Birth of a Dark Nation

by Rashid Darden

  ~

  One day, after the sun had set, we took the buggy downtown to the pharmacy. Although we grew our own herbs based on our family knowledge, the world was discovering pharmaceutical remedies from other places. Ariori was revving up his research and hoped to discover what impact various Chinese herbal supplements would have on an African diet, particularly a Razadi diet. New Orleans University was open to his research, hoping to find the next big name to come out of the school and give it some national notoriety.

  "I'll be right back," he said to us, as he hopped out of the buggy, leaving Dominique and I behind. I held onto the reins of our horse and waited patiently while Dominique read a book.

  The sound of thunderous hooves soon filled the air as about a dozen horses clomped their way down the street. Horses never traveled that fast in the city. Dominique and I turned around to see the men on horses charging toward us. White hoods obscured their faces.

  "Augustin?! What do we do?!" Dominique shrieked.

  "Get down!" I shouted, covering her with my body. I glanced overhead to see a single can of kerosene fly over our heads. A rag was stuffed into the opening and it had already been lit on fire.

  The can crashed through the window of the pharmacy, immediately causing an explosion.

  "Ariori!" Dominique screamed. Our horse bucked and neighed.

  "Damn it!" I shouted, hopping out of the buggy while the men in white rode off down the street. Chaos erupted all around us as the fire quickly spread through the pharmacy. It already billowed out of the shattered glass front and the door.

  "We have to go in there!" Dominique screamed.

  "You can't, Dominique, stay back!" She tried to push past me, but I stopped her in her tracks.

  "I said stay back! I'll run around to the back and—"

  Suddenly, another explosion rocked the block and threw us both down to the ground. Glass, bricks, and wood showered down all around us. Dominique was knocked unconscious. Our horse had run down the street without us.

  I looked back at the pharmacy. It was already burned down to a shell.

  "Ariori?" I whispered. I began to hear nearby church bells ringing, sounding the alarm.

  I picked up Dominique and carried her in my arms. I ran as far as I could to get her to safety even as the fire raged on behind me.

  We reached Pontalba in minutes. Eşusanya, Aborişade, and Ogundiya were already at the corner, peering down the street to see where the fire was.

  "Aragbaye! What the hell happened?" Eşusanya said.

  "The Klan," I said. "They got Ariori."

  "What?! What do you mean they got him?" Aborişade said.

  "They firebombed the pharmacy while he was in there. I had to get Dominique to safety. We've gotta go back."

  Ogundiya took Dominique from me and carried her upstairs.

  "'Baye…how bad is it?" Aborişade asked.

  "It's terrible," I said. My voice cracked and I began to sob.

  "No you don't," Eşusanya said, grabbing my shoulder. "It ain't over yet. Let's go."

  We ran back downtown to see that the New Orleans Fire Department was already on the scene, battling the blaze to the best of their ability. Some men were holding back the crowd while others held the hose in front of the building, dousing it in water.

  "Let me through! My brother's in there!" Eşusanya shouted as he tossed people aside in the crowd.

  "There's a body in the doorway," one of the ladies in the crowd shouted. The panicked crowd screamed and stirred as the firefighters and police attempted to hold them back.

  Eşusanya and I broke through the crowd and ran to the doorway.

  On the floor was a corpse, blackened to a crisp, with swaths of pink flesh peeking through the soot. On the left hand of the corpse was a gold wedding band, lightly etched with the symbols of my people.

  "No," I said. "No, no, no, no, no!"

  Eşusanya punched a hole in the already brittle wall.

  Aborişade broke through the crowd and looked at Ariori's corpse in horror.

  "No. It can't be him," he said.

  "It is," I confirmed. "The ring."

  "Boy, you can't be in there! This is a crime scene!" a police officer shouted at us.

  "Leave me be!" Aborişade commanded. The officer immediately stepped back.

  "We can't leave him here," Eşusanya said. "There's still hope."

  Ogundiya appeared with our errant horse and buggy.

