The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form Read online

  Black I do see. It’s the subject at hand.

  White The darker picture is always the correct one. When you read the history of the world you are reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore. And yet we imagine that the future will somehow be different. I’ve no idea why we are even still here but in all probability we will not be here much longer.

  Black Them is some pretty powerful words, Professor. That’s what’s in your heart, aint it?

  White Yes.

  Black Well I can relate to them thoughts.

  White You can?

  Black Yes I can.

  White That surprises me. What, you’re going to think about them?

  Black I done have thought about em. I’ve thought about em for a long time. Not as good as you said it. But pretty close.

  White Well you surprise me. And you’ve come to what conclusions?

  Black I aint. I’m still thinkin.

  White Yes. Well, I’m not.

  Black Things can change.

  White No they cant.

  Black You could be wrong.

  White I dont think so.

  Black But that aint somethin you have a lot of in your life.

  White What isnt?

  Black Bein wrong.

  White I admit it when I’m wrong.

  Black I dont think so.

  White Well, you’re entitled to your opinion.

  The black leans back and regards the professor. He reaches and picks up the newspaper from the table and leans back again and adjusts his glasses.

  Black Let’s see here. Story on page three.

  He folds the paper elaborately.

  Black Yeah. Here it is. Friends report that the man had ignored all advice and had stated that he intended to pursue his own course.

  He adjusts his glasses.

  Black A close confidant stated (he looks up)—and this here is a quotation—said: You couldnt tell the son of a bitch nothin. (He looks up again) Can you say that in the papers? Son of a bitch? Meanwhile, bloodspattered spectators at the hundred and fifty-fifth street station—continued on page four.

  He wets his thumb and laboriously turns the page and refolds the paper.

  Black —who were interviewed at the scene all reported that the man’s last words as he hurtled toward the oncomin commuter train were: I am right.

  He lays down the paper and adjusts his spectacles and peers over the top of them at the professor.

  White Very funny.

  The black takes off his glasses and lowers his head and pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head.

  Black Oh Professor. Mm. You an amazin man.

  White I’m glad you find me entertaining.

  Black Well, you pretty special.

  White I dont think I’m special.

  Black You dont.

  White No. I dont.

  Black You dont think you might view them other commuters from a certain height?

  White I view those other commuters as fellow occupants of the same abyssal pit in which I find myself. If they see it as something else I dont know how that makes me special.

  Black Mm. I hear what you sayin. But still I keep comin back to them commuters. Them that’s waitin on the Sunset? I got to think maybe they could be just a little bit special theyselves. I mean, they got to be in a deeper pit than just us daytravelers. A deeper and a darker. I aint sayin they down as deep as you, but pretty deep maybe.

  White So?

  Black So how come they cant be your brothers in despair and selfdestruction? I thought misery loved company?

  White I’m sure I don’t know.

  Black Well let me take a shot at it.

  White Be my guest.

  Black What I think is that you got better reasons then them. I mean, their reasons is just that they dont like it here, but yours says what they is not to like and why not to like it. You got more intelligent reasons. More elegant reasons.

  White Are you making fun of me?

  Black No. I aint.

  White But you think I’m full of shit.

  Black I dont think that. Oh I dont doubt but what it’s possible to die from bein full of shit. But I dont think that’s what we lookin at here.

  White What do you think we’re looking at?

  Black I dont know. You got me on unfamiliar ground. You got these elegant world class reasons for takin the Limited and these other dudes all they got is maybe they just dont feel good. In fact, it might could be that you aint even all that unhappy.

  White You think that my education is driving me to suicide.

  Black Well, no. I’m just posin the question. Wait a minute. Fore you answer.

  He takes his pad and his pencil and begins to write laboriously, his tongue in the corner of his mouth, grimacing. This for the professor’s benefit. He looks sideways at him and smiles. He tears off the page and folds it and puts it in his shirtpocket.

  Black All right. Go ahead.

  White I think that’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.

  The black takes the folded paper from his pocket and hands it across. The professor opens it and reads it aloud.

  White I think that’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Very clever. What’s the point?

  Black The point dont change. The point is always the same point. It’s what I said before and what I keep lookin for ways to say it again. The light is all around you, cept you dont see nothin but shadow. And the shadow is you. You the one makin it.

  White Well, I dont have your faith. Why dont we just leave it at that.

  Black You dont never think about maybe just startin over?

  White I did. At one time. I dont any more.

  Black Sometimes faith might just be a case of not havin nothin else left.

  White Well, I do have something else.

