The Colour Black

by Maia Walczak

‘I have something else though,’ he said. He didn’t look at me, and he looked as though he was hesitating. ‘You don’t have to be a part of it,’ he continued, ‘but since we’re on the subject, I thought I’d share…’

  ‘Oh yeah? What is it?’

  ‘Adam gave it to me, because well… you know I told you about the thing… that time on the beach in Montauk?’

  ‘Uh-huh…’

  ‘Well, have you ever read The Doors of Perception? Aldous Huxley?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay. Well I only just read it recently. Adam gave it to me because he thought I might find it interesting…’

  ‘So… what is it?’

  ‘Well in that book Huxley talks all about how he experiences things during a mescaline trip and—’

  ‘Mescaline?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re crazy!’ I said, and yet I found myself smiling.

  He smiled back but said nothing. I shook my head and I looked at this guy and I suddenly felt awe and bewilderment at all that was presently happening. Who was he? I really had no idea.

  ‘Mescaline,’ I said again. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Mmm. I mean I don’t know if I’ll definitely try it or not…’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well the thing is… the book is interesting. There’s a lot of discussion about our visual perception and colour,’ he paused for a second and I knew why.

  ‘Really Jack, you don’t have to feel bad talking about colour in front of me. Please!’

  ‘Yes, sorry, that’s stupid of me.’

  ‘Anyway, go on,’ I said.

  ‘Well, he talks about perception. How when we see things, we see them through the filter of our mind. We don’t see things for what they are but for what we think they are.’

  ‘Like the stuff you were talking about at Balboa, right?’

  ‘Yes. Absolutely,’ he said. ‘But then, in terms of the realisation I had on the beach, it seems like the mescaline trip wouldn’t quite cut it, at least not according to Huxley’s write up of it. It made me think,’ he said, ‘maybe the trip will be a disappointment. Or maybe it won’t. But in any case, why should I need mescaline to make me reconnect with that moment of clarity? Perhaps the only reason I can’t feel it now is because I’m looking for it. Like a fish swimming in the sea wondering what water is and how he can find it.’

  I laughed. ‘Well, it kind of sounds like you’re beating yourself up about it,’ I said. ‘If it’s like you say, if nothing matters, if all is well and life is just one big divine fucking joke then there’s really nothing stopping you from trying it, right?’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Sounds to me like you’re making it out to be some kind of really important, meaningful and serious decision. But if nothing matters then who gives a shit. Do it or don’t do it. It doesn’t matter either way.’

  He was looking right at me, grinning.

  ‘Damn,’ he said, ‘I like you.’

  I shrugged, but my ego secretly lapped up his words.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘it sounds to me like you want to try it.’

  ‘It does?’

  ‘Sure. You wouldn’t have brought it along otherwise… and you certainly wouldn’t be telling me about it.’

  The truth is, I was kind of putting words in his mouth. I wanted to try it. If there was anything at all that could help me see the world more clearly, the way he described it, the way I remembered seeing it as a child, I wanted to try it. If we were really going to see more of these beautiful landscapes, like he’d suggested, then I wanted to see them with the eyes of that child.

  ‘I’d be happy to try it with you sometime if you like…’

  I tried to sound casual about it. He didn’t say anything but nodded to show that he was, if nothing else, acknowledging what I’d said. He ignited the engine and we drove off in silence.

  Lakes

  As we drove on, I watched the views outside and they were beautiful, but I didn’t feel that same sense of bliss and freedom I’d felt at our first stop. My fear was back and deeply rooted. I sat slumped – tucked into my seat as though somehow that would better hide me. I put on my sunglasses and I eyed all the cars around us suspiciously. Then I eyed a pair of scissors that were lying on the dashboard. I had been toying with an idea for quite a while now, and I finally decided to share it with him.

  ‘Jack, I think I need to change my hair.’

  Silence.

  ‘I mean like cut it or dye it. You know. Just in case,’ I said.

  Again, silence.

  ‘What do you think?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last, sounding worried.

