Atlantis: Three Tales

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Mine eyes feel dim and scorched from grey, The neighboring lamps throw grey stained goldHouses in the distance like mountains seem, The bridge lost in the mist— The essence of life remains a screen; Life itself in many grey spots That trickle the blood until it rots... — SAMUEL B E R N H A R D GREENBERG, "Serenade in Grey" Shuttles in the rocking loom of history, the dark ships move, the dark ships move... — ROBERT HAYDEN, "Middle Passage" Sam got to Elsie and Corey's after five. Elsie's school books—she was studying for her Master's in Education —had been moved to the windowsill. The table had been carried from the kitchen into the living room and the wings attached. The peach colored cloth was already spread. Knives, forks, spoons, and linen napkins were laid—and in front of Lucius, in New York for the week, a breadand -butter plate was crummy with half a dinner biscuit, butter knife propped on the rim. Lucius was saying: "Well, I certainly wasn't going 101 e SAMUEL R. DELANY to wait for him. Where you been, boy? We've all been sittin' around here hungry!" Originally Lucius's apartment, eventually (Sam knew) it had housed all his older brothers and sisters—getting in each other's way, helping each other out, arguing with one another, going out for the evening so this one might study or that one entertain, scuffling to get together the forty-five dollars a month rent, generating a thousand stories to tell on holiday trips back to Raleigh. Even Jules, during her year in the city, had lived here. (They'd all moved now, except Corey and Elsie.) Even Hubert. "Well, he's here now," Corey said. "That's what's important. There's no harm done." (All had lived here —except Sam.) "Go wash your hands, Sam—then bring in those soup plates for Elsie." In the hallway while Sam was heading for the bathroom, Hubert overtook him. At the mirror, a loop of palm still stuck in back from Easter , one gas lamp chuckled faintly against the wall; and Hubert, hurrying up to lean a hand on Sam's shoulder, said quietly, quickly: "Look, now—Corey had an emergency extraction this morning, and had to go into the office. So they didn't get a chance to do anything special for your birthday. They feel right bad about it, too. But I just didn't want you to be expecting anything—or say anything to make them feel worse than they do," while his mirror image leaned away. "Oh," Sam said, from the chasm of his own forgetfulness. "Sure. That's all right." In the bathroom, he turned the enamelled handle at the sink. From verdigrised brass the raddled stream chilled his knuckles, ran over the backs of his hands, dripped between his outsized fingers. While it warmed, he washed with the fresh bar ofJules' soap sitting in the clamshell soap dish: knifed, unblunted edges meant Elsie must have unwrapped and set it out that afternoon. The bathroom window held a granulated pane. Though it splayed the tile across from it with early evening sun, it let through not a shadow of the city. At its leaded edges, in blobby tesselations, however, rect102 ATLANTIS: MODEL 1924 angles of red, green, yellow, and blue showed—if you got down to the border panes and looked —colored fragments of the fire escapes and trees and clotheslines in the lot outside. If you didn't, but only stepped in and out, say,it reminded Sam of the stained glass in the school chapel down at the college. (Sitting on the commode's wooden ring, or standing , listening to his water fall while gazing at the overhead flush box, he wondered sometimes if it were right for a bathroom to look like a church.) Diagonally on the sill sat a box of kitchen matches—for the gas lamps in the hall. Lucifer. Years ago Corey had explained to him that Phosphorus was Greek and Lucifer was Latin for the same thing. Chrlstos Pheros. Phos Pheros. John, carrier of Christ. Venus, carrier of light. Hesperus. Were John and Lewy sitting down to their Saturday dinners? Outside in the back the Negro fellow was hollering, as if his voice were the city's plaint itself: "Hang-a-line...? Hang-a-line...?" — as he made his way through...