The Gardener's Son

by Cormac McCarthy

  FIRST MAN Get ye a chair there. Get over here and warm.

  McEvoy looks about. There is a peachcrate to one side. He looks at the men gathered about the stove. Pinky opens the stove door and hefts a chunk of wood through and spits after it and clanks the door shut and wiping his mouth on his sleeve looks toward McEvoy, squinting.

  PINKY Come up son. Aint no need to be a stranger.

  McEvoy hobbles over to the crate and gets it and sets it by the stove and leans his crutches back and sits and rubs his hands together at the warmth. The men watch him and he watches the stove.

  FIRST MAN Give that man a drink of whiskey, Ed.

  The whiskey is passed to McEvoy and he holds it up to the light of the lamp and gives it a shake to check the bead and unscrews the lid and tilts it and takes a drink. He lowers the jar and looks at the men and swallows and blows. He takes the knife and potato offered him and slices off a piece and eats it and replaces the jar lid and passes the jar and the potato back.

  The second man leans forward and looks at McEvoy, somewhat suspiciously, as if he doesnt expect the truth.

  SECOND MAN What all did she die of?

  MCEVOY Malaria fever.

  SECOND MAN Funny time of year to die of that.

  MCEVOY She took sick back two months ago. I come quick as I heard but she died fore I got here.

  PINKY When did she die, honey?

  MCEVOY Yesterday mornin.

  FIRST MAN Well leastways ye got here for the buryin. They aint buried her have they?

  McEvoy shakes his head no. He sits slumped, he is weary.

  PINKY Here Ed, lets see a little of that muleshoe.

  He takes the jar and unscrews the cap and drinks and hands the jar to McEvoy.

  PINKY Here, honey. Get ye a drink. Ed, lets see that tater here.

  McEvoy takes the jar and dr inks and passes it back.

  PINKY You all are all about growed aint ye? I mean, they aint no babies at home.

  MCEVOY Maryellen's the least’n. She’s eleven.

  PINKY It’s hard when they leave young’ns. A man caint raise em. My sister died left five and the oldest’n not started school. We had to hunt homes for em. They done all right. But it was hard.

  FIRST MAN You tell your daddy we was sorry as we could be.

  PINKY A finer son of a bitch never wore shoe leather. Let’s have a little old drink Ed.

  The jar is passed around.

  FIRST MAN You back to stay are ye?

  MCEVOY I dont know.

  FIRST MAN Reckon you seen a right smart of the world since you left out of here.

  MCEVOY Some.

  PINKY Its kindly slack times here. Reckon it is everwheres.

  FIRST MAN You reckon to get on at the mill?

  MCEVOY I aint lost nothing down there.

  PINKY I hear ye. Only way to get ahead down there is to get your wife knocked up by the boss. Give ye a little leverage.

  SECOND MAN Talkin about people dyin . . .

  MCEVOY I better get on, I reckon.

  SECOND MAN Talkin about people dyin they found another old boy dead in the woods down towards Vaucluse. Speculate the niggers got him.

  MCEVOY I best get on. I got to hunt the old man.

  McEvoy does not rise nor move.

  FIRST MAN Most likely he’d been at church this evenin wouldnt he? Wife dead and all.

  PINKY Aint no Catholic church in Graniteville.

  FIRST MAN Well now that is right. I forgot about him bein Catholic.

  PINKY You wont find him carryin on in no Amen corner. Will ye son?

  McEvoy shakes his head no. He looks toward the tong game.

  MCEVOY I better get on and hunt him.

  PINKY Just jump in that tong game there why dont ye. Get ye feet wet.

  MCEVOY I aint never played.

  FIRST MAN Lord, dont let em hear that. They’ll be over here a courtin ye.

  SECOND MAN Had his throat cut, they said. Reckoned it to of been the niggers.

  Second man spits against the stove.

  FIRST MAN Where’d that jug get to?

  The third man, who has not spoken, reaches down alongside the crate where he is sitting and fetches up the jar and holds it to the light and passes it on. They drink. Pinky takes the potato with the knife stuck in it and cuts the remaining piece in two and passes one slice to McEvoy and eats the other and takes a new potato from the bib of his overalls and falls to peeling it. He shakes his head slowly.