  ‘You don’t think it’d be safer to do that?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  *

  After an hour or so I suddenly noticed a dark Ford in my side view mirror. The man behind the wheel was wearing sunglasses and a suit. My heart started beating fast. I told Jack, and he said that the car had been right behind us for the best part of an hour. My god. Jack tried to calm me down, but it didn’t work. I could tell he was glancing in his rearview mirror more frequently. The man in the Ford opened his mouth, said something and then smiled. He did a quick glance to the back seat. A little arm appeared from the back seat and handed him what looked like a soft toy.

  ‘Oh my god, thank fuck,’ I said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, and if I wasn’t mistaken Jack breathed it with me. The car soon turned off the highway. If I’d have noticed the man and the car from the start, when Jack first had, I don’t know what I would have done.

  After a few more hours on the road we drove through Bishop, then took a quick break at a gas station to use the toilets. Jack went off to get a few things while I stayed in the van. I felt safer there. I asked him to get me blonde hair dye. He laughed, but when he returned he handed me a small shopping bag with something inside. I pulled out a box of hair dye. On it was an image of a model that looked like she was having outrageous fun with her blonde hair and her life in general. How ironic.

  Jack said he wasn’t sure it was necessary. He said that if anyone was looking for us they’d have better ways of finding us than searching out women with long dark hair. I put the box of hair dye away and decided not to think about it for now.

  An hour later and we were at a lake.

  ‘Mono Lake,’ Jack said, as he trailed off the road and stopped the van.

  ‘It’s pretty.’

  ‘I’m going to go for a swim.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘I’m going for a swim. You should join me.’

  ‘Are you serious? Shouldn’t we keep driving?’

  ‘I need a break.’

  He started driving again. ‘I’ll park way out over there. Don’t worry, we’re totally safe,’ he said.

  ‘Jack. Are you out of your mind? We need to keep driving.’

  He didn’t say anything. I closed my eyes and breathed deep. I tried to remember how I’d felt when I first met him, how unusually calm he’d made me feel. How I felt when we made that first stop and I’d breathed in the golden smell off the mountains around us. I told myself that if I’d trusted him up to this point, I had to trust him now. But even so, despite his efforts to coax me out and get me to go for a swim, I stayed put in the van.

  ‘You’ll have to come out at some point,’ he said.

  I watched him as he walked to the water, half naked and holding his camera. And I watched him as he swam and I felt pangs of jealousy.

  Later, when he returned, he was grinning like a kid. It was already dusk when he was drying himself off. He looked out towards the lake and told me about how beautiful the pinks and purples in the sky were.

  I liked it when people described the colours of things to me. It was rare – of the few people I spent time with, most didn’t know I was colour blind.

  Jack hesitated and then he said, ‘Look, let me show you something.’ He fiddled with his camera and then pace
d closer towards me and extended his arm, showing me what was on the small screen on the back of the camera. It was an underwater photo. Rays of light pierced through the surface of the water, and, beneath, some murky formation could be seen.

  ‘Did you take that just now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s pretty. Bet the colours are beautiful.’

  ‘It’s black and white,’ he said. ‘I guess it’s closer to how you’d see it if you went under?’

  I took the camera into my own hands and stared at the photo a little longer. I was fascinated by the fact that there was something that looked the same to me as it did to Jack. It was as though in some way he was melting away a divide between us. I looked up at him, handed the camera back and attempted a smile.

  ‘It’s getting dark,’ he said, ‘we should find a place to park up and sleep.’

  ‘Aren’t we gonna carry on driving?’

  ‘No, we’ll drive more tomorrow, we’ve been on the road for nine hours, and, to be honest, I’m a little drained.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Look, don’t worry,’ he said, ‘we’re safe round these areas. No one’s going to think to look out here.’ And after a pause he added, ‘besides, you won’t regret it. Yosemite is beautiful. You’ll see.’

  Again I said nothing. I was annoyed. How could he be so calm?

  We drove round to the east shore of the lake via a very basic sandy track.