  "Where's Dominique?" Aborişade asked as we loaded Ariori's body onto the buggy.

  "At the house. Sleeping," Ogundiya said softly, observing Ariori's body.

  "Good," Aborişade said. "She can't see him like this. Ogundiya, there's still hope. We've got to get him to his lab at New Orleans University. Aragbaye, try to feed him some of your blood. Now! Let's go!"

  Ogundiya took off and I punctured a vein in my wrist. I put it against the place on Ariori's face that used to have lips. The blood dropped in slowly.

  "Anything?" Aborişade asked. I shook my head. "He'll have equipment in his lab. Let's go, hurry!"

  We reached New Orleans University in minutes, rushing past the Negro doctors and nurses. We carefully laid his body on a worktable and I searched for anything to help us make this process easier.

  Breaking into a drawer, I finally found his syringes. I stabbed myself in the arm, collecting as much blood as the syringe would carry. I removed it, and blood spurted until the hole healed itself seconds later.

  "Put it in his neck," Aborişade said. I tried to find a vein…anywhere.

  "Just stick it in!" Eşusanya yelled. I blindly jabbed anywhere and pushed the blood through. It immediately seeped out the back of his neck, through some previously unseen hole.

  "Damn!" Aborişade said. "Try it again, do me!"

  I used the same syringe and gathered Aborişade's blood. This time, I injected it directly in Ariori's chest. This time, it didn't seep out.

  "Now what?" I asked.

  "We wait," Aborişade said.

  Hours passed. Ariori didn't move.

  "Go get Dominique," Aborişade commanded Ogundiya.

  "No," Eşusanya said. "She can't see him like this."

  "I'm already here," she announced. We turned around to see Dominique standing in the doorway to the laboratory with Babarinde.

  We all backed away from the table and stood aside so that Dominique could pass. She took small steps toward Ariori. Her dress was still covered in soot from the fire and her pale face was stained by her tears. She sniffed and reached her hand out to touch Ariori's chest.

  "Look what they've done to you," she whispered. "My beautiful, sweet Ariori. They've finally done it. Taken you away from me once again. Don't they know we were meant to be? You were my hero twice over. Gave me a new life on Dominica. Showed me that real love didn't need the same language, or color, or beliefs. Our only belief was in love and in each other. You made me safe. It never mattered how dangerous things might be because I was safe as long as I was with you. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, my love. I wish I could have done more."

  She bent down and placed her soft lips on his blackened remains, kissing him one last time.

  "Our vengeance will be fleeting. But our love will live forever."

  She pulled a sheet over his face and walked back to Babarinde.

  "I will cry no more," she said. "The men who did this to my husband must be punished."

  ~

  Soon after the burial of our beloved brother Ariori, Dominique devised the kidnapping of her former chaperone, Carmen. She would be the only person who knew the truth about Ariori's assassination.

  "That bitch goes to mass every Sunday. She'll be there. I promise," Dominique said. It was true—she hadn't shed a single tear since she said goodbye to Ariori. Although she had been removed from school, she kept herself busy by meeting with the girls in the sorority she was creating. We weren't privy to what they discussed, but we knew it was helping Dominique get through the immense tragedy.

 
As for us? We just wanted revenge. And we were happy to carry it out.

  At the end of the early afternoon mass, we assembled outside of St. Louis Cathedral in disguise. It was Eşusanya's idea to dress in nun's habits.

  Yes, nun's habits.

  Carmen exited the church with the same smug look on her pug face that she always had, with seemingly no care in the world, no thought about the murder that she had facilitated.

  We quickly stood up from the bench outside and walked toward her as she walked toward Bourbon Street.

  Dominique led the way. We walked through throngs of parishioners trying to make their way home and none even suspected that we were just clean-shaven men in habits.

  Dominique walked next to Carmen with her head bent down. We were immediately behind them.

  Carmen brushed up against Dominique.

  "Excuse me, sister," she said politely.

  "You're excused, you murderous cunt," she replied.

  "What?" Carmen faced Dominique's sinister, smiling face.

