"So what am I supposed to do with you, Professor?" "Why are you supposed to do anything?" "Well, like I said, this ain't none of my doing." "When I left out of here going to work this morning you wasn't no part of my plans, but here you is." "Doesn't mean anything." "Everything that happened doesn't mean something else." "What's it mean then?" "Doesn't mean anything." "You run into people." "And maybe some of them are in trouble or whatever, but it doesn't mean you're responsible for them." "Mm-hmm." "Anyway, people who are always looking out for perfect strangers are very often people who won't look out for the ones they're supposed to look out for, in my opinion." "If you're just doing what you're supposed to, you don't get to be a hero." "And that would be me?" "I don't know." "Would it?" "I can see how there might be some truth in that, but in this particular case I got to say I didn't know what sort of person I was supposed to be on the lookout for or what I was supposed to do when I found them." "In this particular case but one thing to go by." "And that was?" "That was that they is standing there and I have to look at them and say," ""Now he don't look like my brother, but there he is, so maybe you'd better look again."" "And that's what you did?" "Well, I got to say you was kind of hard to ignore." "Your approach was pretty direct." "I didn't approach you." "I didn't even see you." "What I don't understand is how you come to get yourself in such a fix." "Yeah." "Are you all right?" "Did you sleep last night?" "No." "Well, when did you decide that today was the day?" "Was there something special about it?" "No." "Well, today is my birthday, but I certainly don't regard that as special." "Well, Happy Birthday, Professor." "Thank you." "So you seen your birthday was coming and that seemed like a good day?" "Who knows?" "Maybe birthdays are dangerous, like Christmas..." "Ornaments hanging from the trees, reeds from the doors and bodies from the steampipes all over America." "That don't say much for Christmas, do it?" "Christmas is not what it used to be." "Now I believe that to be a true statement." "I surely do." "I've got to go." "You always put your coat on like that?" "What's wrong with the way I put my coat on?" "I ain't said nothing was wrong with it." "I'm just asking if that's your regular method." " I don't have a regular method." "I just put it on." " Mm-hmm." "It's what..." "Effeminate?" "What?" "I'm just studying the ways of professors." "Well, I've got to go." "Let me get my coat." " Get your coat?" " Yeah." " Where are you going?" " Going with you." "What do you mean?" "Going with me where?" "Going with you wherever it is you're going." " No, you're not." " Yeah, I am." " I'm going home." " All right." "All right?" "You're not going home with me." "Sure I am." "Let me get my coat." " You can't go home with me." " Why?" " You can't." " Oh, what, you can go home with me but I can't go home with you?" "No." "I mean, no, that's not it." "I just need to go home." " You live in an apartment?" " Yes." " What, they don't let black folk in there?" " No." "I mean, yes, of course they do." "Look, no more jokes." "I've got to go." "I'm very tired." "All right, long as you don't run into no hassle about getting me in there." " You're serious." " Oh, I think you know I'm serious." " You can't be serious." " I'm serious as a heart attack." " Why are you doing this?" " Me?" "I ain't got no choice." " Of course you have a choice." " No, I ain't." "Who appointed you my guardian angel?" "You know who appointed me your guardian angel." "Now look, I ain't ask for you to jump into my arms" " down at the subway this morning." " I didn't jump into your arms." " You didn't?" " No." "Well, how'd you get there then?" "What?" "Now we ain't going?" "Do you really think Jesus is in this room?" "No." "I don't think he's in this room." "I know he's in this room." "It's the way you put it, Professor." "It'd be like me asking you if you think you got your coat on." "It's not the same thing." "It's a matter of agreement." "If you and I say that I have my coat on and Cecil says that I'm naked and have green skin and a tail, we might want to think about where we should put Cecil so he doesn't hurt himself." "Who's Cecil?" "He's not anybody." "He's just a hypothetical." "There's not any Cecil." "He's just a character" "I made up to illustrate a point." " Made up?" " Yes." "So his view of things don't count?" "No." "That's why I made him up." "I could have changed things around." "I could have made you the one who didn't think I was wearing a coat." "And was green and all that other shit you said?" " Yes." " But you didn't." " No." " You load it all off on Cecil." "Yes." "But Cecil can't defend himself on account that he ain't in agreement with everybody else, so his word don't count, aside from the fact that you made him up and he's green and everything." "He's not the one who's green." "I am." "Where is this going?" "I'm just trying to find out about Cecil." "I don't think so." "Can you see Jesus?" "No, I can't see him." " But you talk to him." " Don't miss a day." " And he talks to you." " I have heard him, yes." "Do you hear him, like, out loud?" "No no, not out loud." "I don't hear a voice." "I don't hear my own, for that matter." "But I have heard him." "But why couldn't Jesus just be in your head?" "He is in my head." "Well, then I don't understand what it is you're trying to tell me." "I know you don't, honey." "Look, the first thing you got to understand is" "I ain't got an original thought in my head." "If it ain't got the lingering scent of divinity to it," " I ain't interested in it." " The lingering scent of divinity." " Yeah, you like that?" " It's not bad." "Heard it on the radio..." "a black preacher." "The point is, is I done tried it the other way." "I don't mean no chipping neither." "I mean blindfold, running through the woods, bit in my teeth..." "Lord, didn't I try it!" "If you can find somebody gave it a better shot than me," "I'd like to meet him, I surely would." "And what you think that got me?" "I don't know." "What did it get you?" "Life in death is what it got me." "Life in death." "Too dead to even know enough to lay down." "I see." "I don't think so." "Let me ask you a question." "All right." "You ever read this book?" "I've read parts of it." "I've read in it." "Have you ever read it?" "Read the book of job." "Have you ever read it?" "No." " But you is read a lot of books?" " Yes." " How many, you say?" " I have no idea." "Ballpark." "Two a week, maybe 100 a year for close to 40 years." "Two a week... 40 times 100 is 4000." "I'm just messing with you, Professor." "Tell you what..." "Give me a number, any number you like, and I'll give you 40 times it back." " 26." " 1040." " 118." " 4720." " 4720." " Yep." " 4720" " The answer is the question." " Say what?" " That's your new number." " 4720?" " That's a big number, Professor." " Yes, it is." " You know the answer?" " No, I don't." "188,800." "Let me see that." "How do you do that?" "Numbers are the black man's friend..." "Butter and eggs, crap table." "You quick with numbers, you can work the mojo on your brother, confiscate the contents of his pocketbook." "You get a lot of time to practice that shit in the jailhouse." "I see." "Let's get back to you and all these books you read." "You say you done read 4000 books?" "Probably, maybe more than that." "But not this book." "Uh, no, not the whole..." " Why is that?" " I don't know." "Well, what would you say is the best book ever wrote?" "I have no idea." "Well, take a shot." "There are a lot of good books." "Pick one." " Maybe "War and Peace."" " All right." "Do you think that book's as good as this one?" "I don't know." "They're different kinds of books." "This "War and Peace" book..." "It's a book somebody made up, right?" "Well, yes." "So is that what makes it different from this here book?" "No, in my view they're both made up." "Ain't neither one of them true?" "Not in the historical sense, no." "Hmm." "Well, what would be a true book?" "I suppose maybe a history book." "Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" might be one." "At least the events would be actual events." "They would be things that had happened." "Hmm." "So you think that book is as good a book as this book?" " The Bible?" " The Bible." "I don't know." "Gibbon's is a cornerstone." "It's a major book." " And a true book." "Don't forget that." " And a true book, yes." "But is it as good a book?" "I don't know." "I don't know as you can make a comparison." "We're talking about apples and pears." "We ain't talking about no apples and pears, Professor." "We're talking about books." "Is that "Decline and Fall" book as good a book as this here book?" "Answer the question." "I'm gonna have to say no." "Used to say right here on the cover 'fore it got wore down..." ""The greatest book ever written."" " Think that might be true?" " It might." " You read good books." " I try to, yes." "But you ain't read the best book." " Why is that?" " I've got to go." "You don't need to go, Professor." "Just stay here and visit with me." "You' afraid I'll go back to the train