Beloved Page #19

Beloved then turns to Paul, offering him the bowl.

BELOVED:

You have brothers or sisters?

Caught off guard, Paul looks to Sethe - whose expression asks

him to be nice.

PAUL:

We don't talk about that.

Beat.

BELOVED:

Sethe told us you been walking for

eighteen years. Where you been all that

time?

Paul is about to get mad when he looks to Sethe again, reels

it back in and answers curtly, but politely;

PAUL:

Lots of places. I don't remember them

all. Don't remember much about anything.

BELOVED:

You be surprised what you start

remembering once you start talking.

Hearing his own words echoed back to him, annoys him.

PAUL:

Well not me. What's gone is gone. No good

come from bringing it back.

Pause. Paul focuses on his dinner, suddenly ill at ease. He

can't help looking, covertly, at Beloved and finds Beloved

staring right back at him...It makes him shiver.

INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.

Sethe is asleep.

Paul is restless - tossing and turning as we Intercut;

Dream Images flashing across his mind...

- RAIN POURING DOWN A TRENCH. A MUDDY POOL FORMING AROUND A

BLACK MAN'S FEET.

- IRON CHAINS FED INTO METAL ANKLE CUFFS.

- PAUL D. ON HIS KNEES BEFORE A WHITE GUARD crotch.

WHITE GUARD (OS)

YOU HUNGRY N*GGER?

Paul awakens.

INT. KITCHEN - DAWN.

Sethe enters to find Paul asleep in the rocker by the stove.

She stirs him.

SETHE:

Paul?..Paul?

PAUL:

(waking up)

Mmmm. What?...

SETHE:

I called you two or three times but I

gave up round midnight. I thought maybe

you went out somewhere.

PAUL:

Damn. I'm sorry honey...

SETHE:

I'll make some breakfast - you get

yourself washed up.

Sethe begins to make breakfast as Beloved enters the kitchen

and sees Paul has slept in the rocker. She looks at him with

a smile, as if she knows more than she's letting on. Paul

registers the look.

INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.

Paul is asleep in the rocker...He is restless...HE DREAMS:

EXT. A ROAD IN VIRGINIA - DAY.

Paul is chained by the ankles to forty-five other men. He

hands are shackled. In his mouth, an iron bit...

The men are being led by WHITE GUARDS with rifles.

Camera follows them under a burning sun as they approach;

A TRENCH. One thousand feet long. Five feet deep. Five feet

wide.

Camera tilts down to reveal, within the trench;

WOODEN BOXES, with scrap limber roofs and a door of bars

fitted on them like a cage that opens up to a wall of red

dirt stretching two feet above the top of the bars themselves.

INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.

Paul awakens...his face and body drenched in sweat.

EXT. FIELD BETWEEN 124 AND THE STOREROOM - NIGHT.

Paul D. walks across the field with a thin blanket over his

nightclothes - walking toward the storeroom.

In the window of her bedroom, Sethe watches him - sensing he

is moving further and further away from her.

In the window of Denver's room, Beloved watches Paul as well -

with a pleased expression.

CUT TO:

PAUL'S MEMORIES;

EXT. A FIELD IN GEORGIA - DAY.

A RIFLE SHOT. A WHITE GUARD SHOUTS;

WHITE GUARD:

Hiiiiiii!

EXT. TRENCH - DAY.

Three white Men walk along the trench unlocking the cage

doors one by one...

One by one, the Black men emerge and stand in a line in the

trench.

When all are assembled, A SECOND RIFLE SHOT signals them to

climb out of the trench to the ground above.

Waiting for them above the trench, is one thousand feet of

chain. Each Black Man bends over and waits as the First Man

on line threads the chain through his leg iron, passing it to

the second and so on...

As they connect each other to the chain, Camera Pans down the

line of men and while not a word is spoken, WE HEAR THEIR

THOUGHTS...thoughts to themselves, or, if possible, through

their eyes to the man beside them:

BLACK MAN ONE:

(VO)

I'm a make it..

BLACK MAN TWO:

(VO)

New man. New man...

BLACK MAN THREE:

(VO)

Steady now, steady.

BLACK MAN FOUR:

(VO)

Help me... this mornin's bad.

DISSOLVE TO:

THE BLACK MEN ARE CHAINED AND KNEELING IN A STRAIGHT LINE.

The White Guards walk passed them. one White Guard stops in

front of the man beside Paul D. He turns to him.

WHITE GUARD:

Breakfast? Want some breakfast n*gger?

BLACK MAN ONE:

Yes sir.

WHITE GUARD:

Hungry n*gger?

BLACK MAN ONE:

Yes sir.

WHITE GUARD:

Here you go.

The White Guard unzips his fly and undoes his pants and moves

a step closer to the Black Man's mouth.

Paul D. looks ahead, trembling...He vomits...The Guard steps

away as another Guard steps in and hits Paul on the shoulder

with a rifle..

EXT. FIELD - DAY.

The Black Men work...sledge hammers in hand...

As they work, miraculously, THEY SING.."They sing about the

women they knew, the children they had been...they sing of

bosses and masters and misses...of mules and dogs and the

shamelessness of life...They sing of sisters long gone. They

sing love songs to Death."

INT. TRENCH - NIGHT.

A torrential downpour. The men in the wooden cages watch the

rain filling the trench, corroding the red dirt wall around

them.

Bugs and human debris swirl around their legs and feet. Mud

covering them through the cracks of the scrap lumber roof.

Some finds rest. other's minds are long gone.

Camera finds Paul...HE IS SCREAMING. But there is no sound

coming from his mouth. Tears flow down his face, but when he

touches them, he realizes;

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