The Dark Stain by Benjamin Appel

Author:Benjamin Appel [ Appel, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-6281-5
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 2012-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

AS SAM entered the Y.M.C.A. at One Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Street, he saw Johnny inside the doorway. “What’s up, Sam?” Johnny said.

“What’s up?” Sam echoed.

“I have to ask dumb questions. What’s wrong?” Johnny placed his brown hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam felt the pressure of Johnny’s fingers. The fingers spoke to him in a language that pierced his despair.

“I have to see her mother.”

“Whose mother?”

“Suzy’s.” He gazed beseechingly at his friend.

“Why?”

“She’s gone, Suzy. She’s missing.”

“Missing?”

Sam gasped and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “I got to pull myself together.” He watched Johnny suck in his lips, the red edges pulling in under the teeth.

“Missing!” Johnny said.

Sam was trembling from head to foot. He tried to speak but his tongue choked him.

“I’ll wait for you,” Johnny said. “I knew something — On the phone — Clair said — I’ll wait for you, Sammy.”

Sam rushed into the lobby like a charging beast with a bullet in its vitals. One final flicker of resolution was burning his brain alive, pushing his legs forward, opening his eyes on a giddy world like a photograph on paper; young Negroes made of paper were reading magazines in the lobby; there were paper chairs, a paper desk clerk. To the desk clerk he said. “They expect me at ten thirty. My name’s Miller.” He was aware of the clerk staring at him.

“Yes,” said the brown paper. “They’re expecting you. Go right in. Turn to your right. You can’t miss it.”

Sam charged forward, his head on his chest. He felt as if there were a compass inside of him, his resolution the pointing needle. Glazed of eye, blinded, he found his path to the room on the right, knocked on the door, and the door opened and another paper face, a white paper face, this time, with a paper smile said. “I’m glad to see you, Miller.” It was Hal Clair. Sam nodded and Clair conducted him into a square room full of people on chairs arranged in rows, and in front of the first row there was a table at which more people were sitting, and one of the people at the table stood up and announced “Mr. Sam Miller.” And the heads of the people in the room turned on their necks and Sam felt as if he had returned to the Silver Trumpet Ballroom on Lenox Avenue and it was Sunday again. No, it wasn’t Sunday he thought; it wasn’t Sunday. His head cleared and he knew where he was and what he had to do. He recognized the man who had announced him.

“Come forward, Mr. Miller,” Councilman Vincent was saying. The Councilman’s lips were parted in a smile, the well-known smile Sam had seen in photographs. The Councilman’s roving eyes were leaping from committee member to committee member. Sam walked around the side of the room to the table, the room suddenly full of light, white intense light like the exploding light by which a cameraman takes an indoor picture.

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