William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

(TO THE YOUNG MAN)

Wasn't it! Like you went on to kill that soldier boy? Speak up, you young ninny! Like you tried to kill your master here?

KANE

(UPSET)

What do you want him to say! That he tried to change what he was himself by trying to destroy his master?

BAGBY

(DISDAINING KANE, TO THOMAS)

Why don't you have a word with him, sir. You might know from his voice…

KANE

(IN EXASPERATION)

And what do you want them to say! You expect them to sit down and have a chat, do you? when all they share is the… terrible silence of slavery?

BAGBY

(TURNING LOFTILY ON KANE)

There, that's going too far now. Why, who brought the boy to the mines here but the boy himself? Yes…

(TO THOMAS)

Isn't that true enough, sir?

(TO KANE, MOTIONING TO THOMAS)

Yes, he's said it himself more than once, that they're here by their own consent…

THOMAS

(IMPATIENTLY)

Let's get all this straightened out quickly, do you hear? I'm leaving, I'm going abroad, to the Continent…

BAGBY

(TAKEN ABACK)

But when, sir?

THOMAS

I don't know, as soon as I can.

KANE

(STILL APPEARING RELUCTANT)

There's a ship from Philadelphia tomorrow night.

BAGBY

And you in the militia draft, with U.S. marshals watching every port…?

BAGBY, KANE and then even the GUARD fall back as THOMAS slowly approaches and confronts the YOUNG MAN, staring him full in the face.

THOMAS

(TO THE YOUNG MAN, AFTER PAUSE, AS THE YOUNG MAN STARES HIM BACK)

You… know me? Yes… your face that night in a flash of flame, in the street, that night of the fire. I know you… too well!

YOUNG MAN

(HALTINGLY, AS THOMAS SLOWLY PUTS A HAND TO HIS SHOULDER, LOOKING AT SCAR)

And I gave you that, did I? Well… good enough!

BAGBY

(HURRYING UP TO THEM)

Here now, be careful…

THOMAS

(GRIPPING THE YOUNG MAN'S SHOULDER, PUTTING FACE IN HIS)

Yes… you know me!

(AFTER AN INSTANT'S BINDING PAUSE, STEPS BACK ABRUPTLY ALMOST UPSETTING BAGBY, ON WHOM HE TURNS, CALMLY)

He's going up in my place.

BAGBY

(BEWILDERED, AS KANE STANDS APPALLED)

But… him? In your place in the draft, sir? Why… why…

THOMAS

If he's willing.

BAGBY

If he's willing! Why, why what has he got to be willing about?

(TURNING ON THE YOUNG MAN WITH THOROUGH CONTEMPT)

There! Are you willing?

YOUNG MAN

(STEADILY, TO THOMAS, WITH HINT OF SMILE, DRAWS HIMSELF up)

I am willing.

BAGBY

(HURRYING TO TRY TO GET COMMAND OF THE SITUATION)

Yes, and why should you not be? If it's that or prison…

THOMAS

I said no such thing!

KANE

(APPROACHING THOMAS UNSTEADILY, LAYS A HAND ON HIS ARM)

What… you're doing…

BAGBY

(HAVING CALCULATED SHREWDLY AND SWIFTLY, TO THOMAS)

Yes of course sir, you'll want to do the right thing by him…

(HASTILY TAKING OUT A THICK WALLET, EXTRACTING A PACKET OF MONEY WHICH HE COUNTS QUICKLY AS HE SPEAKS AND HANDS IT TO THE YOUNG MAN)

And I happen to have the fee right on me, is six hundred dollars…

THOMAS

In gold! Get it from the safe now, do you hear?

BAGBY

(AGAIN SWIFTLY, SHREWDLY CALCULATING, WITHDRAWING UPSTAGE RIGHT)

As you say sir… in gold.

KANE

(STILL APPALLED)

Do you know… what you're doing?

THOMAS

(IMPATIENTLY, SHAKING HIM OFF)

I've told you! And… by heaven, what do you want! Now? for me to retreat? With the war, all of it, almost over? And still the chance to straighten things out…?

