The Sunset Limited

He takes his pad and his pencil and begins to write laboriously, his tongue in the corner of his mouth, grimacing. This for the professor’s benefit. He looks sideways at him and smiles. He tears off the page and folds it and puts it in his shirtpocket.

Black: All right. Go ahead.

White: I think that’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.

The black takes the folded paper from his pocket and hands it across. The professor opens it and reads it aloud.

White: I think that’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Very clever. What’s the point?

Black: The point dont change. The point is always the same point. It’s what I said before and what I keep lookin for ways to say it again. The light is all around you, cept you dont see nothin but shadow. And the shadow is you. You the one makin it.

White: Well, I dont have your faith. Why dont we just leave it at that.

Black: You dont never think about maybe just startin over?

White: I did. At one time. I dont any more.

Black: Sometimes faith might just be a case of not havin nothin else left.

White: Well, I do have something else.

Black: Maybe you could just keep that in reserve. Maybe just take a shot at startin over. I dont mean start again. Everbody’s done that. Over means over. It means you just walk away. I mean, if everthing you are and everthing you have and everthing you have done has brought you at last to the bottom of a whiskey bottle or bought you a one way ticket on the Sunset Limited then you cant give me the first reason on God’s earth for salvagin none of it. Cause they aint no reason. And I’m goin to tell you that if you can bring yourself to shut the door on all of that it will be cold and it will be lonely and they’ll be a mean wind blowin. And them is all good signs. You dont say nothin. You just turn up your collar and keep walkin.

White: I cant.

Black: Yeah.

White: I cant.

Black: You want some more coffee?

White: No. Thank you.

Black: Why do you think folks takes their own lives?

White: I dont know. Different reasons.

Black: Yeah. But is there somethin them different reasons has got in common?

White: I cant speak for others. My own reasons center around a gradual loss of make-believe. That’s all. A gradual enlightenment as to the nature of reality. Of the world.

Black: Them worldly reasons.

White: If you like.

Black: Them elegant reasons.

White: That was your description.

Black: You didnt disagree with it.

The professor shrugs.

Black: It’s them reasons that your brother dont know nothin about hangin by his necktie from the steampipe down in the basement. He got his own dumb-ass reasons, but maybe if we could educate him to where some of them more elegant reasons was available to him and his buddies then they’d be a lot of folks out there could off theyselves with more joy in they hearts. What do you think?

White: Now I know you’re being facetious.

Black: This time I think you’re right. I think you have finally drove me to it.

White: Mm hm.

Black: Well, the professor’s done gone to layin the mm hm’s on me. I better watch my step.

White: Yes you had. I might be warming up the trick bag.

Black: But still you think that your reasons is about the world and his is mostly just about him.

White: I think that’s probably true.

Black: I see a different truth. Settin right across the table from me.

White: Which is?

Black: That you must love your brother or die.

White: I dont know what that means. That’s another world from anything I know.

Black: What’s the world you know.

White: You dont want to hear.

Black: Sure I do.

White: I dont think so.

Black: Go ahead.

White: All right. It’s that the world is basically a forced labor camp from which the workers—perfectly innocent—are led forth by lottery, a few each day, to be executed. I dont think that this is just the way I see it. I think it’s the way it is. Are there alternate views? Of course. Will any of them stand close scrutiny? No.

Black: Man.

White: So. Do you want to take a look at that train schedule again?

Black: And they aint nothin to be done about it.

White: No. The efforts that people undertake to improve the world invariably make it worse. I used to think there were exceptions to that dictum. I dont think that now.

The black sits back, looking down at the table. He shakes his head slightly.

White: What else do you want to talk about?

Black: I dont know. Them sounds to me like the words of a man on his way to the train station.

White: They are those words.

Black: What do you think about that man?

White: I’m like you. I dont. I used to. Now I dont. I think about minimalizing pain. That is my life. I dont know why it isnt everyone’s.

Black: You dont think gettin run over by a train might smart just a little?

White: No. I did the calculations. At seventy miles an hour the train is outrunning the neurons. It should be totally painless.

Black: I’m goin to be stuck with your ass for a while, aint I?

White: I hope not.

Black: If this aint the life you had in mind, what was?

White: I dont know. Not this. Is your life the one you’d planned?

Black: No, it aint. I got what I needed instead of what I wanted and that’s just about the best kind of luck you can have.

White: Yes. Well.

Black: You cant compare your life to mine, can you?

White: In all honesty, no. I cant.

Black: Mm.

White: I’m sorry. I should go.

Black: You dont have to go.

White: I’ve offended you.

Black: I got a thicker hide than that, Professor. Just stay. You aint hurt my feelins.