Read The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form Online
Authors: Cormac McCarthy
The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form
CORMAC McCARTHY
Winner of the National Book Award
and the National Book Critics Circle Award
“McCarthy’s prose [is] the most laudable, his characters the most fully inhabited, his sense of place the most bloodworthy and thoroughly felt of any living writer’s.”
—
Esquire
“McCarthy has a voice that is unmistakably his…. Its elegiac rhythm captures the badlands of Texas and northern Mexico with a passion most writers either couldn’t muster or wouldn’t dare.”
—
The Boston Globe
“The deity that presides over Mr. McCarthy’s world has not modeled itself on humanity: its voice most resembles the one that addressed Job out of the whirlwind.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“McCarthy meditates on creation, stares at it. He does not look past appearances, he looks through them… The world is set before us with fever-dream clarity … and then, with simile and metaphor, he sweeps everything into profound animation… McCarthy is writing entirely against the grain of our times, against the haste and the distraction and the moral diffusion… As an old, more spacious world rises up, we experience a more vivid and consequential feeling about human destiny, about good and evil and matters of the spirit.”
—
The New Republic
“Like the novelists he admires—Melville, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner—CORMAC McCARTHY has created an imaginative oeuvre greater and deeper than any single book. Such writers wrestle with the gods themselves.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
This is a room in a tenement building in a black ghetto in New York City. There is a kitchen with a stove and a large refrigerator. A door to the outer hallway and another presumably to a bedroom. The hallway door is fitted with a bizarre collection of locks and bars. There is a cheap formica table in the room and two chrome and plastic chairs. There is a drawer in the table. On the table is a bible and a newspaper. A pair of glasses. A pad and pencil. A large black man is sitting in one chair (stage right) and in the other a middle-aged white man dressed in running pants and athletic shoes. He wears a T-shirt and the jacket—which matches the pants—hangs on the chair behind him.
| Black | | So what am I supposed to do with you, Professor? |
| White | | Why are you supposed to do anything? |
| Black | | I done told you. This aint none of my doin. I left out of here this mornin to go to work you wasnt no part of my plans at all. But here you is. |
| White | | It doesnt mean anything. Everything that happens doesnt mean something else. |
| Black | | Mm hm. It dont. |
| White | | No. It doesnt. |
| Black | | What’s it mean then? |
| White | | It doesnt mean anything. You run into people and maybe some of them are in trouble or whatever but it doesnt mean that you’re responsible for them. |
| Black | | Mm hm. |
| White | | Anyway, people who are always looking out for perfect strangers are very often people who wont look out for the ones they’re supposed to look out for. In my opinion. If you’re just doing what you’re supposed to then you dont get to be a hero. |
| Black | | And that would be me. |
| White | | I dont know. Would it? |
| Black | | Well, I can see how they might be some truth in that. But in this particular case I might say I sure didnt know what sort of person I was supposed to be on the lookout for or what I was supposed to do when I found him. In this particular case they wasnt but one thing to go by. |
| White | | And that was? |
| Black | | That was that there he is standin there. And I can look at him and I can say: Well, he dont look like my brother. But there he is. Maybe I better look again. |
| White | | And that’s what you did. |
| Black | | Well, you was kindly hard to ignore. I got to say that your approach was pretty direct. |
| White | | I didnt approach you. I didnt even see you. |
| Black | | Mm hm. |
| White | | I should go. I’m beginning to get on your nerves. |
| Black | | No you aint. Dont pay no attention to me. You seem like a sweet man, Professor. I reckon what I dont understand is how come you to get yourself in such a fix. |
| White | | Yeah. |
| Black | | Are you okay? Did you sleep last night? |
| White | | No. |
| Black | | When did you decide that today was the day? Was they somethin special about it? |
| White | | No. Well. Today is my birthday. But I certainly dont regard that as special. |
| Black | | Well happy birthday, Professor. |
| White | | Thank you. |
| Black | | So you seen your birthday was comin up and that seemed like the right day. |
| White | | Who knows? Maybe birthdays are dangerous. Like Christmas. Ornaments hanging from the trees, wreaths from the doors, and bodies from the steampipes all over America. |
| Black | | Mm. Dont say much for Christmas, does it? |
| White | | Christmas is not what it used to be. |
| Black | | I believe that to be a true statement. I surely do. |
| White | | I’ve got to go. |
| He gets up and takes his jacket off the back of the chair and lifts it over his shoulders and then puts his arms in the sleeves rather than putting his arms in first one at a time. |
| Black | | You always put your coat on like that? |
| White | | What’s wrong with the way I put my coat on? |
| Black | | I didnt say they was nothin wrong with it. I just wondered if that was your regular method. |
| White | | I dont have a regular method. I just put it on. |
| Black | | Mm hm. |
| White | | It’s what, effeminate? |
| Black | | Mm. |
| White | | What? |
| Black | | Nothin. I’m just settin here studyin the ways of professors. |
| White | | Yeah. Well, I’ve got to go. |
| The black gets up. |
