A Free Man of Color (2 page)

DR. T
Sante Domingue
. The richest island in the Caribbean and soon to be named Haiti. Toussaint Louverture, after a long bloody battle, has finally taken control of the island from the French planters and is declared governor-general for life of this new sovereign nation.

TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE
appears.

TOUSSAINT
Behold this land, which we have watered with our blood. We, humble victims, were ready for anything, not wishing at first to abandon our master who gave us freedom. We were mistaken; those who, next to God, should have proved our fathers, had become tyrants, monsters, unworthy of the fruits of our labors. God, who fights for the innocent,
is our guide; he will never abandon us. Accordingly this is our motto—victory or death for freedom!

DR. T
But the French planters have not given up. Toussaint may be the Bonaparte of
Sante Domingo
but he still needs outside support to maintain control.

TOUSSAINT
Hear me, glorious first consul Bonaparte, from the first of the blacks to the first of the whites, I know you will give our new government the supplies we urgently need!

DR. T
Napoleon’s not emperor yet. He’s still first consul, pulling France together after her revolution. Let me take you to the heart of it—Paris—to the Tuilleries, a malodorous palace along side the Louvre. The same question Jacques Cornet asks of how to get to the Orient torments Napoleon.

Enter
NAPOLEON
in a bathtub, studying a terry cloth map of the world.

NAPOLEON
The route to India through Egypt should be mine. But the British stopped me. I will retaliate. But how!

DR. T
Josephine, his wife, not yet Empress, enters.

JOSEPHINE
enters, with tarot cards.

JOSEPHINE
(
distraught
)
Look at my clothes—I am laughed at—spots on my muslin.

NAPOLEON
Then wash them and leave me alone. How? How?

JOSEPHINE
Wash them in Paris? Only the water of the West Indies possesses magic bubbles to make my muslin gleam like teeth!

NAPOLEON
We have no money to go to the West Indies for your laundry or your teeth.

JOSEPHINE
Oh, but if England’s involved, you spend any amount to defeat them, but little Josephine wants one little
spot taken out of her muslin and Citizen Big Shot First Consul cries poverty. (
dealing tarot cards
) Money, money. That’s a laugh.

Toussaint enters, writing a letter.

TOUSSAINT
Come to the West Indies and enforce the ideals of the Revolution!

TALLEYRAND
enters, bearing the letter.

DR. T
Toussaint’s letter arrives months later into the hands of Talleyrand, Napoleon’s foreign minister. Talleyrand is known fondly in diplomatic circles as ‘a silk stocking crammed with shit’
.

TALLYRAND
Destiny smiles yet again on Talleyrand. I can parlay this to my advantage—(
Tallyrand hands the letter to Napolean
) Magnificent Beacon of Destiny, our future has arrived
.

NAPOLEON
(
scanning the letter, discarding the letter
)
Aside from putting sugar in my morning coffee, the West Indies hold no interest for me—

TALLYRAND
Savior of France, don’t you see what this could be? An entry into America!

JOSEPHINE
(
reading the letter
)
These savages wash their clothes in West Indies water, but me—covered with spots like a Dalmatian dog—

NAPOLEON
GO!

TALLYRAND
Feel the future pulsate.

NAPOLEON
The Nile.

TALLYRAND
The Mississippi. The river to the Orient surely lies here within America. This vast unknown covers volcanoes spewing gold.

JOSEPHINE
(
dealing her cards
)
Yet again ‘money’. Can tarot lie?

NAPOLEON
How to crush Great Britain?

TALLYRAND
Say it, oh Jewel of the Future: England has defeated me.

NAPOLEON
No! If the Gargantua of England cannot defeat the mouse of their colonies, how can England defeat the splendor of me?

TALLYRAND
And yet they have! Sail to America.

