nightingale

She was dipped in darkness, but not the memorable blackness of a night nude, grazing the moonlit grass with bare feet and shadowy limbs. The translucent veil allowed no one access in — however, she could observe perfectly out. There was safety as much as power in anonymity as the collective gathered above the drunken crowd.

He, too, was boozy. He noticed the alluring figures, draped in soft cloth that smoothed over familiar curves. His eyelashes fluttered as the grand fraternity house blinked off. The decorative fairy lights slithering along bricked backyard paths, strung eerily atop broad sycamore branches that were shaped like strange fruit, were the only remnants of life. Her eyes, shaped like hopeful opals, squinted at the sight.

The partygoers hailed and hurrahed, excitement spiking the alcohol feasting their veins — they loved musical surprises that the house always delivered, particularly the beautiful bronze men and women purchased to play, perform, pretend.

However, this gimmick, raining syrupy song from the balcony, was a surprise to the entire fraternity. The brothers rejoiced, regardless, eyeing one man their gratitude — except Nightingales weren’t bought, they were brought by word of wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, the man’s brother by blood flicked a flimsy colored film between his white forefingers and thumbs — a frozen crowd of faces inside the living room, including a girl, glowing like raw brown sugar, and him beside her, smiling as sweet as untouched honey. He searched indulgently for her beneath one of those veils — using her voice against his family, among a resistance so guerilla.

His perfection always made her itch. Perfect gentleman, body perfectly Greek, heart as perfect as a hearth, the perfect girl back home. There shouldn’t have been a problem. He continued to bend, bend, bend the picture until it came back to life.

His older brother’s fraternity hired Black bands, invited Black women from different universities, granted Black students access — only no one would choose to come. That night, she realized the logic was framed on the walls, reflected off beer glasses and outwardly brushed past her.

She was sick of the scene by the time of the photo. After the flash, his collapsed picture-smile revealed his soured white

naivete, as he suggested to leave.

From the main street, whoops and hollers echoed from the enclosed academical village. On warm, bittersweet summer nights, walking through the long vertical lawn on the way home was like a ritual. Respecting tradition, the two dismounted his motorbike and witnessed an obscene sea of bare bodies dashing along the grass. He watched their peers with his usual grin before turning to her.

“No,” she trailed, hardly a whisper.

He heard a challenge, and responded by pulling his starch shirt over his full bed of hair. She shook her curls, showing honest opposition, while pulling the string to her top. They traded turns until they matched in beautiful, exposed skin.

“Everything?” he asked, customarily a joke. Her reply was the toss of white lace and bounding into the safe cloak of the deeper darkness, welcoming the night to drink her whole.

She lunged every limb, leapt and almost frolicked, and raced among the rivers of other wayward scholars darting towards this statue or that memorial. Adrenaline pumped air into her lungs, and novelty was a vivid color her senses rightfully consumed.

He was adjusting his jeans when she approached their abandoned clothes. Like a gentleman, he tied the back of her top. As he stood behind her, his fingers casually grazing her spine, she suddenly sobered. She was sick of being enraptured by this boy, an old habit, a faulty sanctuary from blooming on these unfamiliar grounds.

She was tapped to be a Gale months after that night, when the drummer from the hired band was chased. He had rushed barefoot down the stellar steps, passed the sycamore with its hanged fruits and decorations, and shot through the same road she had motored down, a Southern gentile Gentleman gunning behind him. The newborn Nightingales were more than Black women entering the a capella scene, but a legacy founded in justice, against University tradition to nurture the unearned entitlement of the Virginia Gentleman.

An abrupt movement from her belly lurched for the boy, to crawl back into shed skin, as he stumbled away from the ceremony, informing his brother as another benefactor of the establishment. She willed her soul into her chest, bellowing a haunting harmony, clinging to her present flesh.

Nightingales were never prey to Gentleman. She was his bird of prey.