrow on the hilltop had borne a message for me, if only I'd listened: nature, or at least birds and women, abhorred the invisible man.

Orthan Jamaal Jonas Jackson survived. His and Horton Cantrell's stable condition at Herrick Hospital's intensive care unit was reported on the city page of the Oakland Tribune Oakland Tribune the next morning. The item, headed the next morning. The item, headed TWO WOUNDED IN NORTH OAKLAND TWO WOUNDED IN NORTH OAKLAND , included a tantalizing note that the police were searching for a white gunman. Both victims were familiar to the police, bore a record of detainments and, in Cantrell's case, a conviction and suspended sentence for narcotics possession. Neither faced charges in the current investigation. The item was perfunctory, giving no sense of the architecture of the incident, the fact that Cantrell and Jackson had begun as foes before being wounded by the same weapon. It wasn't, probably, the most compelling of stories. The milieu was familiar, drugs and guns, and had it ended there the eyes of the world might have remained glazed over. , included a tantalizing note that the police were searching for a white gunman. Both victims were familiar to the police, bore a record of detainments and, in Cantrell's case, a conviction and suspended sentence for narcotics possession. Neither faced charges in the current investigation. The item was perfunctory, giving no sense of the architecture of the incident, the fact that Cantrell and Jackson had begun as foes before being wounded by the same weapon. It wasn't, probably, the most compelling of stories. The milieu was familiar, drugs and guns, and had it ended there the eyes of the world might have remained glazed over.

But Thursday the story had grown, and graduated to the front page. MYSTERY SHOOTER DESCRIBED AS URBAN AVENGER MYSTERY SHOOTER DESCRIBED AS URBAN AVENGER , that was the hook. The two victims had given witness now, and, with the brothers Kenneth and Dorey Hammond, owners of the house and garage, all on the scene concurred: the mystery white boy had come in with gun blazing, having trailed their distant cousin and good friend Orthan Jackson from Bosun's Locker. The bartender weighed in with a description of my , that was the hook. The two victims had given witness now, and, with the brothers Kenneth and Dorey Hammond, owners of the house and garage, all on the scene concurred: the mystery white boy had come in with gun blazing, having trailed their distant cousin and good friend Orthan Jackson from Bosun's Locker. The bartender weighed in with a description of my scrawny, nervous demeanor scrawny, nervous demeanor, confirmed that I'd been behaving strangely and had approached OJJJ first. OJJJ, who'd been photographed in hospital gown and a bulging white patch from ear to clavicle, explained that he knew I'd been looking for trouble from the start. Though he hadn't been fooled for a moment, I'd been pretending to be a nark, had inquired about the local dealers. He should have known, he said, that I was another crazy white motherf****r gaming to cap some n****rs another crazy white motherf****r gaming to cap some n****rs. If it was the journalist, Vance Christmas, who in the following paragraph coined the phrase "Oakland's Bernhard Goetz," OJJJ had led him there deftly enough. Vance Christmas would have had to be no journalist at all not to coin it. Goetz was still very much in the air those days.

I moped around KALX for hours before doing that night's show, a mechanically thorough tribute to Bobby "Blue" Bland I'd prepared weeks before. The grim purple welt on my eyelid I explained, to those who asked, by recounting the collision on Shattuck, leaving out the part about invisibility. My time in the Hammond garage itself had left me unmarked. After the show, I bought the Friday papers. I scanned the Tribune Tribune, found it mercifully clear of reference to the Tuesday-night shooting. Then I curled in a ball and slept until dark.