station." "You might, so just stay here with me." "What if I promised I wouldn't?" "You might anyway." "Don't you need to go to work?" "I was on my way to work." "A funny thing happened to you on the way to work." "Yes, it did." "Will they fire you?" "No, they ain't gonna fire me." " You could call in." " Ain't got no phone." "Anyhow, they know if I ain't there by now" "I ain't coming." "I ain't a late sort of person." " Why don't you have a phone?" " Don't need one." "Junkies would steal it anyway." "Get a cheap one." "Don't get too cheap for a junkie." "Let's get back to you." "Let's stick with you for a minute." " Can I ask you something?" " Sure you can." "Where were you standing?" "I never saw you." "You mean when you took your amazing leap?" " Yes." " I was on the platform." " On the platform?" " Yeah." "Well, I didn't see you." "I was standing on the platform, minding my own business." "Here you come hauling' ass." "I looked all around to make sure there was no one there, particularly no children." "There was nobody around." "No, just me." "Well, I don't know where you could have been." "Fixing to get spooky on me here, Professor?" "Maybe I was behind a post or something." "There wasn't any post." "So what're you saying..." "You're looking at some big black angel got sent down here to snatch your honky ass out of there at the last possible minute and save you from destruction?" "No, I don't think that." " Such a thing ain't possible?" " No, it isn't." "Well, you're the one suggested it." "I never suggested any such thing." "You're the one who put in the stuff about angels." "I never said anything about angels." "I don't believe in angels." "Well, what is it you believe in?" "A lot of things." "All right." " All right what?" " All right, what things?" " I believe in things." " Give me a for instance." "Um, cultural things, for instance, books, music, art, things like that." "All right." "Those are the things that have value to me." "They're the foundations of civilization." "Well, they used to have value to me." "They don't have so much value anymore, I guess." "What happened to them?" "People stopped valuing them." "I stopped valuing them to a certain extent." "I'm not sure I can tell you why." "That world is largely gone now." "Soon it will be wholly gone." "I'm not sure I'm following you, Professor." "There's nothing to follow." "It's all right." "The things I loved were very frail, very fragile." "I didn't know that." "I thought they were indestructible." "They weren't." "And that's what sent you off the edge of the platform?" "It wasn't nothing personal?" "Oh, it's personal." "That's what an education does." "It makes the world personal." "Well, them's some very powerful words, Professor." "And I can't say that I got an answer to none of that." "And it might be that there ain't no answer." "But still I got to ask." "What's the use of having notions such as them if they won't keep you glued down to the platform when the Sunset Limited is coming through at 80mph?" " Good question." " I thought so." "I don't have an answer to any of that either." "Maybe it's not logical." "I don't know." "I don't care." "I've been asked, didn't I think it odd that I should be around to witness the death of everything?" "I do think it's odd." "But that doesn't mean it isn't so." "Somebody has to be here." "But you don't intend to hang around for it?" "No, I don't." "Let me see if I got this straight." "You're saying that all this culture stuff is the only thing between you and the Sunset Limited." " It's a lot." " But it busted out on you." "Yes." "You're a culture junkie." "Maybe you're right." "Maybe I have no beliefs." "I believe in the Sunset Limited." "Damn, Professor." "Damn indeed." "No beliefs?" "The things I believed in no longer exist." "It's foolish to pretend they do." "Western civilization finally went up in smoke in the chimneys of Dachau, and I was too infatuated to see it." "I see it now." "Hoo!" "You're a challenge, Professor, you know that?" "Well, there's no reason for you to become involved in my problems." "I should go." " Have you got any friends?" " No." " Come on, Professor, not one?" " Not really, no." " Tell me about that one." " What one?" " The "not really" one." " I have a friend at the university..." "Not a close friend." "We have lunch from time to time." "But that's about as good as it gets?" "Yes." "What'd you do to him?" " What'd I do to him?" " Yeah." "I didn't do anything to him." "What makes you think I did something to him?" "I don't know." "Did you?" "No." "What is it you think I did to him?" "I don't know." "I want you to tell me." "There's nothing to tell." "You didn't leave him a note or nothing" " to tell him you've taken the train?" " No." " Your best friend?" " He's not my best friend." "I thought we just got done deciding he was." "You just got done deciding he..." "Did you ever tell him you was thinking about this?" " No." "Why should I?" " 'Cause he's your best friend." "He's..." "I told you, we're not all that close." " You're not all that close?" " No." "He's your best friend, only you ain't all that close?" "If you'd like." "Not the way you'd want to bother him with a little thing like suicide?" "Look, suppose I were to give you my word that I would just go home and I wouldn't try to kill myself en route." "Suppose I was to give you my word that I wouldn't listen to none of your bullshit." "So what am I, a prisoner here?" "You know better than that." "You was a prisoner before you got here..." "A death row prisoner." "What did your daddy do?" "What?" "I said what did your daddy do..." "What kind of work?" "He was a lawyer." " A lawyer?" " Yeah." "What kind of law did he do?" "He was a government lawyer." "He didn't do criminal law or anything like that." "What would be a thing like criminal law?" "I don't know." "Divorce law maybe." "Mm-hmm." "Maybe you got a point." "What'd he die of?" "Who said he was dead?" " Is he dead?" " Yes." "What did he die of?" "Cancer." "Cancer." "So he was sick for a while?" "Yes, he was." " Did you go see him?" " No." " How come?" " I didn't want to." "How come you didn't want to?" "I don't know." "I just didn't." "Maybe I didn't want to remember him that way." "Mm, bullshit." "Did he ask you to come?" "No." " But your mama did." " She may have." "I don't remember." "Come on, Professor." "You know she asked you to come." "Okay, yes." " What did you tell her?" " I said I would." " But you didn't?" " No." " How come?" " He died." "No no, that ain't it." "You had time to go see him, but you didn't do it." "I suppose." "You waited till he was dead." "Okay, so I didn't go see my father." "Your father is laying on his deathbed dying of cancer." "Your mama's sitting there with him, holding his hand." "He's in all kind of pain." "They ask you to come see him one last time before he died." "And you tell them, "No, I ain't coming."" "Please tell me I got some part of this wrong." "If that's the way you want to put it." " Well, how would you put it?" " I don't know." "Well, that's the way it is then, ain't it?" " I suppose." " No, ain't no suppose." " Is it or ain't it?" " Yes." "Whoo!" "Let me see if I can find my train schedule, see when that next uptown express is due." "I'm not sure I see the humor." "I'm glad to hear you say that, Professor, 'cause I ain't sure either." "I get more amazed by the minute." "How come you can't see yourself, honey?" "You're clear as glass." "I can see the wheels in there turning, the gears." "I can see light too..." "good light, true light." "Can't you see it?" "No, I can't." "Well, bless you, brother." "Bless and keep you, 'cause it's there." "When were you in the penitentiary?" " A long time ago." " What were you in for?" " Murder." " Really?" "Now who would claim to be a murderer that wasn't one?" "You called it the jailhouse." "Yeah." "Do most black people call the penitentiary the jailhouse?" "No, just us old country niggers." "We make a point to call things what they is." "I'd hate to think how many names there is for the jailhouse." "I'd hate to have to count them." "Do you have a lot of jailhouse stories?" " Jailhouse stories?" " Yeah." "I don't know." "I used to tell jailhouse stories, but they kind of lost their charm." "Why don't we talk about something that's a little more cheerful?" "You ever been married?" "Married?" " Yeah." " Oh man." "What?" "Oh..." "Maybe we ought to take another look at them jailhouse stories." "Oh my." "Hoo!" "Do you have any children?" "No, Professor." "I ain't got nobody." "Everybody in my family's dead." "I had two boys, but they died a long time ago." "Just about everybody I ever knowed has died, for that matter." "You ought to think about that." "I might be a hazard to your health." "Were you always in a lot of trouble?" "Yeah, I was." "I liked it." "I think I still do." "I done seven years hard time." "Could have done a lot more." "Hurt a lot of people." "I used to smack 'em around, and they wouldn't get up no more." " But you don't get in trouble now?" " No." "But you still like it?" "Well, maybe I'm just condemned to it, bit in the ass by my own karma." "But I'm on the other side now." "You want to help folk