KANE

(IN DISTRACTED HORROR AND CONSTERNATION)

And you still think a battle will end it! Battles, battles, can't you see? They can be fought until not a soldier's left standing, and still no one will win? No, that's what soldiers are for, fighting battles and winning or losing them but… no, they are no longer war. War is attrition… not of armies, but of people, people, people…! Not wiping out soldiers in battle but… wiping out hope in the heart!

BAGBY

There!

(TURNING ON THE YOUNG MAN)

He an't much to look at, but you're not doing badly, you know, and times what they are… No family, no home, no history to him at all you might say, but he's good with mechanical things…

(OFFICIOUSLY APPROACHES THE YOUNG MAN)

Straighten up! You're not in the pits now!

THOMAS

(TO NEITHER OF THEM)

Nothing to fight for at all…?

BAGBY

And what would he want with something to fight for? with all he's got to fight against? Here now…

(TO THE YOUNG MAN)

Let's see your teeth… Not that you'll need them for chewing salt horse, but tearing your cartridges. You've got all your fingers and toes have you? and no rupture?

(STABBING THE YOUNG MAN WITH A STRAIGHT HAND IN THE GROIN, AND THE YOUNG MAN STARTS TO SURGE AT HIM, THEN RECOVERS WITH THE SAME HALF SMILE AS BAGBY STEPS BACK)

THOMAS

But… his eyes there…

BAGBY

It's nothing, it's something they all get down in the mines. You'll see some of them with their eyes rolling from side to side like a minstrel show. It's from lying on their sides and using the pick, in a narrow seam in the dark. Why, sometimes you'll see them come up from the pits and they'll bang around out here in the sunlight like we might in the dark, or blind…

(TO THE YOUNG MAN)

You watch your eyes when you're examined, or there won't be a penny.

(TAKING UP A SACK FROM THE DESK, TURNING TO THOMAS)

And you'll want to give him something for expenses now and again, tobacco and the like… two dollars a week say. If you sign the order, I'll see to it myself…

(HANDS THE SACK TO THE YOUNG MAN)

Here, and you don't get nothing free, you know. Transportation, clothes, you can pay me and I'll see you're outfitted.

(TAKING A PAPER FROM HIS INSIDE POCKET, DROPS A CARD WHICH THOMAS

PICKS UP AND LOOKS AT)

Coat, six dollars seventy one cents. Over coat, seven twenty. Hat, two eighteen. Pants, three oh three. Shoes, one ninety six. Drawers, fifty cents. Leather collar, eighteen…

THOMAS

(HOLDING UP A CARD, TO BAGBY)

Where did you get this?

BAGBY

(STARTLED, RECOVERS QUICKLY)

Ah… that night. You dropped it. I'd meant to give it back, for it's pretty enough. It looks enough like a hotel. Hand painted? Or is it that farm, with the quaint name, what is it? that plantation…?

THOMAS and BAGBY stare at each other a moment longer as THOMAS pockets the picture and BAGBY turns upstage right to the GUARD.

That's all now, is it? Unless you'd like to give the boy here your blessing?

As BAGBY speaks THOMAS has approached the YOUNG MAN and they two seize one another in a kind of equal stand-off.

THOMAS

(MUTTERING)

Yes by heaven…! You will!

BAGBY

(AS THEY BREAK APART)

Here!

(TO THE GUARD)

Take him for his examination and then lock him in the courthouse overnight.

(TO THOMAS)

There's a train for Harrisburg in the morning loaded with bacon and cordwood and two hundred fine recruits, twenty Chippy-wa Indians that's never seen a suit of clothes and fifty more that can't speak English, every one of them a substitute. There, for the Union forever…!

The YOUNG MAN shakes off the GUARD'S hand and marches off upstage right before him.

A fine thing at the last here, wasn't it, for him to attack you…

THOMAS

No he didn't…

BAGBY

No? And what did he say then, to your blessing?

THOMAS

He said… he was made, for something… better…

BAGBY

Did he now…! And perhaps he shall have it…

THOMAS

(STANDING OVER THE DESK, AFTER PAUSE)

He… stole my tobacco case.