Frolic of His Own (15 page)

The ‘noble savage . . . '

T
HOMAS

(ABRUPTLY TAKING HIS SHOULDER)

You helped him!

W
ILLIAM

(FALTERING BACK)

The way we'd talked Thomas . . .

T
HOMAS

You . . . helped him run off, Will?

W
ILLIAM

(DEFENSIVELY DESPERATE)

Wasn't he the ‘noble savage' when we used to talk? That was naturally good, yes, like it was myself, to be free, the ‘natural goodness of man' and then . . . with the war, and both of us left here and me no better off than him, except I could do what he couldn't do for me . . .

T
HOMAS

Yes, free him, for what! To be hunted down somewhere and killed?

Seeing someone offstage left, where he is facing, THOMAS waves, calls out as he descends from the veranda and WILLIAM follows to downstage left.

(CALLING)

Here, Henry? You bring me that bay mare round here, saddled.

W
ILLIAM

(APPEALING, HORRIFIED AT THIS INTERPRETATION)

Thomas . . . no! No, it was if life could be good, the day I saw that if life could be good at all then it had to be good for all men . . .

T
HOMAS

(AS DERISIVE AFTERTHOUGHT)

Yes, there, why didn't you set Henry off, your own boy instead of mine?

W
ILLIAM

But . . . Henry, he wouldn't have understood . . .

T
HOMAS

And my mother, do you think she understood? Left alone down there at The Bells with only old Ambers and Emma to help? And after your father offered to buy him when I brought him up here to work on that staircase, when our barns needed mending at home . . .

(TAKES OUT HIS WATCH, SNAPS IT OPEN AND LOOKS AT IT IMPATIENTLY)

W
ILLIAM

(WITHDRAWING A STEP, QUIETLY ASSERTIVE)

You were too proud to sell him Thomas. You only brought him up here to show. A niggra that could read and turn wood, to show what you'd made of him down there. Proud, like you were of me . . .

—This John Israel now, when does he come in.

—Into the play? you mean come onstage? He doesn't.

—Well then how come they . . .

—Because that's the idea, Mister Basie. Thomas' mother has taught him to read, that was against the law in some of the slave states so here he is suspended, between what he is and what he never can be. I had an experience last year that will give you the idea. I was robbed. On the Fifth Avenue bus. The Second or Third Avenue you could expect it, but the Fifth Avenue bus? I carry my cash in my left trouser pocket and getting off, changing buses, a tall black fellow right in front of me fell, dark suit, nicely dressed, well built like you are, he fell on the step there with his trouser cuff caught on the open door and I came down holding his shoulders so he wouldn't fall all the way, land on the street. He was twisting and turning, having a hard time freeing his trouser cuff or that's what I thought, what I was supposed to think, somebody pressing behind me but I was so busy holding him up I hardly noticed till finally he got loose, shook himself off and walked away he didn't even turn to thank me, have to say I was annoyed but I thought, there you are, that's New York. Not even that's a black for you but just that's New York. The driver wants to speak to you somebody said, they took your wallet the driver told me, you should call the police. No it's right here I showed him, I carry it in the inside breast pocket like everyone, then a woman standing there said no they did, they robbed you. I was afraid to say anything she said, she was a coloured woman too, they robbed you. They? There were three of them, but here's my wallet I showed her, thanked her, got on the next bus and rode six blocks reading the paper suddenly thought, suddenly
put my hand in my pocket and it was gone. I couldn't believe it. Why I'd always carried cash in that trouser pocket, nobody's going to get a hand in there without your knowing it but it was gone. I couldn't believe it.

—You mind if I smoke?

—What? Oh, if you, well no go ahead and smoke if you, you see they all knew what was happening, this coloured woman, the bus driver sitting up there like a tub of pale lard watching it in his rear view mirror now that's New York. A friend of mine did jury duty on a mugging case, the judge picking the jury asked if any of them had ever been mugged and every hand went up, you come out relieved that you weren't stabbed. They all knew I was being robbed except me, I was even cooperating.

