Vanishing Rooms

by Melvin Dixon

  Vanishing Rooms

  by Melvin Dixon

  Dutton • New York

  1991

  Vanishing Rooms

  by Melvin Dixon

  Copyright © 1991 by Melvin Dixon

  Excerpt from “Elegies from Paradise Valley” by Robert Hayden from American Journal. Copyright 1982 by Irma Hayden. All rights reserved. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  “No Images” by Waring Cuney from The Norton Introduction to Poetry Third Edition, ed. J. Paul Hunter. Copyright 1986 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by Asya Sherman Cover illustration by Alain Gauthier

  First Edition 1991

  Dutton, New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  VANISHING ROOMS

  Not since James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room has a novel so deftly explored the complexities of violence and homosexuality. This compelling work tells the chilling story of a murder victim and the three people inextricably caught up in his sexual assault and stabbing. Jesse Durand is a gay black man with two passions in his life: dance and his white boyfriend, Metro. But soon after their move to Greenwich Village, Metro begins to seek rougher sexual thrills, experimenting with drugs and becoming increasingly obsessed with Jesse’s blackness. It is Metro’s murder that pushes Jesse into an emotional darkness from which he may not escape.

  In a work of great artistry, race and sex become Melvin Dixon’s arenas, as he exposes the truth of our needs and our convictions about love.

  “POIGNANT, POETIC, VIVIDLY WRITTEN … successfully probes the raw wounds of homophobia and racism.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A major achievement… sure to be a much talked-about and much-loved book.”

  —John Preston, OutWeek

  “Dixon’s grasp on dialogue and prose is quite amazing … his voice is needed, and his timing is right on the mark.”

  —Northwest Gay and Lesbian Reader

  “Large parts of Vanishing Rooms are written with lyricism so perfect that any distinction between poetry and prose is beside the point.”

  —Outweek

  “POIGNANT, POWERFUL, AND AFFECTING.”

  —Wilmington Sunday News Reader

  “Melvin Dixon’s proven ability to create mosaics of movement and feeling, humanized by literary characters, is seen to its best advantage in Vanishing Rooms.”

  —Metroland

  “A HAUNTING PORTRAIT OF A MOST VIOLENT CRIME.”

  —Indianapolis Star

  “Within the relatively confined space of the couple hundred pages that constitute the entirety of Vanishing Rooms, Melvin Dixon succeeds in asking some important questions, creating a handful of vibrant characters, generating a high degree of intensity, and demonstrating the ability to write with grace and depth of feeling…. Vanishing Rooms is very special.”

  —New York Native

  “A POWERFUL TALE RICH IN PSYCHOLOGICAL INSIGHT”

  —Library Journal

  “A brilliant exploration of… a world as complex and painful, as challenging and loaded, as that created by James Baldwin in Another Country and Giovanni’s Room…. Melvin Dixon’s novel of furious urban life stands comfortably alongside those by James Purdy, John Rechy, and Hubert Selby, Jr.”

  —Clarence Major, author of Such Was the Season

  “The disturbing issues of racism and homophobia are forcefully examined in Dixon’s provocative new novel … in which he skillfully illuminates the mixed emotions of distinctive urban characters whose lives are changed by tragedy … this realistic portrait of pain and loss carries strong emotional resonance.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A POWERFUL PIECE OF WORK, with a message of humanity about people trapped in their skin, for better or for worse.”

  —Milwaukee Journal

  “Ambitious, strong, scary stuff … Dixon is uniquely poised to fill the vacancy left in our literature by Baldwin’s death.”

  —Lambda Book Report

  “Courageous … bold, bloody, beautiful … a book needed not only to define our collective hurt, but also to teach us how to heal it.”

  —Emerge

  MELVIN DIXON

  (May 29 1950—October 26, 1992)

  Scholar, novelist, and poet Melvin Dixon was born in Stamford, Connecticut. He earned a BA from Wesleyan University and an MA and a PhD from Brown University. Dixon wrote the poetry collections Change of Territory (1983) and Love’s Instruments (1995, published posthumously) and two novels, Trouble the Water (1989), winner of a Nilon Award for Excellence in Minority Fiction, and Vanishing Rooms (1991). Influenced by James Baldwin, Dixon wrote extensively about the complexities of being a gay black man. Speaking on this topic at a speech to the Third National Lesbian and Gay Writers Conference, Dixon said, “As white gays deny multiculturalism among gays, so too do black communities deny multisexualism among their members. Against this double cremation, we must leave the legacy of our writing and our perspectives on gay and straight experiences.”

  Dixon produced scholarship on and translated writing by several African American writers, including Léopold Sédar Senghor, Geneviève Fabre, and Jacques Roumain. Dixon was the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and he taught at Wesleyan University, the City University of New York, Fordham University, Columbia University, and Williams College. He died from complications related to AIDS at age 42.