that's in trouble, you pretty much got to go where the trouble's at." "You ain't got a lot of choice." "How long have you been here?" "Oh, six..." "going on seven years." "I don't understand why you live here." "As opposed to where?" "Anywhere." "Well, this pretty much is anywhere." "I could live in another building, I suppose, but it's all right." "I got my bedroom over yonder where I can get away, got a sofa where folk can crash... junkies and crackheads mostly." "Of course they're gonna walk off with all your portables, so you can't own nothing." "But that's good." "You hang out with the right crowd, you pretty much get over all your worldly cravings." "They took the refrigerator one time, but somebody caught them out there on the stairs, made them bring it back up." "Now I got that big sucker over yonder... traded up." "Only thing I miss is the music." "I aim to get me a steel door." "Then I can have me some music here." "But you got to buy the door and the frame at the same time." "I'm working on that." "I don't care nothing about television, but I sure do miss the music." "You don't think this is a terrible place?" "A terrible place?" "Yes." "What are you talking about?" "This place." "It's a horrible place full of horrible people." "Oh my." "You must know that these people are not worth saving even if they could be saved, which they can't." "You must know that." "Well, I like a challenge." "I started a ministry 'fore I got out of prison." "Now that was a challenge." "There was a lot of brothers who showed up." "They ain't care nothing about it." "They ain't really care nothing about the word of God." "They just wanted it on the resume." " Resume?" " Resume." "You got some brothers in there had done some real bad shit." "And they weren't sorry about a damn thing except getting caught." "But the funny thing was a lot of them did believe in God, even more so than a lot of these people out here on the outside." "I know I did." "You ought to think about that, Professor." " I think I'd better go." " Oh, hey hey." "You ain't got to go, Professor." "Let me ask you something." "You ever had one of them days where everything was just weird all the way around when things just kind of fell into place?" "I'm not sure what you mean." "Just one of them days kind of magic, one of them days where everything turned out right." "I don't know." "Maybe.Why?" "Well, I'm just wondering if it ain't been maybe sort of long dry spell for you till you took up with the notion that that's the way the world is." " The way the world is?" " Yeah." " And how is that?" " You know, long and dry." "But the point is that even if you feel that way, what you got to understand is that the sun don't shine up the same dog's ass every day." "You understand what I'm saying?" "If what you're saying is that I'm simply having a bad day, that's ridiculous." "I ain't saying you're having a bad day, Professor." "I'm saying you're having a bad life." "You think I should change my life?" " What, you shitting me?" " I have to go." "Look, just hang with me a little while longer." "What about my jailhouse story?" "You don't need no jailhouse story." "Why not?" "Well, you're suspicious about everything already." "You think I'm trying to put you in the trick bag." "And you're not?" "Well yeah, but I don't want you to know it." "Well, in any case, I have to go." "You ain't ready to go back out there on them streets." "I have to." "I know you ain't got nothing you got to do." " How do you know that?" " 'Cause you ain't even supposed to be here." "I see your point." "What if I tell you a jailhouse story?" "Will you stay then?" "All right." "I'll stay a while." "All right!" "The man says all right." "Okay, here go my jailhouse story." "Is it a true story?" "Oh yeah, it's a true story." "I don't know no other kind." "One day I'm in the chow line and I'm getting my chow when the nigger in the line behind me gets into it with the server, says the beans is cold." "So he throws the ladle down in the beans." "Well, when he done that there was beans splashed up on me." "Well, I didn't want to get into it over no beans, but it did kinda piss me off some." "I'd just put on a clean uniform... you know, khakis, shirt and trousers." "And you only get two a week." "So I said something to him like "Hey man, watch it" or something like that." "But I went on." "I'm telling myself," ""Just let it go." "Just let it go."" "But then the nigger said something." "So I turned back." "And when I done that, he stuck a knife in me." "I ain't even see it coming." "Blood's just flying everywhere." "This wasn't no jailhouse shiv neither." "This was one of them Italian switchblades..." "One of them black-and-silver jobs." "Well, I ain't do a thing but duck and step back under the rail." "And I reached out and I got hold of this table leg." "And it come off in my hand just as easy." "It had this long screw sticking out the end of it." "And I went to wailing on that nigger's head!" "And I ain't quit!" "I ain't quit till you couldn't tell it was a head no more!" "That screw was stick in his head and I'd have to put my foot on him to pull it out." " What'd he say?" " What'd he say?" "I mean in the line." "What did he say?" " I ain't gonna repeat it." " That doesn't seem fair." " Don't seem fair?" " No." "Here I am telling you a bona fide blood-and-guts tale from the big house, the genuine article, and I can't get you to fill in the blanks about what the nigger said?" " Do you have to use that word?" " Use that word?" " Yes." " We ain't making much progress here, is we?" "It just seems unnecessary." "You don't want to hear "nigger,"" "but you about to bail out on me 'cause I won't tell you some ugly shit the nigger said?" "Is you sure about this?" "I just don't see why you have to use that word." "It's my story, ain't it?" "Anyway, I don't remember there being no African-Americans or people of color in there." "To my recollection there was only a bunch of niggers!" "Go ahead." "Now at some point" "I musta pulled the knife out and... and dropped on the floor somewhere." "Meanwhile, I'm still wailing on this nigger's head, but his friend has got ahold of me from behind." "But I got one hand on the rail so I ain't going nowhere." "But what I don't know is that this dude musta picked up the knife and he's trying to gut me." "I felt the blood." "I turned around and I bust him in the head." "And he went skittering off across the floor." "And by now somebody done pushed the button and the alarm is going." "Everybody's down on the floor and we in lockdown." "The guard up on the rail..." "He got his shotgun pointed at me and he's hollering," ""You!" "Get on the floor and drop the weapon!"" "He's about to shoot me when the lieutenant tells him," ""Hold your fire!" "You!" "Throw down that club!"" "I looked around, and I was the only one standing." "I see the nigger's feet sticking out from under the counter where he'd done crawled." "So I throwed the thing down." "I don't remember much after that." "They..." "they told me" "I had lost almost half my blood." "I remember slipping around in it, but I thought it was the other dude's." "Did the man die?" "No, he didn't." "Everybody lived." "They thought he was dead, but he wasn't." "He wasn't right after that, so I ain't really had no more trouble out of him." "He walked around with his head kinda to the side, lost one eye, arm's hanging down, didn't talk right." "They shipped him off to another facility." "But that's not the whole story." " No, it ain't." " So what happened?" "I woke up in the infirmary." "They had already done operated on me." "My spleen was cut open, liver, I don't know what all." "I come pretty close to dying." "I had 280 stitches holding me together and, whoo, I was hurting." "I didn't know you could hurt that much." "And still they had me in leg irons and had me handcuffed to the bed, if you can believe that." "Now as I lay there," "I heard this voice just as clear, couldn't have been no clearer." "And the voice said," ""If it was not for the grace of God you would not be here."" "Man, I tried to sit up and look around, but I couldn't." "Wasn't no need to nohow, 'cause wasn't nobody there." "I mean, there was somebody there all right, but wasn't no need for me looking around to see if I could see him." "You don't think this is a strange kind of story?" "Yeah, I do think it's a strange kind of story." "No, what I mean is that you didn't feel sorry for this man." "Oh, you getting ahead of the story." "The story of how a fellow inmate became a crippled one-eyed halfwit so that you could find God." " Whoa-ho." " Well, isn't it?" " I don't know." " You hadn't thought of it that way?" "Oh yeah, hell, I thought of it that way." "Well, isn't that the true story?" "Look, Professor, I don't want to get on the wrong side of you." "And you seem to have a powerful wish for that to be the story, so I got to say that is one way of looking at it." "I gotta concede that." "Gotta keep you interested." " String me along." " You all right with that?" "And then put me in the..." "What is it?" "The trick bag?" " Yeah." " Right." "You got to remember" " this is a jailhouse story." " All right." " Which