Riot (5 page)

LIAM

Mr. Johnson, if this all doesn’t come down on the right side, do you think I could be working steady at the Peacock?

JOHN

What’s the right side, Liam?

LIAM

It’s hard knowing with all the shouting and running through the streets, now isn’t it?

CLAIRE

(Crosses to LIAM and takes his hand)

You’re always welcome here, Liam. You know that, don’t you?

MAEVE

What is your name again?

CLAIRE

Liam must have told you that it’s Claire.

MAEVE

Well, Miss Claire, don’t be eyeing my Liam. There’s a lot more to me than you’d be knowing, dearie.

CLAIRE

Eyeing Liam? I’m doing nothing of the sort!

ROSIE

I think she’s in love, Maeve. She’s blushing.

LIAM

Come on, I have to get home and get some
rest. Get me head together. Bye, Mrs. Johnson. Claire.

MAEVE

(to CLAIRE)

You want to come with us? We’d love to show you off to our friends.

JOHN

I said it’s time for you to leave.

LIAM

We’ll be seeing you later, then.

CLAIRE

Liam, be careful.

LIAM

That’s for sure, Claire. Careful is me middle name.

ROSIE

(as they leave)

If you ask me, she looks more German than Irish.

LIAM, MAEVE, and ROSIE exit
.

JOHN

Never mind that crowd. They don’t even know what they’re doing. I’m headed uptown. Lock the doors after me and stay off the streets.

JOHN exits
.

ELLEN

Are you all right, Claire?

CLAIRE

I hate people who don’t even know what they’re doing.

ELLEN

Hate
’s a strong word for people you don’t know, Claire.

CLAIRE

That girl hates me because I’m black; I can hate her because she’s white.

ELLEN

Maybe she hates you because Liam has a sparkle in his voice when he talks about you. Now that would be a good reason not to like you. Wouldn’t it?

She crosses to CLAIRE and puts both arms around her.

CLAIRE starts to answer but instead begins to cry softly.

CLAIRE

Liam was just my friend a few days ago. We could laugh together, and I would kid him when he came to make deliveries. Now everything is upside down.

ELLEN

When things get back to normal around here we’ll—

CLAIRE

They’ll
never
be normal again.

Sobbing, she puts her head down as her whole body shakes.

ELLEN

When things come around—

The door to the Peacock opens.

ELLEN

(cont’d)

We’re closed! We’re closed!

A thin white man, the poet WALT WHITMAN (44), enters, accompanied by FARLEY (11), a black boy, small for his age, whom he has hired to help him on his visit to New York. WHITMAN has been working as a nurse during the Civil War, but is far better known as a journalist and the poet who published
Leaves of Grass
. He looks much older than his age. He has a slight hesitant manner; he walks unevenly and leans on furniture as he passes.

ELLEN

(to WHITMAN)

I told you we were closed!

WHITMAN

(seeing CLAIRE)

Can I help? I have some experience as a nurse.

ELLEN

No. And we’re closed.

WHITMAN

There’s a covey of angry young men flapping and strutting their way down the street. I need to keep Farley here safe until they pass, and then we’ll be on our way.

ELLEN looks at them cautiously and then goes and locks the door to the Peacock.

ELLEN

As soon as they pass…

WHITMAN

What happened?

ELLEN

A young man who worked for us has joined the rioters. He brought some friends by and they’ve upset my daughter.

CLAIRE

They don’t like me because I’m black.

WHITMAN and FARLEY both turn and look at CLAIRE, who lifts her chin proudly for a second but then turns away.

WHITMAN

Well, I’ve seen them—swaggering through the streets with crowd courage and searching for themselves in the storm they create with their shouts.

He settles at a table.

ELLEN

They’re rioting in the streets. And stealing what they can in the bargain.

CLAIRE

Last night they burned down the Colored Orphanage.

WHITMAN

Yes, well, yes. I guess America has finally shaken off the stupor of its promise and its beauty and is asking itself questions it should have answered seventy-five years ago.

ELLEN

Is it charms you’re selling? Bibles? We don’t need charms and we have a Bible.

WHITMAN

I saw them lying on the battlefields and in the hospitals in Washington. Sometimes I would see them holding up little bits of mirrors and staring at the strangers looking out at them. In their hearts they’re asking what America means. They’re groping their wounds and their trauma and searching for meaning to their lives before those lives drip out onto the rich Southern soil or in some obscure cow pasture.

CLAIRE

And who do you pretend to be?