  Before she even had time to gasp, we came behind her, covered her mouth, and spirited her down an alley where our carriage was awaiting.

  "Make a sound and I will fillet you, my dear," Dominque said, while producing a knife from underneath her habit.

  Carmen whimpered and lay down in the carriage as we sped off.

  We took her to our plantation, twenty miles from the city. Nearby, there was an open field, far from the main roads, unseen by all. There, Babarinde waited, along with several of the brothers who lived at the house.

  Eşusanya threw Carmen out of the carriage and she hit the ground with a thud.

  "What do you want from me?" she said, scrambling up.

  "Answers," Dominique said.

  "I don't have any answers for you," Carmen said. She began to run toward the road.

  "I don't think so," Eşusanya said, appearing before her. She turned and tried to run again, but Eşusanya grabbed her and brought her to Dominique.

  "Who arranged for my husband's murder?" Dominique asked.

  "I don't know," Carmen said.

  "Wrong answer." Dominique produced her knife and held it a centimeter from Carmen's face.

  "Who is behind my husband's murder?" she asked again.

  "I don't know," Carmen said.

  "Lies." Dominique slowly cut a gash from Carmen's cheek to her chin. Blood oozed out and every Razadi salivated. Carmen screamed.

  "Alright, alright, alright," Carmen said. "I'll tell you. Please don't cut me again."

  "Talk," Dominique ordered.

  "I wrote your father and told him about your relationship. I told him everything I knew. I asked what I should do."

  "What did he say?"

  "He told me to fix it. He told me to undo the damage you did."

  "That's it?"

  "Yes, that's it," Carmen concluded.

  "Lies!" Dominique shouted, slashing Carmen's other cheek with the knife. Carmen screamed.

  "I am not lying! Your father had nothing to do with what happened to Armand!"

  "Then who?"

  "I can't…"

  Dominique punched Carmen in the nose and the blood gushed out. Eşusanya let her fall to the ground and Dominique knelt down next to her.

  "If you don't start telling me details, I will begin cutting off appendages," Dominique threatened.

  "I told the man I'm seeing, William Beauchamp. I told him I had to take care of the situation. And he told me not to worry."

  "William Beauchamp? The janitor at Newcombe?"

  "Yes."

  "You're fucking that old man?" Dominique laughed. Carmen stared back.

  "I love him."

  Dominique spat in Carmen's face.

  "And you know who I loved? My husband, you cow. Now tell me the rest!"

  "William went back to his friends and explained that he had to get rid of Armand."

  "Who are his friends?"

  "The Knights of the White Camellia."

  "Not the Ku Klux Klan?"

  "No…the KKK is beneath them. They would never-"

  "Names. Now."

  "William. His brother Eric Beauchamp, the attorney. Stefan Archer, the pharmacist. He knew when Armand would be visiting and told the rest. Edward Jones, the insurance agent. Stefan took out a policy before they firebombed the pharmacy, so he is a very wealthy man now. And he wasn't even there when it happened. All he had to do was leave the door unlocked. Damon Porter, the chemist, made sure some highly volatile chemicals were in just the right place in the pharmacy so the whole thing would blow right on cue. Sam Barnabas, the fire chief. He ensured that the damage to the neighborhood would be minimal. And then there's Jacob York."

  "And who is Jacob York?"

  "He's a civil war veteran and the leader of the Knights. He's the one who recruited the seven young horsemen to ride through the streets. He's a grand old man who delights in the advancement of the white race. As should you."

  Dominique grabbed Carmen's ear and sliced it off. She screamed once again. Over those screams, Dominique spoke.

  "Carmen, in my previous life I was a French girl on the island of Dominica during the colonial days. And I met a man named Ariori. He was a Negro man and we fell in love. We stayed together for years, until my father stole me away from him. And then, in this life, I discovered my love once again. You know him as Armand. But his name remains Ariori. And I fell in love with him again and I married him again. And again, he was taken from me.