you specifically asked for." " All right." "The point is, Professor," "I ain't got the first notion in the world about what makes God tick." "I don't know why he spoke to me." " I know I wouldn't have." " But you listened." " What choice would you have?" " I don't know." "Not listen." "You think he goes around talking to people he knows ain't gonna listen to him in the first place?" "You think he got that kind of free time?" "Why is it you people cat just accept it that some people don't even want to believe in God?" " I can accept that." " You can?" "Sure I can." "Meaning I believe that to be a fact." "I mean I'm looking at it every day, so I'd better accept it." "Then why can't you leave us alone?" "Oh, to be hanging from steampipes and all that?" "If that's what we want to do, yes." "Because he said not to." "It's in here." " Don't you want to be happy?" " Happy?" "What, you got something against being happy?" " God help us." " What, I done opened up a can of worms?" "What you got against being happy?" "It's contrary to the human condition." "Contrary to your condition." "I gotta agree with that." "Happy?" "What, like there ain't no such thing?" "Not for nobody?" "No." "How did we get ourselves in such a fix as this?" "We were born in such a fix as this." "Suffering and human destiny are the same thing." "Each is a description of the other." "We ain't talking about no suffering." "We're talking about being happy." " You can't be happy if you're in pain." " Why not?" "You're not making any sense." "Oh, them is some hard words from the Professor." "The preacher has fell back." "He's clutching his heart." "His eyes is rolled back in his head." "Wait a minute." "Wait a minute, folks." "The preacher's blinking." "He's coming back." "He's coming back." "The point is, Professor, that if you ain't got no pain in your life, how would you even know when you was happy?" "As compared to what?" "You don't have anything to drink around here, do you?" "No, I don't." "Is you a drinking man?" " Are we about to get a temperance lecture?" " Not from me." "It's been a difficult day." "I take it you don't drink." "No, I don't." "I've done my share of it in my time though." "Are you in A.A.?" "No no, no A.A. I just quit." "I've had a lot of friends who was drinkers though..." "Most of them for that matter." "Most of them dead too." "From drinking?" "Well, from drinking or reasons not too far from it." "I had a friend get run down not too long ago by a taxicab." "Now where you think he was headed drunk?" "I don't know." "Where was he going?" "To get more whisky." "He had plenty at the house, but drunks are always scared they're gonna run out." "Was he killed?" "I hope so." "We buried him." "I suppose there's a moral to this story." "Just a story about what you get and what you want." "Pain... happiness." "Let me tell you another one." "One Sunday we's all sitting around the house drinking... a Sunday morning." "Well, here come this friend of ours with this girl Evelyn." "Now Evelyn was drunk when she got there, but we told her," ""Go on and get yourself a drink."" "Well, directly, my buddy Reg..." "He goes in the kitchen to fix hisself a drink." "Only now the bottle is gone." "Now Reg has been around a few drinking people in his time and commences to hunt for the bottle." "He looks in the cabinet, looks behind everything, but he can't find it." "Of course he knows what's happened to it." "So he comes back in the living room, sits down, looks at Evelyn sitting there on the sofa drunk as a goat." "And he says, "Evelyn, where you put the whisky?"" "Evelyn says..." "He says, "Evelyn, where did you hide the whisky?"" "And she..." "Well, Reg is sitting there and this is beginning to piss him off a little, so he gets in her face and he says," "And she says," ""I hid it in the toilet."" "That's pretty funny." "Oh, I thought you'd like that." "And is that where the whisky was?" "Oh, yeah yeah." "That's a favorite place for drunks to hide a bottle." "But the point is that the drunk's concern ain't that he's going to die from drinking..." "which he is... but that he's going to run out of whisky before he get a chance to do it." "Is you hungry?" "'Cause I can come back to this." "I ain't gonna lose my place." "No, I'm all right." "Go ahead." "If you was to hand a drunk a drink and tell him he don't want it, what do you think he'd say?" "I think I know what he would say." "Sure you do." "And you would be right." " About him not really wanting it?" " Yes." "Because what he wants he can't get, or thinks he can't get, so what he really don't want he can't get enough of." "So what is it he really wants?" "Well, you know what he really wants." " No, I don't." " Yes, you do." "No, I don't." "You don't know what he wants?" "No, I do not." "He wants what everybody wants." "And that is?" "He wants to be loved by God." "I don't want to be loved by God." "See, I love that." "I love the way you cut right to it." "See, he don't either, according to him." "All he wants is a drink of whisky." "Now you're a smart man, Professor." "Now tell me which one makes sense and which one don't." "I don't want a drink of whisky either." "I thought you just got done asking for one." "I mean as a general proposition." "We ain't talking about no general proposition." "We're talking about a drink." " I don't have a drinking problem." " You got some kind of problem." "Well, whatever kind of problem I have, it is not something that I imagine can be addressed with a drink of liquor." "Mm!" "I love the way you put that." "Well, what can it be addressed with?" "I think you know what it can be addressed with." "The Sunset Limited." "Yes." "That's what you really want." "That is what I want, yes." "Well, that's a mighty big drink of whisky, Professor." " That I don't really want?" " That you don't really want, yes." " Well, I think I do want it." " Of course you do, honey." "If you didn't, we wouldn't be sitting here." "I disagree with you." "All right, but that's the hand I'm playing." "I don't think you understand that people such as myself look upon this yearning for God as something lacking in these people." "Sure I do." "I couldn't agree more." "You agree with that?" "Yes." "What's lacking is God." "I am sorry, but to me this whole idea of God is just a load of crap." "Oh lord have mercy!" "Jesus help us." "The Professor's done gone and blasphemed all over us." "We ain't never gonna be saved now." "You don't find that an evil thing to say?" "No, Professor, I don't." "But you does." "No, I don't." "It's simply a fact." "No, it ain't simply no fact." "Now that's the biggest fact about you." "In fact, it might just be the only fact." "But you don't seem to think it's so bad." "No, 'cause I know it to be curable." "Now if you're asking me what the man up there thinks about it, well, I imagine he done heard it so much that it don't bother him all that much." "I mean, what if somebody told you you didn't exist and you was sitting right there listening to him say it?" "That wouldn't piss you off, would it?" "No, you'd just feel sorry for them." "Right, and you might even try to get some help for them." "Now in my case he had to holler out loud, me laying on a slab in two pieces, sewed back together where some nigger done tried to core me like an apple." "But God being God, he can speak to your heart at any time." "And furthermore, if he spoke to me... which he did... he can speak to anybody." ""Wonder what this crazy nigger's fixing to do now." "He's liable to put the mojo on me." "He'll be speaking in tongues here directly." "I need to get my ass out of here." "He's liable to steal my pocketbook." "I need to get my ass on down to that depot 'fore something bad happens to me."" "Hey!" "What are we gonna do with you, Professor?" "Look, I know I owe you a great deal, at least in the eyes of the world." "Couldn't I just give you something and we could call it square?" "I'll give you some money, something like that." "I can give you $1000." "Well, that's not very much, I guess." "I can give you $3000, say." "You ain't got no notion of the trouble you're in, do you?" " I don't know what you mean." " I know you don't." "I'd just like to settle this in some way." "Ain't me you got to settle with." "Do you really think I was sent to you by God?" "No, it's worse than that." "How do you mean?" "Belief ain't like unbelief." "If you're a believer and you finally got to come to the well of belief itself, then you ain't got to look no further." "There ain't no further." "But the unbeliever's got a problem." "He's set out to unravel the world." "For everything he can point to that ain't true, he leaves two things laying there." "Do you really believe everything that's in there... the Bible?" "The literal truth?" "Yes." "Probably not, but then you already know I'm an outlaw." "What is it you would disagree with?" "Probably the notion of original sin... you know, when Eve ate the apple, turned everybody bad." "I don't see people that way." "I think for the most part people was good to begin with." "I think evil is something you bring on your own self, mostly from wanting things you ain't supposed to have." "But I ain't gonna stand