Cormac McCarthy: The Sunset Limited

The black sits up and leans forward.

Black: The point, Professor, is that if you didnt have no pain in your life then how would you even know you was happy? As compared to what?

White: You dont have anything to drink around here do you?

Black: No, Professor, I aint. You a drinkin man?

White: Are we about to get a temperance lecture?

Black: Not from me.

White: It’s been a difficult day. I take it you dont drink.

Black: I dont. I have done my share of it in my time.

White: Are you in AA?

Black: No. No AA. I just quit. I’ve had a lots of friends was drinkers. Most of em, for that matter. Most of em dead, too.

White: From drinking.

Black: Well. From drinkin or from reasons that dont get too far from drinkin. Not too long ago I had a friend to get run down by a taxicab. Now where do you reckon he was goin? Drunk.

White: I dont know. Where was he going?

Black: Goin after more whiskey. Had plenty at the house. But a drunk is always afraid of runnin out.

White: Was he killed?

Black: I hope so. We buried him.

White: I suppose there’s a moral to this story.

Black: Well, it’s just a story about what you want and what you get. Pain and happiness. I’ll tell you another one.

White: All right.

Black: One Sunday they’s a bunch of us settin around at my house drinkin. Sunday mornin. Favorite time for drunks to get together and drink and I’ll let you think about why that might be so. Well here come one of my buddies with this girl. Evelyn. And Evelyn was drunk when she got there but we fixed her a drink and directly Redge—my buddy—he goes back in the kitchen to get him a drink only now the bottle’s gone. Well, Redge has been around a few drinkin people in his time so he commences to hunt for the bottle. Looks in all the cabinets and behind everthing. He cant find it but of course he knows what’s happened to it so he comes back in and he sets down and he looks at Miss Evelyn settin there on the sofa. Drunk as a goat. And he says: Evelyn, where’s the whiskey? And Evelyn, she goes: Ah ghaga baba lala ghaga. And he says: Evelyn, where did you put the whiskey? Ah lala bloggle blabla. And Redge is settin there and this is beginnin to piss him off just a little and he gets in her face and he goes: Ah loddle loddle blabble ghaga blabla and she says I hid it in the toilet.

White: That’s pretty funny

Black: I thought you might like that.

White: And is that where the whiskey was?

Black: Oh yeah. That’s a favorite place for drunks to hide a bottle. But the point of course is that the drunk’s concern aint that he’s goin to die from drinkin—which he is. It’s that he’s goin to run out of whiskey fore he gets a chance to do it. Are you hungry? I can come back to this. I aint goin to lose my place.

White: I’m all right. Go ahead.

Black: If you was to hand a drunk a drink and tell him he really dont want it what do you reckon he’d say?

White: I think I know what he’d say.

Black: Sure you do. But you’d still be right.

White: About him not really wanting it.

Black: Yes. Because what he really wants he cant get. Or he thinks he cant get it. So what he really dont want he cant get enough of.

White: So what is it that he really wants.

Black: You know what he really wants.

White: No I dont.

Black: Yeah you do.

White: No I dont.

Black: Hm.

White: Hm what.

Black: You a hard case, Professor.

White: You’re not exactly a day at the beach yourself.

Black: You dont know what he wants.

White: No. I do not.

Black: He wants what everbody wants.

White: And that is?

Black: He wants to be loved by God.

White: I dont want to be loved by God.

Black: I love that. See how you cut right to it? He dont either. Accordin to him. He just wants a drink of whiskey. You a smart man, Professor. You tell me which one makes sense and which one dont.

White: I dont want a drink of whiskey, either.

Black: I thought you just got done askin for one?

White: I mean as a general proposition.

Black: We aint talkin about no general propositions. We talkin about a drink.

White: I dont have a drinking problem.

Black: Well you got some kind of a problem.

White: Well whatever kind of a problem I have it’s not something that I imagine can be addressed with a drink of liquor.

Black: Mm. I love the way you put that. So what can it be addressed with?

White: I think you know what it can be addressed with.

Black: The Sunset Limited.

White: Yes.

Black: And that’s what you want.

White: That’s what I want. Yes.

Black: That’s a mighty big drink of whiskey, Professor.

White: That I dont really want.

Black: That you dont really want. Yes.

White: Well. I think I do want it.

Black: Of course you do, honey. If you didnt we wouldnt be settin here.

White: Well. I disagree with you.

Black: That’s all right. That’s the hand I’m playin.

White: I dont think you understand that people such as myself see a yearning for God as something lacking in those people.

Black: I do understand that. Couldnt agree more.

White: You agree with that?

Black: Sure I do. What’s lackin is God.

White: Well, as I say, we’ll just have to disagree.

Black: You aint closin down the forum for discussion are you?

White: Not at this juncture.

Black: Cause I had a little more to say.

White: How did I know that?

Black: I did go to one or two AA meetins. Lot of folks didnt like the God part of it all that much but I hadnt set there too long fore I figured out that the God part was really all the part they was. The problem wasnt that they was too much God in AA it was that they wasnt enough. And I got a pretty thick head about some things but I finally figured out that what was true about AA was probably true about a lot of other things too.

White: Well I’m sorry, but to me the whole idea of God is just a load of crap.

The black puts his hand to his chest and leans back.

Black: Oh Lord have mercy oh save us Jesus. The professor’s done blasphemed all over us. We aint never gone be saved now.

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, laughing silently.

White: You dont find that an evil thing to say.

Black: Oh Mercy. No, Professor. I dont. But you does.

White: No I dont. It’s simply a fact.

Black: No it aint no simply a fact. It’s the biggest fact about you. It’s just about the only fact.

White: But you dont seem to think that it’s so bad.

Black: Well, I know it to be curable. So it aint that bad. If you talkin about what that man up there thinks about it I figure he’s probably seen enough of it that it dont bother him as bad as you might think. I mean, what if somebody told you that you didnt exist. And you settin there listenin to him say it. That wouldnt really piss you off, would it?

White: No. You’d just feel sorry for them.

Black: I think that’s right. You might even try to get some help for em. Now in my case he had to holler at me out loud and me layin on a slab in two pieces that they’d sewed back together where some nigger done tried to core me like a apple but still I got to say that if God is God then he can speak to your heart at any time and furthermore I got to say that if he spoke to me—which he did—then he can speak to anybody.

The black drums his fingers lightly three times on the table and looks at the professor.

Silence.

Black: Well. Wonder what this crazy nigger fixin to do. He liable to put the mojo on me. Be speakin in tongues here directly. I better get my ass out of here. He’s liable to try and steal my pocketbook. Need to get my ass down to the train depot fore somethin happen to me. What we goin to do with you, Professor?