by John Guare
JEFFERSONYou’re an impressive man.
JACQUES CORNETAll the reason more why you must resolve this situation. I’m not extolling my virtues. I’m stating my rights. You wrote All men are created equal. New Orleans is now part of the United States. Those words are law.
JEFFERSONUnfortunately, my words are not part of the Constitution. The Constitution is where we keep the laws.
JACQUES CORNETAnd where you do keep the laws on slavery?
JEFFERSONThe Constitution doesn’t really mention slavery. My words were merely part of a Declaration to a King telling him what we wanted.
JACQUES CORNETShould I then write a letter to you declaring my desire?
JEFFERSONI could imagine what it would be.
JACQUES CORNETAnd would I be wrong?
JEFFERSONSlavery is a terrible thing.
JACQUES CORNETThen bring these men in and advise them—
JEFFERSONIt started so simply. People in the Carolinas growing cotton—tobacco—sugar—coffee. People around the world wanting our crops. Demand increases. We need to expand. Georgia. Tennessee. Kentucky. Not enough people living here to work the land, to tend, to harvest, who can endure the heat. We have to import workers. That’s how it starts. It grows and grows and grows—
JACQUES CORNETYou make African dealings sound like a stroll through the market.
JEFFERSONIt is a market. A crazed market. Have you ever seen a man addicted to opium? So it is with a world now addicted to our produce. We’re all addicts. We need more slaves. The world needs our goods. We need the money to build a capitol, a house for the president to live in, to buy Louisiana. We live off the labors of those possessions and can’t let go. We are the slaves to slavery.
JACQUES CORNETYou keep slaves and hate slavery. Are you a hypocrite?
JEFFERSONJesus, who some say was the kindest man who ever lived—
JACQUES CORNETWe weren’t talking about Jesus.
JEFFERSONWhen defending one’s self, one always quotes Jesus. In all the Four Testaments, never once does Jesus mention slavery. If the possible Messiah can’t bring up the subject, how can I?
JACQUES CORNETYou keep several hundred slaves at Monticello.
JEFFERSONHow many slaves on your plantation?
JACQUES CORNETWhen I get back home, I will free my slaves.
JEFFERSONHow will they survive?
JACQUES CORNETLike me, they will find their strength.
JEFFERSONDo you not think that your strength comes from your father?
JACQUES CORNETYou mean, my white blood? My blood is my blood. I do not live in fractions. I demand that you act.
JEFFERSONHave faith. The world always balances itself.
JACQUES CORNETBut when?
JEFFERSONPatience. It’ll happen. Have faith. “This abomination must have an end.” I’m on your side! Hang on!
JACQUES CORNETWhen you’re in bed with your dead wife’s slave who was also her half-sister, do you woo the dusky Miss Sally, your bronze Venus, with the joys of patience?
JEFFERSONI refuse to be put on trial in a court of your contrivance.
JACQUES CORNETWere you patient buying the mountaintop where you built your home? Did you say I really don’t have the money. I’ll wait until later. Hang on! Hang on? A gallows hangs on. You have such faith in the beneficence of the future that you need no faith in today. Mr. Jefferson, why wait! Why not deal with it now when you have the power! All I ask is that you listen to your own words. Make your words real. Change the future now. You’ll avoid a Civil War— Jim Crow—Dred Scott—lynching—back of the bus—whites only—assassination—degradation—
JEFFERSONI really don’t like confrontation. I like to take quiet walks under the fig trees and experience the present. The “now” is where we are now. I’m comfortable in the now. Try it. Say Now.
The men appear.
JACQUES CORNETGet back! They can’t own me.
JEFFERSONI’m afraid they can.
JACQUES CORNETThomas Jefferson. The third president of the United States who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Are you out of your fucking mind!
Jacques Cornet rolls the Declaration of Independence into a ball and hurls it at Jefferson.
JEFFERSONExcellent to be with you tonight. “All men are created equal.” Sometimes I curse writing those words. I did write other phrases I thought as winning.
JACQUES CORNETDon’t go!
Exit Jefferson. The men advance on Jacques Cornet.
JACQUES CORNETBack! This is still my play. I summon Meriwether Lewis.
Meriwether enters, in bear skins. A terrible change has befallen him.
JACQUES CORNETMy friend from the white spaces! I’ve reconsidered your kind invitation to join your Corps of Discovery. In spite of your paste of boiled beef and the absence of women, I and my maps will happily join you in the pages of history! Tell these men—(He looks at pages of the new script) No. this cannot be. It says this is the last night of your life. But you’re a success! Your journey—
MERIWETHERSome of it is majestic. Some of it is bleak. But the truth is there’s no direct water route across this continent.
JACQUES CORNETNo western waterway?
MERIWETHERMountains sprang up to obstruct the water. Then, flat land.
JACQUES CORNETYour expedition a failure?
