The Sunset Limited Page #5

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or people of color in there.

To my recollection there was

only a bunch of n*ggers!

Go ahead.

Now at some point

I musta pulled

the knife out and...

and dropped on the floor

somewhere.

Meanwhile, I'm still wailing

on this n*gger's head,

but his friend has got

ahold of me from behind.

But I got one hand on the rail

so I ain't going nowhere.

But what I don't know

is that this dude

musta picked up the knife

and he's trying to gut me.

I felt the blood.

I turned around

and I bust him in the head.

And he went skittering off

across the floor.

And by now somebody

done pushed the button

and the alarm is going.

Everybody's down on the floor

and we in lockdown.

The guard up on the rail...

He got his shotgun

pointed at me

and he's hollering,

"You! Get on the floor

and drop the weapon!"

He's about to shoot me

when the lieutenant tells him,

"Hold your fire!

You! Throw down that club!"

I looked around,

and I was the only one

standing.

I see the n*gger's feet sticking

out from under the counter

where he'd done crawled.

So I throwed the thing down.

I don't remember

much after that.

They...

they told me

I had lost almost

half my blood.

I remember

slipping around in it,

but I thought it was

the other dude's.

Did the man die?

No, he didn't.

Everybody lived.

They thought he was dead,

but he wasn't.

He wasn't right after that,

so I ain't really had

no more trouble out of him.

He walked around with his

head kinda to the side,

lost one eye,

arm's hanging down,

didn't talk right.

They shipped him off

to another facility.

But that's not the whole story.

- No, it ain't.

- So what happened?

I woke up in the infirmary.

They had already done

operated on me.

My spleen was cut open,

liver, I don't know what all.

I come pretty close to dying.

I had 280 stitches

holding me together

and, whoo, I was hurting.

I didn't know you could

hurt that much.

And still they had me

in leg irons

and had me handcuffed to the

bed, if you can believe that.

Now as I lay there,

I heard this voice

just as clear,

couldn't have been no clearer.

And the voice said,

"If it was not

for the grace of God

you would not be here."

Man, I tried to sit up

and look around,

but I couldn't.

Wasn't no need to nohow,

'cause wasn't nobody there.

I mean, there was somebody

there all right,

but wasn't no need for me looking

around to see if I could see him.

You don't think this is

a strange kind of story?

Yeah, I do think

it's a strange kind of story.

No, what I mean is that you

didn't feel sorry for this man.

Oh, you getting ahead

of the story.

The story of how a fellow inmate

became a crippled one-eyed halfwit

so that you could find God.

- Whoa-ho.

- Well, isn't it?

- I don't know.

- You hadn't thought of it that way?

Oh yeah, hell,

I thought of it that way.

Well, isn't that

the true story?

Look, professor, I don't want to

get on the wrong side of you.

And you seem to have

a powerful wish

for that to be the story,

so I got to say that is

one way of looking at it.

I gotta concede that.

Gotta keep you interested.

- String me along.

- You all right with that?

And then put me in the...

What is it? The trick bag?

- Yeah.

- Right.

You got to remember

- this is a jailhouse story.

- All right.

- Which you specifically asked for.

- All right.

The point is, professor,

I ain't got the first

notion in the world

about what makes God tick.

I don't know why he spoke to me.

- I know I wouldn't have.

- But you listened.

- What choice would you have?

- I don't know.

Not listen.

You think he goes around

talking to people

he knows ain't gonna listen

to him in the first place?

You think he got

that kind of free time?

Why is it you people

can't just accept it

that some people don't even

want to believe in God?

- I can accept that.

- You can?

Sure I can.

Meaning I believe that to be a fact.

I mean I'm looking

at it every day,

so I'd better accept it.

Then why can't you

leave us alone?

Oh, to be hanging from

steampipes and all that?

If that's what

we want to do, yes.

Because he said not to.

It's in here.

- Don't you want to be happy?

- Happy?

What, you got something

against being happy?

- God help us.

- What, I done opened up a can of worms?

What you got against

being happy?

It's contrary

to the human condition.

Contrary to your condition.

I gotta agree with that.

Happy?

What, like there ain't

no such thing?

Not for nobody?

No.

How did we get ourselves

in such a fix as this?

We were born

in such a fix as this.

Suffering and human destiny

are the same thing.

Each is a description

of the other.

We ain't talking

about no suffering.

We're talking

about being happy.

- You can't be happy if you're in pain.

- Why not?

You're not making any sense.

Oh, them is some hard words

from the professor.

The preacher has fell back.

He's clutching his heart.

His eyes is rolled back

in his head.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute, folks.

The preacher's blinking.

He's coming back.

He's coming back.

The point is, professor,

that if you ain't got

no pain in your life,

how would you even know

when you was happy?

As compared to what?

You don't have anything to

drink around here, do you?

No, I don't.

Is you a drinking man?

- Are we about to get a temperance lecture?

- Not from me.

It's been a difficult day.

I take it you don't drink.

No, I don't.

I've done my share of it

in my time though.

Are you in A.A.?

No no, no A.A.

I just quit.

I've had a lot of friends

who was drinkers though...

Most of them for that matter.

Most of them dead too.

From drinking?

Well, from drinking or reasons

not too far from it.

I had a friend get run down not

too long ago by a taxicab.

Now where you think

he was headed drunk?

I don't know.

Where was he going?

To get more whisky.

He had plenty at the house,

but drunks are always scared

they're gonna run out.

Was he killed?

I hope so.

We buried him.

I suppose there's

a moral to this story.

Just a story about what you

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