This false calm lasted until Sunday, when Vance Christmas had his way with me on the weekend op-ed page. EAST BAY AVENGER EAST BAY AVENGER , , LIKE NEW YORK SUBWAY SHOOTER BERNHARD GOETZ LIKE NEW YORK SUBWAY SHOOTER BERNHARD GOETZ , , BETRAYS A LYNCH-MOB SENTIMENT NEVER FAR FROM SURFACE BETRAYS A LYNCH-MOB SENTIMENT NEVER FAR FROM SURFACE took its inspiration from a scattering of letters in support of the mysterious white gunman the took its inspiration from a scattering of letters in support of the mysterious white gunman the Tribune Tribune had received since its Wednesday coverage. The long piece began as a psychological expose of Goetz, New York's soft-spoken would-be quadruple murderer. It was an aging story, but Christmas gave it fresh life and a local angle by cobbling the bartender's and OJJJ's quotes into a speculative portrait of an "East Bay Avenger" cut from Goetz's cloth. There was no mention of what Horton Cantrell and the Hammonds (the fourth man had vanished from the story entirely) might have been doing in the garage, apart from waiting for OJJJ, and for their had received since its Wednesday coverage. The long piece began as a psychological expose of Goetz, New York's soft-spoken would-be quadruple murderer. It was an aging story, but Christmas gave it fresh life and a local angle by cobbling the bartender's and OJJJ's quotes into a speculative portrait of an "East Bay Avenger" cut from Goetz's cloth. There was no mention of what Horton Cantrell and the Hammonds (the fourth man had vanished from the story entirely) might have been doing in the garage, apart from waiting for OJJJ, and for their fateful moment of terror fateful moment of terror at the hands of the at the hands of the warped vigilante warped vigilante. The initial encounter at Bosun's Locker was given peculiar emphasis. Christmas wondered: Had the Avenger any idea that Bosun's Locker was the same bar where Bobby Seale and Huey Newton once sat together drafting the Black Panther Manifesto? (I hadn't.) This led to a digression on the poor state of black radicalism, the rise of drug lords and gangstas in the Panthers' former place of pride in the community. Had white scaremongering-and episodes like Goetz and the Avenger-been partly the cause of the substitution? Christmas's conclusion was a pregnant perhaps perhaps.

The Oakland Tribune Oakland Tribune was a black-owned paper, in a city with a black mayor, and when on Monday I telephoned the newspaper from a pay phone in the Cal Students Union building and asked the switchboard for Vance Christmas, the Panther-obsessed journalist, I expected a black man's voice on the line. His name sounded black to me. But Christmas was white, I could tell immediately by his voice. I told him he had the story wrong. was a black-owned paper, in a city with a black mayor, and when on Monday I telephoned the newspaper from a pay phone in the Cal Students Union building and asked the switchboard for Vance Christmas, the Panther-obsessed journalist, I expected a black man's voice on the line. His name sounded black to me. But Christmas was white, I could tell immediately by his voice. I told him he had the story wrong.

"Hmmm, yeah, how's that?" He was chewing something.

"Orthan Jackson fired the gun."

Christmas wasn't terribly interested. "He shot himself?"

"It fell."

"Right, huh, and what's your name?"

"I can't tell you my name."

He was quiet for a moment. "So how would you know this?"

"I'm in a position to know."

"Why would I believe you knew anything?" There wasn't any note of hostility-it was a sincere question.

"The gun fell in vomit," I said. There'd been no mention in any article, that I'd seen. "Check the police report."

"Would you hold for a minute?"

"No. Give me your direct line and I'll call back."

He asked for ten minutes. I hung up, bought a blueberry smoothie from a cart on Bancroft, found another phone booth and called again.

Now Christmas said: "I'm listening."

"They're dealers." In my mind I was on a tight clock: as in a million movies, police experts were tracing the call to this booth, and soon SWAT teams would swarm the building. I only wanted to say enough to put an end to it-or I told myself that was all I wanted.

"Sure," he said gently. "They're known dealers, you're right. The question is, what are you?"

"I only wanted to help. OJJJ was messed up on crack, and I think he'd been stealing from those guys. He might have been planning to start shooting before we went in."

"Who were you trying to help?"

"Help catch them," I said impatiently.

"By killing them?"

"I didn't shoot anyone. I'd never fire a gun."

"You mean, like Batman?"

"What?"

"That's what Batman always vowed: that he'd never fire a gun."

This stopped me. I tried to picture Vance Christmas, but nothing came. I suppose we were each trying to picture the other. His breathing was calm on the line while he waited for me to speak again-perhaps he knew he had me hooked-but I could hear something like a frantic whisper in the background: a pencil's soft scribbling on a page.

