Gardener's Son Read online

  CONTENTS

  Foreword

  Cast of Characters

  The Gardener’s Son

  About the Author

  Also by Cormac McCarthy

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  FOREWORD

  In the spring of 1975 I sent Cormac McCarthy a letter in care of a post office box in El Paso, Texas. His wife in Maryville, Tennessee, and his editor at Random House were protective of his whereabouts, but they both assured me that, wherever he was, he picked up his mail every six weeks or so. At the time I was a documentary filmmaker on sabbatical (thanks to a fellowship from a journalism foundation) with money to spend (thanks to a public television series entitled “Visions”) looking for a screenwriter. Not just any screenwriter. A great screenwriter. I had already spoken to Eudora Welty (I was young and shameless).

  McCarthy’s first three novels (The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, and Child of God) had been published to the requisite number of glowing reviews describing the author as “Faulknerian” (the southern novelist’s proverbial kiss of death). Sales had been fitful at best. Certainly Hollywood had not been beating a path to this particular P.O. Box in El Paso before me. Child of God, the oddest of a wonderfully odd lot, had been the one that struck me. It was easily the most cinematic, but not in the conventional sense of the term. It had a rigor about it, a way of not taking the easy, “novelistic” route. By never presuming an author’s license to enter the mind of his protagonist, McCarthy had been able to insure the almost complete inscrutability of his subject and subject matter, while at the same time thoroughly investigating it. Here was “negative capability” of a very high order. I was hooked.

  And so when a few weeks later I received a reply from this most inscrutable of writers suggesting we meet and talk about my ideas for the film, I became convinced that it was meant to be, and so it was. We were, at least in one sense, perfectly matched: he had never even seen, much less written a screenplay, and I had never directed a fiction film, only documentaries. The treatment or story of the film, insofar as one existed, was based on nothing more than a few paragraphs in the footnotes to a 1928 biography of a famous industrialist of the pre–Civil War South. Our first meeting ended with an agreement to reconvene in Tennessee, then drive southeast through North and South Carolina, making our way to Graniteville, where the actual events of the story took place. It would be a kind of research trip, or at least an excuse for a research trip. It would last a few weeks, and then with a few more weeks of work back in Maryville at the typewriter, we would have our screenplay. It would be that simple.

  In fact it took almost exactly a year. For me a wonderful itinerant year on the road, with the deafening roar of the textile mills of South Carolina giving way to the tiny plop of a perfectly ripened tomato outside Cormac’s living room window in Tennessee. For Cormac McCarthy, at least from my vantage point, it was a year of pure alchemy, much of it spent translating what could have been a dry academic expose into a strange and haunting tale of impotence, rage, and ultimately violence among two generations of owners and workers, fathers and sons, during the rise and fall of one of America’s most bizarre utopian industrial experiments.

  The resulting two-hour film, The Gardener’s Son, was made in 16mm for $200,000, broadcast on PBS in 1976, shown at the Berlin and Edinburgh Film Festivals, nominated for two Emmy Awards, and was my education as a film director. Twenty years have passed, and Cormac McCarthy is now an old friend and godfather to my daughter Remy and, in many ways, to all the films I’ve made since.

  —RICHARD PEARCE

  APRIL 29, 1996

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  In Order of Appearance

  OLD TIMEKEEPER Soft spoken.

  YOUNG MAN Neatly dressed, well spoken. Under his manner a hint of truculence.

  JAMES GREGG Son of the founder of the mill. Age about 30.

  THE STOCKHOLDERS Men in frock coats.

  MARTHA MCEVOY The older daughter, age 14.

  MRS MCEVOY The mother.

  MR MCEVOY The father, a gardener from the mills.

  MARYELLEN MCEVOY The younger sister.

  DR PERCEVAL Tall and perhaps somewhat cadaverous. He dresses formally and is given to quoting from the classics.

  DAPHNE Mrs Gregg’s black servant.

  MRS GREGG

  MR GREGG A ghost lying in the bed.

  ROBERT MCEVOY The son, age 17.

  WILLIS (Dr Perceval’s Man) A tall and stout black, dedicated to the doctor.

  THE SPEAKER (at Mr Gregg’s funeral) Perhaps one of the stockholders.

