John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

Junior says he’ll send an address as soon as they’ve got one and that Royal will send his own letters through Alma. Without Alma she would be lost. Father has his ideas of what is right for his daughter and he means the best for her but it is her adventure, her only one, and she knows from the books and from Alma’s lurid stories what happens to girls who ignore their heart and think only of what is sensible. His chest looked massive in the blue uniform, his arms thick and muscular, his hands — she has always loved his hands, loved to watch them at work. Once he let her help him and his brother Jubal groom Boots after a long day’s riding and they had barely spoken, just the sound of the brush on the animal’s coat, the smell of horse strong in her nose and them standing close together, hot in the crowded stall and she thought her thumping heart would explode. Jessie thinks of his arms around her and rolls over onto her front and wonders if this is wicked, wonders what it must be like to be Alma, whose life has been so filled with men, so filled with adventure compared to Mother’s placid account of her brief season of availability, married at seventeen with not a ripple of excitement between courtship and contract.

When she touches herself, or presses her body hard against the bed, she imagines she is Alma. Alma can do what she pleases, so little is expected of her. But Dr. Lunceford’s daughter—

“ Every eye is upon you ,” he has told them, Junior most prominent under his judging gaze but Jessie just behind and included in the statement. “ Your actions reflect on us all .”

And she knows the “us all” goes beyond the Luncefords, beyond even the proper colored community here in Wilmington. But Alma, when she is Alma she can be every thrilling thing she might imagine.

There will be a war. Her brother is sure of it, all Father’s friends look forward to it, the newspapers seem to ache for its commencement. The thought of those brave boys on the field of battle, suffering under the enemy’s fire, the thought of many of them never to return — but he will survive, he will return. The mortal danger only deepens her resolve to discover a method, first, to communicate her love to him, and then to win Mother and Father to her design. Or, failing, to throw herself into the hands of Fate.

The melodrama continues.

Ensign Tom, horribly tortured by the cruel Dagoes, is warned of their monstrous plot, then helped to escape by a dusky Cuban girl. The stage is black for a moment, then a spotlight catches the beaten, bloodied tenor crawling to freedom across the ground as a single cello echoes his plight. He reaches the wings and the light fades up again on the Maine , a single Jack Tar walking the deck on watch, as below, out of his sight, a sinister pair of Spanish saboteurs row out and attach a device — it looks like a metallic limpet — to the prow of the anchored ship. The sailor does not seem to hear the loud warning from the audience, Harry perhaps loudest of all, nor the call from the bedraggled Ensign who has only just arrived at the shore, does not see the sinister boatmen row away into the wings leaving their infernal machine, does not sense anything but the gentle rocking of the great vessel and the orchestra’s sweet lullaby until—

KABOOM!

Harry levitates with the rest of the audience, his bottom lifting completely out of his seat at the shock of the explosion, black smoke filling the stage, the white hull of the great ship suddenly engulfed in leaping red and orange flames! Many have risen to their feet in the audience, a few already bolted into the aisles, before they realize it is only another illusion, powerful stagecraft, the conflagration nothing but colored celluloid and projected light. The waves beneath the ship are churning, faster, higher, and there are at least a dozen poor sailors flailing within them, crying out for help that will not come. Harry thinks of the stage direction at the end of the one theatrical he has had a hand in producing— Tumult with all.

The smoke clears, some of it drifting out over the first rows, and the hull of the Maine is now a verdant field sown with the white crosses of the dead, the rows trailing off in a forced perspective as the strings in the pit weep. The Ensign, back in uniform, and his sweet Aura Lee have been reunited, each with a black band of mourning on their arm. They stroll solemnly along, regarding the simple stone monuments. A small girl with a bouquet of white gladiolas in hand turns and sees them, and tugs at the arm of the naval man. It is the lovely assistant Rose again, dressed in pinafore and sun hat, and it seems that she can sing as well—

My father was a sailor just like you

My father was a sailor and wore a coat of blue

My father was a sailor and I’ll ne’er see him again

My father was a sailor sir, a sailor on the Maine

As always it is the innocents who suffer. Harry feels that his cheeks are wet and is glad that Niles is not here to kid him for being a sap. Handkerchiefs flash among the seats ahead. Captain Sigsbee appears then, beginning to speak to the Ensign and Aura Lee, but then turning to face the audience and address them directly. An offstage chorus softly hums a familiar melody.

“We will not allow these brave men to have died in vain,” says the Captain. “We will snatch up the torch of liberty from their fallen hand and raise it, raise it on high over that poor, benighted island that lies below our southern shore. We will battle the forces of greed and cruelty, we will rout the decadent European from his imperial lair and bring the shining light of freedom into this dark corner of the world—”

Harry recognizes the melody now, as the voices humming it grow louder — it is The Stars and Stripes Forever that Sousa has made such a hit with.

“For we are A mer icans — north and south, east and west — and Americans will not long allow the iron boot of tyranny to trample upon their hemisphere! The sacrifice of these brave men shall be repaid in blood a hundred times o’er, heroes arising from all corners of our great land to strike fear into the hearts of despots everywhere! Cuba Libre ! Down with treachery! REMEMBER THE MAINE !”

Every piece in the orchestra is a part of it now, drums pounding, brass blaring proudly, fifes trilling above it all, and the players, all of them, march onstage in uniform, no blackened faces among their ranks, singing out as the cemetery view gives way to their country’s banner, enormous, red, white, and blue—

Hurrah for the flag of the free!

May it wave as our standard forever

The gem of the land and the sea

The banner of the Right

Harry is weeping with pride now and can see he’s not the only one. Somehow they have done it, have brought all of Thalian Hall to tears by hoisting the yankee flag. Maybe it is a dream the others have kept quiet in their hearts the way he has, that something could bring the sections together, that they could march shoulder to shoulder once more on some gallant quest, could live up to the fine words of their common Fathers and clear the foul stain of contention from their souls. He wishes Niles was here to see this, to feel this. People are on their feet on the ground floor and in the balconies, clapping and stomping time and singing along in full voice—

Let despots remember the day

When our fathers with mighty endeavor

Proclaimed as they marched from the fray

That by their might

And by their right

It waves forever!

Niles is halfway to Dock Street when the pony gig pulls up beside him. It is Bramley Dupree, and he is smiling.