The Sunset Limited

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.

White: Forty times a hundred is four thousand.