  Black Maybe you could just keep that in reserve. Maybe just take a shot at startin over. I dont mean start again. Everbody’s done that. Over means over. It means you just walk away. I mean, if everthing you are and everthing you have and everthing you have done has brought you at last to the bottom of a whiskey bottle or bought you a one way ticket on the Sunset Limited then you cant give me the first reason on God’s earth for salvagin none of it. Cause they aint no reason. And I’m goin to tell you that if you can bring yourself to shut the door on all of that it will be cold and it will be lonely and they’ll be a mean wind blowin. And them is all good signs. You dont say nothin. You just turn up your collar and keep walkin.

  White I cant.

  Black Yeah.

  White I cant.

  Black You want some more coffee?

  White No. Thank you.

  Black Why do you think folks takes their own lives?

  White I dont know. Different reasons.

  Black Yeah. But is there somethin them different reasons has got in common?

  White I cant speak for others. My own reasons center around a gradual loss of make-believe. That’s all. A gradual enlightenment as to the nature of reality. Of the world.

  Black Them worldly reasons.

  White If you like.

  Black Them elegant reasons.

  White That was your description.

  Black You didnt disagree with it.

  The professor shrugs.

  Black It’s them reasons that your brother dont know nothin about hangin by his necktie from the steampipe down in the basement. He got his own dumb-ass reasons, but maybe if we could educate him to where some of them more elegant reasons was available to him and his buddies then they’d be a lot of folks out there could off theyselves with more joy in they hearts. What do you think?

  White Now I know you’re being facetious.

  Black This time I think you’re right. I think you have finally drove me to it.

  White Mm hm.

  Black Well, the professor’s done gone to layin the mm hm’s on me. I better watch my step.

  White Yes you had. I might be warmin
g up the trick bag.

  Black But still you think that your reasons is about the world and his is mostly just about him.

  White I think that’s probably true.

  Black I see a different truth. Settin right across the table from me.

  White Which is?

  Black That you must love your brother or die.

  White I dont know what that means. That’s another world from anything I know.

  Black What’s the world you know.

  White You dont want to hear.

  Black Sure I do.

  White I dont think so.

  Black Go ahead.

  White All right. It’s that the world is basically a forced labor camp from which the workers—perfectly innocent—are led forth by lottery, a few each day, to be executed. I dont think that this is just the way I see it. I think it’s the way it is. Are there alternate views? Of course. Will any of them stand close scrutiny? No.

  Black Man.

  White So. Do you want to take a look at that train schedule again?

  Black And they aint nothin to be done about it.

  White No. The efforts that people undertake to improve the world invariably make it worse. I used to think there were exceptions to that dictum. I dont think that now.

  The black sits back, looking down at the table. He shakes his head slightly.

  White What else do you want to talk about?

  Black I dont know. Them sounds to me like the words of a man on his way to the train station.

  White They are those words.

  Black What do you think about that man?

  White I’m like you. I dont. I used to. Now I dont. I think about minimalizing pain. That is my life. I dont know why it isnt everyone’s.

  Black You dont think gettin run over by a train might smart just a little?

  White No. I did the calculations. At seventy miles an hour the train is outrunning the neurons. It should be totally painless.

  Black I’m goin to be stuck with your ass for a while, aint I?

  White I hope not.

  Black If this aint the life you had in mind, what was?

  White I dont know. Not this. Is your life the one you’d planned?

  Black No, it aint. I got what I needed instead of what I wanted and that’s just about the best kind of luck you can have.

  White Yes. Well.

  Black You cant compare your life to mine, can you?

  White In all honesty, no. I cant.

  Black Mm.

  White I’m sorry. I should go.

  Black You dont have to go.

  White I’ve offended you.

  Black I got a thicker hide than that, Professor. Just stay. You aint hurt my feelins.

  White I know you think that I should be thankful and I’m sorry not to be.

  Black Now Professor, I dont think no such a thing.

  White I should go.

  Black I’m diggin a dry hole here, aint I?

  White I admire your persistence.

  Black What can I do to get you to stay a bit?

  White Why? Are you hoping that if I stay long enough God might speak to me?

  Black No, I’m hopin he might speak to me.

  White I know you think I at least owe you a little more of my time. I know I’m ungrateful. But ingratitude is not the sin to a spiritual bankrupt that it is to a man of God.

  Black You dont owe me nothin, Professor.

  White Do you really think that?

  Black Yes. I really do.

  White Well. You’re very kind. I wish there was something I could do to repay you but there isnt. So why dont we just say goodbye and you can get on with your life.

  Black I cant.

  White You cant?

  Black No.

  White What do you want me to do?

  Black I dont know. Suppose you could wake up tomorrow and you wouldnt be wantin to jump in front of no train. Suppose all you had to do was ask. Would you do it?

  White It would depend on what I had to give up.