—You get the police?

—No, I just said I got on the next bus. I couldn't have identified them if I had, probably why he turned away without thanking me so I wouldn't get a good look at him.

—All look the same though, don't we.

—That's not, no! That's not what I meant at all. Of course I was annoyed, not the money but nobody likes to be made a fool of, but I thought about it later and realized I was just giving something back, paying my dues you might call it. All I've been given in this world you can just look around but you take these three fellows, they'd probably been given damned little but look what they'd done with it. Probably'd never made it through sixth grade but the skill they pulled this act off with, the sheer artistry, smooth, unhurried, talk about theatre and the willing suspension of disbelief there I am helping the one down on the step while the other one's going through my pockets with the third one covering him? Didn't even bother with the wallet, nothing that obvious, no threats, nothing ugly, an elegant piece of theatre and they were gone, didn't even wait for the applause. They were just doing their best with what they'd been given, la carrière ouverte aux talents as Napoleon had it, you had to admire it. You see what I'm getting at.

A smoke ring billowed from the chair, growing larger, heavy with purpose. —Afraid I do, Oscar . . . and another pursuing it, careening off at a tangent. —Afraid I do.

—Yes well, because the whole idea there, what I meant was simply making the best with what we . . .

—I know what you meant. Take this idea about natural slaves now, you believe all that?

—I don't have to be a murderer to write a murder mystery do I? The Major believes it that's the point, to make the Major believable as a character defending his beliefs and principles here, it's right here a few pages later he's talking with Mister Kane again.

T
HE
M
AJOR

(SENTENTIOUSLY RETURNING TO TOPICS OF CONSEQUENCE)

That interested me what you had to say earlier, the Greek philosopher that said ‘The man without fear cannot be a slave.' The exact thing I was saying myself, I believe. Yes, they had an idea of these things, the Greeks did, looking after the natural order of things.

K
ANE

(MASKING HIS AGITATION WITH EFFORT)

And the slaves who worked in the mines, what of them? Who worked in the mines until they died, because they had no immortal souls, and could die in the darkness, was that it? Was that the natural order?

T
HE
M
AJOR

Yes, we've improved there, as a purely practical question. They are too valuable for such treatment here. When they are sick or injured, who takes care of them? No sir! We cannot afford to throw them aside here, the way men who can't work any longer are thrown aside by the Yankees. Of course it's the natural order. Why, hasn't Lincoln himself let the Southern leaders know that he has no intention or power to interfere with slavery down here?

—You mean he's acting on his principles, the Major is? Or he's digging them up afterwards to justify his whole . . .

—That's the whole idea isn't it? It's all up there in a book by George Fitzhugh from before the Civil War, Cannibals All! it's right up there somewhere, take it and read it, why the Major brings up this whole question of wage slaves in the North we get into all that later, when Thomas takes over these coal mines in the second act and . . .

—Doesn't sound much like the movie.

—I'm not talking about movies! I'm talking about ideas.

—I thought we're talking about this movie, why you had me to come all the way out here, talking about infringement aren't we? this movie you say they stole from you? You talk about ideas this, ideas that, you can't copyright them. Talk about these natural slaves, you just finished saying it's all right up there in Fitzhugh didn't you? I know it is. I've read it. They can read it, anybody out there can read it, lift whatever they want to. You tell me this play here is a play of ideas, I have to tell you I don't think you've got much of a case.

—Well that's not, wait a minute, you're not leaving? We haven't even got to the main . . .

—No, just stretch my legs, pace up and down helps me talk while I'm thinking, like the courtroom, makes the juices flow. I see you laid out there what I'm really seeing is this jury, all . . .

—If you want to pace up and down you'll have to do it in the hall, here you can't even wait, the phone there, can you hand me the phone? I can't quite, yes. Hello? Yes hello, what . . .

—Down the hall on the left?