  TIMEKEEPER (Captain Giles) A younger version of the old timekeeper at the opening of the film.

  RAGGED MAN A thin and shifty-eyed hillbilly. Could be played by the doctor (Perceval) in rags.

  FIRST BLACK A quiet spoken middle-aged man.

  SECOND BLACK (Odell) Younger and less guarded.

  OLD WOMEN (at the wake) Small and tight-mouthed and disapproving. These three women are dressed in mourning, are somewhat witchlike.

  OLD MAN (at greenhouse) Small, neat looking, and quietly efficient.

  CLEITUS (Mrs Gregg’s manservant) A dignified black, perhaps in his sixties.

  PINKY A man about forty, big and stout and somewhat florid.

  FIRST MAN A man about forty.

  SECOND MAN Smaller and older.

  THIRD MAN Quiet and enigmatic. Not without humor. All are dressed in overalls, some with jackets, perhaps with caps.

  OVERSEER Perhaps in shirt sleeves. He is a few years younger than Patrick McEvoy.

  WORKER

  PROSECUTING ATTORNEY Reads the charges in a sort of cadenced monotone, not unlike an amateur reading of poetry or like a preacher.

  OC JORDAN A country lawyer.

  CONSTABLE A man much like the overseer in the mill.

  MR WIGGINS The newspaper accounts are ambiguously worded, but he appears to have been black. He is a prosecutor for the defense.

  DR CAMPBELL A dignified witness, a gentleman perhaps in his forties.

  STARK SIMS Apparently not too bright a fourteen-year-old, but with his own sense of dignity.

  WJ WHIPPER A black yankee lawyer with a great deal of presence about him, an air almost of arrogance.

  JUDGE MAHER A thin faced man who could pass for a shop clerk or almost anything else. He reads the death sentence without dramatics or flair but with a reasonable sense of the solemnity of the occasion.

  FOREMAN

  PHOTOGRAPHER He should not appear obsequious. He is good-natured, perhaps clumsy with his equipment.

  VIRGIL A good old country boy, laconic, solicitous of McEvoy.

  THE PRIEST

  FIRST AND SECOND JAILERS A pair who take their duties very seriously.

  SHERIFF A clean-cut type, inclined to be avuncular toward McEvoy, not without kindness.

  MR CLEMENTS A tidy professional at his work.

  THE WHITTLER IN THE HALLWAY A thoughtful, rather sad old man, perhaps in his seventies. Perhaps wearing spectacles.

  THE WOMAN AT THE DESK IN THE HOSPITAL

  THE ORDERLY

  OLD MARTHA MCEVOY A thin white-haired and ghostlike old lady whose eyes suggest a liveliness that is childlike but not quite mad.

  THE GARDENER’S SON

  Interior. Old office of the Graniteville cotton mill. Daylight through dusty windows. An old desk. Boxes and crates standing about on the floor.

  TIMEKEEPER (os) God knows what all is in here. I’d watch where I put my hands. That was the . . . I dont know what that was.

  Sounds of footsteps. A door opening.

  TIMEKEEPER (os) Old papers and stuff. What aint eat up.

  Sounds of boxes or papers. The old man coughs.

 
; TIMEKEEPER (os) In yonder is where it happened.

  Sounds of footsteps. The old man enters the room. A young man is behind him, only partly visible beyond the door.

  TIMEKEEPER (os) That was his desk yonder.

  The old man carries a ring of keys and he jingles these against his leg. He turns to look back at the young man, who has apparently asked him a question.

  TIMEKEEPER Oh yes. I remember him. I was just a kid. My daddy was supervisor and we went to the funeral over in Augusta. The wind blowed my brother Earl’s hat in the street and a horse stepped in it.

  The voices fade out as the credits come on.

  TIMEKEEPER . . . Come to the door right where you’re standin.

  The young man enters the room. He looks about and crosses to the window. The old man jingles the keys in the palm of his hand.

  TIMEKEEPER Used to be wells in the streets. You went out in the street and drawed your water. They’d burn sulphur in the streets of a summer gainst the malaria.

  The young man turns at the window toward the timekeeper.

