Dark Matter

by Sheree R. Thomas

  Henry Johnson, the beefy, sleek-jowled, mulatto “Numbers” banker, chuckled and nudged Dr. Crookman. “Old Max ain’t losin’ no time, Doc. When that niggah gits white Ah bet he’ll make up fo’ los’ time with these ofay girls.”

  Charlie Foster, small, slender, grave, amber-colored, and laconic, finally spoke up:

  “Seems all right, Junius, but there will be hell to pay when you whiten up a lot of these darkies and them mulatto babies start appearing here and there. Watcha gonna do then?”

  “Oh, quit singin’ th’ blues, Chuck,” boomed Johnson. “Don’t cross bridges ’til yuh come tuh ’em. Doc’ll fix that okeh. Besides, we’ll have mo’ money’n Henry Ford by that time.”

  “There’ll be no difficulties; whatever,” assured Crookman rather impatiently.

  “Let’s hope not.”

  Next day the newspapers carried a long account of the interview with Dr. Junius Crookman interspersed with photographs of him, his backers and of the Senegalese who had been turned white. It was the talk of the town and was soon the talk of the country. Long editorials were written about the discovery, learned societies besieged the Negro biologist with offers of lecture engagements, magazines begged him for articles, but he turned down all offers and refused to explain his treatment. This attitude was decried as unbecoming a scientist and it was insinuated and even openly stated that nothing more could be expected from a Negro. But Crookman ignored the clamor of the public, and with the financial help of his associates planned the great and lucrative experiment of turning Negroes into Caucasians.

  The impatient Max Disher saw him as often as possible and kept track of developments. He yearned to be the first treated and didn’t want to be caught napping. Two objects were uppermost in his mind: To get white and to Atlanta. The statuesque and haughty blonde was ever in his thoughts. He was head over heels in love with her and realized there was no hope for him to ever win her as long as he was brown. Each day he would walk past the tall building that was to be the Crookman Sanitarium, watching the workmen and delivery trucks; wondering how much longer he would have to wait before entering upon the great adventure.

  At last the sanitarium was ready for business. Huge advertisements appeared in the local Negro weeklies. Black Harlem was on its toes. Curious throngs of Negroes and whites stood in front of the austere six-story building gazing up at its windows.

  Inside, Crookman, Johnson and Foster stood nervously about while hustling attendants got everything in readiness. Outside they could hear the murmur of the crowd.

  “That means money, Chuck,” boomed Johnson, rubbing his beefsteak hands together.

  “Yeh,” replied the realtor, “but there’s one more thing I wanna get straight: How about that darky dialect? You can’t change that.”

  “It isn’t necessary, my dear Foster,” explained the physician, patiently. “There is no such thing as Negro dialect, except in literature and drama. It is a well-known fact among informed persons that a Negro from a given section speaks the same dialect as his white neighbors. In the South you can’t tell over the telephone whether you are talking to a white man or a Negro. The same is true in New York when a Northern Negro speaks into the receiver. I have noticed the same thing in the hills of West Virginia and Tennessee. The educated Haitian speaks the purest French and the Jamaican Negro sounds exactly like an Englishman. There are no racial or color dialects; only sectional dialects.”

  “Guess you’re right,” agreed Foster, grudgingly.

  “I know I’m right. Moreover, even if my treatment did not change the so-called Negro lips, even that would prove to be no obstacle.”

  “How come, Doc,” asked Johnson.

  “Well, there are plenty of Caucasians who have lips quite as thick and noses quite as broad as any of us. As a matter of fact there has been considerable exaggeration about the contrast between Caucasian and Negro features. The cartoonists and minstrel men have been responsible for it very largely. Some Negroes like the Somalis, Filanis, Egyptians, Hausas, and Abyssinians have very thin lips and nostrils. So also have the Malagasys of Madagascar. Only in certain small sections of Africa do the Negroes possess extremely pendulous lips and very broad nostrils—on the other hand, many so-called Caucasians, particularly the Latins, Jews, and South Irish, and frequently the most Nordic of peoples like the Swedes, show almost Negroid lips and noses. Black up some white folks and they could deceive a resident of Benin. Then when you consider that less than twenty per cent of our Negroes are without Caucasian ancestry and that close to thirty per cent have American Indian ancestry, it is readily seen that there cannot be the wide difference in Caucasian and Afro-American facial characteristics that most people imagine.”