No, I wanted to say, Batman's DC, and I like Marvel. DC sucks Batman's DC, and I like Marvel. DC sucks.

"So you really didn't mean things to turn out the way they did." Christmas didn't force the tone of sympathy. He seemed to be musing on the misinterpretation which had snared us both. "That's why you called, to set things straight."

"Sure."

"You don't hate black people, then?"

For a moment, it nearly poured out of me: the yearning to compensate for "Play That Funky Music," the desolation which had once birthed Aeroman and now brought him back to life. But that path from Dean Street to Bosun's Locker was too much. I only said, "No."

"It must be pretty strange to find yourself in this position, huh?"

Now I felt I was being patronized. "What I'm trying to do isn't easy," I said. "I screwed up, that's all."

"You've had better days."

"Plenty."

"A history of successes, then?"

Vance Christmas had begun to remind me of a computer program designed to mimic a psychiatrist, or a scratch on my cornea: he'd follow anywhere. So I led. "When it goes well, someone like you wouldn't even learn about it," I said. "The satisfaction is in helping."

"You eschew publicity."

"Ordinarily I do."

"Well, I'm lucky," he said. "You've given me a big exclusive."

"Don't call me the East Bay Avenger."

"What can I call you?"

"Aeroman."

"A-R-R-O-"

"No, no." I spelled it for him.

"When is your next scheduled, uh, event?" he asked.

"I go where I'm needed."

"Wow, yeah. Of course. Listen, do you have an, um, a distinctive appearance appearance ? I mean, would a person know you if they saw you?" ? I mean, would a person know you if they saw you?"

"Definitely not."

"And you wouldn't be someone already known in the community? Like the way, you know, Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne are."

"No."

"Not a name I'd know? Because it's funny, but your voice seems familiar."

My heart began pounding. Could Vance Christmas be a night-owl KALX listener? Again I tried to see him: racial muckraker, Batman fan-how old was he? Once I'd had the thought I couldn't bring myself to utter another word. So I hung up the phone. I'd said too much, stayed on too long, as it was. But no SWAT team ringed the Student Union, and I figured I'd gotten away with it.

Christmas's exclusive ran above Tuesday's fold. None of my attributed quotes were outright lies, but their context was awfully bad: " I GO WHERE I I GO WHERE I' M NEEDED M NEEDED"/ AVENGER TO TRIB AVENGER TO TRIB: I I ' ' LL STRIKE AGAIN LL STRIKE AGAIN. Oakland, according to Christmas, ought to brace itself, for a fantasizing madman was running amok. I'd bragged of a legacy of covert attacks, reserving a righteous vigilante authority while admitting to a slight "screwup" in this case. I denied my hatred of blacks-sure. Still, I took "satisfaction." And, though I'd acted as judge and jury in accusing Jackson and Cantrell of being "dealers," the story's new wrinkle was a report I'd been using crack in the Bosun's Locker rest room prior to the shooting. Aeroman's name didn't appear-it might be the only word I'd uttered which didn't. Perhaps that was Christmas's bait. He'd sensed my eagerness on that point, and hoped I'd call in again to push for the correction. He was almost right.

Wednesday it crossed the Bay. An Examiner Examiner editorial scolded Avenger and Christmas alike for creating a sideshow, one dwarfed by the real crisis engulfing Oakland. Meanwhile, Herb Caen's column asked: "Oakland's editorial scolded Avenger and Christmas alike for creating a sideshow, one dwarfed by the real crisis engulfing Oakland. Meanwhile, Herb Caen's column asked: "Oakland's East Bay Avenger East Bay Avenger and Taxi Driver's and Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle Travis Bickle . . . have they ever been photographed together? . . . Just wondering . . ." Those were the mentions I found, before I lost heart and quit looking. There may have been others. . . . have they ever been photographed together? . . . Just wondering . . ." Those were the mentions I found, before I lost heart and quit looking. There may have been others.

