MOTHER HENRY: I don’t need you to tell me I’m under oath. I been under oath all my life. And I tell you, I never saw no gun.
THE STATE: Mrs. Henry, did you ever see your grandson behaving strangely—as though he were under the influence of strong drugs?
MOTHER HENRY: No. Not since he was six and they pulled out his tonsils. They gave him ether. He didn’t act as strange as his Mama and Daddy. He just went on to sleep. But they like to had a fit. (Richard’s song) I remember the day he was born. His mother had a hard time holding him and a hard time getting him here. But here he come, in the wintertime, late and big and loud. And my boy looked down into his little son’s face and he said, “God give us a son. God’s give us a son. Lord, help us to raise him to be a good strong man.”
JUDGE: The witness may step down.
CLERK (Calls): Reverend Meridian Henry!
(Blackout. Meridian, in Sunday School. The class itself, predominately adolescent girls, is in silhouette.)
MERIDIAN: —And here is the prophet, Solomon, the son of David, looking down through the ages, and speaking of Christ’s love for His church. (Reads) How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices! (Pause. The silhouette of girls vanishes) Oh, that it were one man, speaking to one woman!
(Blackout. Meridian takes the stand.)
BLACKTOWN: I wonder how he feels now about all that turn-the-other-cheek jazz. His son sure didn’t go for it.
WHITETOWN: That’s the father. Claims to be a preacher. He brought this on himself. He’s been raising trouble in this town for a long time.
THE STATE: You are Reverend Meridian Henry?
MERIDIAN: That is correct.
THE STATE: And you are the father of the late Richard Henry?
MERIDIAN: Yes.
THE STATE: You are a minister?
MERIDIAN: A Christian minister—yes.
THE STATE: And you raised your son according to the precepts of the Christian church?
MERIDIAN: I tried. But both my son and I had profound reservations concerning the behavior of Christians. He wondered why they treated black people as they do. And I was unable to give him—a satisfactory answer.
THE STATE: But certainly you—as a Christian minister—did not encourage your son to go armed?
MERIDIAN: The question never came up. He was not armed.
THE STATE: He was not armed?
MERIDIAN: No.
THE STATE: You never saw him with a gun? Or with any other weapon?
MERIDIAN: No.
THE STATE: Reverend Henry—are you in a position to swear that your son never carried arms?
MERIDIAN: Yes. I can swear to it. The only time the subject was ever mentioned he told me that he was stronger than white people and he could live without a gun.
BLACKTOWN: I bet he didn’t say how.
WHITETOWN: That liver-lipped nigger is lying. He’s lying!
THE STATE: Perhaps the difficulties your son had in accepting the Christian faith is due to your use of the pulpit as a forum for irresponsible notions concerning social equality, Reverend Henry. Perhaps the failure of the son is due to the failure of the father.
MERIDIAN: I am afraid that the gentleman flatters himself. I do not wish to see Negroes become the equal of their murderers. I wish us to become equal to ourselves. To become a people so free in themselves that they will have no need to—fear-others—and have no need to murder others.
THE STATE: You are not in the pulpit now. I am suggesting that you are responsible—directly responsible!—for your son’s tragic fate.
MERIDIAN: I know more about that than you do. But you cannot consider my son’s death to have been tragic. For you, it would have been tragic if he had lived.
THE STATE: With such a father, it is remarkable that the son lived as long as he did.
MERIDIAN: Remarkable, too, that the father lived!
THE STATE: Reverend Henry—you have been a widower for how many years?
MERIDIAN: I have been a widower for nearly eight years.
THE STATE: You are a young man still?
MERIDIAN: Are you asking me my age? I am not young.
THE STATE: You are not old. It must have demanded great discipline—
MERIDIAN: To live among you? Yes.
THE STATE: What is your relationship to the young, so-called student, Miss Juanita Harmon?
MERIDIAN: I am her old friend. I had hoped to become her father-in-law.
THE STATE: You are nothing more than old friends?
WHITETOWN: That’s right. Get it out of him. Get the truth out of him.