  ALSO BY MELVIN DIXON

  The Collected Poems of Léopold Sédar Senghor (translation) (1991)

  Trouble the Water (1989)

  Ride Out the Wilderness: Geography and Identity in Afro-American Literature (1987)

  Change of Territory (poems) (1983)

  VANISHING ROOMS

  by Melvin Dixon

  I wish to thank the

  New York Foundation for the Arts

  for awarding me an

  Artist Fellowship in fiction

  which enabled me to complete this novel.

  for Richard

  always.

  Where's taunted Christopher, sad queen of night?

  And Ray, who cursing crossed the color line?

  Where's gentle Brother Davis? Where's dopefiend Mel? Let vanished rooms, let dead streets tell.

  —Robert Hayden

  PART ONE

  Jesse

  METRO WASN’T HIS REAL NAME, but I called him that. It was fall of 1975. He led me by the arm out of the dark, rotting warehouse and to the pier fronting West Street. The sharp, fresh air cut through the smell of mildew stuffing my nose. The shock of the bright October sun made me blink so hard I missed a step and stumbled against him. He reached to block my fall, lifting my fingers to his nose. I squeezed his shoulders, held tight for a moment. We wobbled like two dancing drunks, vying for balance. His hands were shaking with a chill. The salt flavor of his skin left my mouth and my lips dried. I could stand and breathe again.

  The lot around the pier and the warehouse looked like a deserted playground. Behind me I heard footsteps and creaking floorboards where we had been. We walked on ahead where the Hudson River lapped at soggy wooden piles. The water gurgled and sloshed with delight and the loose, stiff wood swayed in the dim flow. One post cracked free, bobbed in the sucking current, and floated away limp. I brushed off my jeans, more dusty now than blue. Wood splinters fell out of the scams. I looked at Metro to see if he noticed. His eyes were red and puffy. Maybe mine were too. His jeans were torn at the knees and just as dusty. Maybe his knees were sc
raped, I couldn’t tell. He kept shivering, but I felt warm in the wide blade of sunlight. I squinted to sec him clearer. My face wrinkled to a pout.

  “Are you mad?” he asked me, brushing tangled brown hair from his face. His hand pulled out splinters. “Are you mad because I made you come here?”

  “You didn’t make me come,” I said. “I came because I wanted to.”

  Metro touched my denim jacket and let go. He shook his head. “Then why are you looking like that?” he asked, his eyes holding mine.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re relieved or something.”

  “What’s gotten into you?” I said. He stepped back from me. I didn’t mean to sound so annoyed. His skin had never looked so white.

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t want to meet here again, Metro. Promise me we don’t have to meet here.”

  “Why should I promise? You call me Metro, don’t you?”

  “I’m scared, that’s all.” I wanted to touch him again, hold him close this time.

  “You didn’t say that a few hours ago.”

  “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  I held out my hand, reached for him, changed my mind, and searched my pockets instead. I found my watch. It was three forty-five. Damn, I was late for dance class. Today was the day for improvisations, a good chance to make an impression before auditions next month. I couldn’t miss a class. Metro started to say something, but I headed away from the warehouse to catch a crosstown cab. He followed after me, his keys jangling from a leather loop on his belt. “Wait,” he said.

  I couldn’t wait. One cab zoomed by on radio call. Another stopped.

  “Wait,” said Metro.

  “I’m late already, man, what is it?”

  “Never mind. I just thought you were angry, that’s all.”

  “I’m not angry.” I got in the cab and lowered the window.

  Metro had a wild look in his eyes. His chin held hard and straight. His thin lips opened and closed, but he said nothing more. He was taller than I but his shoulders slumped, and he looked weak. He didn’t raise his shoulders.

  “I’m glad I came, Metro.”

  “You didn’t like it, did you?”

  I smiled. And he smiled, hesitantly at first. I knew why I was there.

  He stepped back from the cab. I said, “See you later, baby. I love you,” and the cab lurched forward. The driver stared at me through the rearview mirror.

  I’d be gone only a few hours. Metro would be home when I got back. Yet I missed him. My stomach fluttered. Maybe it was that empty, searching look in his eyes, or his suddenly pale skin against my oily brown hands. I missed him and searched the rear window. Metro was standing in the middle of West 12th Street, oblivious to the traffic veering around him. He scared me. I wanted the cab to turn around and pick him up, but it was too late. Why was I in such a rush? But I’m always rushing, rushing to dance class, rushing home, rushing to the mailbox, rushing just to be a quick step ahead of myself.

  In no time I reached the studio. At my locker, I changed into yesterday’s tights, which had aired out but should have been cleaned. Splinters fell out of my clothes, from the armpits of my shirt and the seat of my pants. I must have smelled of wood and low tide. Other dancers were warming up with stretches on the floor. I wasn’t too late after all. Maybe I could sweat off the stink of the warehouse, dance with my feet on firm ground, not on creaking floorboards or with anonymous shadows lurking behind crumbling walls. Maybe the aftertaste of sweat, splinters, and Metro’s tangled brown hair would go away. The other dancers wouldn’t suspect a thing, I hoped, prayed. No one would know where I had been.

