Dark Matter

by Sheree R. Thomas

  She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth limbs—listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing at the top of the alley—silhouetted, tall and black, motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know—she did not care. She simply leaped and ran—ran until she found herself alone amid the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings.

  She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets—alone in the city—perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of deception—of creeping hands behind her back—of silent, moving things she could not see—of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered:

  “Not—that.”

  And he answered slowly: “No—not that!”

  They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere.

  Yet as the two, flying and alone, looked upon the horror of the world, slowly, gradually, the sense of all-enveloping death deserted them. They seemed to move in a world silent and asleep—not dead. They moved in quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide Friedho above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept until—until, and quick with the same startling thought, they looked into each other’s eyes—he, ashen, and she, crimson, with unspoken thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty—of vast, unspoken things, swelled in their souls; but they put it away.

  Great, dark coils of wire came up from the earth and down from the sun and entered this low lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the world centered here, binding with beams of light the ends of the earth. The doors gaped on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold.

  “Do you know the code?” she asked.

  “I know the call for help—we used it formerly at the bank.”

  She hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below—the dark and restless waters—the cold and luring waters, as they called. He stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly he removed his coat and stood there silently. She walked quickly to him and laid her hand on his arm. He did not start or look. The waters lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to the waters, and said quietly:

  “The world lies beneath the waters now—may I go?”

  She looked into his stricken, tired face, and a great pity surged within her heart. She answered in a voice clear and calm, “No.”

  Upward they turned toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The world was darkening to twilight, and a great, gray pall was falling mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly glare of reality seemed replaced with the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to wonder at the quickness with which he had learned to drive her car. It seemed natural. And then as they whirled and swung into Madison Square and at the door of the Metropolitan Tower she gave a low cry, and her eyes were great! Perhaps she had seen the elf-queen?

  The man led her to the elevator of the tower and deftly they ascended. In her father’s office they gathered rugs and chairs, and he wrote a note and laid it on the desk; then they ascended to the roof and he made her comfortable. For a while she rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, watching the worlds above and wondering. Below lay the dark shadows of the city and afar was the shining of the sea. She glanced at him timidly as he set food before her and took a shawl and wound her in it, touching her reverently, yet tenderly. She looked up at him with thankfulness in her eyes, eating what he served.

  He watched the city. She watched him. He seemed very human—very near now.

  “Have you had to work hard?” she asked softly.

  “Always,” he said.

  “I have always been idle,” she said. “I was rich.”

  “I was poor,” he almost echoed.

  “The rich and the poor are met together,” she began, and he finished:

  “The Lord is the Maker of them all.”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, “and how foolish our human distinctions seem—now,” looking down to the great dead city stretched below, swimming in unlightened shadows.

  “Yes—I was not—human, yesterday,” he said.

  She looked at him. “And your people were not my people,” she said; “but today—” She paused. He was a man—no more; but he was in some larger sense a gentleman—sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his hands and—his face. Yet yesterday—

  “Death, the leveler!” he muttered.

  “And the revealer,” she whispered gently, rising to her feet with great eyes. He turned away, and after fumbling a moment sent a rocket into the darkening air. It arose, shrieked, and flew up, a slim path of light, and, scattering its stars abroad, dropped on the city below. She scarcely noticed it. A vision of the world had risen before her. Slowly the mighty prophecy of her destiny overwhelmed her. Above the dead past hovered the Angel of Annunciation. She was no mere woman. She was neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal woman; mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked upon the man beside her and forgot all else but his manhood, his strong, vigorous manhood—his sorrow and sacrifice. She saw him glorified. He was no longer a thing apart, a creature below, a strange outcast of another clime and blood, but her Brother Humanity incarnate, Son of God and great All-Father of the race to be.

  He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fell away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white star—mystic, wonderful! And from it fled upward to the pole, like some wan bridal veil, a pale, wide sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars.

  In fascinated silence the man gazed at the heavens and dropped his rockets to the floor. Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead recesses of his mind. The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters hovering to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, or curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady, and found her gazing straight at him.

  Silently, immovably, they saw each other face to face—eye to eye. Their souls lay naked to the night. It was not lust; it was not love—it was some vaster, mightier thing that needed neither touch of body nor thrill of soul. It was a thought divine, splendid.

