The Color Black

(The beginning according to Joilah)

Joilah

My name is Joilah Elizabeth Johnson.

There are many things that I need to tell you, but first I have to tell you about my dream. It’s the same dream all of the time, every time I close my eyes. It is not a nightmare as some may assume upon first experiencing it. Rather, it is a forecast, a glimpse into my destiny. A forewarning, a presage. How do I know that? I’m not sure, I just do.

The dream unfolds in this way:

I am sinking, descending further and further into a watery deep. My eyes are open, I can see everything. There are no fish, whales, or any other type of sea life. It’s just me, in the dark water alone, sinking. All around me is darkness, nothingness, the color black. Even though I am alone, I am not scared. I feel peaceful. The water encloses around me like its accepting me, I am now a part of the ocean. I am free.

I don’t know what the dream means. Each time I dream it, I get a weird feeling, a feeling like it’s only a matter of time before the dream will come true. It feels as though each time I dream it, I am closer to seeing it fulfilled. The darkness is drawing nearer and nearer.

I will soon leave this world.

There isn’t much to say about my life before I met Sice Taral. I was told that my mother left soon after I was born. She left me with my father who was a drunk, so that in itself speaks volumes about my mother’s character. Even so, I would have loved to have a mother growing up. The world is cold and dark when there is no one in which to call “mom”. And my world was very, very, cold and very, very, dark.

I met Sice Taral when I was five years old. The first day of kindergarten, I felt someone staring at me. I looked up, and there he was. He later told me that he noticed me because I was wearing a red dress. I like to think it was destiny. He was sent to me. I never would have made it through elementary school without him.

From day one, Sice Taral thought it necessary to defend me from all evil. All anyone had to do was look at me sideways, and he was all over them. And kids had good reason to look at me sideways. I had no mother and it showed. My hair was nappy, and I was almost always dirty. It was obvious that no one bothered to raise me at home. I could barely speak upon entering kindergarten, and I wasn’t fully potty trained. I was terrified of everything, I jumped when someone touched me. I had no idea that there were kids that had two loving parents. I thought everyone was as unlucky as me. Everyone I knew prior to kindergarten was as unlucky as me. But that isn’t saying much.

I lived in a run-down part of the city that was commonly referred to as “poverty rows”. Literally, there were rows and rows of dilapidated houses packed along about ten blocks of garbage strewn streets. At all times of the day and night, young men and women could be seen wandering the streets wasting the best years of their lives drinking cheap alcohol and smoking menthol cigarettes. Most people in my neighborhood barely made it out of middle school. Very little even bothered to go to high school, and only an occasional determined soul graduated from high school. No one went to college. The thought was ludicrous.

My father never told me what became of my mother. Asking about her made my father spitting mad, so I stopped trying to pry details out of him about her early on. Eventually I pieced together that she basically abandoned me after giving birth, leaving me with my father in the middle of the night. Some part of my father made him keep me, I am not sure if it was a good part of him or a bad part. At least once every day I wished that he would have thrown me away in one of the many dumpsters near our home. Maybe I would have just died, or maybe, just maybe, someone would have found me, and I would have been adopted into a semi-normal household. At least I might have made it out of poverty rows. If only I was so lucky.

My father was at one time a United States marine, but suffered a traumatic brain injury early on in his military career. Even though he was honorably discharged, he was convinced that he was a failure because his disability made it impossible for him to work. It was shameful to him for a man to not do physical labor every day, from sun up to sun down. It was even more shameful to live off government checks and welfare. So, since he no longer thought of himself as a real man, he became a full-time alcoholic. He spent most of his time at one of the many neighborhood liquor stores not far from our house. He only came home when he ran out of money, or when the police threatened to make him spend a night in jail. When he was home, he was either asleep or suffering from withdrawal in the worst way. He didn’t care about my well-being whatsoever. I think maybe he convinced himself that my stepmother was responsible for me since I was female. He never so much as looked my way except to tell me that I was ‘ugly’, or that I was ‘getting on his nerves’. When I grew older he would look at me and tell me that I looked just like my “no good whore mother”. I used to look forward to those harsh remarks. It was the only time he ever spoke about my mother.