  I stretched onto the floor for a few warm-ups, then stood with my stomach held in tight. My thighs eased open in demi-plié. Next, grand plié. I breathed deeply, calmly, and pulled myself up. On relevé I felt as tall as Metro, my hands as broad as his.

  Anna Louise, the dance captain, called us into formation for single-file walks with our knees turned out, chests high. Next we lined up two by two. I found myself opposite another man. and we had to hold hands while doing triplet steps across the floor. For the next round I was with a girl I hadn’t seen before in class, and another black dancer at that. She was shorter than I by a good foot, dark-complexioned with broad hips and close-cropped, boyish hair. But her legs were long, and she was some match for me in the quick, crisp steps we had to execute:

  One-two-three … One-two-three

  Up-two-three … Down-two-three

  Before I had a chance to say hello we were across the floor again with a leap-two-three, leap-two-three. Waltz step, then turns. Between breaths I asked her name. “Ruella,” she said heavily. “Ruella McPhee.”

  I reached for her hand and caught her wrist. “I’m Jesse Durand.”

  And we were back across the floor. Turns, leaps, waltz steps, and more stretches from head to toe.

  Improvisation came next. “Just listen to this song for now, then let the music move you,” said Anna Louise, her hands circling in the air. She held her hips and added. “At first I thought this song was so simple, but then the words and music started to make such terrible sense that I was taken with it completely. Now you try.” She gave each pair of dancers a number.

  We were number three.

  The song played a second time. It was then that I recognized Nina Simone’s voice crooning from the single phonograph speaker as if it needed more room, was aching for it. Her voice bounced upon the empty walls of the studio. The words were those of Waring Cuney. I later found out, from a poem that still plays in my mind:

  She does not know

  Her beauty

  She thinks her brown body

  Has no glory.

  If she could dance

  Naked

  Under palm trees

  And see her image in the river

  She would know.

  I looked at Ruella and smiled. My knees were already moving with what I wanted to say. Ruella was tapping her feet. The song spoke to her too.

  But there are no palm trees

  On the street

  And dish water gives back no images.

  I thought of our house back in Hartford and my mother Jessica, who named me. She made me and my older brother Charlie wash dishes on alternate nights. We’d still fight over whose turn it was. My father made us shovel snow, take out the garbage in the cold, wash the car, scrub the kitchen floor, rake leaves into a pile, but we’d jump in it and have to rake them up again. I didn’t mind the kitchen work, but I hated the outside chores. “Work builds character,” my father always said. But he stopped preaching that line when he noticed my preference for baking cakes and polishing silverware.

  As the song ended plaintively, Simone’s voice lifted high in arabesque, her throaty tones like a bridge to cross.

  When our turn came, Ruella and I held each other at arm’s length and circled slowly, measuring our steps and each other. Our heads leaned in and out from the center between us. Our bodies came close. We were drawn into the music and the pain in Simone’s voice. Our bodies were swaying, singing. I broke the circle of our arms, held Ruella in slight elevation, then eased her down. I spun away and halted in demi-plié. She leaped in small quick steps, then faced me. I lifted her straight up, felt myself lifting, too. I brought her down slowly, carefully, my hands broad about her waist. We stood side by side and bent legs, arms, and thighs into a heap upon the floor. Her head eased into my arms; our faces touched, hair caressed. We were almost one head. We broke free and ran from each other like frightened children. I curled into a ball and shot up in arabesque. Ruella leaped high, then stood stock still. Our hands reached out, held on, turned with open palms to the other dancers watching us. Our waists swayed, curled, stretched like whispers. Our bodies had voices of their own, and they hushed into quiet. We sank into a pile, rose up close together. Our tights made our thighs one black pillar, and our Afros became one huge head. We inched into separate positions, our hands an
d eyes holding onto one another. The song ended with our standing back to back like a Janus mask, facing both sides of the room at once; one looking up and ahead, the other up and behind. Quickly, on the beat, we changed sides for the last wailing chord, then held firm as two sides of one body, one voice, both of us dancing from whatever we made visible on the floor.

  The class erupted into applause. Anna Louise came forward with her hands tapping out a beat in the air. “You’ll have to develop that into a polished piece,” she said, “and present it to us again. What do you say, class?”

  The applause grew louder, filling us. I smiled at Ruella who was grinning with such beautiful teeth. She smiled at me distantly, then left the floor. When class finished for the day, I waited at the dressing room until Ruella changed into street clothes. We walked together to the subway.

  “I felt something in that dance,” I said.

  “Me, too.”

  “Funny, isn’t it?”

  She looked at me without a word. Then she said, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “Dance,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Ruella. “I’ve never been that close to a guy without feeling he wants something. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes.” Suddenly conscious of how I looked, I brushed off my jeans, pulled my stomach in.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”