here and tell you about me being a heretic when I'm trying to get you to quit being one." "Are you a heretic?" "Is you trying to put me in the trick bag, Professor?" "No, I'm not." "Are you?" "No more than what a man ought to be, even a man with a powerful belief." "I ain't a doubter, but I am a questioner." "What's the difference?" "A questioner wants the truth." "A doubter wants to be told there ain't no such thing." "You don't think you have to believe everything that's in there" " in order to be saved?" " No, not at all." "I don't even think you have to read it." "I ain't even for sure you even got to know there is such a book." "I think whatever truth is wrote in the pages of this book is wrote in the human heart too, and was wrote there a long time ago, and will be wrote there a long time hence, even if every copy of this book is burned..." "every copy of it." "And what Jesus said..." "I don't think he made up a word of it." "He just told it." "This book is a guide for the ignorant and the sick at heart." "A whole man wouldn't need it at all." "And if you was to read this book, you're gonna find there's more talk in here about the wrong way than there is the right way." "Why is that?" "I don't know." "Why is it?" "Why don't you tell me?" "I'll have to think about that." " Okay." " Okay what?" "Okay, go on and think about it." "It might take me a little longer than you to think about something." " That's all right." " That's all right?" "Yeah." "I mean, I can take that statement in one or two ways." "I'm going to take it the good way 'cause that's my nature." "That way I get to live in my world and not yours." "What makes you think mine is so bad?" "I don't think it's so bad." "I just know it's brief." "All right." "I think the answer to your question is that the dialectic of the homily always presupposes a ground of evil." " Man." " How's that?" "That's strong as a mare's breath, Professor." "Whoo!" "Wouldn't I love to lay some shit like that on the brothers." "Whoa." "It's just the two of us sitting here in private, talking." "What'd you just say?" "Your question... the Bible is full of cautionary tales... all of literature, for that matter... telling us to be careful." "Careful of what?" "Taking the wrong turn, the wrong path." "How many wrong paths are there?" "Their number is legion." "How many right paths?" "Just one." "Hence the imbalance that you spoke of." "Man." "You know, you could go on TV, Professor, a good-looking man like yourself." "You know that?" " Stop." " I'm serious." "I wasn't even sure you was a Professor till you laid that shit on me." "Now I think you're having fun at my expense." " No, I ain't." " Well, I think you are." "Honey, I swear I ain't." "I couldn't say a thing like you just got done saying." "I admire that." "And why do you keep calling me honey?" "That's just the old South talking." "It don't mean nothing." "I'll try and stop if it bothers you." "I'm just not sure what it means." "It means you're among friends." "It means quit worrying about everything." "That might be easier said than done." "Yeah, you're right." "It might." "But we're just talking..." "talking." " Tell me something." " Sure." "Why are you here?" "What do you get out of this?" "You seem like a smart man." "Me?" "I'm just a dumb country nigger from Louisiana." "I done told you, I ain't never had the first thought in my head." "If it ain't in here, I don't know it." "Sometimes I think you're having fun with me." "You are an asshole!" "A-s-s-hole!" "Asshole!" "Come on now." "Now what the fuck are you doing in my motherfucking bed?" "I don't see how you can live here." "I don't know how you can feel safe." "Well, you got a point, Professor, about being safe anyway." "You ever stopped any of these people from taking drugs?" "Not that I know of." "Then what is the point?" "I don't get it." "I mean, it's hopeless." "This places is a moral leper colony." "Damn." "Moral leper colony." "Where's my pencil at?" "I ain't never gonna want you to leave." "Put this in my book." ""In the moral leper colony."" "I like the sound of that." "I still don't see how you can live here." "Why not go someplace where you can do the world some good?" "As opposed to someplace where good is needed?" "Even God gives up at some point." "There's no ministry in hell that I ever heard of." "No, there ain't." "And that's well put." "Ministry is for the living." "That's why you're responsible for your brother." "Once he quit breathing you can't help him no more." "He's in the hands of other parties." "So you got to look after him now." "You might even want to monitor his train schedule." "You think you are your brother's keeper?" "I don't believe "think" quite covers it." "And Jesus is part of this enterprise?" "That all right with you?" "And he's interested in coming here to this cesspool and salvaging what everybody knows is unsalvageable." "Why would he do that?" "You said he didn't have a lot of free time." "Why would he come here?" "What would the difference be to him between a building that was spiritually and morally vacant and one that was just plain empty?" "Mm, Professor, you're a theologian here and I ain't even know it." "You're being facetious." "I don't know that word." "But don't be afraid to talk down to me." "You ain't gonna hurt my feelings." "It means..." "I guess it means you're not being sincere, that you're being..." "You don't mean what you're saying in a cynical sort of way." "Mm, you don't think I mean what I say?" "I think you say things for effect sometimes." "Mm, well, let me say this for effect." "Go ahead." "Suppose I was to tell you that if you could bring yourself to unlatch your hands from around your brother's throat, you could have life everlasting?" "There's no such thing." "Everybody dies." "That ain't what he said." "He said you could have life everlasting, have it now, today, hold it in your hands, see it." "It gives off a light, got a little weight to it..." "not much." "Warm to the touch just a little..." "Life, and it's forever." "And you can have it now, today." "But you don't want it." "You don't want it 'cause to get it you got to let your brother off the hook." "You got to actually take him in your arms and hold him and don't matter what color he is or what he smells like or even if he don't want to be held." "And you won't do it 'cause you don't think he deserves it." "And about that there ain't no argument." "He don't." "You won't do it 'cause it ain't just." "Ain't that so?" "Ain't it?" "I don't think in those terms." "Just answer the question, Professor." "I don't believe in that sort of thing." "I know you don't." "Just answer the question." "There may be some truth in what you say." "That's all I'm going to get?" "Yes." "All right, all right." "I'll take it." "Some is a lot." "We down to breadcrumbs here." "I really have to go home." "No no no, just stay, just a little." "We can talk about something else." "You like baseball?" "Tell you what..." "Why don't I fix us something to eat?" " I'm not hungry." " How about some coffee?" "All right." "But then I really have to go." "All right." "The man says all right." "You know, ordinarily I wouldn't be this rude..." "A man come in my house, sit at my table and me not offering nothing." "But with you I got to strategize, play the cards right, keep you from slipping off into the night." "It's not night." "Depends on what kind of night you're talking about." "Let me ask you a kind of personal question." "This will be good." "What you think is wrong with you that you finally narrowed all your choices down to the Sunset Limited?" "I don't think there's anything wrong with me." "I think I've just been driven to finally face the truth." "If I'm different it doesn't mean I'm crazy." " Different?" " Yeah." " Different from who?" " Anybody." "What about all them other folk out there trying to off themself?" " What about 'em?" " Well, maybe them's the folk you is like." "Maybe they're your natural kin, only y'all don't get together all that much." " I don't think so." " Don't think so?" "No, I've been in group therapy with those people." "I've never found anyone there that I felt any kinship with." "Hmm, what about all them professors?" "There ain't no kinship there?" " Good God." " I'll take that as a no." "I loathe them and they loathe me." "Well, just 'cause you don't like 'em don't mean you ain't like 'em." "And what's that word "loathe"?" " Loathe." " That a pretty powerful word, ain't it?" "Not powerful enough, I'm afraid." "How come you be loathing these other professors?" " I know what you're thinking." " What am I thinking?" "You're thinking that I loathe them because I'm like them, and I loathe myself." "Let me ask you this..." "Is you on any kind of medication?" " No." " There ain't no medication for pilgrims out there waiting to take the Limited?" " For suicidal depression?" " Yeah." " Yeah, there is." "I've tried them." " And what happened?" " Nothing happened." " You ain't get no relief?" " No." "Your coffee's percolated." " Yeah, I know." "Does these drugs work for other people?" "Yes, for most." " But not for you?" " Not for me, no." "Hmm, what you make of that?" "I don't