  Black I started to write that down and put it in my pocket.

  White What is it that you think I’m holding on to? What is it that the terminal commuter cherishes that he would die for?

  Black I dont know. I dont know.

  White No.

  Black You dont want to talk to me no more, do you?

  White I thought you had a thick skin.

  Black It’s pretty thick. It aint hide to the bone.

  White Why do you think it? Why do you think there is something?

  Black I dont know. It just seems to me that a man that cant wait for a train to run over him has got to have somethin on his mind. Most folks would settle for maybe just a slap up the side of the head. You say you dont care about nothin but I dont believe that. I dont believe that death is ever about nothin. You asked me what I thought it was you was holdin on to and I got to say I dont know. Or maybe I just dont have the words to say it. And maybe you know but you aint sayin. But I believe that when you took your celebrated leap you was holdin on to it and takin it with you. Holdin on for grim death. I look for the words, Professor. I look for the words because I believe that the words is the way to your heart.

  White You think that anyone in my position is automatically blind to the workings of his own psyche.

  Black I think that anybody in your position is automatically blind. But that aint the whole story. Because we still talkin bout the rest of them third railers and them takin one train and you takin another.

  White I didnt say that.

  Black Sure you did. They got a train for all them dumb-ass crackers that just feels bad and then they got this other train for you cause your pain and the world’s pain is the same pain and this train requires a observation car and a diner.

  White Well. You can think what you want. You dont need my agreement.

  Black I know. But that aint the way to the trick bag.

  White Well. The trick bag seems to have shaped itself up into some sort of communal misery wherein one finds salvation by consorting among the loathsome.

  Black Damn, Professor. You puttin me in the bag. Where you come up with stuff like that?

  White It was phrased especially for you. For your enjoyment. You see what a whore I am?

  Black No you aint. You a smart man. Too smart for me.

  White I feel the bag yawning.

  Black I wish I knew how.

  White Do you really think that? That I’m too smart for you?

  Black Yes I do. If you can jack you own self around nine ways from Sunday I’d like to know what chance you think I got.

  White I see.

  Black What I need to do here is to buy more time. But I dont know what to buy it with.

  White You dont know what to offer a man about to board the Limited.

  Black No. I dont. I feel like I’m about traded out.

  White Maybe you are. Have you ever dealt with suicides?

  Black No. You the first one. These junkies and crack-heads is about as far from suicide as you can get. They wouldnt even know what you was talkin about. They wake up in pain ever day. Bad pain. But they aint headed for the depot. Now you can say, well, they got a fix for their pain. Just need to hustle on out there and get it. And that’s a good argument. But still we got this question. Just what is this pain that is causin these express riders to belly up at the kiosk with the black crepe. What kind of pain we talkin about? I got to say that if it was grief that brought folks to suicide it’d be a full time job just to get em all in the ground come sundown. So I keep comin back to the same question. If it aint what you lost that is more than you can bear then maybe it’s what you wont lose. What you’d rather die than to give up.

  White But if you die you will give it up.

  Black No you wont. You wont be here.

  White Well. I cant help you. Letting it all go is the place I finally got to. It took a lot of work to get there and if there is one thing I would be unwilling to give up it is exactl
y that.

  Black You got any other way of sayin that?

  White The one thing I wont give up is giving up. I expect that to carry me through. I’m depending on it. The things I believed in were very frail. As I said. They wont be around for long and neither will I. But I dont think that’s really the reason for my decision. I think it goes deeper. You can acclimate yourself to loss. You have to. I mean, you like music, right?

  Black Yes I do.

  White Who’s the greatest composer you know of?

  Black John Coltrane. Hands down.

  White Do you think his music will last forever?

  Black Well. Forever’s a long time, Professor. So I got to say no. It wont.

  White But that doesnt make it worthless, does it?

  Black No it dont.

  White You give up the world line by line. Stoically. And then one day you realize that your courage is farcical. It doesnt mean anything. You’ve become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left.

  Black That’s a dark world, Professor.

  White Yes.

  Black What’s the worst thing ever happen to you?

  White Getting snatched off a subway platform one morning by an emissary of Jesus.

  Black I’m serious.

  White So am I.

  Black Before this mornin. What was the worst thing.

  White I dont know.

  Black Well, let’s pretend you dont know then. Still, do you reckon it was about you? Or about somebody close to you?

  White Probably someone close to me.

  Black I think that’s probably right. Dont that tell you somethin?

  White Yes. Dont get close to people.

  Black You a hard case, man.

  White How else could I win your love?

  Black You probably right. Let me try this. I dont believe that the world can be better than what you allow it to be. Dark a world as you live in, they aint goin to be a whole lot of surprises in the way of good news.