NAPOLEON
The British would attack me at sea. I hate the British. I hate Shakespeare. I hate Chaucer. I hate Richard the Lion Hearted. I hate Henry V. When the future comes, I will hate Big Ben. Queen Victoria. James Bond. Charles Dickens. Florence Nightingale. British Air. Julie Andrews. Mick Jagger. No. I will like him. Wait! I see how to crush Great Britain! (
Napoleon stands up in the tub. Instead of a penis, he sports a giant cannon
) I’ll conquer Europe. I’ll humiliate the British as they have humiliated me. Never mention America again.

Napoleon goes.

Music: the Arcangelo Corelli Concerto Grosso # 2 in F major.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
wearing a bathrobe and slippers appears, playing his Cremona violin. He surveys the unopened crates.

DR. T
Presenting Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the small, perfectly sized, sixteen United States.

JEFFERSON
Where is the
Medoc?
(
calls
) Meriwether? Meriwether! Where is the
Medoc?

DR. T
Mr. Jefferson’s first full day on the job after a very contentious election. Enter Meriwether Lewis, personal secretary to Mr. Jefferson.

MERIWETHER LEWIS,
twenty-something, enters, harried, carrying lots of mail.

MERIWETHER
Sir! We just got word. New Hampshire is building a fort on land Canada claims is Canadian. What are the borders?

JEFFERSON
A state’s business is none of a government’s business. Send them a letter reminding them—

MERIWETHER
I don’t have time to write letters—

JEFFERSON
And make twelve copies of it—

MERIWETHER
Sir! So many men would do this job better than I.

JEFFERSON
Any other news?

Toussaint appears.

TOUSSAINT
My country needs your assistance.

MERIWETHER
Yes! Yes! The Indies. Toussaint Louverture requesting materiel—

TOUSSAINT
Food, ammunition—

MERIWETHER
—to fight the French planters—

TOUSSAINT
Give us what you would give a young democracy struggling for the same freedom—

TOUSSAINT & MERIWETHER
as you once did.

MERIWETHER
Sir, I must return to my life outdoors.

JEFFERSON
(
impatient
)
American news?

MERIWETHER
James Callender writes unless you appoint him postmaster of Richmond, Virginia, he’ll publish trouble in his newspaper about Sally Hemmings.

JEFFERSON
I dare him! Open that crate.

MERIWETHER
(
opening the crate
)
The two of us alone in this big, empty, unfinished house. Why do you even want me for this job? Sir, I need to be out in the white spaces! If I went to St. Louis and set out on the Missouri River—

JEFFERSON
I’m not spending money on land that belongs to another country.

MERIWETHER
Spain won’t know I’m there.

JEFFERSON
I’ll know you’re there.

MERIWETHER
One canoe! That’s all I need!

JEFFERSON
The government does not have the money to send you out into this alien whiteness in even one canoe.

MERIWETHER
You could charge it the way you do your wine.

JEFFERSON
Run a country the way I conduct my personal life? Never.

MERIWETHER
It makes me weep to think I’m to sit here cataloging the temperature of each day and taking notes on the workings of this government when there’s this unknown alabaster out there! Did God create a continent and then cover its majority with a bafflement of snow? Does a mammoth beast, cruel as the Angel of Night, lurk out there, guarding the secret of the western route, devouring all explorers who are foolhardy enough to challenge him?

JEFFERSON
You’re talking yourself into a frenzy.

MERIWETHER
To find the hidden river, connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific, the East to the West. The Indies! Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, Magellan can finally sleep rested. Their task accomplished.

JEFFERSON
By you.

MERIWETHER
Why not? To be out there in the limitless unknown looking for the future. I want to decipher what is unknown.

JEFFERSON
(
stops playing
)
If you want the unknowable, get a wife.

MERIWETHER
(
drinks
)
I’d rather climb in bed with my maps.

JEFFERSON
(
handing Meriwether a list
)
Before you retire, make place cards, I’m having a dinner party tonight. Seat me next to Aaron Burr.