  PINKY Lord dont they hate whiskey over to that mill.

  FIRST MAN They hate for you to drink it. That aint sayin they wont take a drink their own selves.

  PINKY The old man would by god not take one.

  FIRST MAN No. You right about that.

  PINKY I guarangoddamntee ye.

  FIRST MAN What about James?

  PINKY That son of a bitch will take a drink.

  The jar comes around to the second man. He takes it and shakes his head.

  SECOND MAN Never thought I’d live to see the day. Niggers runnin crazy killin folks. Right in ye own county.

  He drinks.

  PINKY Dont get him started on the niggers, for God’s sake.

  Second man slices potato and eats and passes the jar on to the third man. Third man takes jar.

  THIRD MAN Thing about James. He never did want to put the jam on the lower shelf where the little man could get some.

  FIRST MAN Get ye a little old drink there, Housecat.

  THIRD MAN Theys plenty of rhubarb all around the farm. And another little drink wont do us any harm.

  Exterior. Night. Robert McEvoy drunk staggering through a field.

  McEvoy on a narrow country road, reeling along on his crutch. He pauses to rest, leaning against a barn. He listens to the silence. A few dogs bark in the distance. He goes on. There is a horse leaning over a fence and he and the horse look at each other and McEvoy moves on.

  McEvoy hobbling up the road to Graniteville. He has passed a few houses and now several dogs have come into the road behind him and circle to pick up his scent and howl. They are seen by the light of a lamp in the window and their hackles are up and they howl after McEvoy who wobbles on into the darkness.

  Exterior. Dawn, sound of the mill bell. People shuffling through the semi-darkness toward the mill. The mill coming to life.

  Dawn, light coming in an old abandoned shed. McEvoy waking. Sound of the second mill bell. McEvoy standing disheveled in the light from the window while the bell tolls. When it is done he puts his cap on and takes up his crutch.

  Exterior. Mill. The stockholders arriving at the mill.

  Interior. Mill. Patrick McEvoy comes down the aisle and takes his place at his machine. The other workers watch him. He looks haggard and somewhat grim. The overseer comes to him and puts his hand on his shoulder.

  OVERSEER Pat, we didnt need for you to come in today. McEvoy is doggedly setting up his machine.

  OVERSEER Did you know your boy was back?

  OVERSEER He was up at the cemetery yesterday where they was preparin your missus’ restin place and he come up there and run the ... run the niggers off with a pistol. Told em not to dig no more that she wasnt to be buried there.

  Patrick looks up at the man and goes back to his work.

  OVERSEER I just wanted to tell ye. I wish you could see him and talk to him fore he gets hisself in trouble.

  MR MCEVOY I dont know where to hunt him at. He went to the house they said and he run everbody off up there. I dont know what to tell ye.

  Robert McEvoy on the road toward the mill. The mill against the sky in the background. McEvoy pauses, then he goes on again.

  Interior. Mill office boardroom. The boardroom is laid out for a banquet with long tables and china. James Gregg looks over the boardroom. He checks the watch in his waistcoat and he takes a cigar from his pocket and bites off the end and lights it.

  Interior. Mill. Bobby clumping down the aisle past the machinery and the workers. They watch him but he doesnt watch
back.

  Interior. Mill office. James Gregg entering his office and looking through papers at his desk. The sound of the mill machinery is muted in these office scenes and very loud in the mill scenes.

  Robert McEvoy enters the mill office. There is no one about. He goes across the office and enters the boardroom. The room is empty, the long tables set for a ghost banquet. There is a keg of beer tapped and he takes a glass from the sideboard and fills it and wanders on into James Gregg's office and sits at the desk and sips the beer. A door opens in an outer room and there are voices. McEvoy rises from the desk and James Gregg enters the room. McEvoy is standing in front of the desk. Gregg goes past him to his place behind the desk. The grips of the revolver in McEvoy's belt are visible.

  GREGG Did you want to see me?

  MCEVOY I was huntin my father.

  GREGG Your father.

  MCEVOY He was the gardener.

  GREGG I know who he was.

  MCEVOY No you dont.