know." "What am I supposed to make of it?" "I don't know, Professor." "I'm just trying to see if we can find you some constituents out here." " Constituents?" " Yeah, you like that?" "Is that a word they use on the streets?" "No, I learned that word in the jailhouse." "You hear things from these jailhouse lawyers and then it gets used around." "Be talking about your constituents, some other cat's constituents, your wife's constituents." "You take cream and sugar?" "No, just black." "Just black." "Why do I have to have constituents?" "I ain't saying you got to, Professor." "I'm just wondering if maybe you do and we just ain't looked hard enough for them." "They could be out there." "There could be some other drug-proof terminal commuters out there could be your friends." " Terminal commuters?" " Mm-hmm, you like the sound of that?" "It's all right." "Nobody?" " Nobody, no." " Hmm." "I'm not a member." "Never wanted to be and never was." " Not a member?" " No." "Look, I could eat a bite." "And I think you could too." "You break bread with a man, you've moved on to another level of friendship." "I heard that's true the world over." "Probably." "Probably?" "I like probably." "Probably from you is worth a couple of damn rights anywhere else." "Why?" "Because I don't believe in anything?" "Well, I don't think that's the problem." "I think it's what you do believe that's carrying you off, not what you don't." "Let me ask you this." "Go ahead." "You ever think about Jesus?" "Here we go." "Well, do you?" "What makes you think I'm not Jewish?" "What, Jews ain't allowed to think about Jesus?" "No, but they might think about him differently." "Oh." "Is you Jewish?" "No, as it happens I'm not." "Had me going there for a minute." "What, you don't like Jews?" "I'm just pulling your chain, Professor, just pulling your chain." "I don't know why I like to mess with you, but I do." "Now you need to listen or you need to believe what you're hearing, 'cause the point of where this is going... which you wanted to know... is that there ain't no Jews, there ain't no whites," "there ain't no niggers..." "people of color." "There ain't none of that." "At the deep bottom of the mine where the gold is at, there ain't none of that." "There's just the pure ore, that forever thing that you don't think is there, that thing that keeps people nailed down to the platform when the Sunset Limited is coming through, even if they think they want to get aboard," "that thing that allows you to ladle out benediction on the heads of strangers instead of curses." "And it's all one thing." "And it ain't but one thing, just one." "And that would be Jesus." "I got to think about how to answer that." "Maybe one more heresy won't hurt you." "Pretty loaded up on them already." "Here's what I would say." "I would say..." "Mm!" "I would say that thing we're talking about is Jesus, but Jesus as understood as that gold at the bottom of the mine." "He could not come down here and assume the shape of a man if that form was not done shaped to accommodate him." "And if I said ain't no way for Jesus to be every man without every man being Jesus, well now, I think that would be a pretty big heresy." "But that's all right." "It ain't as big a heresy as saying like man ain't no different from a rock, which is how I see your point of view." "It's not my point of view." "I believe in the primacy of the intellect." "Mm, and what's that word?" "Primacy?" "It means first." "It means what you put first." "And that would be intellect?" "Yes." "Well, what about the primacy of the Sunset Limited?" "Yes, that too." "But not the primacy of the people waiting on a later train?" "No, no primacy there." "Hmm." "You tough, Professor." "You tough." "You see yourself as a questioner." "But about that I got my doubts." "The quest of your life is your quest." "And you're on a road that you laid." "And that fact alone might be all the reason you need for sticking to it." "As long as you're on that road you can't get lost." "I'm not sure I understand what you're saying." "Oh, I got my doubts about you not understanding anything I say, Professor." "I'm fixing to say grace." "Lord, we thank you for this food and for the many blessings we have received from your hand." "We thank you for the life of the Professor which you have returned to us and ask that you would look after him, 'cause we need him." "Now I don't know why we need him." "I just know we do." "Amen." "Tell me how you like this." "It looks good." "This is good." "This is very good." "Supposed to be good." "It's soul food, my man." "It's got what in it?" "Molasses?" " Mm, you a chef, Professor?" " Not really." " But some?" " Some, yes." "Bananas, of course." "Mangos?" " Got a mango or two in it, rutabagas." " Rutabagas?" "Rutabagas." "Them's hard to find." "It's very good." "You know, it gets better after a day or two." "I just fixed this last night." "You gotta heat it up a few times to get the flavors right." "Like chili." "Like chili." "Yeah, that's right." "You know where I learned to fix this?" " In Louisiana?" " Mm-mm." "Right here in the ghettos of New York City." "There's a lot of different influences in a dish like this." "Many parts of the world in that pot over yonder, a lot of different countries, different people." "Any white people?" "Not if you can help it." "Really?" "I'm just messing with you, Professor, just messing with you." "You know them chefs in them uptown restaurants?" " Not personally, no." " You know what they like to fix?" " No." " Sweetbreads..." "Brains, tripe, all that shit don't nobody like to eat." "You know why that is?" "Because it's a challenge." "You have to innovate." "You're pretty smart for a honky." "That's right." "It's a challenge." "The stuff they fix..." "dead cheap." "Most folks throw it out, give it to the cat." "But poor folks..." "They don't throw nothing out." "I guess that's right." "Anybody can make a porterhouse steak taste good." "But if you can't buy no porterhouse steak and you still wants to eat something that tastes good, what do you do then?" " Innovate." " Innovate." "That's right." "And who is it that's got to innovate?" " Poor people." " That's right." "Poor people." "You fixing to get an a+." "So how you like this?" "It's very good." "You don't think a glass of wine would have been good with this?" "I do think a glass of wine would have been good with it." "But you wouldn't drink it?" "Oh, I might." "Just one glass." "Jesus drank wine..." "he and his disciples." "Yes, he did." "Says so right here in the Bible." "Of course it don't say nothing about him hiding it in the toilet." "Is that really a favorite hiding place?" "Oh yeah." "I've known drunks to lift the lids off toilets in strange places just on the off chance." " Is that true?" " No." "It could be though." "Wouldn't surprise me none." "What is the worst thing you ever did?" " More jailhouse stories?" " Why not?" "Which why not you want to hear?" "Is bludgeoning the man in the prison cafeteria the worst thing you ever did?" "No, it ain't." "It isn't?" "What's the worst?" " I ain't gonna tell you." " Why not?" "'Cause you'll jump up, run out the door hollering." "It must be pretty bad." "It is." "That's why I ain't telling you." " Now I'm afraid to ask." " No, u ain't." "Did you ever tell anyone?" "Yeah." "It wouldn't leave me alone." "Who did you tell it to?" "I told it to a man of God who was my friend." " What did he say?" " He didn't say a word." "But you're not curious about the worst thing I ever did." "Yeah, I am." "But you won't ask me what it is." " I don't have to." " Why is that?" "'Cause I was there." "I seen it." "Well, I might have a different view." "Yeah, you might." "You want some more?" "No, I'm stuffed." "Hungrier than you thought?" "Yes, I was." "Good." "Is this some kind of test of your faith?" " What, you?" " Me, yes." "It ain't my faith you're testing." "You see everything in black and white." "It is black and white." "I suppose that makes the world easier to understand." "You'd be surprised how little time I spend trying to understand the world." "You try to understand God." "No, I don't." "I try to understand what he wants from me." "And that's everything you need?" "If God ain't everything you need, then you in a world of trouble." "I don't make a move without Jesus." "When I get up in the morning," "I try to grab ahold to his belt." "Sometime I go into a manual override." "I catch myself." " Manual override?" " Yeah, you like that?" " It's okay." " I thought it was pretty good." "So you come to the end of your rope and you admit defeat and you're in despair." "And in this state you seize upon this, whatever it is, that has neither sense nor substance, and you grab hold of it and hang on for dear life." "Is that a fair portrayal?" "That might be one way to say it." "It doesn't make any sense." "Well, I thought when we was talking earlier you was saying that there was none of it made no sense..." "Talking about the history of the world and some such." "Well, it doesn't on a larger scale." "But what you're telling me is not a view of things." "It's a view of one thing and I find it nonsensical." "What would you do if Jesus was