Public Burning (66 page)
(
JAMES
turns away wearily as the
WARDEN
enters. It is 1:00 p.m.
)
WARDEN
What is this all about?
JULIUS
Mr. Brownell sent Mr. Bennett to tell us if we cooperated with the Government he would recommend clemency to the President.
| ( Aside to audience: ) | You will note that the Warden was not present when the offer was made! |
JAMES
(
to the Warden
)
Please expedite any messages they might care to send me!
| ( Aria: ) | Good-bye, Julius! Good-bye, Mrs. Rosenberg! |
(
He turns to go
.)
| Â | ETHEL |
| ( Aria da capo: ) | Grant us our day in court, Mr. Bennett! Let us live that we may prove our innocence! That's the decent way, the American way! |
(
JULIUS
is led some distance away
.
JAMES
watches
ETHEL
a moment, then follows
JULIUS
until they are out of earshot of
ETHEL
.)
JAMES
(
in a stage whisper
)
Your only hope, Julius, lies in cooperation! Let me bring some people who are familiar with the case and you can submit to answering questions of what you know about this!
JULIUS
Why, this would be like “brainwashing,” Mr. Bennett!
JAMES
(
timidly
)
Well, could Iâwould you like me to come back another time?
JULIUS
(
pointedly
)
Yes, if you can bring me some good news!
(
JAMES
exits.
JULIUS
crosses to
ETHEL
for their final duet sequence, the
WARDEN
,
the
TURNKEY
,
and the
MATRON
forming
a silent trio in the background
.)
JULIUS
Our very lives and most cherished principles are at stake here, and I am glad we met the test well!
I feel strongly that it is our sacred duty to expose the police-state methods that are being practiced!
Because we are fighting for a just cause our spirits are high, but at the same time our lives are in very great jeopardy!
Of course the storm is getting greater but I know we'll ride through this storm in good shape!
JULIUS | ETHEL |
| Therefore, my sweet, I can't help admiring you and telling you over and over again that you are a great noble woman âwhich in fact you areâ and certainly a very charming person at that! I guess it will not be amiss if I say I love you most dearly! Therefore, my sweet, etc . | Darling, my darling! How truly I love you! And how much I long to possess the remarkable qualities you attribute to me, and to be worthy of all that you are yourself! Darling, my darling, etc . |
| Â | JULIUS |
| ( Recit.: ) | There is great danger in our land if now! The great difficulty is, that media of information, they are “brainwashing” the readers and the public is misinformed! |
ETHEL | JULIUS |
The lame attempts of the Justice Department to “brainwash” the public on an issue that has been the main burden of a sickening refrain for over two long years, brings to mind lago's cynical assertion: | How big can the lie get and how much deceit are they capable of? Events are happening at an increasing tempo and we must continue to look to each other to find the strength and courage to stand up to the terror! |
“Bravery's plain face | United in love and spirit |
is never seen till used!” | we will be successful! |
ETHEL
You must tell them, Julie: we are the first victims of American Fascism!
JULIUS
(
addressing the audience
)
| ( Appassionato: ) | The courts are mere appendages to an autocratic police force! The rights of defendants and the protection of the Constitution no longer operate! These are the plain facts! It is happening here! |
Yesterday, the U.S. Marshals were up to serve us with papers setting down our executions for our fourteenth wedding anniversary, June 18, eleven p.m.
JULIUS | ETHEL |
| My wife and I are to be horribly united in death on the very day of our greatest happiness, our wedding day! When, oh when will our agony be over and how soon will we see some daylight? | Seriously, this is political prosecution, shameless, blatant, cynical! But it must not be a cause for pessimism! It is the relentless struggle to live life that defeats death! |
JULIUS
(
tenderly
)
Honey dear, the Sunday issue of
The New York Times
had an excellent editorial on the essence of June, with particular emphasis on the physical beauty of the lush green around us! This month was ours! Because then we were united as husband and wife and found the boundless joy of a flourishing beautiful relationship! Precious noble woman, even to the end, I am completely devoted to you!
ETHEL
My darling husbandâ!
(
They move to embrace, but are separated by the prison officials. There is an anguished pause
.)
JULIUS
(
to the audience, with sudden intensity
)
WHAT WILL BE THE ANSWER OF AMERICA TO ALL THIS?
(
JULIUS
and
ETHEL
are
led out through separate exits by the
TURNKEY
and the
MATRON
,
respectively. The
WARDEN
studies the diagram a moment, then checks his watch by the clock on the wall. He exits, in fading lights, through a door with a sign above it. A lone spotlight lingers momentarily on this sign, which reads:
SILENCE
.)
CURTAIN
PART FOUR: FRIDAY NIGHT
22.