My father married my stepmother when I was a toddler. I think a part of him felt guilty because I was growing up without a mother. Or maybe he just wanted someone to commiserate with. Whichever the reason, it did not improve my quality of life. My stepmother was in it for my father’s disability check. The money she received from the disability check she used to buy cigarettes for herself and inexpensive liquor for my father. Whatever was left over was sometimes used for food. Food for them mind you, not food for a growing little girl. Because she needed me for a welfare check, and because she was forced into being my mother, she despised me. She treated me the exact opposite of how she treated her son.

Her son, Tayar, was much older than me, I never really knew exactly how much older. He was on the autism spectrum, but high functioning. He was kind to me, but he had to pretend that he hated me while around his mother to keep her off his back. Still, it helped my young mind to know that there was someone who cared about me. Even if that someone was limited and was as scared as I was of the world.

At school, even though there were many kids in my same situation, I stood out. Most kids had a grandparent or a sibling or someone that took an interest in their welfare. Or some had at least one parent with a conscience that would, every once in a while, buy them clothes that fit properly, or comb their hair once a week so that teachers didn’t start asking questions and send child protective services knocking at their doors. Not so for me, however. There was no one who took an interest in me.

No one, that is, until Sice Taral.

Sice Taral attached himself to me and that was all she wrote. It didn't take long for even little kids to figure out not to fuck with me. Even though I looked and acted like a frightened farm animal, the other kids pretended not to notice. Taral even scared the teachers away. So even if they did notice that I looked malnourished or seemed to wear the same clothes every other day, no one said anything. For that reason, it was usually just Sice Taral and I. And we both liked it that way just fine.

Taral would often ask me if I needed any money. I used to wonder where all his money came from. As the years passed, I realized that he was Mateo Jacare’s little brother. I heard about Mateo. He was a drug lord, very high on the totem pole. Once I knew who his brother was, it was easier for me to understand why Taral was respected. Every kid knew Mateo Jacare. Everyone had either a drug addict or a drug runner in their family. We were all connected, entangled in an ugly web of misfortune and poverty.

One evening, when I was around fourteen, (I never really knew my exact birthday growing up, as I never had a birthday party or anyone to wish me well in my new year) I went to Sice Taral’s house after school. I usually met him there when he went to basketball practice. Sometimes I’d go with him to practice. But when I was tired, or when Taral said I couldn’t come, I would often head to his house to wait for him.

Unlike my house, where disorder, hunger, and bad decisions reigned, Taral’s older sister Sorin kept everything neat and clean. Before leaving for work in the evenings (she was a nurse at a nearby hospital), Sorin always made us a snack. It didn’t matter that we were old enough to make our own snacks. Sorin wanted to bake for us. I soon realized that this was probably because Taral’s mom and dad had long left their home. Once it was clear that Taral’s older brother Mateo was never going to stop being a major drug distributor in the city, his parents, who both worked for the federal government, bailed. They begged Sorin and Sice Taral to leave with them, to start a new life in another town. But Sorin refused to leave without Sice Taral, and Sice Taral refused to leave without me. So Sice Taral and Sorin stayed, and their parents left. Ever since, Sorin mothered Taral as if she gave birth to him. She was determined to be there for him, to help keep him on the good and righteous path. And she succeeded. For a little while, anyway.

That evening I went to Taral’s house as usual, and was met with a note from Sorin and a plate full of freshly baked peanut butter brownies. She knew that I loved peanut butter brownies. I dug in, starving from going most of the day without food. I glanced at the note from Sorin. It read: 'Love you guys. Behave.' I smiled to myself. Sorin always added “behave” in her notes to us. I think it was an honest attempt to keep Taral and I on the straight and narrow. A nudge in the right direction. I often wondered if she knew how much those notes meant to me. I had nothing even partially resembling a mother. I secretly kept all of her notes.