  When he finally found a nook he was satisfied with, Jack stopped the van and started rummaging through his backpack.

  ‘So is this where we’re going to sleep?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  He showed me how to recline the front seat.

  ‘I don’t like the idea of sleeping next to this window.’

  I had visions of ‘them’ finding us and watching me while I slept.

  ‘Well maybe you can sleep in the back. You can draw the curtains there.’

  And that’s where I slept. He cleared a space and lay out some rugs and, alone in the back, after double-checking that all the doors were locked, I drifted off into a world of terrifying dreams.

  *

  The next day I woke up surprisingly late, but despite the bad sleep, I felt better, less anxious. Perhaps it was because I was relieved to wake up from my nightmares and realise they were just dreams. Because, although I had so much to fear in the waking hours, the scenery that surrounded us was breathtaking, and all the fears seemed almost unreal that morning. I didn’t mind Jack taking another swim in the lake, I didn’t mind that we stayed there to eat, and I didn’t mind that later on he stopped at Lake Tahoe for another swim.

  Again he couldn’t convince me to go for a swim, but I did leave the van to sit in the sunshine. There were only a few families nearby. I liked being around families. No one was going to kill me in front of a family. After muttering something about taking care in the sun, Jack left me and headed towards the lake. I had noticed that he often avoided the sun despite saying he loved it. I really did love it, and always had. It gave me life. Besides, my skin wasn’t pale like his, I rarely got burnt.

  Lake Tahoe was stunning, and under different circumstances I would have loved to walk around its shores. I yearned to explore the area and lose myself in it. Yosemite really was beautiful and I couldn’t forgive myself for never having ventured out of the city alone. I was a strange girl. What had I been doing with my life all that time? Whiling away the hours, days, months and years. And what would happen to my life now?

  As I sat, I drew. I wasn’t used to drawing natural landscapes. My mind and hand found it hard to adjust to these non-human forms. I wasn’t satisfied with my attempts and I quickly became frustrated. I put my sketchpad down and gave up. Fuck it. I got up and went to get the scissors from the van. I hid behind the van and carefully chopped great long chunks of my hair off. I didn’t give a shit anymore, and it felt liberating. I only cut it to my shoulders, but even so, it felt like a big change. When Jack got back and noticed my hair, all he did was smile and say, ‘Good, I’m glad you didn’t chop it all off.’

  The Shack

  We stopped to freshen up at a gas station. It was by no means a pleasant experience. The tight white tiled cubicle with its depressingly bright light and cloudy scratched mirror stunk of piss and bleach, and I felt like even the water running from the tap was dirty. But even so, taking the time to brush my teeth, change my underwear and wash myself had the effect of making me feel more human. I struggled to fill up a big five litre plastic bottle with tap water in the small sink. Fifteen minutes later I left the cubicle spluttering – I had gotten a little excessive with my aerosol deodorant in a desperate attempt to feel clean and normal again. A woman was standing outside and she looked pissed off for having had to wait so long. She pushed past me and slammed the toilet door behind her. Jeez.

  I looked around. Jack was already at the van. Good. I wouldn’t have wanted to wait around for him in a place like this. There were more people round here and they didn’t all look like happy vacationers. I didn’t feel as safe in places like this as I had near the lakes and mountains. Jack was holding a folded newspaper in his hands and reading it as I approached him. He caught sight of me.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I just need to go back and get a few more things, won’t be a sec.’

  I waited in the van impatiently. A couple of minutes later he was back with a bag of shopping that looked heavy, and he was still holding that newspaper in his hand. He climbed into the van and put the shopping bag behind his seat with a hefty clunk. I waited for him to start the engine but for a moment he just sat there, silently, not really doing anything. I waited.

  ‘So,’ he finally said, ‘when was the last time you saw a live band?’

  Oh god, was this another thing for me to feel embarrassed about? Just like the fact I hadn’t been out of the city for so long? I looked him in the eyes, quickly trying to suss out what his reaction might be.

  ‘A very, very long time.’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Really?’ he said.