BLACKTOWN: Leave the man something. Leave him something!
THE STATE: You have been celibate since the death of your wife?
BLACKTOWN: He never said he was a monk, you jive mother!
WHITETOWN: Make him tell us all about it. All about it.
MERIDIAN: Celibate? How does my celibacy concern you?
THE STATE: Your Honor, will you instruct the witness that he is on the witness stand, not I, and that he must answer the questions put to him!
MERIDIAN: The questions put to him! All right. Do you accept this answer? I am a man. A man! I tried to help my son become a man. But manhood is a dangerous pursuit, here. And that pursuit undid him because of your guns, your hoses, your dogs, your judges, your law-makers, your folly, your pride, your cruelty, your cowardice, your money, your chain gangs, and your churches! Did you think it would endure forever? that we would pay for your ease forever?
BLACKTOWN: Speak, my man! Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen!
WHITETOWN: Stirring up hate! Stirring up hate! A preacher—stirring up hate!
MERIDIAN: Yes! I am responsible for the death of my son. I—hoped—I prayed—I struggled—so that the world would be different by the time he was a man than it had been when he was born. And I thought that—then—when he looked at me—he would think that I—his father—had helped to change it.
THE STATE: What about those photographs your son carried about with him? Those photographs of himself and naked white women?
BLACKTOWN: Man! Would I love to look in your wallet!
WHITETOWN: Make him tell us about it, make him tell us all about it!
MERIDIAN: Photographs? My son and naked white women? He never mentioned them to me.
THE STATE: You were closer than most fathers and sons?
MERIDIAN: I never took a poll on most fathers and sons.
THE STATE: You never discussed women?
MERIDIAN: We talked about his mother. She was a woman. We talked about Miss Harmon. She is a woman. But we never talked about dirty pictures. We didn’t need that.
THE STATE: Reverend Henry, you have made us all aware that your love for your son transcends your respect for the truth or your devotion to the church. But—luckily for the truth-it is a matter of public record that your son was so dangerously deranged that it was found necessary, for his own sake, to incarcerate him. It was at the end of that incarceration that he returned to this town. We know that his life in the North was riotous—he brought that riot into this town. The evidence is overwhelming. And yet, you, a Christian minister, dare to bring us this tissue of lies in defense of a known pimp, dope addict, and rapist! You are yourself so eaten up by race hatred that no word of yours can be believed.
MERIDIAN: Your judgment of myself and my motives cannot concern me at all. I have lived with that judgment far too long. The truth cannot be heard in this dreadful place. But I will tell you again what I know. I know why my son became a dope addict. I know better than you will ever know, even if I should explain it to you for all eternity, how I am responsible for that. But I know my son was not a pimp. He respected women far too much for that. And I know he was not a rapist. Rape is hard work—and, frankly, I don’t think that the alleged object was my son’s type at all!
THE STATE: And you are a minister?
MERIDIAN: I think I may be beginning to become on
e.
JUDGE: The witness may step down.
(Meridian leaves the stand.)
CLERK (Calls): Mr. Parnell James!
(Parnell in his bedroom, dressed in a bathrobe. Night.)
