"If the complexity of man in every nation were measured by the vial of color then
we must all each one seize to exist by reason of the standard, and the simplicity
of wisdom in the kinship of every man's blood under the sun, forever lost to the
rhetoric of careless men"
- AOB
I was running late. If I did not get out of the house within the next five minutes, I
may not make it on time to this lecture. Professor Dr James R. Harding was the
special speaker I recalled.
I was in the bathroom dabbing my face with some ethyl alcohol. It felt refreshing
to feel clean. The brown bottle containing the ethyl alcohol had a lettering on it
spelled out SPIRIT. I really wonder why they call it Spirit, must be a generic
English term for alcohol. It doesn't really matter other than I can get the clean
after-shower effect. I dabbed my face, took the cover and closed the bottle. I
could still smell the strong scent of the spirit as I walked out of the bathroom.
7:21PM the clock in the living room was speaking to me. I ran back to the room
to get my leather coat. I had made up my mind to wear the black one with the
Kenneth Cole brand name. I thought about the collections of black leather
jackets in the wardrobe. I really never get to wear them. I get so self conscious
of the kind of dominating presence it could sometimes exude. I was going
through them frantically looking for the Kenneth Cole brand. I was nurturing and
whispering the names to myself in attempt to locate the jacket speedily.. Eddie
Bauer, Tommy, Perry Ellis, Klein, Ralph, Yves Saint Laurent, Armani, Gucci,
Hunt, Cardin.......dust! Where is this jacket ?
I started going back in memory tracing my steps in time. I remembered meeting
John at the Double Tree Hotel Lounge on Georgia Avenue. It was actually at
the top suite of the hotel. I remembered he said something about the
jacket....yap, "you and your mobster styles" he had said. I had told him to cut it
out, "...The finish to the product is exceptional" is part of what I must have said.
I believe I was suppose to hear from him yesterday. He had told me he would
get back unfailingly five days from then.
I dashed out of the room, I meandered through the kitchen with the white
washed walls, eggs shells I was once told by a painter. I love the kitchen looking
sanitized and clean. It speaks a form of sophistication. Angelic a guest of mine
once said. Light bounces of the surface of the walls and creates an extremely
lively presence. Then you start chopping up the greens, yellow peppers, black
olives, you bring out the cinnamon, brown sugar, and make a barbaric mess
and then you eat and have to clean up. What else did she say ?
What are you doing? I was thinking out loud, find your jacket bozo! Your jacket
is not here.
I remembered. The dark room..... Downstairs in the basement.
I had converted the room in the basement to a dark room. To get a better effect
on how dark I could make the room, I had got a rare black color paint from the
Household Departmental Store. It was in the evening I now recall, and I knew
dark or not I needed to paint it before dawn the following morning. When I had
finished painting the room it was so black, even if you opened the door and
light was shown elsewhere in the basement, it somehow managed to retain that
dark impenetrable composition. The paint had spilled on my skin that day, and I
had to use the Spirit to get the black paint off, because so stark was the
difference, it looked like I had acquired a rare skin abnormality.
I had taken Photography at the Mason Art Institute. It was a two year program
that engaged some of the best and brightest mind in the field. Zhuhong Xu
rated one of the best photographers in the world, was actually in my project
group in one of the classes. I remembered we called him Collins. We had once
spoken about what a black room would look like, now I had one.
7:45PM The living room clock was speaking to me. This time the clock ticked
more loudly. Tick tock tick tock, a modern digital analogue wonder. I had to
catch the subway train at 7:55PM, that would put me at the Peabody Lecture
Hall at exactly 8:00PM all variables being constant. I would be cutting it close
and hitting the lecture just when it starts. I should have been out by 7:30 to
ward off any surprises that could come up on my way to the lecture. I was
walking down the basement steps three to four steps at a time. Almost there,
almost there, I did a hard left, took a couple of quick paces and opened the
door of the dark room or should I say "my black room".
I know they say the world is going digital, but developing a roll of film in my
black room, feels like I am taking part in that picture process of life. It gives me
a different kind of attachment to memories, and a kind of serious appreciation
of time. Well, that may be relative considering I am about to be late for John
Harding's "Psychology of Colors".
The switch. I felt for the switch and tapped it up with my fingers. The lights came
on in the black room. There you are. I picked up the black leather jacket from
the hook attachment, shook it firmly and warmed up into it, then raced back up
the stairs.
7:53PM Tick tock tick tock tick tock, it seemed the clock was moving ever faster.
I took my keys off the oakwood dining table that could seat four in a communion
with their hands. I did my last minute checks and walked out of the door locking
it behind me. When I got to the road I looked back!...I had left the lights on in
my dark room.
