A Free Man of Color (8 page)

MORALES
Where is Jacques? Jacques! Jacques! Murmur, there you are. Is your master on Mystery Street?

MURMUR
Yes. He came to pay a house call on this guy.

CREUX
Jacques Cornet is in my house?

MORALES
Open up! The nightmare! The infernal French at this moment are vomiting their wretched blacks upon our coast. Jacques! Are you in there?

They enter the laboratory.

CREUX
Jacques, I’ve so hoped to meet you?

Jacques Cornet and Doña Polissena, now presentable, greet Morales and Creux.

JACQUES CORNET
Welcome to our sewing circle.

MORALES
Santo Domingo arrives in New Orleans! We have to block their entry into the harbor.

CREUX
So you’re Jacques Cornet. I pray my wife didn’t bore you.

MORALES
Your clothes? I thought you burned everything.

JACQUES CORNET
I’m having your wardrobe duplicated.

CREUX
Stop talking about clothes! Tragedy is entering the port.

JACQUES CORNET
Tragedy?

CREUX
Yellow fever approaches!

DOÑA POLISSENA
How thrilling!

MORALES
Cornet, as your best friend and sole heir, I implore you. We need salvation.

CREUX
(
studying Jacques Cornet
)
Is that man a Negro?

MORALES
Coz, you have Negroes on the brain! Jacques, only your money can keep New Orleans free of the yellow death. We must pay off the captain and divert the course of disease. New Orleans will call you hero.

MURMUR
Don’t do it, boss. Please. Stay out of this one!

JACQUES CORNET
(
to us
)
Call me hero? The world needs New Orleans. If I were the one to save it, Jefferson, Napoleon, King George—the world!—would be indebted to me! Murmur, bring my gold. Men, to the ship!

Darkness.

DR. T
Fog. Mist. Rain.

They approach the ship by rowboat. The
CAPTAIN
appears.

CAPTAIN
Who goes?

MORALES
Juan Ventura Morales
,
the
Supreme Intendante
of the Port of New Orleans! State your intentions!

CAPTAIN
We sail by the authority of General Le Clerc!

JACQUES CORNET
We step onboard the ship.

Moans from below.

JACQUES CORNET
What is that moaning?

CREUX
Tell us of the success of General Le Clerc?
Le Clerc appears.

LE CLERC
Most serene First Consul, my leader, my savior. All is going wonderfully. We’re making great strides in ridding Sante Domingue of the pestilence of natives, which sets me thinking how much I’d like to return to France. Get me out of hell. You can’t imagine the horror—the fever—the smell—the death. I must put down my pen to return to my bed. I just need a rest. Then I shall return to my post. All goes well. We are winning—I—I

Le Clerc dies. He goes.

THE CAPTAIN
Our General is dead! You have to take us in.

MORALES
I engage in business with the captain.

Morales and the Captain exit.

JACQUES CORNET
And I ask to see the deported blacks.

MURMUR
Why?

JACQUES CORNET
Curiosity. Open the hold. Open the hold!

Murmur opens the cover of the ship’s hold. Doña Polissena, Creux, Jacques Cornet are stunned, repelled by what they see.

MURMUR
We look down into the steerage—

JACQUES CORNET
—into a mass of human agony.

VOICES OF SANTO DOMINGO
Aidez-moi! Aidez-moi!

JACQUES CORNET
I see people the color of my mother reaching up—fighting over access to rain—I hear screams.

CREUX
Close the hold! They want to live like this.

POLISENA
It’s too horrible.

CREUX
All I hear is how much they want to enjoy the hospitality of New Orleans. They’re underprivileged to begin with so this so-called deprivation is working very well for them.

JACQUES CORNET
I see women in labor. A mother lifts her new born infant, her Moses still wet from birth up to me. I reach down . . .

Jacques Cornet falls into the hold. Doña Polissena screams.

MURMUR
My master is down there! I reach my hand down—

Morales returns.

MORALES
Entry denied! Murmur, get us off this ship.

DOÑA POLISSENA
We can’t leave Jacques Cornet here!

MORALES
Why not! Turn your ship out to sea! We have cannon on shore aimed at you!

Jacques Cornet appears in the hold, a knot of hands clutching at him.

JACQUES CORNET
I am a creature with a hundred hands reaching up up up up—

MURMUR
The ship is turning—

MORALES
Murmur, we must return to our boat.

DOÑA POLISSENA
Get him out! Jacques!

MURMUR
(
reaching into the hold
)
Master! I can’t see you! Which hand is yours?

DOÑA POLISSENA
(
beating Murmur
)
Get him, you fool! Save him!

Jacques Cornet leaps and grabs Murmur’s hand.

MURMUR
Master! Don’t pull me down there! I pull my hand back!

Jacques Cornet struggles.

MORALES
I’ll not get stuck on this ferry to hell. Drag the cover over the hold.

Murmur catches hold of Jacques Cornet.

JACQUES CORNET
I climb up the ladder of flesh. Some rungs of the ladder are still alive—biting me. I stand on top of corpses. I leap!

Jacques Cornet rolls onto the deck, his jacket torn off, his powdered wig gone. Morales slams the cover of the hold shut.

DOÑA POLISSENA
You’re safe!

MORALES
We can’t let the fever into our city. Cornet! Into the boat—Murmur, begin rowing!

Murmur rows.

MURMUR
(
sings:
)

Row row row your boat

gently down the stream

MORALES
We watch the ship of dead men turn away into the gulf.

The ship leaves the port.

DOÑA POLISSENA
Oh, I know that!

(
sings
)

Merrily merrily merrily

life is but a dream

Morales and Creux join in.

JACQUES CORNET
(
as they sing
)
O miserable mankind, to what fall

Degraded, to what wretched state reserved!