  Slowly, noiselessly, they moved towa
rd each other—the heavens above, the seas around, the city grim and dead below. He loomed from out the velvet shadows vast and dark. Pearl-white and slender, she shone beneath the stars. She stretched her jeweled hands abroad. He lifted up his mighty arms, and they cried each to the other, almost with one voice, “The world is dead.”

  “Long live the—”

  “Honk! Honk!”

  Hoarse and sharp the cry of a motor drifted clearly up from the silence below. They started backward with a cry and gazed upon each other with eyes that faltered and fell, with blood that boiled.

  “Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!” came the mad cry again, and almost from their feet a rocket blazed into the air and scattered its stars upon them. She covered her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. He dropped and bowed, groped blindly on his knees about the floor. A blue flame spluttered lazily after an age, and she heard the scream of an answering rocket as it flew. Then they stood still as death, looking to opposite ends of the earth.

  “Clang—crash—clang!”

  The roar and ring of swift elevators shooting upward from below made the great tower tremble. A murmur and babel of voices swept in upon the night. All over the once dead city the lights blinked, flickered, and flamed; and then with a sudden clanging of doors the entrance to the platform was filled with men, and one with white and flying hair rushed to the girl and lifted her to his breast. “My daughter!” he sobbed.

  Behind him hurried a younger, comelier man, carefully clad in motor costume, who bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed into her staring eyes until they narrowed and dropped and her face flushed deeper and deeper crimson.

  “Julia,” he whispered. “My darling, I thought you were gone forever.”

  She looked up at him with strange, searching eyes.

  “Fred,” she murmured, almost vaguely, “is the world—gone?”

  “Only New York,” he answered; “it is terrible—awful! You know—but you, how did you escape—how have you endured this horror? Are you well? Unharmed?”

  “Unharmed!” she said.

  “And this man here?” he asked, encircling her drooping form with one arm and turning toward the Negro. Suddenly he stiffened and his hand flew to hip. “Why!” he snarled. “It’s—a—nigger—Julia! Has he—has he dared—”

  She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously and then dropped her eyes with a sigh.

  “He has dared—all, to rescue me,” she said quietly, “and I—thank him—much.” But she did not look at him again. As the couple turned away, the father drew a roll of bills from his pockets.

  “Here, my good fellow,” he said, thrusting the money into the man’s hands, “take that—what’s your name?”

  “Jim Davis,” came the answer, hollow-voiced.

  “Well, Jim, I thank you. I’ve always liked your people. If you ever want a job, call on me.” And they were gone.

  The crowd poured up and out of the elevators, talking and whispering.

  “Who was it?”

  “Are they alive?”

  “How many?”

  “Two!”

  “Who was saved?”

  “A white girl and a nigger—there she goes.”

  “A nigger? Where is he? Let’s lynch the damned—”

  “Shut up—he’s all right—he saved her.”

  “Saved hell! He had no business—”

  “Here he comes.”

  Into the glare of the electric lights the colored man moved slowly, with the eyes of those that walk and sleep.

  “Well, what do you think of that?” cried a bystander. “Of all New York, just a white girl and a nigger!”

  The colored man heard nothing. He stood silently beneath the glare of the light, gazing at the money in his hand and shrinking as he gazed; slowly he put his other hand into his pocket and brought out a baby’s filmy cap, and gazed again. A woman mounted to the platform and looked about, shading her eyes. She was brown, small, and toil-worn, and in one hand lay the corpse of a dark baby. The crowd parted and her eyes fell on the colored man; with a cry she tottered toward him.

  “Jim!”

  He whirled and, with a sob of joy, caught her in his arms.

  CHICAGO 1927

  Jewelle Gomez

  (2000)

  High and light, the rich notes of her song lifted from the singer like a bird leaving a familiar tree. The drummer stopped and only a bass player snuck up behind her voice, laying out deep tones that matched hers. Gilda stood at the back of the dimly lit room, letting the soothing sound of music ripple through the air and fall gently around her. Her gaze was fixed on the woman singing on the tiny stage, whose body was coiled around the sound of her own voice. Gilda had come to the Evergreen each weekend for a month to hear the woman sing. LYDIA REDMOND, INDIAN LOVE CALL the window card read outside underneath her picture. On her first night walking through the streets of Chicago, Gilda had seen the sign and been drawn by the gleaming beauty of the face. The sheer simplicity of Lydia’s voice rang persistently inside Gilda’s head.

