AC circuits don't have positive and negative. You have grounded (neutral) and ungrounded wires. It's impossible to tell for sure, but what I think likely happened is you had was that you didn't have four wires connected together. I suspect one wire is the feed from the fusebox/breaker panel, it was tied to a wire running ot the light switch. Another wire was the return from that switch that connected to the one side of the lights (these are all the ungrounded wires), then you have the other side of the lights connected to the grounded (neutral) wire from the fusebox. A fourth wire goes to the receptacles.

Here's what I'd suggest you do. (Obviously turning off the power at the fuse/breaker while manipulating things). Disconnect the four wires you've got bundled. With a meter or other tester find which one has power when they're disconnected (this is the one from the panel). If you have an ohmmeter you should be able to identify which of the other three go to the switch. They will have near zero resistance when the switch is on and practically infinite when it is off. Connect the remaining wire, the one you identified as the feed, and one of the switched wires together. Connect the other one to the new fixture (and use the old single wire to connect to the other side of the fixture).

http://imgur.com/7oe5wH2

OK #1 has voltage when I measure to unlabeled wire ( one attached to fixture wire I'll call wire Y)

#3 and #4 have continuity to the fixture wire (call it wire Y) when the switch is on.

I attached #1 #3 and light fixture wire (call it wire X) together and the light fixture worked. but I have wall outlets A B and C not working right now. #2 and #4 are not connected yet, when I tried to connect them together the switch affected outlets B and C. Outlet A not working at all. Outlets B and C affect each other too, when I plugged in desk lamps. One gets dimmer when I turn the other on. Am I thinking this wrong and it's really the wire aytached to wire Y that's hot? The unlabled one in photo.