to speak to you?" "Do you imagine that he might?" "No, I don't." "But I don't know." "I'm not virtuous enough." "No, Professor, it ain't nothing like that." "You ain't got to be virtuous." "You just has to be quiet." "Now I can't speak for the lord, but it has been my experience that he will talk to anybody who will listen." "You damn sure ain't got to be virtuous." "If I heard God talking to me," "I would be ready for you to take me up to Bellevue, as you suggested." "What if what he said made sense?" "Wouldn't make any difference." "Craziness is craziness." " Don't make no difference if it makes sense?" " No." "Well, that's about as big a case of the primacy as I ever heard." "I've always gone my own way." "Ich kann nicht anders." "What's that you talking?" " It's German." " You talk German?" "Not really." "A little." "It's a quotation." "Ah well, it didn't do them Germans much good though, did it?" "I don't know." "The Germans contributed a great deal to civilization before Hitler." "And then they contributed Hitler." "Yeah, if you like." "I gather it to be your belief that culture tends to contribute to human misery, that the more one knows, the unhappier one is likely to be." "As in the case of certain parties known to us." "As in the case." "Well, I don't believe I said that." "I think maybe it was you who said it." " I never said it." " Do you believe it?" " No." " No?" "I don't know." "It could be true." "Well, why is that?" "That don't seem right, do it?" "It's the first thing in that book there... the Garden of Eden, knowledge as destructive to the spirit, destructive to goodness." "I thought I ain't read that book." "Everyone knows that story." "It's probably the most famous story in there." "Hmm, why you think that is?" "I suppose from the God's point of view all knowledge is vanity." "Or maybe it just gives people the unhealthy illusion that they can outwit the devil." "Damn, Professor." "Where was you when I needed you?" "You'd better be careful." "You see where it's gotten me." "Oh, I see." "That's the topic of discussion here." "The darker picture is always the correct one." "When you read the history of the world you are reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore." "And yet we imagine that the future will somehow be different." "I've no idea why we are even still here." "In all probability we won't be here much longer." "Them's some pretty powerful words, Professor." "That's what's in your heart though, ain't it?" "Yes." "All right, well, I can relate to them thoughts." " You can?" " Sure I can." "That surprises me." "But you could be wrong, you know." "I don't think so." "That ain't something you have a lot of in your life, is it?" " What isn't?" " Being wrong." " I admit it when I'm wrong." " Oh, I don't know about that." "Well, you're entitled to your own opinion." "Oh yeah, here it is." "Story on page three." "Ah." ""Friends reported that the man had ignored all advice and stated that he intended to pursue his own course." "A close confidant stated... "" "and this here is in quotations..." ""You couldn't tell that son of a bitch nothing."" "Now can you say that in the paper..." ""Son of a bitch"?" ""Blood-spattered spectators at the 155th Street station... continued on page four..."" "155th Street station..." ""who were interviewed at the scene said that the man's last words as he hurtled toward the oncoming commuter train were," "'I am right.'"" "very funny." "Oh, Professor, you an amazing man." "I'm glad you find me entertaining." " Oh, I think you're pretty special." " I don't think I'm special." " You don't?" " No, I don't." "You don't think you view those other commuters from a certain height?" "I view those other commuters as fellow occupants of the same abyssal pit in which I find myself." "And if they see it as something different," "I don't know how that makes me special." "Mm." "I hear what you're saying." "But still I keep coming back to these commuters, them that's waiting on the Sunset." "I can't help but think there's got to be something a little special about theirselves." "I mean, they got to be in a deeper pit than us day travelers..." "deeper and darker." "I ain't saying they down as deep as you," " but pretty deep maybe." " So?" "So maybe they your brothers in self-destruction and despair." "I thought misery loved company." "I'm sure I don't know." "Let me take a shot at it." "What I think is that you got better reasons than them." "See, their reasons is that they just don't like it here, but yours says what it is not to like and why not not to like it." "You got more intelligent reasons, more elegant reasons." " You making fun of me?" " No, I ain't." " But you think I'm full of shit?" " No, I don't think that." "But I don't doubt that it's possible to die from being full of shit." "But I don't think that's what we're looking at here." "What do you think we're looking at?" "I don't know." "You got me in uncharted territory." "You got these world-class reasons for taking the Limited where these other dudes..." "all they got is, well, maybe they just don't feel good." "It might could be that you ain't even all that unhappy." "You think my education is driving me to suicide?" "No, I'm just posing the question." "Well, wait a minute 'fore you answer." "Okay, go ahead." "I think that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard." ""I think that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard."" "Very clever." "What's the point?" "The light is all around you but you don't see nothing but shadow." "And you're the one causing it." "It's you." "You're the shadow." "That's the point." "Well, I don't have your faith." "Why don't we just leave it at that?" "You ain't never thought about just starting over?" "I did at one time." "I don't anymore." "Well, maybe faith is just a case of not having nothing else left." "Well, I do have something else." "Well, why don't you just keep that in reserve?" "Just take a shot at starting over." "I don't mean starting again." "Everybody's done that." "Over means over." "Just walk away." "I mean, if everything you are and everything you have and everything you done has brought you at last to the bottom of a whisky bottle or bought you a one-way ticket on the Sunset Limited, you can't give me one good reason on God's green earth" "for salvaging none of it, 'cause there ain't none." "If you can bring yourself to close the door on all of that, it will be cold and it will be lonely and there will be a fierce wind blowing." "But you don't say nothing." "You just turn your collar up and keep walking." "I can't." "I can't." "You want some more coffee?" "No, thank you." "Why do you think it is folks take their own life?" "I don't know." "Different reasons." "Is there anything these different reasons has got in common?" "I can't speak for others." "My own reasons center around a gradual loss of make-believe, a gradual enlightenment as to the nature of reality, of the world." " Them worldly reasons." " If you like." " Them elegant reasons." " That was your description." "You ain't disagreed with it." "It's them reasons that your brother don't know nothing about hanging from his necktie from a steampipe down in the basement." "He's got his own dumbass reasons." "But if we could find a way to educate him to them more elegant reasons and make them available to him and his buddies, then there'd be a lot of folk out there could off themselves with more joy in their hearts." "What you think?" "Now I know you're being facetious." "I think you're right." "I think you done finally drove me to it." "Mm-hmm." "Professor done gone to laying mm-hmms on me." "I guess I'd better watch my step." "You better had." "I might be warming up the trick bag." "You think your reasons is about the world, and his is mostly about him." "I think that's probably true." "I think I see a different truth sitting across the table from me." "Which is?" "That you must love your brother or die." "I don't know what that means." "It's another world from anything I know." "Well, well, tell me how your world is." "You don't want to hr it." " Sure I do." " I don't think so." "Yeah, go ahead." "All right." "It's that the world is basically a forced labor camp from which the workers, perfectly innocent, are led forth by lottery, a few each day, to be executed." "I don't think that's just the way I see it." "I think that's the way it is." "Are there alternative views?" "Yes." "Will any of them stand close scrutiny?" "No." "So do you want to take a look at that train schedule again?" "If this ain't the life you wanted, what was?" "I don't know." "Not this." "Are you living the life you had planned?" "No, it ain't." "But I got what I needed instead of what I wanted." "Sometimes that's the best kind of luck to have." "Yeah, well..." "You can't compare your life to mine though, can you?" "No, I can't." "( Chuckles" "I just can't." "Oh, I'm sorry." "I should go." " You don't have to go." " I've offended you." "Look, my hide is thicker than that." "Don't go." "You ain't hurt my feelings." "I know you think I should be thankful." "I'm sorry not to be." " I don't think no such thing." " I should go." "I'm digging