Who dares his transport vessel cross the waves

with such whose bones are not composed in graves.

The moans of the rejected cling to the fog.

Sight so deform what heart of rock could long

dry-eyed behold? I could not, but weep,

compassion quells and gives me up to tears.

MURMUR/DOÑA POLISSENA/CREUX/MORALES

Merrily merrily merrily

life is but a dream

They go.

The docks of New Orleans. Margery enters, wearing a cape.

MARGERY
(
to us
)
Doña Athene sailed up to my husband’s plantation hissing all these seeds of suspicion in Pincepousse’s brain. “Come back to New Orleans. Things ain’t what they
seem.” I ups and escape back here to show Jacques my state. When he sees me, as I am, he’ll love me then.

Margery goes. Enter Jacques Cornet, Dr. T, and Murmur.

JACQUES CORNET
That steerage filled with people of the Indies haunts me. Do I just sit here?

DR. T
That’s one way. But let your thoughts inform your actions.

JACQUES CORNET
Is courage that simple?

MURMUR
My master comes to a shocking conclusion.

JACQUES CORNET
Why am I moved? Those men and women were me. Is what I feel “love”? This love seems not to be a weakness but rather the beginning of a strength. How odd? Love? I must free my slaves. Yes, Murmur, you will be free.

MURMUR
Will be? Why not:
are
free?

JACQUES CORNET
Yes!
Are
free.

MURMUR
Well, I’ll be. This is how it happens. (
to us
) Act one. Scene one. Exit Murmur. Goodbye then.

Murmur starts to go. Margery appears and leaps on Jacques Cornet’s back.

MARGERY
Here I am!

JACQUES CORNET
Oh god. Murmur, get rid of her.

Murmur pulls Margery off Jacques Cornet. Pincepousse enters.

PINCEPOUSSE
What were you doing with my wife in your arms?

JACQUES CORNET
She was on my back. Why would I want a woman in my arms?

PINCEPOUSSE
Doctor, is this man as unmanned as he said?

DR. T
I’ve rarely seen a stallion smoothed into such a gelding.

MARGERY
It’s not true! He’s a true man and a great man!

JACQUES CORNET
She’s hell’s own jack in the box! Take her away!

MARGERY
I love you! Bud, look at me! Land ho!

Doña Athene enters, now mad, banging on a drum.

DOÑA ATHENE
Citizens of New Orleans! Hear me! A liar breathes in your midst! The self-proclaimed eunuch, Jacques Cornet? Hah! Unveil yourself!

The people of New Orleans appear.

HARCOURT
What’s going on?

SPARKS
What’s happening?

DORILANTE
What’s she saying?

JACQUES CORNET
The woman’s mad.

PINCEPOUSSE
You swear he’s no man?

DR. T
I’ve told you—

MARGERY
He’s what I’ve been told is a man.

LADY HARCOURT
The man is a eunuch.

MRS. SPARKS
Everyone knows that.

MME. DORILANTE
The blank spaces of the universe lie between his legs.

DOÑA SMERELDA
Who is this man? Are you new in town?

DOÑA ATHENE
Women of New Orleans, you married whores have duped your husbands in the past and shall again in a second when you learn his secret! He is whole! You will implore this monster to transform you back into whores!

LADY HARCOURT
How dare you!

DOÑA ATHENE
—as he has lain with you—and you and you!

MORALES
Not with my wife! Jacques Cornet is my dearest friend.

DORILANTE
He’s my best friend.

HARCOURT
Mine!

SPARKS
Mine!

DOÑA ATHENE
Horn-ed men of New Orleans, don’t feign incredulity! Jacques Cornet has purchased entry into your trust.

JACQUES CORNET
The woman’s mad.

DOÑA ATHENE
Ask her, the one with the microscope!

DOÑA POLISSENA
I swear I don’t know him.

DOÑA ATHENE
Don’t know him? I have seen you and him this very day make the undulating beast with two backs. (
attacking Doña Polissena
) You have driven a knife into my wifely heart as he sails out from his home into your secret doors.

DOÑA POLISSENA
I do not know the man! Imprison the wench for slander!

MARGERY
No! He is a man who has filled my sails with child.

PINCEPOUSSE
A child!

MARGERY
I call Jacques Cornet Messiah. I’m carrying his baby!

Margery throws off her cloak. Is she pregnant?

JACQUES CORNET
Then it must be a virgin birth for I know not the woman.

PINCEPOUSSE
But you’re my wife! I have a contract that says so.

MARGERY
But you’re not my husband the way he is.

MORALES
(
to Jacques Cornet
)
Did you not have a clavisectomy?

HARCOURT
Your key to the city was not shot off?

JACQUES CORNET
Why would Dr. Toutou lie?

DR. T
I ask myself that question everyday.

MARGERY
It’s true.

MORALES
But I am your heir!

DORILANTE
I am his heir!

SPARKS
I have the will! I am the heir!

MORALES
Have you made fools of us all?

DOÑA SMERALDA
And I shall happily make a fool of you again! Take me, Jacques. If you are whole, then I sacrifice everything for you!

MRS. SPARKS
Yes! I surrender my secret!

LADY HARCOURT
I love Jacques Cornet!

MME. DORILANTE
You are my new world!

DOÑA POLISSENA
In the interest of science! I am yours!

The men and their wives advance on Jacques Cornet.

DOÑA SMERALDA
We

LADY HARCOURT
Shall

MRS. SPARKS
Not

DOÑA POLISSENA
Be

DOÑA SMERALDA AND THE WIVES
Denied!

JACQUES CORNET
Stay back!

CREUX
Don’t I satisfy you, my dear?

MORALES
Dr. Toubib, did you lie to me?