  A sudden wave of anger soared through my body and I lashed out at him before I could stop myself.

  ‘Is that really so fucking incomprehensible to you? What, have you already forgotten that I haven’t exactly been living a fun, free, normal fucking life?’

  He didn’t say anything. We were both silent. The sound of my raised voice left an unpleasant ringing in my ears. He started the engine, the radio came on and we drove off. I turned my body, leaned back in my seat, looked out of my window and pretended to be asleep while I secretly cried.

  *

  Beer had been a good idea; it relaxed me. It was dark and we were parked amongst other cars and trucks in the dirt outside the little building with the neon sign that read The Shack. After I had calmed down I had given in to his idea to come. I also told him he was crazy, and that I had no idea why I had ever trusted him in the first place, when he was clearly treating all of this like an excuse for a fun summer vacation. But I mellowed out after a small joint and a beer. We were waiting for more people to arrive, Jack didn’t think it mattered, but I was scared that unless it was rammed in there we’d stick out. I picked up the newspaper from the dashboard and glanced over the description again: ‘Monthly Jams at The Shack’. Every now and then, when someone flung the doors open to either enter or leave, I could hear music and bass-lines. There were groups of people hanging out outside drinking, smoking, laughing. They seemed friendly. The more beer I drank the more the music sounded inviting.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s go in.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Tonight Silvia, we’re forgetting everything. Everything. We’re having some fun.’

  I rolled my eyes. God help me. I downed the rest of the beer and I stepped out of the van. I was wearing a black chiffon shirt, which was one of the prettier items of clothing I’d packed, a tight black pair of jeans and a plain black pair of flat pumps. I mostly only ever wore
black, it was generally a fairly easy colour to coordinate with my limited vision, and thus a good way of avoiding mistakenly buying and wearing something that was neon yellow, for example. And after all, black was meant to be one of the most flattering of colours. Sometimes, when I felt particularly brave, I would venture out into the world of colour too, but only after asking a shop assistant three main questions: Does it look good? Does the colour suit me? And, finally, how would you describe the colour of this? Sometimes the shop assistant would seem baffled, but sometimes not at all. I would then try to suss out whether the assistant was being honest or simply trying their best to sell me the item in question, and I would stare at myself in the shop mirror for ages, trying to visualise what the colour might look like. Sometimes I’d spend a long time locked in a fitting room with my eyes closed, trying to make these visualisations. But usually I wore black, and my everyday decisions of what to wear were based on the feel of the fabric. Who needed colour when you had texture?

  We walked towards The Shack and as we got near the door I exchanged a few nervous smiles with some people who were lingering outside. They all smiled back, and I felt an overblown sense of relief. See Silvia, there’s nothing to be scared of, I told myself, you worry far too much.

  Inside, the place was dark and full of people. It was really just one room, with a bar at one end, and the stage at the opposite end. A dim light illuminated the stage and the wooden panelled wall behind it. I looked around – even in the darkness I could tell the whole place was made of this raw unvarnished wood. I could even smell it, somewhere between the mixture of all the other smells that filled the room: sweat, perfume, beer, bodies and cigarettes. Some people were dancing to a DJ’s music, and some were chatting. The music was loud, people had to shout to each other to be heard.

  Jack led me to the bar and got us both more beer, then he turned and nodded towards the stage. He nudged me to urge me forward, and as we walked towards the stage he put his hand on the small of my back and guided me forward until we were close to it. In my tipsy state his hand on my body gave me thoughts I tried hard to dismiss. I took three long gulps of beer. We didn’t talk, just watched, as the next band were set up on stage. I felt a hint of awkwardness and I wondered if he felt it at all too. At one point he turned round and smiled down at me, placed his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘You okay?’ I nodded. The band appeared. A pretty blonde fronted it, and they played a mixture of garage rock and country. I looked at Jack from the corner of my eye and saw that he was staring up at them, smiling, and nodding his head to the music. I looked around me and people were beginning to dance. Before long I found my body swaying to the music too.