—On the right. Hello? Yes well what is it now I'm busy, I'm . . . No I'm in conference, in a conference with a new . . . No but can you just tell me quickly what's the matter? I'm . . . What do you mean it's too terrible, if it's so terrible you can't even talk about it why did you call, can't you just tell me quickly what it's about? What . . . ? Well not this minute no, no I told you I'm in conference with a new lawyer who . . . It's not about the accident no, it's my . . . Well it is really important! It's about my . . . All right then! Maybe it's not as important as what you're calling for but if you won't even tell me what it's about how can I . . . about Bobbie? What, go where . . . ? All right do all that first then, pick out the dress and go to the shoe store and stop at the hairdresser and then come over if you . . . yes, goodbye. Mister Basie . . . ?

—Right here.

—Your cigarette there, just worried it could roll off on the floor and set the whole place . . .

—Sorry. Here, let me hang that up for you. This is a beautiful place you've got here isn't it. Probably go for a million these days.

—Add another million for the pond out there.

—And that sign at the gate.

—Well the privacy yes, that's worth more than ever now isn't it with these miserable little tract houses going up everywhere, not to speak of the people who infest them, it's really the only thing left worth having that money can buy.

—You own all of it?

—Let's not get into that right now. Where were we.

—Point with this movie, you come down to the difference between protection for an idea and the expression of the idea, the artistic . . .

—You've seen that ad for the movie they're running haven't you? Based on a true story? They're admitting it right there aren't they? that they took this story of my grandfather I wrote my play about?

—Not just admitting it no, see what they're doing is . . .

—I can't copyright my own grandfather all right, I know it. I can't copyright the Civil War I can't copyright history I know all that, but they . . .

—What they're doing there Oscar, they're heading you off at the pass.

—What pass, what do you mean.

—Means it's right out there in the public record doesn't it? Based on a true story means it's right out there in the public domain where anybody can pick it up for a play, write a novel, make a movie?

—All right then listen! Did they know that? They'd already made their revolting movie hadn't they? All this didn't come out before they made it, it came out afterward and they put their ad together at the last minute when the picture opened, when they'd seen these awful, these scurrilous stories about my father in the Szyrk case in the mushmouthed press down there digging up anything they can, anything to try to make the whole family sound mad I've got some of it right here. PAST COMES TO LIFE IN SZYRK DECISION, ECCENTRIC JURIST SPARKED HOLMES COURT. They've dug around in their musty old newspaper morgues down there, they keep everything, that's what the South is all about, come up with these yellowed clippings here's one, from nineteen thirty, listen. The soldiers who served as substitutes for Justice Crease in the Union and Confederate armies were both killed in the same battle, and it is said that his feeling of responsibility for their deaths now threatens to become an obsession, firmly convinced after discovering that their regiments faced each other in the bloody day long battle that, among the thousands of troops engaged, the two substitutes died at each other's hands. As an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, it appears that his passionate opinions and outspoken clashes with Justice Holmes, who himself still bears wounds from Ball's Bluff, Antietam and Fredericksburg, arise from umbrage taken by Holmes over what he regards as his colleague's expedient use of substitutes in order to avoid the, that's ridiculous right there, it's plain libel. Holmes knew he'd fought at Ball's Bluff, he knew the whole story, William James said that Holmes would vote for anybody who'd fought in that awful war, no. What it was between them, for Holmes everything was the law and when somebody held forth about justice like my grandfather did Holmes argued that he was refusing to think in terms of the evidence, to think in legal terms that's what it was all about between them right to the end, these clashes and passionate opinions he was as obsessed with justice as Holmes was with the law you can see it in his face up there, that picture up, wait, before you sit down will you turn it around? Up there facing the wall where she, where that woman must have been dusting in here yes, because that's what it's all about, this character in my play who's based on him there's a whole passage here where he's just gone down to see his mother for the last time before he goes north and he'd had an accident, he comes in all torn up and interrupts a conversation Kane is having with William.