Les Blancs (30 page)
Authors: Lorraine Hansberry
(
He heads for the door
)
RISSA
Where you going?
HANNIBAL
With all my heart I wish I could tell you, Mama. I wish to God I could believe you that much on my side!
He steps quickly into the night and the camera comes down on
RISSA
’s
deeply troubled face
.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXTERIOR. THE FIELDS—MORNING
.
Close-up of a pistol in a holster slung about a mounted man’s hips. We move back to see that it is
ZEB
astride his horse in the fields, surrounded by the drivers. A work song surrounds the dialogue
.
ZEB
(
Shouting a little because he is out of doors and topping the singing
) … the hands are to be in the fields an hour and a half
before regular time and we’re cuttin’ the noon break in half and we’ll hold ’em an hour and a half longer than the usual night quittin’ time.
The drivers look at each other with consternation
.
What’s the matter?
DRIVER
Jes that these here people ain’t used to them kinda hours, suh. Thas a powaful long set. ’Specially when you figger to cut the midday break like that, suh. The sun bad at midday, suh. They kin get to grumblin’ pretty bad, suh, and makin’ all kinds of trouble breakin’ the tools and all.
ZEB
You gonna be surprised to find out how fast these people kin learn to change their ways. And any hand who don’t learn fast enough will learn it fast enough when I get through with ’em.
COFFIN
Yessuh! They sho’ will, suh! They got inta some bad habits, though, on accounta the way this here place been run. We got some hands, suh, that jes takes advantage of po’ Marster Sweet. Breakin’ his tools and runnin’ off all the time—
ZEB
(
With incredulity
) Running off—? Who runs off?
COFFIN
Oh, Lord, suh! You don’t know the carryin’ ons what goes on ’round this here place. Some of these here folks done got so uppity they think Marster Sweet should be out there hoein’ for them, that’s what. (
Pointing out
HANNIBAL
in a nearby row
) There’s one there, suh. Lord, that one! You’ll see what I mean soon, suh. Once a week he jes pick hisself up and run off somewhere, big as he please. I done told Marster and told him and it don’t do a bit of good.
ZEB
Ain’t he been flogged?
COFFIN
Hmmmph. Floggin’ such as Marster ’low don’t mount to much. That one there, shucks, he jes take his floggin’ and go on off next time like befo’. He’s a bad one, suh.
ZEB
(
Looking to
HANNIBAL
and calling to him
) Come here, boy.
HANNIBAL
(
Straightening up and looking around as if he is not certain who is being summoned
) Who?
ZEB
WHO?—YOU, that’s who! Get yourself over here!
HANNIBAL
puts down his bag with a simmering sullenness and comes to the overseer
.
What’s the matter with your cap there?
HANNIBAL
draws off his cap, keeping his eyes cast down to the ground. The other slaves sense trouble and slow down to watch
.
ZEB
notices them
.
Who called a holiday around here? Get to work!
They stir with exaggerated activity for a few minutes and gradually slow down, more interested in the incident
.
Raise your eyes up there, boy!
HANNIBAL
raises his eyes and looks in the other man’s eyes
.
What’s his name?
COFFIN
This be Rissa’s boy, Hannibal. He got a brother who’s a runaway.
HANNIBAL
looks at
COFFIN
with overt hostility
.
ZEB
(
Getting down from his horse, with his whip
) Well, now, is that so? Well, what you doin’ still hangin’ ’round here? Ain’t your brother never come back and bought you and your mama and carried you off to Paradise yet?
One or two of the drivers giggle
.
Maybe you jus’ plannin’ to go on off and join him some day?
He reaches up and with the butt end of his whip turns
HANNIBAL
’s
face from side to side to inspect his eyes
.
You carry trouble in your eyes like a flag, boy.
He brings the whip up with power and lands it across
HANNIBAL
’s
face. An involuntary murmur rises from the watching slaves. To them all
.
That’s right, for
nothin’!
HANNIBAL
is doubled up before him, holding his face
.
I hope y’all understand it plain! From now on this here is a plantation where we plant and pick cotton! There ain’t goin’ to be no more foolin’, no more sassin’ and no more tool breakin’! This is what kin happen to you when you misbehave. Now, everybody get to work! And let’s have a song there!—make noise, I say!
Singing comes up. He turns to the drivers
.
Keep ’em at a good pace till the break, and for God’s sake keep ’em singin’! Keeps down the grumblin’! (
Noticing
HANNIBAL
still clutching at his face
) And that’s enough of your playactin’ there, boy. Get on back to your work in the rows.
HANNIBAL
obeys and goes to his row. We come down for a medium-close shot of
ZEB
remounted, one hand poised on his hip, surveying the fields before him, gun at his hip, whip still in his fingers, watching the land that is not his
.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXTERIOR. THE VERANDA
.
EVERETT
is lounging in a porch chair, sipping a drink
.
ZEB
stands before him with his field hat in his hand
.
EVERETT
All the same, it would have been better to have picked another boy. His mother is one of my father’s favorite house slaves, and they have a way of getting him to know about everything that goes on in the fields.
ZEB
(
Hotly
) I reckon there’s some things have to be left up to me if you want this here plantation run proper, Mister Sweet.
EVERETT
(
Slowly turning his eyes on the man and moving them up the length of his body in inspection which overtly announces his disgust at the sight of him
) And, as you say, “I reckon” you had better reckon on knowing who is master here and who is merely overseer. Let us be very clear. You are only an instrument. Neither more nor less than that. This is my plantation. I alone am responsible, for I alone am master. Is that clear?
ZEB
(
Looking back at his employer with hatred in kind
) Yes, sir, I reckon that’s pretty clear.
They are interrupted by
COFFIN
coming onto the veranda at a run
.