  GREGG What do you mean I dont?

  MCEVOY You might know his name is all.

  GREGG You didnt come in here looking for him.

  MCEVOY Where’ve you got him workin at?

  GREGG He works in the mill. This company is in the textile business. We have stockholders to answer to. We’re not in the flower business.

  MCEVOY Shit.

  GREGG What did you say?

  MCEVOY You heard me.

  GREGG What do you want, McEvoy?

  MCEVOY I dont want a damn thing from you.

  GREGG You better clear out. We dont need your kind here.

  MCEVOY What do you mean my kind?

  GREGG You better leave.

  MCEVOY What do you mean my kind?

  GREGG People who dont want to work. You had your chance here.

  MCEVOY Chance’s ass.

  GREG Why did Mr Giles let you go?

  MCEVOY Mr Giles didnt let me go. I left my own damn self. He says different he’s a liar.

  GREGG My recollection is that you were turned off for stealing.

  MCEVOY That’s a damned lie.

  Interior. Mill. Patrick McEvoy standing in the aisle watching the side of spindles he is doffing. Another worker comes by and they stop to talk.

  WORKER I thought that boy of yourn swore he’d never set foot in this mill again.

  MR MCEVOY He did.

  WORKER Well he just now went down through there.

  Patrick looks toward where the man is pointing. The blank look on his face is gradually replaced by a dawning sense of impending doom. He turns and goes down the aisle.

  Interior. Mill office.

  GREGG You better get out McEvoy.

  MCEVOY I aint done yet. You think you can say anything you want about people and they just have to put up with it.

  GREGG I think you’re crazy is what I think. What did you come here for? What were you doing in my office?

  MCEVOY You think people dont know what you are?

  GREGG By god I believe you were in here looking for something to steal.

  GREGG You call me a liar?

  MCEVOY I didnt stutter.

  Gregg pushes back his chair and rises from it. He looks at McEvoy standing there, disheveled and ragged, on crutches, and he gives him a cynical smile.

  GREGG What do you want? Money?

  MCEVOY I dont want a damned thing from you.

  Gregg reaches into his coat pocket and brings forth some coins. He selects a ten dollar gold piece and flips it onto the desk in front of McEvoy.

  GREGG Take it and get out.

  McEvoy stares at the gold piece. When he looks up his eyes are filled with hatred. Gregg looks at McEvoy and then he looks at the coin and then he looks at McEvoy again. Then his face drains. He jerks suddenly at the top drawer of his desk. McEvoy snatches the pistol from his belt.

  MCEVOY Dont.

  Gregg scrabbles in the desk drawer for his pistol and McEvoy fires. Gregg is knocked back sitting in his chair. He reaches again for the drawer and McEvoy fires again. Gregg reels in the chair. He puts a hand to his side and rises.

  GREGG You raggedyassed crippled son of a bitch.

  Gregg lurches toward the safe in the comer of the room.

  Interior. Office outside James Greggs door. Mr Giles running to see what has occurred. McEvoy swings past him on his crutch and makes for the outside door.

  MR GILES You wretched boy, what have you done?

  Gregg lurches from his office bleeding at the mouth and holding a small derringer pistol.

  MR GILES Captain Gregg. Good god, captain.

  Gregg pauses, his eyes swimming.

  GREGG Mr Giles, he’s murdered me.

  Gregg stumbles on a few steps until he can see out the door and there he raises the pistol in both hands and fires at McEvoy in the street. McEvoy turns. He is standing in the street holding the pistol in one hand. Gregg is standing in the doorway, swaying, holding his pistol at his waist in both hands and looking down at McEvoy. There is a frozen moment and then McEvoy's face turns anguished and he raises the pistol and cocks it and levels it at Gregg. It hesitates for just a moment. Then it fires. Gregg collapses in the doorway. McEvoy's father has stopped a few yards down the street from where his son is holding the pistol. The clatter of machinery in the background suddenly comes to a halt. There is an immense silence. Figures appear at the door of the mill. They are all watching Mr McEvoy as he approaches his son. He is walking very straight and dignified and he is crying. He holds out his hand for the pistol. McEvoy is breathing hard. His face changes from hatred to anguish. The father holds out his hand for the pistol. McEvoy turns the pistol on his father for a moment. The older man takes yet another step toward his son. He is almost close enough now to put his arm around his son. He is crying quietly. McEvoy lowers his head. He hands the pistol to his father. They stand there, the boy looking down at the ground and the father looking at the boy, holding the revolver clumsily by the barrel.