Singalong with the Pentagon Patriots
“Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour⦔
sing the multitudes massed in Times Squareâthey are enjoying an old-fashioned singalong, led by Oliver Allstorm and His Pentagon Patriots, a bit of commemorative showbiz hoopla to honor the setting and get the night's entertainment under way. “I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,” cries Uncle Sam, peering out on the Sons of Light from backstage. “âTis grand! 'tis solemn! 'tis an education of itself to look upon!” The Patriots are decked out in bright star-spangled Yankee Doodle outfits, complete with macaroni and bloody bandages, reminiscent of the uniforms worn by Nelson Eddy in
The Chocolate Soldier
, by George Washington in the French and Indian Wars, and by Bojangles Robinson when he danced with Shirley Temple. A bit far out maybe, like the Patriots themselves, not the sort of gear the nation is accustomed to seeing in its nightclubs and churchesâyou'd never catch Percy Faith and His Orchestra rigged out with so much pomp and flashâbut the crowd seems to enjoy it, seems to like the excitement the Patriots generate, and they all sing along with open-faced enthusiasm, full throated and glad heartedâ¦
“There's a building in Noo Yawk
That's sixteen stories high,
And every story in that house
Is full of chicken pieâ¦!”
The starred, barred, and booted Patriots bounce merrily about the electrocution-chamber mock-up with their fifes and drums like court minstrels for a king who's not yet come to sit his throne, leading the jubilant citizenry through the good old songs of yesteryear, songs their mothers taught them, the hands of mem'ry weaving the blissful dreams of long ago. They recall heroes and hangings, grief and grace, traitors and liars and bloody battles, city lights and purple shadows. They are ecstatic, somewhat drunk as well. They haven't forgotten the Phantomâindeed, rumors circulate even now of riots and uprisings around the worldâbut somehow the rest of the world is growing more distant, there's the feeling that it's all happening here, here in the street where the whole world meets, on the avenue I'm takin' you to, Forty-second Streetâ¦
“In the middle,
In the heart of little old New York,
You'll find the crowds all there!
In the middle,
It's a part of little old New York,
Runs into old Times Squareâ¦!”
The sun has hunkered down behind the Paramount Building on its way to Hoboken, but though elsewhere shadows fall and trees whisper day is ending, here the day seems to reverse itself and brighten again toward high noon, so starry bright is the Great White Way. It's a real Old Glory blowout! The stage where the Patriots work (they've drawn together now, barbershop-fashion, and along with all the others are crooning a set of gentle oldies⦓Now Is The Hour”⦓The Farmer Comes to Town”⦓Let the Rest of the World Go By”â¦) is spotlit; the VIP area, empty still, is bright as a ballpark; newsmen's flashguns pop like Fourth of July fireworks; multicolored electric arrows dart relentlessly at floodlit theaters and hotels; and vast neon spectaculars hawk everything from Planters Peanuts to patriotism, campaign quips to Kleenex: all direct and glaring evidence of the sheer
power
of Uncle Sam and his Legions of Light. The name of the Square itself is picked out in lights atop the Times Tower twice, once in Old English for the origins of the nation and once for its progress in modern sans-serif, and up and down all the streets as far as the eye can see, marquees and billboards glow with apothegms from the Prophets and the Fathersâ¦
CHEER
UP,
THE
WORST
IS
YET
TO
COME!
WHAT
THE
PURITANS
GAVE
THE
WORLD
WAS
NOT
THOUGHT,
BUT
ACTION
SIC
SEMPER
TYRANNIS!
THIS
WORLD
IS
BUT
CANVAS
TO
OUR
IMAGINATIONS!
The Paramount Building has spread an all-electric United States flag across its broad façade, incorporating its starry-digited clock in the blue field like a bittle bit of heaven, reminding oldtimers of the moonclock Al Jolson sat in with Ruby Keeler to sing to her “About a Quarter to Nine,” while over the Elpine Drinks counter on Forty-sixth Street, a gigantic flashlight, powered with Evereadiesâ“the battery with Nine Lives”âshines on a Kodak ad that says: “You press the button, we do the rest!”
EVERYTHING
IS
FUNNY
AS
LONG
AS
IT
IS
HAPPENING
TO
SOMEBODY
ELSE!
The U.S. map between the two four-story-tall bodies atop the Bond store (tonight figleafed with flags: a Dixie diaper for the woman, and “Don't Tread On Me!” coiled around the man's joint) is bejeweled coast-to-coast with flickering red-white-and-blue bulbs, giving the appearance of an entire nation boiling over with excitement. There are no dark corners. The singing celebrants, their minds full of old revival meetings, busrides, campfires, and beer blasts of the past, stand in pools of luminous shadows, as though steadfastly afloat in a river of light, while overhead, searchlights sweep the fading sky as beacons to the gathering tribe, traditional signals of a Broadway opening, a casting out of demons, a World Premier, a Tent Chautauqua, a Night among the Starsâ¦
“Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song;
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along,
Sing it as we used to sing itâfifty thousand strong,
While we were marching through Georgiaâ¦!”
They're all whooping their hearts out as they plunge headlong, hand-in-hand with Oliver and the Patriots, down memory laneâwhich is, itself, from sea to shining sea a marvelous and unending labyrinth: through the streets of Laredo, across the wide Missouri and up Springfield Mountain, over the Old Chisholm Trail on the sunny side of a winter wonderland, in and out of Chattanooga, Detroit City, honkytonk heaven and the Durant jail, up the Brazos, along the E-ri-e, and down by the old mill stream, just travelin' along, singin' a song, side by sideâ¦