Beloved Page #32

WHITE MAN:

You don't know her? Judy? Works in the

slaughterhouse.

STAMP PAID:

No sir, I don't, but I know Plank Road.

'Bout a mile up thataway.

Paul drinks from the bottle. The White Man addresses him.

WHITE MAN:

Look here..There's a cross up there, so I

guess this here's a church or used to be.

Seems to me like you ought to show it

some respect, you follow me?

STAMP PAID:

Yes sir..You right about that. That's

just what I come over to talk to him

about. Just that..

Paul offers no response. The White Man clicks his tongue and

drives off. Stamp breathes a sigh of relief.

PAUL:

You remember your price, Stamp?

STAMP PAID:

Never found out.

PAUL:

I did. Down to the cent.$900. Always

wondered though what Mrs. Garner got for

my brother Paul F. Must of been more than

nine hundred dollars cause she use that

money for Sweet Home for almost two

years. But then they hung my other

brother Paul A. up on a tree so I guess

he wasn't worth the same..I wonder what

was Baby Suggs worth? And Halle? I wasn't

surprised when I found out they tracked

down Sethe all the way to Cincinatti. Her

price must have been higher than all of

us - her being property that reproduced

itself without cost. A breeder.

STAMP PAID:

No use thinking these things now.

PAUL:

Oh but we got to. How we gonna know our

price in the future? How are children's

children's children gonna know what they

cost? Who's gonna tell them? What are

they gonna pay for us, if we free?

STAMP PAID:

Children ain't gonna need to know that

kind of thing.

PAUL:

They'll know. They'll know as soon as

they born. Cause it's inside us,Stamp.

It'll be inside them. We'll pass it down.

Schoolteacher didn't just change the

outside, he changed the mind..and the

blood..and what it carries...and what

it's worth..

STAMP PAID:

I don't believe that. I won't.

PAUL:

There was a rooster named Mister down at

Sweet Home. Last time I saw Halle, with

that butter all over his face and me with

an iron bit in my mouth, I saw Mister -

sitting on a tub. He loved that tub. Like

king on a throne. He was a hateful thing.

Bloody and evil..But he was better than

me. Mister was allowed to be and stay

what he was. Even if you cooked him you'd

be cooking a rooster named Mister. But

wasn't no way I'd ever be Paul D.

again..Schoolteacher changed me. Was

never no beating under Mr. Garner.

Schoolteacher changed that. Why wouldn't

a man run from that? Why wouldn't a man

not work, kill, starve, pull out his own

heart to stop feeling 'stead of feeling

that? And it strikes me, it's got to be

cause we were something else. And that

something was less than a chicken sitting

in the sun on a tub.

He drinks.

STAMP PAID:

I said I had two things to say to you. I

only told you one. I have to tell you the

other.

PAUL:

I don't want to know.

STAMP PAID:

I was there Paul D...There in the yard.

When she did it.

PAUL:

What yard? When who-

And then Paul realizes he's talking of Sethe.

PAUL:

Jesus.

STAMP PAID:

It ain't what you think.

PAUL:

You don't know what I think.

STAMP PAID:

She ain't crazy. She love those children.

She was trying to outhurt the hurter's

all.

PAUL:

Leave off..

STAMP PAID:

She was only-

PAUL:

Stamp, leave off I said! I knew her when

she was a girl. She scares me and I knew

her when she was a girl...

STAMP PAID:

You ain't scared of Sethe. I don't

believe you.

PAUL:

She scares me. I scare me. And that girl

in her house scares me.

STAMP PAID:

Who is she? Where she come from?

PAUL:

Don't know. Just shot up one day from a

stump.

STAMP PAID:

She what run you off? Not what I told you

'bout Sethe?

Paul thinks a moment. Then, tears brimming in his eyes:

PAUL:

Tell me something, Stamp. Tell me this

one thing. How much is a n*gger supposed

to take?

STAMP PAID:

All he can. All he can.

PAUL:

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

FADE OUT;

FADE IN;

SPRING.

EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - MORNING.

The sun shines on a warm April day..a day abundant with

growth and renewed hope.

But a shadow appears to be hovering over 124. It looks more

worn than before...neglected, abused.

A broken window...the front door off it's hinge...a front

step splintered and dangerous.

INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - MORNING.

Camera opens on the front hall and moves through the house,

revealing the same neglect inside;

Broken furniture, dusty floors, mess and disorder...

Camera enters;

INT. KITCHEN - MORNING.

Dirty pans, crusted food on the table, window curtains

hanging askew...

Sethe sits hunched over, asleep, in a chair against the wall.

She wears a dirty, torn dress that hangs on her body - which

seems withered, frailer since we last saw her...In her lap

lies a clean pretty dress she was in the process of sewing

when she fell asleep from fatigue.

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