The Sunset Limited Page #6

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get and what you want.

Pain... happiness.

Let me tell you another one.

One Sunday

we's all sitting around the house

drinking... a Sunday morning.

Well, here come this friend of ours

with this girl Evelyn.

Now Evelyn was drunk

when she got there,

but we told her,

"Go on and get yourself

a drink."

Well, directly, my buddy Reg...

He goes in the kitchen

to fix hisself a drink.

Only now the bottle is gone.

Now Reg has been around a few

drinking people in his time

and commences to hunt

for the bottle.

He looks in the cabinet,

looks behind everything,

but he can't find it.

Of course he knows

what's happened to it.

So he comes back in the

living room, sits down,

looks at Evelyn sitting there

on the sofa drunk as a goat.

And he says, "Evelyn,

where you put the whisky?"

Evelyn says...

He says, "Evelyn,

where did you hide

the whisky?"

And she...

Well, Reg is sitting there and this is

beginning to piss him off a little,

so he gets in her face

and he says,

And she says,

"I hid it in the toilet."

That's pretty funny.

Oh, I thought you'd like that.

And is that where

the whisky was?

Oh, yeah yeah.

That's a favorite place

for drunks to hide a bottle.

But the point is

that the drunk's concern

ain't that he's going to die from drinking...

which he is...

but that he's going to

run out of whisky

before he get

a chance to do it.

Is you hungry?

'Cause I can come back to this.

I ain't gonna lose my place.

No, I'm all right.

Go ahead.

If you was to hand

a drunk a drink

and tell him he don't want it,

what do you think he'd say?

I think I know

what he would say.

Sure you do.

And you would be right.

- About him not really wanting it?

- Yes.

Because what he wants he can't

get, or thinks he can't get,

so what he really don't want

he can't get enough of.

So what is it he really wants?

Well, you know

what he really wants.

- No, I don't.

- Yes, you do.

No, I don't.

You don't know what he wants?

No, I do not.

He wants what everybody wants.

And that is?

He wants to be loved by God.

I don't want

to be loved by God.

See, I love that.

I love the way you cut right to it.

See, he don't either,

according to him.

All he wants

is a drink of whisky.

Now you're a smart man,

professor.

Now tell me which one makes

sense and which one don't.

I don't want a drink

of whisky either.

I thought you just got

done asking for one.

I mean as a general

proposition.

We ain't talking about no general proposition.

We're talking about a drink.

- I don't have a drinking problem.

- You got some kind of problem.

Well, whatever kind of problem

I have, it is not something

that I imagine can be addressed

with a drink of liquor.

Mm! I love the way

you put that.

Well, what can it be

addressed with?

I think you know what

it can be addressed with.

The Sunset Limited.

Yes.

That's what you really want.

That is what I want, yes.

Well, that's a mighty big

drink of whisky, professor.

- That I don't really want?

- That you don't really want, yes.

- Well, I think I do want it.

- Of course you do, honey.

If you didn't, we

wouldn't be sitting here.

I disagree with you.

All right, but that's

the hand I'm playing.

I don't think you understand

that people such as myself

look upon this yearning for God as

something lacking in these people.

Sure I do.

I couldn't agree more.

You agree with that?

Yes.

What's lacking is God.

I am sorry, but to me this whole

idea of God is just a load of crap.

Oh lord have mercy!

Jesus help us.

The professor's done gone

and blasphemed all over us.

We ain't never

gonna be saved now.

You don't find that

an evil thing to say?

No, professor, I don't.

But you does.

No, I don't.

It's simply a fact.

No, it ain't simply no fact.

Now that's the biggest

fact about you.

In fact, it might just

be the only fact.

But you don't seem

to think it's so bad.

No, 'cause I know it

to be curable.

Now if you're asking me

what the man up there

thinks about it,

well, I imagine

he done heard it so much

that it don't bother him

all that much.

I mean,

what if somebody told you

you didn't exist

and you was sitting right there

listening to him say it?

That wouldn't piss you off,

would it?

No, you'd just

feel sorry for them.

Right, and you might even try

to get some help for them.

Now in my case

he had to holler out loud,

me laying on a slab

in two pieces,

sewed back together

where some n*gger done tried

to core me like an apple.

But God being God,

he can speak to your heart

at any time.

And furthermore,

if he spoke to me...

which he did...

he can speak to anybody.

"Wonder what this

crazy n*gger's

fixing to do now.

He's liable to put

the mojo on me.

He'll be speaking in tongues

here directly.

I need to get my ass

out of here.

He's liable to steal

my pocketbook.

I need to get my ass

on down to that depot

'fore something bad

happens to me."

Hey!

What are we gonna do

with you, professor?

Look, I know I owe you

a great deal,

at least in the eyes

of the world.

Couldn't I just give you something

and we could call it square?

I'll give you some money,

something like that.

I can give you $1000.

Well, that's not

very much, I guess.

I can give you $3000, say.

You ain't got no notion of the

trouble you're in, do you?

- I don't know what you mean.

- I know you don't.

I'd just like to

settle this in some way.

Ain't me you got

to settle with.

Do you really think

I was sent to you by God?

No, it's worse than that.

How do you mean?

Belief ain't like unbelief.

If you're a believer

and you finally got to come

to the well of belief itself,

then you ain't got to look no further.

There ain't no further.

But the unbeliever's

got a problem.

He's set out

to unravel the world.

For everything he can

point to that ain't true,

he leaves two things

laying there.

Do you really believe everything

that's in there... the Bible?

The literal truth?

Yes.

Probably not,

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