Remembrance and Pantomime (14 page)

     “The ferns, the palms like silent sentinels, the wide and silent lagoons that briefly hold my passing, solitary reflection. The volcano…”

(
Stops
)

     “The volcano.” What?

HARRY

     … “wreathed” …

JACKSON

     Oho, oho … like a wreath? “The volcano
wreathed
in mist. But what is paradise without a woman? Adam in paradise!”

HARRY

     Go ahead.

JACKSON

(
Restrained
)

     “Adam in paradise had his woman to share his loneliness, but I miss the voice of even one consoling creature, the touch of a hand, the look of kind eyes. Where is the wife from whom I vowed never to be sundered? How old is my little son? If he could see his father like this, mad with memories of them … Even Job had his family. But I am alone, alone, I am all alone.”

(
Pause
)

     Oho. You write this?

HARRY

     Yeah.

JACKSON

     Is good. Very good.

HARRY

     Thank you.

JACKSON

     Touching. Very sad. But something missing.

HARRY

     What?

JACKSON

     Goats. You leave out the goats.

HARRY

     The goats. So what? What’ve you got with goats, anyway?

JACKSON

     Very funny. Very funny, sir.

HARRY

     Try calling me Trewe.

JACKSON

     Not yet. That will come. Stick to the point. You ask for my opinion and I
gave
you my opinion. No doubt I don’t have the brains. But
my
point is that this man ain’t facing reality.
There are goats
all around him.

HARRY

     You’re full of shit.

JACKSON

     The man is not facing reality. He is not a practical man
shipwrecked.

HARRY

     I suppose that’s the difference between classical and Creole acting?

(
He pours a drink and downs it furiously
)

JACKSON

     If he is not practical, he is not Robinson Crusoe. And yes, is Creole acting, yes. Because years afterward his little son could look at the parasol and the hat and look at a picture of Daddy and boast: “My daddy smart, boy. He get shipwreck and first thing he do is he build a hut, then he kill a goat or two and make clothes, a parasol and a hat.” That way Crusoe
achieve
something, and his son could boast …

HARRY

     Only his son is dead.

JACKSON

     Whose son dead?

HARRY

     Crusoe’s.

JACKSON

     No, pardner.
Your
son dead. Crusoe wife and child waiting for him, and he is a practical man and he know somebody go come and save him …

HARRY

(
Almost inaudibly
)

     “I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,

     And cried, ‘A sail! a sail!’”

     How the hell does he know “somebody go come and save him”? That’s shit. That’s not in his character at that moment. How the hell can he know? You’re a cruel bastard …

JACKSON

(
Enraged
)

     
Because, you fucking ass, he has faith!

HARRY

(
Laughing
)

     Faith? What faith?

JACKSON

     He not sitting on his shipwrecked arse bawling out … what it is you have here?

(
Reads
)

     “O…” Where is it?

(
Reads
)

     “O silent sea, O wondrous sunset,” and all that shit. No. He shipwrecked. He desperate, he hungry. He look up and he see this fucking goat with its fucking beard watching him and smiling, this goat with its forked fucking beard and square yellow eye just like the fucking devil, standing up there …

(
Pantomimes the goat and Crusoe in turn
)

     smiling at him, and putting out its tongue and letting go one fucking
bleeeeeh!
And Robbie ent thinking ’bout his wife and son and O silent sea and O wondrous sunset; no, Robbie is the First True Creole, so he watching the goat with his eyes narrow, narrow, and he say:
blehhh,
eh? You muther-fucker, I go show you
blehhh
in your goat-ass, and vam, vam, next thing is Robbie and the goat,
mano a mano,
man to man, man to goat, goat to man, wrestling on the sand, and next thing we know we hearing one last faint, feeble
bleeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh,
and Robbie is next seen walking up the beach with a goatskin hat and a goatskin umbrella, feeling like a million dollars because
he have faith!

HARRY

(
Applauds
)

     Bravo! You’re the Christian. I am the cannibal. Bravo!

JACKSON

     If I does hammer sarcastic, you does clap sarcastic. Now I want to pee.

HARRY

     I think I’ll join you.

JACKSON

     So because I go and pee, you must pee, too?

HARRY

     Subliminal suggestion.

JACKSON

     Monkey see, monkey do.

HARRY

     You’re the bloody ape, mate. You people just came down from the trees.

JACKSON

     Say that again, please.

HARRY

     I’m going to keep that line.

JACKSON

     Oho! Rehearse you rehearsing? I thought you was serious.

HARRY

     You go have your pee. I’ll run over my monologue.

JACKSON

     No, you best do it now, sir. Or it going to be on my mind while we rehearsing that what you really want to do is take a break and pee. We best go together, then.

HARRY

     We’ll call it the pee break. Off we go, then. How long will you be, then? You people take forever.

JACKSON

     Maybe you should hold up a sign, sir, or give some sort of signal when you serious or when you joking, so I can know not to react. I would say five minutes.

HARRY

     Five minutes? What is this, my friend, Niagara Falls?

JACKSON

     It will take me … look, you want me to time it? I treat it like a ritual, I don’t just pee for peeing’s sake. It will take me about forty to fifty seconds to walk to the servants’ toilets …

HARRY

     Wait a second …

JACKSON

     No, you wait, please, sir. That’s almost one minute, take another fifty seconds to walk back, or even more, because after a good pee a man does be in a mood, both ruminative and grateful that the earth has received his libation, so that makes …

HARRY

     Hold on, please.