  TIMEKEEPER Some people claim that James Gregg had run over the boy with his buggy and caused him to lose his leg but that was never so. He broke it fallin off the gravel train. It was James’s Daddy founded the mill. The old man they say was just a pistol. James was of a different cut. He was all right, but the blood runs thin.

  The boy turns at the window and looks at the old man.

  TIMEKEEPER I’d better mind what I say. No offense.

  The boy comes from the window and thumbs through dusty papers in a box.

  YOUNG MAN I guess if you hire these people you have to take the consequences.

  TIMEKEEPER (smiling) No offense.

  YOUNG MAN No.

  TIMEKEEPER You wont find it here.

  YOUNG MAN What wont I find?

  TIMEKEEPER They’re just boxes of records. There’s some old pitcher albums here somewheres. Mill used to keep.

  The young man shuffles through a box, idly looking at papers that turn up.

  TIMEKEEPER They aint the thing. Old papers or pitchers. You copy somethin down dont mean you have it. You just have the record. Times past are fugitive. They caint be kept in no box.

  End Credits

  Series of old still shots of the town of Graniteville and of the people. These are to have the look of old sepia photographs and may look stiff or posed. They comprise an overture to the story to follow, being shots of the characters in the film in situations from the film itself, so that they sketch the story out in miniature to the last shot of an old wooden coffin being loaded into a mule-drawn wagon and a shot of the town.

  Freeze frame of the town, the rows of houses. Animate into action. A wagon comes up a street through the mud. Seated in three sets of spring seats are seven or eight stockholders of the Graniteville Company Mill and the son of the mill’s founder who is named James Gregg.

  James Gregg is pointing out various features of the mill village. The stockholders nod solemnly.

  They pass a young girl standing in the mud waiting for the wagon to pass. James Gregg tips his hat to her. He turns and winks at the stockholder next to him. The girl looks away shyly. She crosses the street behind them. Coming along in the distance is a buggy and she waits to see who it is. As it passes she sees the arriving Dr Perceval driven by his black man. She watches them pass and then turns and runs up the street. She comes to the last of a row of houses and enters.

  Interior. The house, a front room, very dark. She goes through to the kitchen where her mother is at the stove and a younger sister, Maryellen, is sitting at the kitchen table with her spelling book.

  MARTHA I seen him. The doctor. He’s here.

  MRS MCEVOY Lord save us, he aint to the house is he?

  MARTHA No. He was headin towards Kalmia.

  Mrs McEvoy is flustered. She looks around at the state of her house. She pats at her hair distractedly.

  MRS MCEVOY He might could be here any time. Was it just now you seen him?

  MARTHA Yes Mam. You reckon he’s gone to the Greggs?

  MRS MCEVOY Yes. Run out back and tell your daddy.

  MARYELLEN You want me to go in and tell Bobby?

  MRS MCEVOY No I dont want no such thing.

  Martha goes out back door into a vegetable garden where Mr McEvoy is pulling up the dead stalks of corn and stacking them. She calls across the garden.

  MARTHA That there doctor is a comin. Mama said to tell you.

  MR MCEVOY He aint here is he?

  MARTHA He’s gone on towards Greggs. He might could be here any time.

  MR MCEVOY Well dont get everbody stirred up.

  MARTHA Mama said not to tell Bobby.

  MR MCEVOY Well maybe his leg is caused him to go deaf and he aint heard you yet.

  Exterior. Evening. The doctor’s carriage arriving at the house of William Gregg. A boy comes to take the horses in hand.

  Interior. The doctor in the hallway of the house handing off his coat and hat to the servant Daphne. His bag sits on the floor. Mrs Gregg comes down the stairway and greets him.

  MRS GREGG Good evening Dr Perceval. Thank you for coming.

  DR PERCEVAL Not at all. How is your husband?

  MRS GREGG I’m afraid he’s much the same.

  The doctor frowns and mutters.

  MRS GREGG You didnt come by yourself?

  DR PERCEVAL Yes. That is, my man is with me.

  MRS GREGG (to Daphne) Tell Cleitus to go and take the doctor’s man to the kitchen.

  DR PERCEVAL Thank you.

  The servant takes the doctor’s things away. The doctor takes up his satchel and nods toward the stairs.

  They ascend the stairs.

  Interior. Door opening in the bedroom of William Gregg.