WHITMAN

Pretend? Har! A good question. I am Walt Whitman, newspaper reporter, sometimes nurse, sometimes great poet, sometimes an even greater drunk. And this is my man Farley, who keeps my room clean up at the Hotel Albert when I am out of town. Farley is eleven years old and passes as a fair philosopher. Am I right, Farley?

FARLEY

Yes, sir.

ELLEN

Well, if there’s a thought in that crowd out there it’s running between their legs, not dancing in their heads. That’s for sure. They’re chasing black people in the streets. They hanged a man on Baxter Street.

WHITMAN

Could I trouble you for a cup of tea?

ELLEN

(pours the tea)

Against my better judgment.

WHITMAN drinks from the cup and nods appreciatively.

WHITMAN

And if their lives have no meaning, they pray that maybe the color of their skins hold some vestige of a higher truth.

FARLEY

Did you see the way they was looking at me? And I don’t even know them, I don’t.

CLAIRE

They’re
the ones who should have been hanged.

ELLEN

My husband thinks they’ll get tired of this violence soon enough.

WHITMAN

It’ll be done when America at last defines itself, by what she sees in her collective mirrors and not by what she sees in her imagined world of snow white angels floating among the clouds of our lofty ideals. Until then, we’ll all be in the streets looking for where we belong.

ELLEN

And if that makes a bit of sense, I’m a three-eyed bullfrog!

There’s a pounding on the door and several shouts of rioters looking for drinks. The pounding continues for a long moment as the group inside is still, then stops as the rioters move on.

ELLEN

(cont’d)

What do you know about violence? I can’t see
you
as a soldier.

FARLEY

He was in Washington.

WHITMAN

And on the battlefields of Virginia. Treating the wounded of this terrible war. Holding the hands of better men than me and stronger boys as they waited to die. Keeping my sanity by not trying to make sense of it.

CLAIRE

None of this is right. Why should anybody hate me because I’m black?

FARLEY

You don’t look black to me.

ELLEN

I think the rowdies have passed. Perhaps you should go now.

WHITMAN

Farley, the lady wants us to leave because you are black and therefore a danger and I am a man with too many words for so small an establishment. So we will go, and try to keep our hind parts—yours black and mine not capable of a decent defense—off the winding streets of my beloved city.

FARLEY

(to CLAIRE)

How you know you black? You don’t look black to me.

CLAIRE

I look black to me, Mr. Farley. I know what I am and who I am and that’s all that matters.

WHITMAN

And there you have the whole fish, Farley. Head, gills, and tail. With that much wisdom, we can upstream a-breeding go.

CLAIRE

Fish? Is that supposed to make sense? I have no idea what that means, and I don’t want to know.

FARLEY

(as they head toward the door)

I don’t think he knows, either, ma’am.

WHITMAN laughs as he and FARLEY exit
.

ELLEN

(locking the front door of the Peacock)

Maybe your father is right. Maybe they’ll just grow tired of this running about and go home.

(hesitates)

I’m thinking maybe we should take turns looking out of the upstairs window in case anyone comes looking for trouble. We’d see them from a distance and be ready for them. What do you think? Though if only one or two came, we’d beat whatever brains they had in their heads till they weren’t more than a pot of mushy peas, wouldn’t we?

(comes closer to her daughter)

Is that a bit of a smile on your lips? Is it worth sharing?

CLAIRE

(in her best Irish brogue)

Ay, and it’s happy I am to have a mum such as yourself.

The two embrace briefly, and ELLEN pats CLAIRE on the shoulder.

ELLEN

Ay, and it’s happy I am to have a daughter sweet as you. I’ll take a peek through the curtains.

ELLEN exits
.

CLAIRE goes to the door and slides her fingers slowly along the black cast-iron bolt. She pushes the bolt open, then quickly closes it. We see a CLOSE-UP of her fingers nervously drumming against the heavy door.

CLAIRE

(voice-over)

Maybe it’s me who should be out there trying to find myself. Trying to discover who I am instead of hiding behind this door wondering who will find me and wondering what they will call me. I am afraid—not that they will hurt me but that they will discover who I am before I do. It would be better if they just hurt me, if they knocked me down in the street. Then I would just be me again, hurting and annoyed and even angry. But here, standing against this door, wondering what is happening on the other side…I am nobody.

We see her fingers again slide the lock open and shut.

When they tell me that they are chasing black people in the street, I don’t know what to feel. I am angry that anyone is being chased, but do I know what it means to be black? When that girl looked at me, it was with such contempt. A week ago she couldn’t have hurt me. Now just the thought of her coming back fills me with terror. It’s as if she has found who she is and can look right through me and know that I am lost.

Again she fingers the lock. The camera moves to the stairway.

ELLEN