I was biting into my second brownie when I heard a knock at the door. I knew that it was too early for it to be Sice Taral. It was possible that it was Sorin, Taral’s sister, but not likely. Sorin worked long hours, and rarely did she come home early, if ever. Plus, why would either of them be knocking at the front door? I felt nervous. Sice Taral told me not to answer the door if I he wasn’t there. I listened to what Taral asked of me even though sometimes I felt that he was paranoid. He took care of me, and he didn’t ask for much in return. So I obeyed him without question.

Curiously, however, I left the kitchen and walked towards the front door. Taral and Sorin didn’t get many house calls. I only wanted to look through the peep hole and see who it was. I didn’t expect for the unannounced visitor to be staring at me through the living room window.

Sorin always opened the curtains during the day. She said that sunshine was good for the soul. So, like usual, the curtains were open, and therefore the caller could look right inside. Ordinarily, this would not make me stop in my tracks. But this time I did.

It was Taral’s older brother, Mateo.

Mateo never came by the house. He knew he wasn’t welcome. Sice Taral and Sorin made sure he knew that. Yet, he was there. I dropped the brownie in my hand. I stood frozen in my tracks. I’d never actually seen him in person. I’d only seen old pictures of him when he was a normal young boy, not yet on a path to violence. I knew that everyone said that Taral resembled him tremendously. But never had I seen Mateo in the flesh.

Seeing him standing there so solemn made my flesh crawl. What everyone said was true: Sice Taral favored his brother a great deal. The only difference I could notice was that Taral had long dreadlocks. Mateo was tall as was Taral, measuring at about six foot three. Mateo had a medium build, whereas Taral was leaner, athletic. Mateo’s eyes cut me to the core. They were intense, like Taral’s were. A deep gray. Only Taral’s eyes had no trace of malice. The passion in Taral’s eyes came from his excitement about life. Mateo’s intensity came from hurting people. Already I could see that. It scared me so much that I stood there petrified. I was frozen in time.

I knew something had to be very wrong in order for Mateo to be calling. I thought about running. Taral once told me to run in the opposite direction if I ever saw his brother. But really, how far would I get before he caught up with me? I was a scared little girl, he was a grown man with an army of mercenaries at his beckoning. Hiding wouldn’t work either. And there was no use pretending that I didn’t see him there. I had to let him in. There really was no other choice. I thought briefly about calling Taral before opening the door. My cell phone was in the kitchen. Would I really turn away and walk into the kitchen, attempting to make a call all the while knowing Mateo could come in if he really wanted to? I realized that I hadn’t even bothered to lock the door when I came in. Motivated by hunger, I had went straight to the kitchen. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t run, hide, or otherwise outsmart Mateo Jacare. I had to open the door.

I swallowed hard. It seemed like an eternity before I could get my legs to move and walk in the direction of the front door. My hand was shaking as I turned the door knob. Everything screamed at me not to do it. I felt slightly lightheaded. I prayed I was in a dream.

I opened the door, and there stood Mateo along with two other men. All of them were wearing dark shades. They stood behind Mateo like personal bodyguards. I realized that they were his bodyguards. I stood there terrified. I didn’t speak.

“You must be Joilah.” Mateo.

I didn’t respond. I could feel my teeth chattering in my mouth. I prayed that Mateo couldn’t hear them.

“Taral home?”

Still I couldn’t respond. I was frozen.

“Get your stuff. You’re coming with us.”

What did he say? I knew that he spoke to me, but his words seemed to blur together. My lightheadedness intensified. I felt my heart rate and breathing increase in speed, nearly choking me. Again, I prayed that I was in a dream. It felt like I was in a dream, like what was happening wasn’t real, like I was watching this happen to myself from above somewhere. I wanted to stop it somehow, or to wake up if I was sleeping. I didn’t like where this dream was headed.