  Exterior. The Gregg home. Mrs Gregg is in her garden, bonneted, cutting back the dry winter shrubs. She raises up. She listens to the silence. She looks toward the mill. She takes off her bonnet and starts for the house, calling for the boy and telling him to get the carriage.

  Exterior. Mill. Silence. There are faces at the windows and figures standing in the doorways. Six or eight members of the board of directors come down the steps from the mill office with James Gregg on a litter improvised from the balustrade dividing the inner and outer office and ease him into the bed of a springwagon. They are furtive and they regard the mill and the watching workers fearfully. Two of the members climb into the bed of the wagon to attend him and the horse starts off at almost a walk with the other members following like mourners at a wake. Gregg is alive. He looks at the faces at the mill and they look back with a variety of expressions, from apathy to mild interest to genuine sorrow. The mill blurs away. The train whistle blows.

  Exterior. Mrs Gregg's carriage coming along the road. She is sitting very erect, worried but stoic. The black driver is worried and urges the horses along.

  Exterior. Mill. Silence. Mrs Gregg's carriage comes into view with the horses still at a smart trot and stops in the road before the mill office. She climbs down from the carriage and crosses the open space and enters the office. The workers watch her go. The train whistle calls in the farther distance. The horses whinny and stamp. In a few moments she comes to the door. Her face is stunned. She looks down the front of the mill to all the faces that are watching her. They stare back. She comes down the stairs. She stumbles toward the carriage. A man appears at the mill office door but he doesnt know what to do. Mrs Gregg crosses to her carriage. All watch her. Her face is crumpled with grief.

  MRS GREGG Dear God please dont take him. Please God dont take him.

  Interior. Aiken County courthouse. There are nine black and three white jurors. The blacks wear light-colored clothes, the whites dark-colored. There are two black lawyers and one white lawyer for both the prosecution and
the defense. Sheriff and judge are white. The prosecuting attorney, Mr P L Wiggins (black), reads the indictment to the jury. Robert McEvoy sits with his lawyers.

  PROSECUTING ATTORNEY That Robert McEvoy, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil on the twentieth day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy six with force of arms at Graniteville in the county and state aforesaid in and upon one James J Gregg in the peace of God and of this state then and there being, did make an assault and that he, the said Robert McEvoy, a certain pistol of the value of five dollars, then and there loaded with gunpowder, and divers leaden balls, which pistol he the said Robert McEvoy then and there had and held to, against, and upon the said James J Gregg, then and there feloniously willfully and of his malice aforethought did shoot and discharge and that he the said Robert McEvoy with the leaden balls aforesaid out of the pistol aforesaid then and there by force of the gunpowder shot and sent forth at aforesaid the said James J Gregg in and upon the chest and in and upon the left side of the abdomen of him the said James J Gregg, then and there feloniously willfully and of his malice aforethought did strike penetrate and wound, giving unto the said James J Gregg, then and there with the leaden balls as aforesaid sent forth out of the pistol aforesaid, divers mortal wounds of the depth of six inches and of the breadth of two inches each, of which said mortal wounds he the said James J Gregg, from the twentieth day of April in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy six until the twenty first of April in the year last aforesaid at Augusta in the county of Richmond in the state of Georgia did languish and languishing did die. And so the jurors aforesaid upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the said Robert McEvoy the said James J Gregg in manner and form as aforesaid feloniously and willfully and of his malice aforethought did kill and murder, against the form of the Act of the General Assembly of this state and against the peace and dignity of the state of South Carolina.

  Interior. Courthouse hallway. Day. A press of people in the hallway. Mr McEvoy comes along with Robert's attorney O C Jordan. Jordan has a briefcase in his hand and he is talking to the dazed father of the defendant.

  JORDAN Chin up McEvoy, chin up. The boy has every confidence in us and we want you to feel the same.