PARNELL: She says I called somebody else’s name. What name could I have called? And she won’t repeat the name. Well. That’s enough to freeze the blood and arrest the holy, the liberating orgasm! Christ, how weary I am of this dull calisthenic called love—with no love in it! What name could I have called? I hope it was—a white girl’s name, anyway! Ha-ha! How still she became! And I hardly realized it, I was too far away—and then it was too late. And she was just looking at me. Jesus! To have somebody just looking at you—just looking at you—like that—at such a moment! It makes you feel—like you woke up and found yourself in bed with your mother! I tried to find out what was wrong—poor girl! But there’s nothing you can say at a moment like that—really nothing. You’re caught. Well, haven’t I kept telling her that there’s no future for her with me? There’s no future for me with anybody! But that’s all right. What name could I have called? I haven’t been with anybody else for a long time, a long time. She says I haven’t been with her, either. I guess she’s right. I’ve just been using her. Using her as an anchor—to hold me here, in this house, this bed—so I won’t find myself on the other side of town, ruining my reputation. What reputation? They all know. I swear they all know. Know what? What’s there to know? So you get drunk and you fool around a little. Come on, Parnell. There’s more to it than that. That’s the reason you draw blanks whenever you get drunk. Everything comes out. Everything. They see what you don’t dare to see. What name could I have called? Richard would say that you’ve got—black fever! Yeah, and he’d be wrong—that long, loud, black mother. I wonder if she’s asleep yet—or just lying there, looking at the walls. Poor girl! All your life you’ve been made sick, stunned, dizzy, oh, Lord! driven half mad by blackness. Blackness in front of your eyes. Boys and girls, men and women—you’ve bowed down in front of them all! And then hated yourself. Hated yourself for debasing yourself? Out with it, Parnell! The nigger-lover! Black boys and girls! I’ve wanted my hands full of them, wanted to drown them, laughing and dancing and making love—making love—wow!—and be transformed, formed, liberated out of this grey-white envelope. Jesus! I’ve always been afraid. Afraid of what I saw in their eyes? They don’t love me, certainly. You don’t love them, either! Sick with a disease only white men catch. Blackness. What is it like to be black? To look out on the world from that place? I give nothing! How dare she say that! My girl, if you knew what I’ve given! Ah. Come off it, Parnell. To whom have you given? What name did I call? What name did I call?
(Blackout. Parnell and Lyle. Hunting on Parnell’s land.)
LYLE: You think it’s a good idea, then? You think she won’t say no?
PARNELL: Well, you’re the one who’s got to go through it. You’ve got to ask for Miss Josephine’s hand in marriage. And then you’ve got to live with her—for the rest of your life. Watch that gun. I’ve never seen you so jumpy. I might say it was a good idea if I thought she’d say no. But I think she’ll say yes.
LYLE: Why would she say yes to me?
PARNELL: I think she’s drawn to you. It isn’t hard to be—drawn to you. Don’t you know that?
LYLE: No. When I was young, I used to come here sometimes—with my Daddy. He didn’t like your Daddy a-tall! We used to steal your game, Parnell—you didn’t know that, did you?
PARNELL: I think I knew it.
LYLE: We shot at the game and your Daddy’s overseers shot at us. But we got what we came after. They never got us!
PARNELL: You’re talking an awful lot today. You nervous about Miss Josephine?
LYLE: Wait a minute. You think I ought to marry Jo?
PARNELL: I don’t know who anybody should marry. Do you want to marry Jo?
LYLE: Well—I got to marry somebody. I got to have some kids. And Jo is—clean!
(Parnell sights, shoots.)
PARNELL: Goddamn!
LYLE: Missed it. Ha-ha!
PARNELL: It’s probably somebody’s mother.
LYLE: Watch. (Sights, shoots) Ha-ha!
PARNELL: Bravo!
LYLE: I knew it! Had my name written on it, just as pretty as you please! (Exits, returns with his bird) See? My Daddy taught me well. It was sport for you. It was life for us.
PARNELL: I reckon you shot somebody’s baby.
LYLE: I tell you—I can’t go on like this. There comes a time in a man’s life when he’s got to have him a little—peace.
PARNELL: You mean calm. Tranquillity.
LYLE: Yeah. I didn’t mean it like it sounded. You thought I meant—no. I’m tired of—
PARNELL: Poon-tang.
LYLE: How’d you know? You tired of it, too? Hell. Yeah. I want kids.
PARNELL: Well, then—marry the girl.
LYLE: She ain’t a girl no more. It might be her last chance, too. But, I swear, Parnell, she might be the only virgin left in this town. The only white virgin. I can vouch for the fact ain’t many black ones.
PARNELL: You’ve been active, I know. Any kids?
LYLE: None that I know of. Ha-ha!
PARNELL: Do you think Jo might be upset—by the talk about you and Old Bill? She’s real respectable, you know. She’s a librarian.