  The smoky air and clink of glasses crowded around Gilda, filling the room almost as much as the attentive audience. Black and brown faces bobbed and nodded as they sat at the tiny tables on mismatched chairs. Others stood at the short bar watching the set along with the tall, light-skinned bartender, Morris. Some stood in the back near the entrance transfixed, as did Gilda.

  She had finally created the opportunity to meet Lydia Redmond through the club’s owner Benny Green. It had taken only a slight glance held a moment longer than necessary to plant the idea, and Benny treated Gilda like she was a long-missed relative. Lydia had been full of playfulness when they’d sat together at Benny’s table after her show one night. The luminescence in the photograph that had drawn Gilda shimmered around Lydia when she laughed. The sorrow that cloaked so many club singers had only a small place within Lydia. When she looked into Gilda’s eyes, she’d read her so intently that Gilda had to turn away. The last note of a sweet, bluesy number wavered in the air, then was enveloped in unrestrained applause and shouts. Gilda smiled as she slipped out of the door of the club’s entrance into the short alley and was startled to see Benny holding a young boy by the collar.

  “I ain’t jivin’ you, Lester. You get home to your sister right now. You want me stoppin’ by to have a talk to her?”

  “Naw.”

  “Naw what?”

  “Naw sir.”

  “I done told you don’t hang in this alley. You ain’t heard they shootin’ people this side of town?”

  “Yes sir,” the boy said blankly as if he’d been told he was standing in a loading dock.

  “I’m tellin’ you there’s been shootin’ here, boy! Don’t crap out on me.”

  “Yes sir.” Lester let himself show the surprise he felt.

  “Here,” Benny said as he handed the boy a folded bill. He looked about seven years old and was dressed in pants and a jacket much too large for him, like many children Gilda had seen.

  “Take that to your sister.” Benny’s thin mustache curved up as his lips could no longer resist a smile. “Tell her come by my office tomorrow… no, not tomorrow. Make it the next day, tell her come at noontime. Ya hear?”

  “Yes… yes sir.” The child’s face lost its stiff fear and as Benny shoved him toward the mouth of the alley, he almost smiled.

  “Damn.”

  “A colleague?” Gilda said lightly.

  “He’d like to be. How in hell can you keep ’em out the game if you can’t keep ’em in the house?” Benny’s voice was raw with anger.

  Gilda didn’t have to listen to his thoughts to sense the anxiety and concern swirling around underneath his hard tone.

  “I already got two laundry women. Looks like I’ma have to hire me another one. She lost her job.” Benny jerked his thumb in the direction of the darkness where the boy had disappeared. “His sister, she takes care of a passel of them.”

  Maybe you should open a laundry
house. Gilda let the thought slip from her mind into his.

  “Maybe… you know I got the back end of the joint, facing off North Street.… Maybe I’ll set them girls up in there. Get us a laundry going! Damn. That’s it.”

  “You have a good heart, Benny.”

  “What else I’ma do?”

  “That’s what I mean,” Gilda said.

  “Lester’s okay, he just ain’t got nothin’ to do but hang around trying to grab some pennies. Morris had to snatch him up out some trouble last week.”

  “You and Morris need to be on the city council,” Gilda said with a laugh as she started toward the mouth of the alley.

  “Hey, you comin’ by the party later? We got a fine spread.” His smooth brown skin was like velvet in the light of the alley. He pulled at the cuffs of each sleeve under his jacket and smoothed his hand across his short-cut hair, readying himself to return to the bar.

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You know, cousin, you need to be careful walking these streets by yourself in the middle of the night.”

  “Thanks, Benny, I’m just going up to the corner. I’ll be right back.”

  “Umph.” Benny grunted his disapproval, then said with a smile, “You know I can’t handle it when a good-lookin’ woman stands me up.”

  Gilda waved as she turned and walked swiftly out to the street. She looked north, then south before she picked her direction. The air felt brisk and fresh on her smooth skin, untouched by the decades that had led her to this place. The deep brown of her eyes was still clear, sparkling with questions just as they had when she was truly a girl. Her full mouth was firm, tilted more toward a smile than a frown, and inviting, even without the faint trace of lipstick she occasionally applied.

  The fragrance of fall was in the trees just as it had been every season for many years. Gilda marveled at how different each part of the country smelled; and over time, the scent of everything—grass, wood, even people—altered subtly. Nothing in her face revealed that eighty years had passed since Gilda had taken her first breath on a plantation in Mississippi. After journeying through most of the countryside and small towns west of the Rocky Mountains, this was her first stop in a major city in some years.