Chapter 14
In the cab up to Harlem, Neal watched the changing landscape. The sidewalk cafes and savvy boutiques dissolved after 96th Street, and by 110th Street the avenue grew dimmer with fewer street lamps and stretches of deteriorating public housing complexes. The heat had people swarming on stoops and street corners, blaring music, drinking beer, cracking open fire hydrants. The cab had no air conditioning, so Neal had rolled the window down. At 145th Street, an obese teenaged black girl was screaming, climbing a hill west, flipping her head back to shout at an unseen lover.
“…Cause your mama shoulda had the abortion, you f*****g homo you ain’t even got no d**k you stupid b***h,” she said, ascending the hill, puffing like a locomotive, sweating in the night heat, which was holding s