MERIWETHERPeople think everything a failure. People thought the purchase of Louisiana a failure. I kept hanging on.
JACQUES CORNETHang on! Hang on! Hang on! Your Corps of Discovery made no discovery?
MERIWETHEROur boundaries. Is it really the last night of my life?
Jacques Cornet looks at the new script and nods.
MERIWETHERNo matter. Tell me the circumstances of the scene?
JACQUES CORNETIt says you’re staying at a shabby inn outside Nashville. You’ve been drinking, taking drugs. Your sense of failure is overwhelming.
MERIWETHERWho kills me?
JACQUES CORNETYou.
MERIWETHEROh. (Meriwether takes the new script and reads flatly) “I failed Jefferson. I didn’t find the passage to the sea.” Let me try that again (with emotion). “I failed Jefferson. I didn’t find the passage to the sea. Four hundred years of explorers’ dreams . . . Columbus, Magellan, me.”
JACQUES CORNETThe innkeeper calls out: I will make your bed.
MERIWETHERI don’t want feathers. I can only sleep on the floor. “Stage directions. He spreads his buffalo robe and bear skins on the floor.”
JACQUES CORNET (he makes that whistle of seduction)I step out of the azaleas. Hear the sound of the mockingbird.
MERIWETHERIt’s a sign of death when the mockingbird no longer mocks but speaks in his true voice.
JACQUES CORNETThis is what the mockingbird says in its true voice.
MERIWETHERFailure. Our dreams once pulsed with the sexual charge of the unknown. Those dreams—now emasculated, thanks to me. I am a eunuch now that I lack my dreams.
JACQUES CORNETWe’ll keep your secret. People will like you much better.
MERIWETHERGood. Because the reality is there is no promised land. No! Don’t tell me there is no promised land. Imagine going to the moon and finding nothing there.
JACQUES CORNETNothing. All my maps as worthless as Jefferson’s words . . .
MERIWETHERNo! Keep the maps. Never give up the enormity of this dream. Keep telling the lie. The United States will always be the last undiscovered terrain—even if we have to move the white spaces inside our head. Always hold out the promise that you can find your passage to the west, to whatever it is—love everlasting, bottomless wealth, glory—
JACQUES CORNETFreedom.
MERIWETHERThat dream must never die.
JACQUES CORNETNor must you! If that’s how you stay alive, then tell yourself the lie!
MERIWETHERI don’t have that gift.
JACQUES CORNETBut I do! A Free Man of Color or The Happy Life of a Man in Power. A Free Man of Color or How I Take Control. A Free Man of Color or How Jefferson Is a Liar. A Free M
an of Color or How My Father Sold My Mother. A Free Man of Color or How Murmur Betrayed Me. A Free Man of Color or—
MERIWETHERThe white spaces forever.
Meriwether shoots himself and dies.
SPARKSSold!
JACQUES CORNETNo!
Sparks advances and chains Jacques Cornet.
SPARKSWhen I bought Pincepousse’s estate at his death with all its chattel, I claimed Margery and her child as mine.
Margery appears.
MARGERYHe sold my child. I don’t know where or to whom but he didn’t sell me. He kept me in the house. Jacques Cornet worked out in the field. I never stopped loving Jacques. I never saw him.
Creux appears and stands over Jacques Cornet.
CREUXOh United States, be watchful. If not, you’ll have Santo Domingo all over again! Be vigilant or your Negroes will riot and rape your women. Hordes of crazed Othellos will debase our unwilling Desdemonas and then dance on your corpses whilst eating ribs and devouring slashes of bright red melons. Carve this image in eternity’s stone: Bloody Toussaint is the definitive face of the Negro for all time! His rage shall never die! He wants you dead! Never lose your fear!
Murmur appears.
MURMUROne day, Jacques saw his way. He escaped and vanished into unknown spaces. He never saw his son.
Dr. T, in rags, appears.
DR. TPerhaps his son returned years later as Nat Turner, or as Malcolm—as any man who tried to make those words “All men are created equal” literal.
JACQUES CORNETI see visions of the future when generations of Margerys and Murmurs and Dr. Toubibs and the girls of Mme. Mandragola will be trapped on rooftops in New Orleans, reaching up to heaven to be saved. I say those bitter words “Hang on!” And while I hang, I think about a time when I had my maps, when I wrote my play, when New Orleans meant paradise . . .
Haydn Trio in G Major. Third Movement. The ghosts of the people of New Orleans in 1801 appear in half light amidst wreckage.
DORILANTEI mase double.
MME. MANDRAGOLAI set that.
SPARKSMase double again!
MME. MANDRAGOLAI set that and I win!
MORALESJacques, have some consideration. I can’t keep my wife waiting.
JACQUES CORNET (looks at his chains)1801. The last time men dressed like this.
DR. T (to us)Jacques Cornet. A Free Man of Color or How One Man Became an American.
THE END
