The Bonfire of the Vanities

It's for your community right here, Harlem. Say, clack? The bastard has hold of this word clack like a bone. Ain't nobody can eat statistics, man. Tell him, bro. Yo! Yo, Goba! Let me finish. Do you think? Don't percentage no annual budget with us, man. We want jobs. The crowd erupts again. It's worse than before. Much of it he can't make out, interjections from deep in the bread basket. But there's this yo business. There's some loud mouth weighing back with a voice that cuts through everything. Yo, Goba! Yo, Goba! Yo, Goba! But he isn't saying Gober. He's saying Goldberg. Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Goldberg! It stuns him. In this place, in Harlem. Goldberg is the Harlem cognomen for Jew. It's insolent, outrageous that anyone throws this vileness in the face of the mayor of New York City. Boo's, hisses, grunts, belly laughs, shouts. They want to see some loose teeth. It's out of control. Do you? It's no use. He can't make himself heard even with the microphone. The hate in their faces, pure poison. It's mesmerizing. Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Hymie! Hymie? That business. There's one of them yelling Goldberg and another one yelling Hymie. Then it dawns on him. Reverend Bacon. They're Bacon's people, he's sure of it. The civic-minded people who come to public meetings in Harlem, the people Sheldon was supposed to make sure filled up this hall, they wouldn't be out there yelling these outrageous things. Bacon did this. Sheldon fucked up. Bacon got his people in here. A wave of the purest self-pity rolls over the mayor. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the television crews squirming around in the haze of light. Their cameras are coming out of their heads like horns. They're swiveling around this way and that. They're eating it up. They're here for the brawl. They wouldn't lift a finger. They're cowards, parasites, the lice of public life. In the next moment, he has a terrible realization. It's over. I can't believe it. I've lost. No more of you. Out of here. Boo! Don't wanna. Yo, Goldberg! Gooly I.G., the head of the mayor's plainclothes security detail, is coming toward him from the side of the stage. The mayor motions him back with a low flap of his hand without looking at him directly. What could he do, anyway? He brought only four officers with him. He didn't want to come up here with an army. The whole point was to show that he could go to Harlem and hold a town hall meeting just the way he could in Riverdale or Park Slope. In the front row, through the haze, he catches the eye of Mrs. Langhorne, the woman with the shingle hairdo, the head of the community board, the woman who introduced him just, what, minutes ago. She purses her lips and cocks her head and starts shaking it. This look is supposed to say, I wish I could help you, but what can I do? Behold the wrath of the people. Oh, she's afraid like all the rest. She knows she should stand up against this element. They'll go after black people like her next. They'll be happy to do it. She knows that. But the good people are intimidated. They don't dare do a thing. Back to blood. Them and us. Go on home. Boo! Yeah! Yo! He tries the microphone again. Is this what? Is this what? Hopeless. Like yelling at the surf. He wants to spit in their eyes. He wants to tell them he's not afraid. You're not making me look bad. You're letting a handful of hustlers in this hall make all of Harlem look bad. You let a couple of loudmouths call me Goldberg and Jaime and you don't shout them down, you shout me down. It's unbelievable. Do you, you hardworking, respectable, God-fearing people of Harlem, you Mrs. Langhorns, you civic-minded people, do you really think they're your brothers? Who have your friends been all these years? The Jews. And you let these hustlers call me a Charlie? They call me these things and you say nothing? The whole hall appears to be jumping up and down. They're waving their fists. Their mouths are open. They're screaming. If they jump any higher, they'll bounce off the ceiling. It'll be on TV. The whole city will see it. They'll love it. Harlem rises up. What a show. Not the hustlers.