It was cold and chilly outside and in the hustle of the street you could see the
faint beginnings of a snow fall. It was already wet and slick. I knew this was
going to be one night.
I picked up my pace heading towards the station. The assortment of cars were
cruising along with reckless detachment. Alas, I was a couple of yards away
from the cities train station.
Someone was talking to me, I turned my head in the direction. What was he
saying, I heard him clearer now. I started off staring a little too long at his black
leather jacket, and that yellow container in his hands jingling with pennies, lots
of pennies, "... Got change to spare need to get a brownie, just need something
to eat tonight". He had long dirty brown hair curled around the nape of his
neck,, a open collar shirt revealing yet another encroachment of hair from his
chest. When he spoke you could smell a strong whisk of alcohol in his breath.
I brought out a dollar bill out of my pocket, constantly looking at the station
envisioning the stairs that would lead me down to the 7:55 train. I could not miss
this train.
I was about to go down the steps, but stopped. I looked back at the man with
the can of pennies. "Sir", I called out. He came running.
When he got close to me he raised his brow as if to ask and receive at the
same time. "What kind of Jacket are you wearing?", I asked out of a curiosity
that had seemed to suddenly take over me.
"KC" he says. "What is that?" I asked. "KC... Kenneth Cole" he voiced it out with
a resonating articulation so unlike how he spoke a moment earlier.
And just as quickly changes back to a low and monotonous tone, "......Got more
change to spare, need to get a brownie, just need something to eat tonight" .
The train was arriving, I could see the passengers approaching the platform. I
took my leave without looking back. I started running breaking my pace only
briefly to swipe my card. "Hey!" the man with the yellow can bellowed out, "you
can have the jacket for ten buck, you can dry clean it, it look like..."
I was running even faster, just a few more paces someone was barely making it
through the door. The door closed.
"Stand clear of the doors", the door to the coach I was to enter opened again.
I stepped in.
It looked like a festival in the coach. It was crammed up and I could see a little
girl with long dark hair smiling bewilderedly as if to ask how did you open the
door. The coach had started moving.
I was looking at the faces around me. Most of them had wild paintings on their
faces with tree leaves attached to their head. The paintings on their faces
seemed to be paintings done with the black tar used in paving the roads.
Glossy dark colors, with green, yellow, white, and red markings. I caught the
eyes of one of the standing passengers, he was looking directly at me. I looked
back with curious acknowledgement.
He bared his extremely white teeth in what was seemingly a smile. So white was
the teeth it looked like it had been painted with chalk. He kept baring it
changing his smile into a kind of menacing grin, then suddenly turned his
painted face into a concocting swirl of graffiti. Then he started shouting with a
breath has loud as he could muster, "Toouuurrch Doooown, weeeeee
maaaaaaaaade it!", so deafening was the noise that I was even more shocked
when the rest of the coach passengers began drumming and banging every
surface that could make a sound on the inside body of the coach.
"Peabody" the Coach Speakers were alerting the passengers.
The door opened. I stepped out of the coach just as quickly. They were starting
another chant drumming with the insides of the coach. Good Lord, I took a last
glance at the coach; the little girl with the long dark hair, was now the center of
attention, she had started dancing with an hysterical sway of her hips, swinging
her hands over her head as if she were really walking with it.
I did not notice, until I raised my head up to walk through the platform to the
elevator stairs. A group of men were running towards me. I froze in my feet
calculating. Just as swiftly as I saw them they passed by me forcing their way
through the doors of the coach.
"Stand clear of the door......." I could hear the coach speakers as I made my
way up the stairs "Door Closing".
7:59PM the subway clock was speaking to me.
I was elevated out into the streets directly opposite the lecture hall. I could see
the lights on the street, A bicycle was chained to a pole sign that read STOP
with its red and black markings. To my left about twenty yards away, I could see
ladies near the shops talking seductively and men cajoling themselves with
blissful disregard of the cold, hugging their hands in their armpits and chirping
away mindlessly. On a different occasion, I knew I would have taken out a snack
at the Tenzo bar adjacent to the entrance of the train station. From where I
stood I could see "Tapar the Bartender" through the window divide. They knew I
was not a drinker, but they always passed me a beer as if hoping I had
managed to get a taste for it.
"Life is too bitter to add a beer, Tapar", is what I always said, sometimes I would
buy an O'douls just to indulge the day.
A slick black Mercedes Benz was pulled up to a side of the curb opposite the
bar, and a green Volkswagen bug was attempting to squeeze itself between a
Yellow Dodge Viper and Blue Ford Mustang on the other side of the road.
There was a perennial tree with its wide branches between the cars, on the
wide sidewalk of the curb. Probably the driver of the bug was looking for a kind
of shade.
