Black Rainbow
LJ Idol Entry #1 - Feb 8
If a rainbow is a promise, a covenant that a brighter future is yours when the rain stops, what is a black rainbow? What does it mean for the one born under its darkness?
Daniel had never heard of a black rainbow, didn’t know that it had graced the night sky during his birth. The weather was already crappy; no one was looking for evil portents.
Almost no one. Milton had made his bargain as soon as he discovered the girl he’d had dancing at the end of his string (and spreading her legs to boot) was pregnant. His father was the pastor of their church; hers was a well-off deacon. Milton knew their fathers would have him married off and tied down as quick as they could, and so Milton used a technique from his mother’s side of the family.
Her family was from New Orleans, and in the daylight they went to church just like all the other good people of Louisiana. But in the dark, they had a different kind of worship, a topsy-turvy service that he’d first seen by peering in windows and heard by listening at keyholes. His mother may have been a simple and virtuous woman. That’s what his father said, but Milton had never met her as she’d died as he took his first breath. She may have been all his father claimed, but Milton rather doubted it. He’d spent summers with his grandmother and aunties while his father traveled and preached and learned. Milton learned too. Learned at his grandmother’s knee who the real power was, and how to demand what you wanted without giving anything up in the bargain.
Milton had a need. And Milton had the best bargaining tool his grandmother had told him about - an unborn baby.
And so Milton made his bargain - his child’s life, in exchange for his own. He’d not be trapped in a marriage to a child so foolish she believed his flattery. He’d not be trapped by a squalling infant, constantly under pressure to provide. He had a grander future.
He knew the bargain had been accepted when the girl named another man the father. He knew the bargain had been accepted when the other man agreed, and when the marriage took place before the girl’s belly began to grow. He knew the bargain had been accepted when he convinced his father that he was devastated by the girl’s betrayal, and his father sent him off to New Orleans to spare him the sight of his ‘beloved’ with another. And he knew the bargain had been accepted when, on the night of his son’s birth, the sky had turned dark, and he saw the arc of darkness - his covenant.
Daniel didn’t know he’d been born under the black rainbow. He didn’t know why. He knew his life seemed touched by darkness, no matter how he tried to do the right things.
He didn’t know, but he intended to find out.