| Black | | Well. Let me get my coat. |
| White | | Your coat? |
| Black | | Yeah. |
| White | | Where are you going? |
| Black | | Goin with you. |
| White | | What do you mean? Going with me where? |
| Black | | Goin with you wherever you goin. |
| White | | No you’re not. |
| Black | | Yeah I am. |
| White | | I’m going home. |
| Black | | All right. |
| White | | All right? You’re not going home with me. |
| Black | | Sure I am. Let me get my coat. |
| White | | You cant go home with me. |
| Black | | Why not? |
| White | | You cant. |
| Black | | What. You can go home with me but I cant go home with you? |
| White | | No. I mean no, that’s not it. I just need to go home. |
| Black | | You live in a apartment? |
| White | | Yes. |
| Black | | What. They dont let black folks in there? |
| White | | No. I mean of course they do. Look. No more jokes. I’ve got to go. I’m very tired. |
| Black | | Well I just hope we dont run into no hassle about you gettin me in there. |
| White | | You’re serious. |
| Black | | Oh I think you know I’m serious. |
| White | | You cant be serious. |
| Black | | I’m as serious as a heart attack. |
| White | | Why are you doing this? |
| Black | | Me? I aint got no choice in the matter. |
| White | | Of course you have a choice. |
| Black | | No I aint. |
| White | | Who appointed you my guardian angel? |
| Black | | Let me get my coat. |
| White | | Answer the question. |
| Black | | You know who appointed me. I didnt ask for you to leap into my arms down in the subway this mornin. |
| White | | I didnt leap into your arms. |
| Black | | You didnt? |
| White | | No. I didnt. |
| Black | | Well how did you get there then? |
| The professor stands with his head lowered. He looks at the chair and then turns and goes and sits down in it. |
| Black | | What. Now we aint goin? |
| White | | Do you really think that Jesus is in this room? |
| Black | | No. I dont think he’s in this room. |
| White | | You dont? |
| Black | | I know he’s in this room. |
| The professor folds his hands at the table and lowers his head. The black pulls out the other chair and sits again. |
| Black | | Its the way you put it, Professor. Be like me askin you do you think you got your coat on. You see what I’m sayin? |
| White | | It’s not the same thing. It’s a matter of agreement. If you and I say that I have my coat on and Cecil says that I’m naked and I have green skin and a tail then we might want to think about where we should put Cecil so that he wont hurt himself. |
| Black | | Who’s Cecil? |
| White | | He’s not anybody. He’s just a hypothetical… There’s not any Cecil. He’s just a person I made up to illustrate a point. |
| Black | | Made up. |
| White | | Yes. |
| Black | | Mm. |
| White | | We’re not going to get into this again are we? It’s not the same thing. The fact that I made Cecil up. |
| Black | | But you did make him up. |
| White | | Yes. |
| Black | | And his view of things dont count. |
| White | | No. That’s why I made him up. I could have changed it around. I could have made you the one that didnt think I was wearing a coat. |
| Black | | And was green and all that shit you said. |
| White | | Yes. |
| Black | | But you didnt. |
| White | | No. |
| Black | | You loaded it off on Cecil. |
| White | | Yes. |
| Black | | But Cecil cant defend hisself cause the fact that he aint in agreement with everbody else makes his word no good. I mean aside from the fact that you made him up and he’s green and everthing. |
| White | | He’s not the one who’s green. I am. Where is this going? |
| Black | | I’m just tryin to find out about Cecil. |
| White | | I dont think so. Can you see Jesus? |
| Black | | No. I cant see him. |
| White | | But you talk to him. |
| Black | | I dont miss a day. |
| White | | And he talks to you. |
| Black | | He has talked to me. Yes. |
| White | | Do you hear him? Like out loud? |
| Black | | Not out loud. I dont hear a voice. I dont hear my own, for that matter. But I have heard him. |
| White | | Well why couldnt Jesus just be in your head? |
| Black | | He is in my head. |
| White | | Well I don’t understand what it is that you’re trying to tell me. |
| Black | | I know you dont, honey. Look. The first thing you got to understand is that I aint got a original thought in my head. If it aint got the lingerin scent of divinity to it then I aint interested. |
| White | | The lingering scent of divinity. |
| Black | | Yeah. You like that? |
| White | | It’s not bad. |
| Black | | I heard it on the radio. Black preacher. But the point is I done tried it the other way. And I dont mean chippied, neither. Runnin blindfold through the woods with the bit tween your teeth. Oh man. Didnt I try it though. If you can find a soul that give it a better shot than me I’d like to meet him. I surely would. And what do you reckon it got me? |
| White | | I dont know. What did it get you? |
| Black | | Death in life. That’s what it got me. |
| White | | Death in life. |
| Black | | Yeah. Walkin around death. Too dead to even know enough to lay down. |
| White | | I see. |
| Black | | I dont think so. But let me ask you this question. |
| White | | All right. |
| Black | | Have you ever read this book? |
| White | | I’ve read parts of it. I’ve read in it. |
| Black | | Have you ever read it? |
| White | | I read The Book of Job. |
| Black | | Have. You. Ever. Read. It. |
| White | | No. |
| Black | | But you is read a lot of books. |
| White | | Yes. |
| Black | | How many would you say you read? |
| White | | I’ve no idea. |
| Black | | Ball park. |
| White | | I dont know. Two a week maybe. A hundred a year. For close to forty years. |
| The black takes up his pencil and licks it and falls to squinting at his pad, adding numbers laboriously, his tongue in the corner of his mouth, one hand on his head. |