  “Doc, you sho’ knows yo’ onions,” said Johnson, admiringly. “Doan pay no ’tenshun to that ole Doubtin’ Thomas. He’d holler starvation in a pie shop.”

  * * *

  There was a commotion outside and an angry voice was heard above the hum of low conversation. Then Max Disher burst in the door with a guard hanging onto his coat tail.

  “Let loose o’ me, Boy,” he quarreled. “I got an engagement here. Doc, tell this man something, will you?”

  Crookman nodded to the guard to release the insurance man. “Well, I see you’re right on time, Max.”

  “I told you I’d be Johnny-on-the-spot, didn’t I?” said Disher, inspecting his clothes to see if they had been wrinkled.

  “Well, if you’re all ready, go into the receiving room there, sign the register and get into one of those bathrobes. You’re first on the list.”

  The three partners looked at each other and grinned as Max disappeared into a small room at the end of the corridor. Dr. Crookman went into his office to don his white trousers, shoes, and smock; Johnson and Foster entered the business office to supervise the clerical staff, while white-coated figures darted back and forth through the corridors. Outside, the murmuring of the vast throng grew more audible.

  Johnson showed all of his many gold teeth in a wide grin as he glanced out the window and saw the queue of Negroes already extending around the corner. “Man, man, man!” he chuckled to Foster, “at fifty dollars a th’ow this thing’s gonna have th’numbah business beat all hollow.”

  “Hope so,” said Foster, gravely.

  Max Disher, arrayed only in a hospital bathrobe and a pair of slippers, was escorted to the elevator by two white-coated attendants. They got off on the sixth floor and walked to the end of the corridor. Max was trembling with excitement and anxiety. Suppose something should go wrong? Suppose Doc should make a mistake? He thought of the Elks’ excursion every summer to Bear Mountain, the high yellow Minnie and her colorful apartment, the pleasant evenings at the Dahomey Casino doing the latest dances with the brown belles of Harlem, the prancing choruses at the Lafayette Theater, the hours he had whiled away at Boogie’s and the Honky Tonk Club, and he hesitated. Then he envisioned his future as a white man, probably as the husband of the tall blonde from Atlanta, and with firm resolve, he entered the door of the mysterious chamber.

  He quailed as he saw the formidable apparatus of sparkling nickel. It resembled a cross between a dentist’s chair and an electric chair. Wires and straps, bars and levers protruded from it and a great nickel headpiece, like the helmet of a knight, hung over it. The room had only a skylight and no sound entered it from the outside. Around the walls were cases of instruments and shelves of bottles filled with strangely colored fluids. He gasped with fright and would have made for the door but the two husky attendants held him firmly, stripped off his robe and bound him in the chair. There was no retreat. It was either the beginning or the end.

  Slowly, haltingly, Max Disher dragged his way down the hall to the elevator, supported on either side by an attendant. He felt terribly weak; emptied and nauseated; his skin twitched and was dry and feverish; his insides felt very hot and sore. As the trio walked slowly along the corridor, a blue-green light would ever and anon blaze through one of the doorways as a patient w
as taken in. There was a low hum and throb of machinery and an acid odor filled the air. Uniformed nurses and attendants hurried back and forth at their tasks. Everything was quiet, swift, efficient, sinister.

  He felt so thankful that he had survived the ordeal of that horrible machine so akin to the electric chair. A shudder passed over him at the memory of the hours he had passed in its grip, fed at intervals with revolting concoctions. But when they reached the elevator and he saw himself in the mirror, he was startled, overjoyed. White at last! Gone was the smooth brown complexion. Gone were the slightly full lips and Ethiopian nose. Gone was the nappy hair that he had straightened so meticulously ever since the kink-no-more lotions first wrenched Aframericans from the tyranny and torture of the comb. There would be no more expenditures for skin whiteners; no more discrimination; no more obstacles in his path. He was free! The world was his oyster and he had the open sesame of a pork-colored skin! The reflection in the mirror gave him new life and strength.