a dry hole here, ain't I?" "I admire your persistence." "What can I do to get you to just stay just a bit?" "Why?" "Are you hoping that if I stay long enough, God might talk to me?" "No, I'm hoping he'll speak to me." "I know you think I at least owe you a little more of my time." "I know I'm ungrateful." "But ingratitude is not the sin to a spiritual bankrupt that it is to a man of God." "I don't think you owe me nothing, Professor." " You really think that?" " Yeah, I do." "Well, you're very kind." "And I wish there was something I could do to repay you, but there isn't." "So why don't we just say goodbye?" "You can get on with your life." "Suppose..." "Suppose I have to tell you you could wake up tomorrow and you wouldn't want to be jumping in front of no train." "Suppose all you had to do was ask." "Would you do it?" "That just depends on what I would have to give up." "See, I started to write that down on a piece of paper." "What is it you think I'm holding on to?" "I don't know!" "What is it the terminal commuter cherishes" " that he would die for?" " I don't know." "No no." "You don't." "You don't want to talk to me no more, do you?" "I thought you had a thick skin." "It is, but it ain't hide to the bone." "Why do you think there is something that I won't give up?" "I don't know." "I think any man anxious to get run over by a train has got to have something on his mind." "I mean most of us would just settle for maybe a slap upside the head." "You say you don't care about nothing, but I don't believe that." "I don't think death is ever about nothing." "You asked me what I think you're holding on to and I got to say I don't know." "Or maybe I just don't have the words to say it." "And maybe you know but you just ain't telling." "What I believe is that when you took your celebrated leap, you was taking it with you and you was holding on to it, holding on for grim death." "I'm just looking for the words, Professor." "I'm looking for the words 'cause I know the words is just the way to your heart." "Well, I can't help you." "Letting it all go is the place I finally got to." "It took a lot of work to get there." "And if there's one thing" "I would be unwilling to give up, it is exactly that." "Is there another way you could say that?" "The one thing I won't give up is giving up." "I expect that to carry me through." "I'm depending on it." "The things I believe in were very frail, as I've said." "They won't be around very long and neither will I." "But I don't think that's really the reason for my decision." "I think it goes deeper than that." "You can acclimate yourself to loss." "You have to." "I mean..." "You like music, right?" "Yeah yeah, I do." "Who is the greatest composer that you know of?" "John Coltrane, hands down." "Do you think his work will last forever?" "Well, forever's a long time, Professor." "So I got to say no." "That doesn't mean it's worthless, does it?" "No, it don't." "You give up the world line by line." "You become an accomplice to your own annihilation." "There's nothing you can do about it." "Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you." "Finally there's only one door left." "That's a dark world, Professor." "Maybe you just need to admit that you're in over your head." "I do admit it, but that don't let me off the hook." "I got no choice." "Okay." "Maybe you're right." "Well, here is my news, reverend." "I long for the darkness." "I pray for death, real death." "And if I thought that in death I would meet the people I knew in life," "I don't know what I would do." "That would be the ultimate horror, the ultimate nightmare." "If I thought I was gonna meet my mother again and start all of that all over, only this time without the prospect of death to look forward to, that would be the final nightmare," "Kafka on wheels." "Damn, Professor." "You don't want to see your own mama?" "No, I don't." "I want the dead to be dead forever." "And I want to be one of them." "Except of course you can't be one of them." "You can't be one of the dead because that which has no existence can have no community." "No community." "My heart warms just thinking about it... blackness, aloneness, silence, peace, and all of it only a heartbeat away." "I don't regard my state of mind as some pessimistic view of the world." "I regard it as the world itself." "Evolution cannot avoid bringing intelligent life ultimately to an awareness of one thing, and one thing above all else." "And that one thing is futility." "If I'm understanding you right, you're saying everybody that just ain't eat up with the dumbass ought to be suicidal." " Yes." " You ain't shitting me?" "No, I am not shitting you." "If people could see the world for what it truly is, see their lives for what they truly are, without dreams or illusions," "I don't believe they could offer the first reason why they should not elect to die as soon as possible." "I don't believe in God." "Can you understand that?" "Look around you, man." "Can't you see?" "The clamor and din of those in torment has to be the sound most pleasing to his ear." "And I loathe these discussions..." "The argument of the village atheist whose single passion is to revile endlessly that which he denies the existence of in the first place." "Your fellowship is a fellowship of pain and nothing more." "And if that pain were collective instead of merely reiterative, the sheer weight of it would drag the world from the walls of the universe and send it crashing and burning down through whatever night it might yet be capable of engendering" "until it was not even ash." "And brotherhood, justice, eternal life?" "Good God, man." "Show me a religion that prepares one for nothingness, for death." "That's a church I might enter." "Yours prepares one only for more life, for dreams and illusions and lies." "Banish the fear of death from men's hearts..." "They wouldn't live a day." "Who would want this nightmare but for fear of the next?" "The shadow of the axe hangs over every joy." "Every road ends in death, every friendship, every love." "Torment, loss, betrayal, pain, suffering, age, indignity, hideous lingering illness... and all of it with a single conclusion for you and every one and every thing you have ever chosen to care for." "That is the true brotherhood, the true fellowship." "And everybody is a member for life." "You tell me that my brother is my salvation?" "My salvation?" "Well, then damn him." "Damn him in every shape and guise and form." "Do I see myself in him?" "Yes, I do." "And what I see sickens me." "Do you understand me?" "Can you understand me?" "I'm sorry." "How long you felt like this?" "All my life." " Is that true?" " It's worse than that." "I don't see what could be worse than that." "Rage is really only for the good days." "The truth is there's little of that left." "The truth is that the forms I see have been slowly emptied out." "They no longer have any content." "They're shapes only..." "a train, a wall, a world, a man... a thing dangling in senseless articulation in a howling void, no meaning to its life, its words." "Why would I seek out the company of such a thing?" "Why?" "Damn." "So you see what it is you've saved?" "Tried to save." "Still trying, trying hard." " Who is your brother?" " Who is my brother, yes." "Is that the reason I'm here in your apartment?" "No, that's why I'm here." "You asked me what I'm a Professor of." "I am a Professor of darkness, the night in day's clothing." "And now I wish you all the very best, but I must go." "Just stay a little while longer." "No, no more time." "Goodbye." "We can talk about something else, I swear." "I don't want to talk about something else." "Don't go out there, Professor!" "You know what's out there!" "Oh yes." "Indeed I do." "I know what's out there and I know who is out there." "I rush to nuzzle his bony cheek." "No doubt he will be surprised to find himself so cherished." "And as I cling to his neck" "I will whisper in that dry and ancient ear," ""Here I am." "Here I am."" " Now open the door!" " Don't do this." "You're a kind man." "I've heard you out and you've heard me." "There's no more to say." "Your God must once have stood at a dawn of infinite possibilities, and that is what he's made of it." "You tell me that I want God's love." "I don't." "Perhaps I want forgiveness, but there is no one to ask it of." "And there's no going back." "There's no setting things right." "There's only the hope of nothingness." "And I cling to that hope." " Now open the door." " Don't do this." "Please open the door." "Thank you." "Goodbye." "Professor," "I know you ain't mean them words." "I'm gonna be there in the morning." "I'm gonna be there, you hear?" "I'm gonna be there!" "I'm gonna be there." "You know he didn't mean them words." "You know he didn't." "You know he didn't." "I don't understand why you sent me down there." "I don't understand." "If you wanted me to help him, then how come you didn't give me the words?" "You give them to him." "What about me?" "That's all right." "That's all right." "If you don't never speak again, you know I'll keep your word." "You know I will." "You know I'm good for it." "Is that okay?" "Is that okay?"