JACKSON

(
Voice rising
)

     Jesus, sir, give me a break, nuh? That is almost two minutes, and in between those two minutes it have such solemn and ruminative behavior as opening the fly, looking upward or downward, the ease and relief, the tender shaking, the solemn tucking in, like you putting a little baby back to sleep, the reverse zipping or buttoning, depending on the pants, then, with the self-congratulating washing of the hands, looking at yourself for at least half a minute in the mirror, then the drying of hands as if you were a master surgeon just finish a major operation, and the walk back …

HARRY

     You said that. Any way you look at it, it’s under five minutes, and I interrupted you because …

JACKSON

     I could go and you could time me, to see if I on a go-slow, or wasting up my employer’s precious time, but I know it will take at least five, unless, like most white people, you either don’t flush it, a part I forgot, or just wipe your hands fast fast or not at all …

HARRY

     Which white people, Jackson?

JACKSON

     I was bathroom attendant at the Hilton, and I know men and races from their urinary habits, and most Englishmen …

HARRY

     Most Englishmen … Look, I was trying to tell you, instead of going all the way round to the servants’ lavatories, pop into my place, have a quick one, and that’ll be under five bloody minutes in any circumstances and regardless of the capacity. Go on. I’m all right.

JACKSON

     Use your bathroom, Mr. Harry?

HARRY

     Go on, will you?

JACKSON

     I want to get this. You giving me permission to go through your living room, with all your valuables lying about, with the picture of your wife watching me in case I should leave the bathroom open, and you are granting me the privilege of taking out my thing, doing my thing right there among all those lotions and expensive soaps, and … after I finish, wiping my hands on a clean towel?

HARRY

     Since you make it so vividly horrible, why don’t you just walk around to the servants’ quarters and take as much time as you like? Five minutes won’t kill me.

JACKSON

     I mean, equality is equality and art is art, Mr. Harry, but to use those clean, rough Cannon towels … You mustn’t rush things, people have to slide into independence. They give these islands independence so fast that people still ain’t recover from the shock, so they pissing and wiping their hands indiscriminately. You don’t want that to happen in this guest house, Mr. Harry. Let me take my little five minutes, as usual, and if you have to go, you go to your place, and I’ll go to mine, and let’s keep things that way until I can feel I can use your towels without a profound sense of gratitude, and you could, if you wanted, a little later maybe, walk round the guest house in the dark, put your foot in the squelch of those who missed the pit by the outhouse, that charming old-fashioned outhouse so many tourists take Polaroids of, without feeling degraded, and we can then respect each other as artists. So, I appreciate the offer, but I’ll be back in five. Kindly excuse me.

(
He exits
)

HARRY

     You’ve got logorrhea, Jackson. You’ve been running your mouth like a parrot’s arse. But don’t get sarcastic with me, boy!

(
JACKSON
returns
)

JACKSON

     You don’t understand, Mr. Harry. My problem is, I really mean what I say.

HARRY

     You’ve been pretending indifference to this game, Jackson, but you’ve manipulated it your way, haven’t you? Now you can spew out all that bitterness in fun, can’t you? Well, we’d better get things straight around here, friend. You’re still on duty. And if you stay out there too long, your job is at stake. It’s …

(
Consulting his watch
)

     five minutes to one now. You’ve got exactly three minutes to get in there and back, and two minutes left to finish straightening this place. It’s a bloody mess.

(
Silence
)

JACKSON

     Bloody mess, eh?

HARRY

     That’s correct.

JACKSON

(
In exaggerated British accent
)

     I go try and make it back in five, bwana. If I don’t, the mess could be bloodier. I saw a sign once in a lavatory in Mobile, Alabama.
COLORED.
But it didn’t have no time limit. Funny, eh?

HARRY

     Ape! Mimic! Three bloody minutes!

(
JACKSON
exits, shaking his head.
HARRY
recovers the sheet of paper from the floor and puts it back in his pants pocket. He pours a large drink, swallows it all in two large gulps, then puts the glass down. He looks around the gazebo, wipes his hands briskly. He removes the drinks tray with Scotch, the two beer bottles, glasses, water pitcher, and sets them in a corner of the gazebo. He lifts up the deck chair and sets it, sideways, in another corner. He turns the table carefully over on its side; then, when it is on its back, he looks at it. He changes his mind and carefully tilts the table back upright. He removes his shirt and folds it and places it in another corner of the gazebo. He rolls up his trouser cuffs almost to the knee. He is now half-naked. He goes over to the drinks tray and pours the bowl of melted ice, now tepid water, over his head. He ruffles his hair, his face dripping; then he sees an ice pick. He picks it up
)

JACKSON’S VOICE

     “One day, just out of the blue, I pick up a ice pick and walk over to where he and two fellers was playing cards, and I nail that ice pick through his hand to the table, and I laugh…”

(
HARRY
drives the ice pick hard into the tabletop, steps back, looking at it. Then he moves up to it, wrenches it out, and gets under the table, the ice pick at his feet. A few beats, then
JACKSON
enters, pauses
)

JACKSON

(
Laughs
)

     What you doing under the table, Mr. Trewe?

(
Silence.
JACKSON
steps nearer the table
)

     Trewe? You all right?

(
Silence.
JACKSON
crouches close to
HARRY
)

     Harry, boy, you cool?

(
JACKSON
rises. Moves away some distance. He takes in the space. An arena. Then he crouches again
)

     Ice-pick time, then?