  "I am not one of those women who claims to not see skin color. Of course I saw Ariori's skin color, just as sure as I see your crimson blood. I saw his skin color and I loved it. I loved every bit of what made him a man—a black man—my man. And you facilitated his murder."

  "I was just doing what your father thought was best."

  "Even if he explicitly said not to murder my husband, you would have done it. You don't have a human bone in your body."

  "And evidently, neither do you, nigger-lover. Look what you've done to me!"

  "Yes. Look what I've done. My masterpiece of blood. Carmen…when you meet the devil, please tell him that a white woman did this to you."

  Dominique jabbed her knife into Carmen's eye socket as far as it would go. Too quick for Carmen to even scream. A sickening gasp and gurgle emitted from her throat.

  "Dinner is served, my brothers," Dominique said. She stood up and walked briskly to the house, wiping her knife off on the front of her nun's habit while the rest of us feasted on the brain-dead body of Carmen until she expired.

  A week later, Dominique, too, was dead. Her death was peaceful, silent, and expected by all of us.

  .

  My darling Razadi brothers, as you see by my cold body in this bed, the bed I shared with my husband Ariori, I have departed this earthly realm. My life, without my beloved, is not a life at all, much less one worth living. You have remained strong for me in my hour of bereavement. I have noticed that you have barely grieved yourself. I know that the love I felt for my husband was special, but you knew him first and you knew him longest. By my passing, you no longer have to worry about protecting me. He is protecting me now, always and forever, in whatever afterlife there may be.

  .

  Free yourselves to grieve for your brother, but do not grieve for me, for I am happy as long as I am with him.

  .

  In my hands are gifts for you.

  In my right hand is the ritual for Iota Theta Beta, the sorority that I had been working so hard at creating for all of these months. These women have been my sisters as you have been my brothers. They have protected me and accepted me. And it is only fitting that I give them to you, from this day forward. So long as there is blood in the sisters of Iota Theta Beta, so shall you and your people always have life. Do not try to decode the ceremonies. Just know that the four notes, when played or whistled, will be the gateway to whatever you need from my sisters, today and for all the days of your life.

  .

  In my left
hand is a list of the names and addresses of each of the men responsible for the death of Ariori. I know that your first inclination is to mete out swift and decisive vengeance. But as you gather them and decide their collective fate, I just have one final wish:

  .

  Make them suffer.

  In the blood,

  Dominique Rabaut Forestier

  .

  "And that was the suicide note of our sister Dominique. The women whose husband you all killed."

  Babarinde addressed the conspirators as they hung on the wooden poles erected for them in our back yard. We cut a dozen trees down from a small forest on our property and piled them into a semi-circle in the ground. One by one, we nailed the criminals' hands to the tops of the poles.

  All of them screamed and tried to escape as we pounded the ten-inch nails through them. They couldn't understand how we found them, how we stealthily stole them from their own homes in the middle of the night, how we overpowered them, even now. The look of anger and confusion in their faces only made us taunt them more.

  Try to escape. Go on. Run. Let's see how far you can get before I catch you. Five feet? Ten feet? No, white man. I will always beat you. Now, be tacked to this log, and watch my black face as you die.

  There will be no knives, white man. No swords. No guns. No weapons other than my hands, my feet, and my teeth.

  This is for my brother, Ariori, who you killed just because you were asked. Ariori was somebody. He was our friend. He was our brother. He was somebody's husband, you cocksuckers.

  This is for Dominique, who lived two lifetimes for Ariori. This is for her, the innocent victim who couldn't help who she loved across time and space.

  This is for the slaves of the German Coast who died because they dared to fight for their freedom. This is for Rebekah Deslondes, whose arm you took to spite her. This is for Charles Deslondes, whose body you mangled because he led his people. This is for Mercredi, Babe, Amos, and all the other slaves that you wiped off the rolls of history.

  This is for the millions of enslaved Africans in America. This is for their heirs.

  This is for the indigenous people that you displaced.

  This is for the dozens and dozens of Razadi who lay dead at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, spared from the atrocities of life in the Americas.