LYLE: No. Them things happen every day. You think I ought to marry her? You really think she’ll say yes?
PARNELL: She’ll say yes. She’d better. I wish you luck. Name the first one after me.
LYLE: No. You be the godfather. And my best man. I’m going to name the first one after my Daddy—because he taught me more about hunting on your land than you know. I’ll give him your middle name. I’ll call him Lyle Parnell Britten, Jr.!
PARNELL: If the girl says yes.
LYLE: Well, if she says no, ain’t no problem, is there? We know where to go when the going gets rough, don’t we, old buddy?
PARNELL: Do we? Look! Mine?
LYLE: What’ll you bet?
PARNELL: The price of your wedding rings.
LYLE: You’re on. Mine? Mine!
(Blackout. Parnell walks down the aisle, takes the stand.)
WHITETOWN:
Here comes the nigger-lover!
But I bet you one thing—he knows more about the truth in this case than anybody else.
He ought to—he’s with them all the time.
It’s sad when a man turns against his own people!
BLACKTOWN:
Let’s see how the Negro’s friend comes through!
They been waiting for him—they going to tear his behind up!
I don’t trust him. I never trusted him!
Why? Because he’s white, that’s why!
THE STATE: You were acquainted with the late Richard Henry?
PARNELL: Of course. His father and I have been friends all our lives.
THE STATE: Close friends?
PARNELL: Yes. Very close.
THE STATE: And what is your relationship to the alleged murderer, Mr. Lyle Britten?
PARNELL: We, also, have been friends all our lives.
THE STATE: Close friends?
PARNELL: Yes.
THE STATE: As close as the friendship between yourself and the dead boy’s father?
PARNELL: I would say so—it was a very different relationship.
THE STATE: Different in what respect, Mr. James?
PARNELL: Well, we had different things to talk about. We did different things together.
THE STATE: What sort of different things?
PARNELL: Well—hunting, for example—things like that.
THE STATE: You never went hunting with Reverend Henry?
PARNELL: No. He didn’t like to hunt.
THE STATE: He told you so? He told you that he didn’t like to hunt?
PARNELL: The question never came up. We led very different lives.
THE STATE: I am gratified to hear it. Is it
not true, Mr. James, that it is impossible for any two people to go on a hunting trip together if either of them has any reason at all to distrust the other?
PARNELL: Well, of course that would have to be true. But it’s never talked about—it’s just understood.
THE STATE: We can conclude, then, that you were willing to trust Lyle Britten with your life but did not feel the same trust in Reverend Henry?
PARNELL: Sir, you may not draw any such conclusion! I have told you that Reverend Henry and I led very different lives!
THE STATE: But you have been friends all your lives. Reverend Henry is also a southern boy—he, also, I am sure, knows and loves this land, has gone swimming and fishing in her streams and rivers, and stalked game in her forests. And yet, close as you are, you have never allowed yourself to be alone with Reverend Henry when Reverend Henry had a gun. Doesn’t this suggest some lack—in your vaunted friendship?
PARNELL: Your suggestion is unwarranted and unworthy. As a soldier, I have often been alone with Negroes with guns, and it certainly never caused me any uneasiness.
THE STATE: But you were fighting a common enemy then. What was your impression of the late Richard Henry?
PARNELL: I liked him. He was very outspoken and perhaps tactless, but a very valuable person.
THE STATE: How would you describe his effect on this town? Among his own people? Among the whites?
PARNELL: His effect? He was pretty well liked.
THE STATE: That does not answer my question.
PARNELL: His effect was—kind of unsettling, I suppose. After all, he had lived in the North a long time, he wasn’t used to—the way we do things down here.
THE STATE: He was accustomed to the way things are done in the North—where he learned to carry arms, to take dope, and to couple with white women!
PARNELL: I cannot testify to any of that, sir. I can only repeat that he reacted with great intensity to the racial situation in this town, and his effect on the town was, to that extent, unsettling.
THE STATE: Did he not encourage the Negroes of this town to arm?
PARNELL: Not to my knowledge, sir, no. And, in any case, they are not armed.