The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form

BOOK: The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form
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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.

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