The town was alight, and though it was dark out, many wandered in both
directions as if in search of an arriving ship. Some of the city pedestrians
walked fast, some slow as if oblivious to the weather of the night, and still some
walked with aimless ambition, though they all seemed to know where they were
going.
I guess thats why someone nicknamed this place downtown sailor springs, not
that there is any dock around the area. I crossed the street, looking to my left
and then to my right as I did, and then walked up the wide steps leading to the
Peabody Lecture Hall.
As I walked to the doors of the 19th Century Victorian building, I could see the
dark, menacing sky taking a turn for the worse, the ground was receiving the
first signs of snow flakes. Elsewhere, on another part of town, outside this city,
this would be an empty, dark and cold night.
I pushed through the revolving doors and walked up to the attendant nodding
my head in a greeting.
The attendant was dressed in a navy blue uniform wearing a cap that looked
like one a navy officer would wear on duty.
"Room 625" I said extending my pass to the Lecture.
"Take the elevator to the top floor and make a left, you would see a water
fountain on the corridor, with a sign on it leading you to the room location, you
have a good evening"
I said to have the same nodding my head as I walked into the elevator.
Someone in the lobby was approaching the elevator as well; by the look I
concluded he was of Asian Ancestry.
I placed my hand on the door to allow him an opportunity to enter.
As the elevator doors began to close, I could hear someone running towards
the door, the click clack sound made by the shoe was controlled yet
determined, the person stuck the hands into the elevator to stop it from closing
totally. A woman stepped in. She was dressed in a violet silky attire with silvery
beads weaved about the neck of the dress, on her left hand she had a fur coat
folded with neat precision and quiet elegance.
I was tempted to bare out my teeth, but gave up the thought..I nodded my head
tilting it slightly to the left. She smiled as if thanking me for changing my mind.
The "Asian man" pressed the 6 button on the elevator console.I had an
uncomfortable thought, but shrugged it off.
"You Gentlemen going to the lecture? She did not allow us to respond, but
continued,.." John Adams is such a great Psychologist. I was tempted to correct
the name. I did, "Harding you mean"
"Yes Harding, Harding exactly", she took a quick breath and continued, her
eyes taking on a different glow."He has three Ph.D, he is an extensive traveller,
as a matter of fact I was at his lecture in Liverpool, England when I was on
vacation. Such an amazing speaker. He is the Chair of the Scholar Society in
Cambridge University. He is such a brilliant man. The woman's eyes were in a
kind of awe I was scared the class would be over once she stepped into it.
The woman was asking the "Asian man" a question. Something about where he
was from.
"Second generation American". His English was so distinct and polished, it
looked like he had memorized every phonetics and syllable of the American
English Dictionary.
The door to the elevator opened and just as quickly, the woman's mannerism
became extremely proper and focused.
She stepped out, the "Asian looking man" motioned for me to step out and then
he stepped out.
We all headed for Room 625.
We did not speak but like solders on a mission walked towards our destination.
The water fountain directed us to make a right. I noticed Vincent Van Gogh
paintings, Monet paintings and other rare paintings on the wall, including
Presidents in full Portraits lined across the walls. The corridor was large, full of
subtle hues and shades that harbored an inviting presence of opulence: it
opened up into a big room full of woolly drapes and curtains of lush Persian
designs. There was a dark colored oak wood partition dividing the room,
bearing on it's flat polished oak body a full live Portrait of Abraham Lincoln "The
President". The speaker was on the other side of the wood partition in the
lecture room. The entrance to the Lecture hall was one without doors, where
each side, on the left and right of the partition one could see the hierarchy of
guests as they sat in step like progression as in a movie theatre hall.
I could see the full audience now. The Asian looking man and the woman with
the fur coat had gone ahead of me.
"Welcome welcome, come on in" Professor Dr. James R. Harding was declaring
with oratory indifference, "I apologize, sincerely so, I noticed some of you
probably never received the memorandum explaining a slight change in the
events of the day. We started at 7:00PM and would be out in the next
15minutes to 30minutes. Please have your seat and get comfortable, I would
now continue on the definition of the color "black", and feel free to ask
questions when you want"
It was a large audience. A lot of nationalities were there represented. Asians,
Middle Eastern, Africans, Europeans, Islanders, Mid Atlantic Countries, the
South Americas it seemed they had flown in from all parts of the world for this
lecture.
I climbed up a few step progressions and found a seat next to one of the
Victorian windows. These were huge windows starting from the ground where
my feet rested, all the way to the top edge of the ceiling having intricately
designed round pillars that linked adjoining floors below and other windows in
the room. There were six such pillars on my side of the room. The room was
unnervingly quiet.
