John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“Any man with sense would be in Manila by now, where there are jobs that pay a real wage, where you don’t have to scratch in the dirt to eat and there are things to do besides listen to our pile of shit neighbor brag about his Hercules.”

Hercules had killed Fecundo’s last fighting bird, Relámpagos, and Fecundo did not have enough money to cover his bet so all the men were making jokes about what he would have to give up to settle it. They passed the house and if Fecundo’s mother was not outside they made noises at Nilda.

“All I need is a little something in my pocket to get started,” he would say. “And then we will live a real life.”

What he turned out to need wasn’t in his pocket but in a sack that Fecundo would not let her touch or look into, leaving in the dead of night and saying if she did something to wake the dogs he’d leave her behind. They made Iba by the next day and he sold what was in the sack for the boat fare.

“When we get to Manila,” he told Nilda, who hadn’t spoken since they stepped on board, “don’t talk to anybody. You don’t want to give yourself away as a boba .”

Tondo was full of bobos , and when they opened their mouths they revealed it in Zambal and Pampangano and Ilocano and Pangasinense and Tagalog. Nilda walked to the cuartel every day hoping for uniforms to wash while Fecundo carried bales of hemp at the port with the Chinese. When they met at the end of the long day in the tiny room they were renting he would pace, four steps between walls, and wave his arms and talk loud as if making a speech about how the españoles malditos had fixed it so an honest Filipino couldn’t rise to his proper station. If she had money that day he would take it and look for a pangingi game in which to change their fortune.

The men who came to search the room for filibustero papers wouldn’t tell her what had happened or where Fecundo was, but the neighbors knew, and spoke of others who had been strapped to the chair and strangled. She went to the cuartel then and asked the soldiers what she should do, and they said forget him, find yourself another man to take care of you. A few volunteered. She took their dirty uniforms, then, and washed them to earn enough to rent the oxcart for the body.

Nilda does not speak as she shells the corn, does not respond or look at the American when he pauses in what he is saying with his soft voice. He has eyes that are not afraid, a captive here among his enemies, but sad. He says a word again and again, and the way he says it she thinks it must be a woman’s name. She folds the leaf into an envelope to hold the pile of corn and then starts on another. The American, not really paying attention to it, takes up an ear of the corn and starts to worry the kernels off with his thumbs. She steals a look at the skin of his arm, dark and glossy with sweat, and wonders if he feels like a normal man.

It appears that they will have to make their own electric chair. Despite Mr. Edison’s intercession the Warden has not been moved. They may film the prison’s exterior walls from a distance and nothing more, not even the arrival of the state’s witnesses. A dozen illustrators and news photographers wait under umbrellas farther down State Street in front of the institution, hoping that somebody of note will venture outside. A pair of uniformed guards stand before the front gate to keep them at bay.

It is very early, cold and starting to rain, and Harry has had the device out before sunup to be sure the lens won’t fog, rigging a tarp overhead to keep the wet off it. Rain this sparse won’t register on film, which is a shame given the circumstances. Harry pulls his watch from his pocket. If the authorities have kept to their schedule the Assassin within must already be dead. Ed Porter, come over from the Eden Musee to work in the film department at Edison, steps over blowing on his hands.

“I don’t think the light will get any better today.”

Harry holds his watch up high and swings it from the chain. “If we wait ten minutes more we’ll have the 8:19.”

“And so—?”

Harry stands in front of the camera and makes an arc from left to right with his hand. “We follow the locomotive coming in to begin the move, not quite matching its speed, so when it passes out of the frame it brings us along the wall to the rows of elms out front. Otherwise we have only stationary boxcars sitting idle in front of a mass of stone.”

“But the prison is the subject,” says Porter.

“If we’re going to bother with a panoramic, something should move .”

As if to support him a whistle sounds in the distance, three times, approaching.

Porter grins. “You know I love a train.” He steps behind the camera and loosens the pan head. “After this we’ll make a shot of the front from the roof over there, looking down in. Maybe we’ll see a convict moving.”

The New York Central is rumbling past when Grogan taps Shoe for the detail. Five cons in all, and more shields than you can shake a billy at — prison screws, state bulls, Doc Gern scowling and Warden Mead himself to escort them out with the box, Mead hunching in the light rain and peeping up on the walls like there might be snipers lurking. Most of the cons who croak in the joint go to the state lot at the Fort Hill boneyard, but then there are special cases who end up in the shadow of the back wall. Shoe has planted cons in the Warden’s garden before, and the wrinkle this time is there’s no lid on the crate, only a sheet thrown over the fried remains of the former Mr. Goulash. There’s a con on each corner of the stained-black crate and one of the colored they call Scrap Iron following, pulling a hand trolley with a big slab of concrete on it.

Father Costello is waiting, his Book open and getting wet. Shoe and the other trustees let it down easy into the hole, then pull the ropes up. There is a funny smell, like eggs left too long in the skillet. They say it cooks your insides, the jolt, that your blood boils and your brains go to hot mush and run out your ears. They say a lot of crazy things, but nobody’s come back from the hot seat with the straight dope.

They usually shoot the juice before daylight, get it done with and move on with life as usual on the yard. The Warden is very big on routine, only he calls it Discipline.

“You men are here, principally, because you lack Discipline in your daily lives,” he tells them every time there’s a big Sunday powwow. “This will not be a problem at Auburn, as we will provide it for you.”

Father Costello mutters a quick one, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, while Shoe and the other cons stand with their eyes down and their hats in their hands. The bulls all keep their lids on. Captain Grogan says to step back and then a pair of the troopers lug up a huge glass carboy like they use at the brewery and the smell hits him big time. The troopers got their riding gloves on, bending and shutting their eyes tight while they tip the carboy into the hole and a steaming liquid dumps out and sizzles loud when it hits Goulash down below, smoke coming up and the smell really godawful, makes your eyes tear up. There is a half-dozen guys on the north wing wouldn’t be inside if they’d been this thorough disposing of their victims. Shoe is wise to the play now — the Warden don’t want nobody pestering him later to dig up the deceased and poke around in his skull for clues as to why a gink would want to pop the President. There was a bird come through during Shoe’s first bit on Blackwell’s Island who they let stick calipers on the noggins of all the cons and old poxy parlor girls and write down the results and he never seen the point of it — what are you going to do, toss some guy into the slam on account of his hat size? The sizzling and smoke keep on for a while, Father Costello turning his back on it, and then it’s over.