  He now stood erect, without support, and grinned at the two tall, black attendants. “Well, Boys,” he crowed, “I’m all set now. That machine of Doc’s worked like a charm. Soon’s get a feed under my belt I’ll be okeh.”

  Six hours later, bathed, fed, clean-shaven, spry, blonde, and jubilant, he emerged from the outpatient ward and tripped gaily down the corridor to the main entrance. He was through with coons, he resolved, from now on. He glanced in a superior manner at the long line of black and brown folk on one side of the corridor, patiently awaiting treatment. He saw many persons whom he knew but none of them recognized him. It thrilled him to feel that he was now indistinguishable from nine-tenths of the people of the United States; one of the great majority. Ah, it was good not to be a Negro any longer!

  As he sought to open the front door, the strong arm of a guard restrained him. “Wait a minute,” the man said, “and we’ll help you get through the mob.”

  A moment or two later Max found himself the center of a flying wedge of five or six husky special policemen, cleaving through a milling crowd of colored folk. From the top step of the sanitarium he had noticed the crowd spread over the sidewalk into the street and around the corners. Fifty traffic policemen strained and sweated to keep prospective patients in line and out from under the wheels of taxicabs and trucks.

  Finally he reached the curb, exhausted from the jostling and squeezing, only to be set upon by a mob of newspaper photographers and reporters. As the first person to take the treatment, he was naturally the center of attraction for about fifteen of these journalistic gnats. They asked a thousand questions seemingly all at once. What was his name? How did he feel? What was he going to do? Would he marry a white woman? Did he intend to continue living in Harlem?

  Max would say nothing. In the first place, he thought to himself, if they’re so anxious to know all this stuff, they ought to be willing to pay for it. He needed money if he was going to be able to thoroughly enjoy being white; why not get some by selling his story? The reporters, male and female, begged him almost with tears in their eyes for a statement but he was adamant.

  While they were wrangling, an empty taxicab drove up. Pushing the inquisitive reporters to one side, Max leaped into it and yelled “Central Park!” It was the only place he could think of at the moment. He wanted to have time to compose his mind, to plan the future in this great world of whiteness. As the cab lurched forward, he turned and was astonished to find another occupant, a pretty girl.

  “Don’t be scared,” she smiled. “I knew you would want to get away from that mob so I went around the corner and got a cab for you. Come along with me and I’ll get everything fixed up for you. I’m a reporter from The Scimitar. We’ll give you a lot of money for your story.” She talked rapidly. Max’s first impulse had been to jump out of the cab, even at the risk of having to face again the mob of reporters and photographers he had sought to escape, but he changed his mind when he heard mention of money.

  “How much?” he asked, eyeing her. She was very comely and he noted that her ankles were well turned.

  “Oh, probably a thousand dollars,” she replied.

  “Well, that sounds good.” A thousand dollars! What a time he could have with that! Broadway for him as soon as he got paid off.

  As they sped down Seventh Avenue, the newsboys were yelling the latest editions. “Ex-try! Ex-try! Blacks turning white! Blacks turning white!… Read all about the gr-r-reat discovery! Paper, Mister! Paper!… Read all about Dr. Crookman.”

  He settled back while they drove through the park and glanced frequently at the girl by his side. She looked mighty good; wonder could he talk business with her? Might go to dinner and a cabaret. That would be the best way to start.

  “What did you say your name was?” he began.

  “I didn’t say,” she stalled.

  “Well, you have a name, haven’t you?” he persisted.

  “Suppose I have?”

  “You’re not scared to tell it, are you?”

  “Why do you want to know my name?”

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong about wanting to know a pretty girl’s name, is there?”

  “Well, my name’s Smith, Sybil Smith. Now are you satisfied?”

  “Not yet. I want to know something more. How would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?”