COFFIN
’Scuse me, suhs, ’scuse me, but I got somethin’ most pressin’ to tell you, Marster.
ZEB
N
OW
what?
COFFIN
He’s gone agin, suh. He’s out in the fields like I told you he do all the time!
ZEB
HANNIBAL!
COFFIN
Yessuh! Even with what you showed him an’ all the other day, he done run off from the fields again t’day. But I fix him t’day, suh! Old Coffin knowed it was time for him to pull something like this again. I followed him, suh, yessuh. Coffin know whar he be—
ZEB
Well, don’t stand there like a dumb ape. Fetch him and put him in the shed and strip him and—(
Looking with triumph at his employer
)—I’ll attend to him there. (
To
EVERETT
,
bitterly again
) That is, with your permission,
sir
.
COFFIN
(
Truly agitated
) You don’t understand. He’s with young Marster, suh!
EVERETT
(
Sitting up with interest for the first time
) He is with
whom?
COFFIN
Young Marster Tom, suh!
EVERETT
(
With incredulity
) My brother?
COFFIN
Yessuh!
ZEB
Let’s go!
EVERETT
(
Rising abruptly
) I’m coming with you.
CUT TO:
HANNIBAL
’s
clearing in the woods as per opening frame before titles. Simultaneously with a close-up shot of his head framed with a banjo neck are introduced stark, spirited banjo rhythms. Now the camera moves back to show the books and papers lying about where
HANNIBAL
and
TOMMY
sit. He finishes playing with a flourish and hands the instrument to the child, who puts it awkwardly in his lap and carefully begins to finger it in the quite uncertain manner of one who is learning to play. He plucks a few chords as his teacher frowns
.
HANNIBAL
A
W
, come on now, Marse Tommy, get yourself a little air under this finger here. You see, if the fat of your finger touch the string, then the sound come out all flat like this.
He makes an unpleasant sound on the instrument to demonstrate and to make the boy laugh, which he does
.
Okay, now try again.
TOMMY
tries again and the slave nods at the minor improvement
.
That’s better. (
Comically cheating
) That’s all now, time for
my
lessons.
TOMMY
Play me another tune first, please, Hannibal?
HANNIBAL
(
Boy to boy
) Aw, now, that ain’t fair, Marse Tom. Our ’rangement allus been strictly one lesson for one lesson. Ain’t that right?
The child nods grudgingly
.
And ain’t a genamum supposed to keep his ’rangement? No matter how bad he wants to do something else?
TOMMY
Oh, all right. (
Holding out his hand
) Did you do the composition like I told you?
HANNIBAL
(
With great animation, reaching into his shirt and bringing up a grimy piece of paper
) Here. I wrote me a story like you said, suh!
TOMMY
(
Unfolding it and reading with enormous difficulty the very crude printing
) “The—Drinking—Gourd.”
(
He looks at his pupil indifferently
)
HANNIBAL
(
A very proud man
) Yessuh. Go on—read out loud, please.
TOMMY
Why? Don’t you know what it says?
HANNIBAL
Yessuh. But I think it make me feel good inside to hear somebody else read it. T’know somebody else kin actually make sense outside of something I wrote and that I made up out my own head.
TOMMY
(
Sighing
) All right—“The Drinking Gourd. When I was a boy I first come to notice”—All you have to say is
came
, Hannibal—“the Drinking Gourd. I thought”—There is a
u
and a
g
in
thought
—“it was the most beautiful thing in the heavens. I do not know why, but when a man lie on his back and see the stars, there is something that can happen to a man inside that be”—
Is
, Hannibal—“bigger than whatever a man is.” (
TOMMY
frowns for the sense of the last
) “Something that makes every man feel like King Jesus on his milk-white horse racing through the world telling him to stand up in the glory which is called—freedom.
HANNIBAL
sits enraptured, listening to his words
.
“That is what happens to me when I lie on my back and look up at the Drinking Gourd.” Well—
that’s
not a story, Hannibal …
HANNIBAL
(
Genuinely, but less raptured because of the remark
) Nosuh?
TOMMY
No, something has to
happen
in a story. There has to be a beginning and an end—
He stops midsentence seeing the legs of three male figures suddenly standing behind
HANNIBAL. HANNIBAL
looks into his eyes and leaps to his feet in immediate terror
.
EVERETT
(
In an almost inexpressible rage
) Get back to the house, Tommy.
TOMMY
(
Reaching for the banjo
) Everett, you wanna hear how I can play already? I was going to surprise you! Hannibal said we should keep it a secret so I could surprise you!
EVERETT
Get home, at once!
The child looks quizzically at all the adults and gathers up his books and goes off
.
HANNIBAL
backs off almost involuntarily from the men
.
EVERETT
turns to
HANNIBAL
.
So you told him it would be your little secret.
HANNIBAL
I was jes teachin’ him some songs he been after me to learn him, suh! (
Desperately
) He beg me so.
EVERETT
(
Holding the composition
) Did you write this—?
HANNIBAL
What’s that, suh?
EVERETT
(
Hauling off and slapping him with all his strength
.
ZEB
smiles a little to himself watching
) THIS! … Don’t stand there and try to deceive me, you monkey-faced idiot! Did you write this?
HANNIBAL
Nosuh, I don’t know how to write! I swear to you I don’t know how to write! Marse Tommy wrote it …
EVERETT
Tommy could print better than this when he was seven! You’ve had him teach you, haven’t you …
HANNIBAL
Jes a few letters, suh. I figger I could be of more use to Marster if I could maybe read my letters and write, suh.
EVERETT
(
Truly outraged
) You have used your master’s own son to commit a crime against your master. How long has this been
going on? Who else have you taught, boy? Even my father wouldn’t like this, Hannibal.