Christmas hadn't forgotten the name Aeroman. On the contrary, he'd taken it and done some good work with a microfiche. A week later, after I'd begun to believe the story's coals were damp, the Tribune Tribune 's front page boasted an NYPD mug shot: Mingus Rude, front and profile. They'd been taken later that distant Sunday afternoon, the day of the shooting-this was Mingus caught exactly where I'd left him. 's front page boasted an NYPD mug shot: Mingus Rude, front and profile. They'd been taken later that distant Sunday afternoon, the day of the shooting-this was Mingus caught exactly where I'd left him. AVENGER LINK TO NEW YORK KILLER AVENGER LINK TO NEW YORK KILLER ? was the slug along the top. ? was the slug along the top.

Mingus was still in prison at Elmira, I learned from the paper. His first parole hearing came in three months, and he'd been nowhere near Bosun's Locker anytime lately. Nevertheless, exclusive sources pointed to a connection. Aeroman's name was still coyly withheld. Instead, Vance Christmas proposed it as a puzzle, and the paper had put up a reward for the solution: a thousand dollars to anyone who could connect the dots between a six-year-old incident in the Walt Whitman housing projects in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and the fresh atrocity on Sixtieth Street, between this pathetic black face in lockup and our elusive white maniac on the loose. Had Rude taken a fall for the Avenger, so long ago?

Christmas had called me out, but I was staying in. The reward was one I wouldn't collect, the question one I couldn't begin to answer. I retired the ring. My Bosun's Locker jaunt was essentially the last time I touched it, until that morning when Abigale Ponders plucked it out of a mess of memorabilia and returned it to my attention.

chapter10.

Arthur Lomb asked me to meet him at a restaurant called Berlin, on Smith at the corner of Baltic. The place was one of a run of glossy new restaurants and boutiques on the old Hispanic strip, dotted in among the botanicas and social clubs, and the shuttered outlets full of dusty plastic furniture and out-of-date appliances. Abraham had tried to explain it a dozen times, but there was no understanding until I saw with my own eyes: impoverished Smith Street had been converted to an upscale playground. I suppose it was susceptible to such quick colonization precisely because so many stores had been boarded and dark. The street would be barely recognizable for how chic it had become, except the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans had stuck around. They were refugees in their own land, seated on milk cartons sipping from paper bags, wheeling groceries home from Met Food, beckoning across the street from third-floor sills, trying to pretend gentrification hadn't landed like a bomb.

Arthur wasn't at Berlin when I arrived. It was eleven in the morning and I was the first customer. The place showed evidence of a fresh, expensive renovation, one hip to the virtues of a century-old shopfront. They'd preserved the tin ceiling and exposed and varnished the brickwork on each side wall. The floor was glistening blond hardwood, quite new.

The maitre d' had been smoking at the back bar when I entered, but he stubbed it quickly, and faked a smile. He was tall and slouchy, a little glum for so early in the day. He offered me a window table and a minimalist menu: one soup, one sandwich, one crepe, today's oyster. I still felt the effects of my two-night's-before binge with Katha Purly, and of my overfeeding, last night on arrival from La Guardia, at the hands of Francesca Cassini. When the maitre d' returned I only asked for a cappuccino, and studied him more closely. The shock of black hair was gone, trimmed close and salted white, but it was Euclid Barnes.

He went and worked the foam-hissing machine himself. When he set the coffee down he caught me looking, and looked back.

"Do I know you?"

"Dylan Ebdus."

He blinked.

"We went to school together."

"Dylan from Camden?"

"Right."

"I never thought I'd see you you again." again."

I didn't point out that he was working in my backyard, my stomping ground. I'd visited Boerum Hill three or four times in nearly two decades, and the place wasn't mine anymore, obviously.

"Are you in touch with anyone from before?" I asked. I realized I was a little dumb at seeing Euclid again-at being served a cappuccino by Euclid Barnes at a fancy cafe a block from Intermediate School 293.

"God, I don't know. Every Every one, one, no no one, you know how it happens." one, you know how it happens."

"Sure." I said, though of course I didn't. I'd never heard from any Camdenites again. Moira Hogarth and I had been off speaking terms at the end of that one semester.

"Can I sit down?" Euclid asked.

"Please."