  “I don’t know and I won’t know until I’ve had the experience.” She smiled coquettishly. Going out with him, she figured, would make the basis of a rattling good story for tomorrow’s paper. “Negro’s first night as a Caucasian!” Fine!

  “Say, you’re a regular fellow,” he said, beaming upon her. “I’ll get a great kick out of going to dinner with you because you’ll be the only one in the place that’ll know I’m a Negro.”

  Down at the office of The Scimitar, it didn’t take Max long to come to an agreement, tell his story to a stenographer and get a sheaf of crisp, new bills. As he left the building a couple of hours later with Miss Smith on his arm, the newsboys were already crying the extra edition carrying the first installment of his strange tale. A huge photograph of him occupied the entire front page of the tabloid. Lucky for him that he’d given his name as William Small, he thought.

  He was annoyed and a little angered. What did they want to put his picture all over the front of the paper for? Now everybody would know who he was. He had undergone the tortures of Doc Crookman’s devilish machine in order to escape the conspicuousness of a dark skin and now he was being made conspicuous because he had once had a dark skin. Could one never escape the plagued race problem?

  “Don’t worry about that,” comforted Miss Smith. “Nobody’ll recognize you. There are thousands of white people, yes millions, that look like you do.” She took his arm and snuggled up closer. She wanted to make him feel at home. It wasn’t often a poor, struggling newspaper woman got a chap with a big bankroll to take her out for the evening. Moreover, the description she would write of the experience might win her a promotion.

  They walked down Broadway in the blaze of white lights to a dinner-dance place. To Max it was like being in heaven. He had strolled through the Times Square district before but never with such a feeling of absolute freedom and sureness. No one now looked at him curiously because he was with a white girl, as they had when he came down there with Minnie, his former octoroon lady friend. Gee, it was great!

  They dined and they danced. Then they went to a cabaret, where, amid smoke, noise, and body smells, they drank what was purported to be whiskey and watched a semi-nude chorus do its stuff. Despite his happiness Max found it pretty dull. There was something lacking in these ofay places of amusement or else there was something present that one didn’t find in the black-and-tan resorts in Harlem. The joy and abandon here was obviously forced. Patrons went to extremes to show each other they were having a wonderful time. It was all so strained and quite unlike anything to which he had been accustomed. The Negroes, it seemed to him, were much gayer, enjoyed themselves more deeply, and yet they were more restra
ined, actually more refined. Even their dancing was different. They followed the rhythm accurately, effortlessly and with easy grace; these lumbering couples, out of step half the time and working as strenuously as stevedores emptying the bowels of a freighter, were noisy, awkward, inelegant. At their best they were gymnastic where the Negroes were sensuous. He felt a momentary pang of mingled disgust, disillusionment, and nostalgia. But it was only momentary. He looked across at the comely Sybil and then around at the other white women, many of whom were very pretty and expensively gowned, and the sight temporarily drove from his mind the thoughts that had been occupying him.

  They parted at three o’clock, after she had given him her telephone number. She pecked him lightly on the cheek in payment, doubtless, for a pleasant evening’s entertainment. Somewhat disappointed because she had failed to show any interest in his expressed curiosity about the interior of her apartment, he directed the chauffeur to drive him to Harlem. After all, he argued to himself in defense of his action, he had to get his things.

  As the cab turned out of Central Park at 110th Street he felt, curiously enough, a feeling of peace. There were all the old familiar sights: the all-night speakeasies, the frankfurter stands, the loiterers, the late pedestrians, the chop suey joints, the careening taxicabs, the bawdy laughter.

  He couldn’t resist the temptation to get out at 133rd Street and go down to Boogie’s place, the hangout of his gang. He tapped, an eye peered through a hole, appraised him critically then disappeared and the hole was closed. There was silence.

  Max frowned. What was the matter with old Bob? Why didn’t he open that door? The cold January breeze swept down into the little court where he stood and made him shiver. He knocked a little louder, more insistently. The eye appeared again.

  “Who’s ’at?” growled the doorkeeper.

  “It’s Max Disher,” replied the ex-Negro.