“Dice, go get her stuff, probably in the kitchen.” Mateo.

I watched as the man called Dice walked past me. When he moved past me, I felt a force. A force of evil. I knew that feeling all too well. I felt it every time my father came home. Still I stared, unable to speak or move. I tried to figure out what was happening. My heart told me that I was going to have to leave with them, but my mind refused to acknowledge it. Where would they take me? Would I ever see Taral again?

“Let’s go, Joilah, you’re coming with us.” Mateo. He gestured with his head towards the vehicle parked in front of the house. I don’t remember the model or the make of the car. I did, however, notice that it was blood red. Deep, dark, red, as though it was painted using the venous blood from multiple victims. I could almost hear them crying out to me. They were warning me. How many people took their last ride in the backseat of that car? Too many, I was sure. Would I be next?

“Don’t get upset. You look pale. Everything is ok.” Mateo again. His voice was so condescending. He didn’t even try to mask it. I couldn’t look at him.

“Where’s Taral?” I finally found my voice. It was high pitched and almost a whisper. It was taking everything in me not to cry profusely. I didn’t understand what Mateo was going to do or why he was there, but I knew that it could only spell disaster for me. There was absolutely zero chance that he wasn’t going to hurt me. I knew what people said about him, he was a murderer. He didn’t take prisoners. He certainly wasn’t there to take me on a joy ride through the country. I was going to die. I could feel it. This would be the first and the last time that I came in contact with Taral’s brother. I reasoned that Sice Taral must have pissed his brother off somehow. Mateo knew that hurting me would metaphorically and literally kill Taral. I began to wonder how much time I had left. My breathing labored. I felt faint. What was the last thing that I said to Taral? What was the last thing he said to me? I could already feel his anxiety when he came home and found out that I was missing. I never left without telling him. He would know instantly that there was trouble. Is that what Mateo wanted?

“Calm down, you’re not going to pass out on me, are you? There’s nothing to worry about. I’m going to take you to Taral.” It wasn’t even a convincing lie.

“He’s at practice.” I called his bluff. Did he really think I didn’t know where Taral was?

Mateo smirked. “Let’s go.” He wasn’t asking.

When I still didn’t budge, Mateo turned towards the second man and said, “Get her in the car, Royce.”

Royce made his way towards me. I backed away several paces. I tried to think. Everything was so confusing. I couldn’t put two and two together. I felt myself move forward. I realized that Royce had me by the arm. I turned as if to protest, and sternly he said, “Don’t be stupid.” I stopped my vague attempt of pulling away, and let him steer me out of the house. I found myself walking slowly with him to the blood red vehicle. It was more being pulled to the car than me actually walking. He opened the car door and shoved me inside. Even though I was sitting inside the vehicle, I felt as though I were floating. My mind desperately wanted to believe that I was dreaming. This just couldn’t be real.

After he successfully got me inside the car, Royce continued to hold the door open. I wondered why he wasn’t getting into the car next to me. Mateo walked up to the back door and got inside beside me. I turned away from him. Oh shit. I felt my hands shaking. I felt sick. I was going to be made to sit next to the man who was probably going to kill me.

Mateo lit a cigarette as Dice and Royce got into the front seats. “Let’s go,” Mateo ordered, hitting the window with his fist. The car lurched forward. Loud music vibrated throughout the vehicle. It was so loud I felt as though my brain was shaking. I stared at my hands, too scared to look up or down or around. I noticed wet drops collecting on the backs of my palms. I realized, that it was tears coming from my eyes. I was crying. The bass from the ridiculously loud music made me sick to my stomach. I began to see small black dots in front of my eyes, and then large black dots. The deafening music quieted. I felt myself falling slowly. I realized that I was about to pass out. I welcomed the darkness. I didn’t attempt to fight it whatsoever. I slipped into the darkness willfully, the comforting, peaceful, quiet, color black.