  The old man is lying on his back and he appears to be all but dead. Mrs Gregg enters followed by the doctor. She lights a lamp. The doctor sets his bag on the bed and takes the lamp and holds it up and lifts the old man’s eyelids each and peers at his eyes. He sets the lamp down and takes a stethoscope from his bag and pulls back the counterpane and listens to the old man’s chest.

  DR PERCEVAL Does he know you?

  MRS GREGG Sometimes.

  DR PERCEVAL Yes.

  MRS GREGG I’m afraid they grow less frequent.

  Dr Perceval folds the covers back and takes the stethoscope from his ears.

  DR PERCEVAL He always had the constitution of an ox.

  MRS GREGG I always ask you and you always say no. But is there any chance . . . of a reversal?

  The doctor turns and looks at her.

  DR PERCEVAL I’m sorry, Mrs Gregg.

  Mrs Gregg nods her head.

  DR PERCEVAL He’s beyond my or any man’s practice.

  MRS GREGG I prayed to God to take him. Is that wrong?

  DR PERCEVAL No. That’s not wrong.

  MRS GREGG He hated sickness.

  DR PERCEVAL I guess he despised any kind of idleness.

  MRS GREGG Yes. Wouldnt tolerate it.

  The doctor folds his stethoscope into his bag.

  DR PERCEVAL What about that boy in the village?

  MRS GREGG Did you want to see him this evening?

  DR PERCEVAL Your note said it was urgent.

  MRS GREGG That is what was relayed to me. I havent seen the boy myself.

  DR PERCEVAL Then I’ll not stay upon the order of my going.

  MRS GREGG Let me get my things.

  DR PERCEVAL It’s a bad night out.

  MRS GREGG It’s a bad night for them.

  DR PERCEVAL Yes, of course.

  MRS GREGG Have you had your supper?

  DR PERCEVAL No, I’ll not be taking any. A clear head wants an empty stomach. People eat too damned much anyway.

  Interior. McEvoy kitchen. The family is seated at the table. A kerosene lamp is lit and they have just finished their supper. There is a knock at the front door and Martha leaves the table and goes along the hall to the door to open it. Dr Perceval and Mrs G
regg are standing in the door and she admits them and they follow her to the kitchen. When the doctor and Mrs Gregg enter the kitchen Mr McEvoy rises, Mrs McEvoy pushes at her chair and struggles to her feet.

  MRS GREGG Mr McEvoy this is Dr Perceval.

  Mr McEvoy extends his hand. The doctor gives it a perfunctory shake. They nod mutely at each other.

  MRS MCEVOY Lord Mrs Gregg you ort not to of come. What with the trouble in your own house. Martha, put the kettle on.

  MRS GREGG Please dont trouble yourself Mrs McEvoy. I only came to see about the boy.

  MRS MCEVOYY Well we appreciate that.

  DR PERCEVAL Where is the boy?

  MR MCEVOY I’ll show him, Mama.

  He leaves the room, looking after at the doctor for him to follow. The doctor shifts his bag from one hand to the other and leaves the kitchen.

  Mrs McEvoy comes around the table toward Mrs Gregg.

  MRS MCEVOY Let me take your coat, Mrs Gregg.

  MRS GREGG Thank you.

  Mrs McEvoy takes her coat, helping her out of it.

  MRS MCEVOY Just get ye a chair.

  MRS GREGG Thank you.

  Mrs Gregg sits in the chair nearest the hallway door. Maryellen McEvoy is seated next to her and looks up at her with wide eyes. The table is littered with dishes. Martha is standing by the stove watching her. Mrs McEvoy takes the coat and hangs it from a nail in the back door. She turns and looks back at the table and she goes to the stove and pokes up the fire.

  MRS MCEVOY (to Martha) Scoot girl.

  Martha moves to one side. She does not take her eyes from Mrs Gregg.

  MRS GREGG Is this all of your family, Mrs McEvoy?

  MRS MCEVOY Yes Mam.

  MRS GREGG (to Maryellen) What is your name?

  MARYELLEN Maryellen.

  MRS GREGG Yes.

  She turns to Martha.

  MRS GREGG And Martha.

  MARTHA Yes Mam.