Professor Harding was speaking, "........Being of the darkest achromatic value,
producing or reflecting comparatively little and having no predominant hue.
Having little or no light, a black and stormy night, often black, of belonging to a
racial group having brown to black skin especially one of African origin. Dark in
color, as from soot, dirty, wicked, evil, cheerless and depressing marked by
anger and sullenness. Often black, attended with disaster; calamitous,
deserving of, indicating or incurring censor or dishonor........"he kept reading
his voice carrying with it a strong vibrant echo bouncing of the walls and pillars
of the Lecture room.
With every word he spoke it seemed the more quiet the room became. I do not
think he even noticed what was going on in the audience, and if he did he really
didn't care.
Then he stopped. If someone had dropped a packet of pins on the lush carpets
at this moment, you would flinch in fear of the taboo that had come alive.
He kept the silence going for about ten seconds, but it looked like an eternity.
"Fellows, Comrades, this is the dictionary definition of the color "black". Now I
would try to go into my own psychological definition of the color, but before then
what do you think of the definition. Remember' it is to the extent that you
participate in the world around you that you would define yourselves. "
"..I don't think there is anything wrong with it, it's just a definition of a color
sometimes we take the meaning overboard...
Someone interjected "I don't necessarily agree. I don't believe a race of people
should be aligned with such outrageous definitions of a color."
Professor Harding was raising his hands speaking, Hush
An eerie wave of silence fell on the audience.
"Can I hear from a Black person please?" the Professor was speaking with a
commanding eloquence, he was an older man, and the curves and lines of his
face was definitely Aryan in nature, with well kept full black hair and a strong
forehead. He wore a native looking shirt, more tropical in style, and you could
tell he had some form of enculturation in the African Continent with the neck
beads he wore. Would I dare say he was white and yet be mistaken.
I never really understood why most races were represented by their
nationalities while races like the Europeans or their descendants were referred
to as the white people, and the Americans with an African origin were referred
to as the black people. It would be interesting to see what analysis could be
deducted from this lecture of multi-cultural diversity.
Someone was speaking
"I am proud of the color and I believe we have come a long way trying to make
sense of the prejudices harbored against the color".
"I am from Jamaica and I have the African skin but they call me a Jamaican. I
believe it is so wrong to call any one a color
because no person is an absolute color. I believe in Love and I think separating
people into colors promote hate..".
Out of no where, loud animated conversions began in the audience, it seemed
all of a sudden every one had something to say. Even the quiet people around
me had gone into a volley of discussions. A man to my right, a step above me
was shouting.
"I'm Arabian , I have black Mercedes, I don't have a problem with that color."
The Professor was speaking, but I seemed to have got swallowed up in the
drama taking place in the audience.
Pens and notebooks were jotting furiously. I had not noticed the Camera man,
but now he was rolling his film, darting across the room in trained focus trying to
capture conversations. It seemed every one had stopped looking at the
Professor from their seats.
I looked at the board pass the shoulders of the guests who were now in
procession about to crowd around the Professor. Written on the white board
were the letters in black "The Psychology of Colors". I could also see the
woman in violet flirting with the Professor, but it seemed everybody with the
Professor wanted some form of acknowledgement.
Someone was walking down the steps to my left next to the Victorian window,
"nice jacket"."Thank You" I said, smiling up to the face at the same time. She
was extremely beautiful, with long black flowing hair, that seemed to reach the
curve of her back. It would ache simply to look at her without getting to know
her. It may do me good to catch up with her mind later on. Did she like the
jacket because it was black, looked expensive, or is she looking for a night out
so she could carry on a deep conversation on the topic on the board. I may be
a better person for it.
She smiled back and kept walking.
I looked outside the Victorian windows, the snow flakes were coming down. You
could see the misty haze and panorama of the falling crystals as the wind drew
languages and faces on the empty stretch of land. Across the divide you could
see the flakes as they made that Christmas like pattern across the trees that
separated the wing of the building I was sitting, from the wing of the building at
the other side. Suddenly, on the other side of the building separated by the well
partitioned trees, a light came on in one of the dark Victorian rooms. I could see
a silhouette etched close to the window. I looked through my window at the
silhouette a little longer as it moved against the backdrop then I looked up at
the dark clouds streaming across the full moon in the night sky, and closed my
eyes.
The Professor was saying something, the last words I heard him say that day.
"Fellows, comrades, the Washington Redskins are playing at the RFK stadium
and some of us would be heading in that direction, feel free to come along and
join us as we make a choice to celebrate the day"
In the dark world of my mind I could not help but utter, "Welcome to the Capitol,
Professor"
Copyright 2004 © Adebowale Balogun (AOB)