MERIWETHER
Your vice president hates you!

JEFFERSON
Opposite me, place Alexander Hamilton!

MERIWETHER
He wants to overthrow you.

JEFFERSON
They won’t assassinate me my first night in my new home. That’s not good manners. Drink up, my boy. To democracy!

MERIWETHER
Is the definition of democracy dining with your enemies?

JEFFERSON
That’s the definition of life. As for Toussaint—

MERIWETHER
Sir, fair is fair. Their government’s legal.

JEFFERSON
Yes, but I’ve heard the fears in Virginia. Those negroes of Toussaint will conduct predatory raids on our coasts and cause unrest. However—God knows my morning Santo Dominguin coffee needs two teaspoons of Santo Dominguin sugar. Democracy and America’s sweet teeth cry out: Yes! Send Toussaint what he needs. Let’s get back to my dinner party.

MERIWETHER
What about my request?

JEFFERSON
Tell the chef I want a light repast of turkey, chicken fricassee, mutton chops, ham, oysters, that pie called Macaroni!

MERIWETHER
How will you pay for it?

JEFFERSON
Charge it!

MERIWETHER
Sir, I quit!

Jefferson goes, playing his violin. Meriwether follows.

Dr. T appears.

DR. T
Back in New Orleans, Jacques is about to die a little death.

Morales has his ear to Jacques’ bedroom door.

WHORES
(
off
)
AHHHHH AHHHHH

MORALES
I hear him—he’s finishing!

A cannon goes off. The men snap into action.

MORALES
He’s finished!

MURMUR
Get in line!

DORILANTE
I was here first.

HARCOURT
Liar! I was here first.

DORILANTE
Your insult forces me to say ‘Name your weapon’!

HARCOURT
Your insult forces me to pick up my pistol and—

Jacques Cornet appears, dressed in full Sun King dazzle. The Girls follow.

JACQUES CORNET
Please! Any duels shall take place in Lake Pontchartrain in six feet of water, sledge hammers to be used as weapons.

Everyone laughs merrily.

DORILANTE/SPARKS/HARCOURT/ALCIBIADE/PYTHAGORE
See my map! Mine! Mine! Mine!

JACQUES CORNET
I have that map—and that—

DORILANTE
(
holding out a map
)
Wonderful Jacques, no one has seen this map proving the Mississippi bends west—

JACQUES CORNET
West? Don’t make sport of gravity. Next.

ALCIBIADE
Oh most delightful host, an Indian on his deathbed gave this to me.

PYTHAGORE
As a dying Indian gave me
this
map with
his
last breath.

JACQUES CORNET
Every map attached to a dead Indian? There can’t be an Indian left alive. Murmur, buy them.

Harcourt shoves his map in front of Jacques Cornet.

HARCOURT
My greatest friend, look!

JACQUES CORNET
But this map was stolen from me!

HARCOURT
Murmur!

MURMUR
I never saw this map!

JACQUES CORNET
Is this how you buy your freedom? Good! I take what I pay Harcourt for this map and add it to the sum you need to purchase your freedom. You keep stealing. I keep adding. I could never let you go. No map today, Sparks?

SPARKS
Good Sire, I’ve lost every peso, every
real
at the gaming table. I have no way to explain this to my wife—

JACQUES CORNET
Murmur? Pay good Sparks some of his losses. A real or two.

MURMUR
His losses are none of your business.

JACQUES CORNET
The difference between being a sport and a miser is the matter of only a few hundred pesos a year. I don’t want his wife going hungry. She makes such a tasty meal.

SPARKS
Some day I’ll repay you.

Sparks kisses Jacques Cornet’s hand.

JACQUES CORNET
I look forward to the day.—Murmur, wash the hand.

MURMUR
(
wiping Jacques Cornet’s hand
)
My master treats men like carnival dogs who roll over and fetch.

MERCURE,
a grizzled trapper, appears.