The Stonemason (10 page)

M
ASON
Ask her what?

B
EN
If she likes you.

M
ASON
Hey, come on.

B
EN
You said I should ask her.

M
ASON
(
Smiling
) Hey, don't fool around.

Carlotta comes in the kitchen. Ben laughs. Mason pushes back his chair and rises.

M
ASON
Hi.

C
ARLOTTA
(
Looking at Ben
) Ben, you leave him alone.

B
EN
Hey Babe. Mmm, you look good.

He turns to Mason.

C
ARLOTTA
Ben.

B
EN
(
Laughing
) Hey, we were getting along like a house afire. Weren't we, Mason.

M
ASON
Yes. We were.

B
EN
I think this is one of the better ones you've had in here all week.

C
ARLOTTA
You know, I don't think I could bring myself to actually shoot you. But poison's not out of the question.

Ben regards her more seriously.

B
EN
You're such a pretty lady.

Carlotta is a little flustered. She turns to Mason.

C
ARLOTTA
Are you ready?

M
ASON
Mmm-hmm. Ben, good to see you.

Ben rises and they shake hands.

B
EN
You all have a good time.

Ben watches them exit out the kitchen door.

SCENE III

The kitchen at night. Ben at the kitchen table with his cup of tea and his notebook. The light comes on at the podium and Ben takes his place there.

B
EN
That summer Papaw and I contracted work on our own, just working evenings and weekends. We still worked on the house at the farm too but we were building old style stone chimneys and fireplaces for people and we'd take them on field trips and show them the old work and if they had souls in their bodies they would see all that we showed them and we were amazed at how quickly a love and a reverence for reality could be restored in them. They'd talk about what they wanted and Papaw would say little and smoke his pipe and they would look at some old chimney standing in a field and they would look at Papaw and they would grow more quiet themselves and then they would stop talking altogether and we would drive back and they'd ask us when we could begin. Sometimes if a client was really interested we'd take him all over the county. We'd show him work that Papaw had done eighty years ago. We'd show them walls and cellars and chimneys and houses and springhouses and bridges. Some of those old cellars and footings contain enormous stones and Papaw says it's because the houses were built first and you had scaffolding and teams of oxen and tackle and men and you could use the big stones but when you were building a wall you were pretty much on your own and you did it as you could. Most of the old slave walls as they are called were built in the winter when farm work was light. But I've seen stones in cellars and in the base of chimneys that would weigh two thousand pounds. I've seen old bridge piers built of rubble stone weighing two and three tons apiece and no two stones alike and laid up without mortar sixteen and eighteen courses high and steeply battered. I've looked at barns and houses and bridges and factories and chimneys and walls and in thousand structures I've never seen a misplaced stone. In form and design and scale and structure and proportion I've yet to see an example of the old work that was no perfectly executed. They were designed by the men who built them and their design rose out of necessity. The beauty of those structures would appear to be just a sort of a by—product, something fortuitous, but of course it is not. The aim of the mason was to make the wall stand up and that was his purpose in its entirety. The beauty of the stonework is simply a reflection of the purity of the mason's intention. Carly says I have this mystique thing about stone masonry. She says nobody understands it Even my father thinks it's crazy. She says no one know what I'm talking about. She says no one cares. In all this of course she's right. And she says you can't change his story and that ruins should be left to ruin. And she's right But that the craft of stonemasonry should be allowed to vanish from this world is just not negotiable for me Somewhere there is someone who wants to know. Nor will I have to seek him out. He'll find me.

SCENE IV

The kitchen, afternoon,
GUESTS
and their
CHILDREN
in Sunday clothes are leaving, going out through the living room. Mama is saying goodbye to cousins and other kin and a
PHOTOGRAPHER
thanks her and shoulders up his camera and tripod and exits. Maven is nine months pregnant. Ben is in the kitchen talking to a
REPORTER
. The other guests all leave and the lights dim out in the living room and Mama goes upstairs and Maven goes to the basement apartment.

R
EPORTER
(
Looking through his small notepad
) His name is spelled conventionally isn't it?

B
EN
Yes. Just Edward. There wasn't any creative spelling back them. Blacks couldn't spell.

R
EPORTER
I guess that's right.

B
EN
He was a grown man before he learned to read and write. His wife taught him. My grandmother.

R
EPORTER
Where did she learn?

B
EN
She taught herself.

R
EPORTER
I would think that would be hard to do.

B
EN
I would too. She worked for a family as a live-in maid in Evansville Indiana and they had twin daughters about school age and after she got them put to bed at night she'd sit down with their primers [prim-ers] and study by candlelight until one and two in the morning and then get up again at five thirty and get breakfast for the family. She did that for several years and then one day the woman—the lady of the house—went in her room and found some of their books there. My grandmother had a room up over the carriage house and she'd sneak books out of the house and read them at night and this woman found them and thought she was stealing the books to sell them—back then books were valuable—and she was going to fire her and my grandmother sat down and read for her and she let her stay.

R
EPORTER
She must have been a remarkable woman.

B
EN
She was. Later she was the first black registered nurse in the state of Indiana. But she read all her life. And she remembered what she read. She could quote poetry by the hour. She could quote Scott's Lady of the Lake in its entirety and it runs about a hundred pages. When I was in high school she used to help me with my algebra. It never occurred to me to wonder where she learned it.

R
EPORTER
And your grandfather. Does he read?

B
EN
(
Smiling
) Constantly.

R
EPORTER
What does he read.

B
EN
The King James version of the bible.

R
EPORTER
Is that it?

B
EN
That's it.

R
EPORTER
You said he read constantly.

B
EN
He does.

The reporter nods and smiles.

R
EPORTER
Well. He certainly seems to be in remarkable health for a man a hundred and two years old. I know he gets tired of people asking him the secret of his longevity but I couldn't get anything out of him at all. He just said that somebody had to live to be a hundred and it looked like it was him. My guess is that it runs in the family.

B
EN
Well. Not really. He had several brothers and sisters and they've all been dead for years. For that matter all his children are dead except my father.

R
EPORTER
I asked him how his health was and he said it was fine and wanted to know how mine was. I thought at first he was being cantankerous but he really seemed to want to know. I wound up telling him about my eye operation.

Ben smiles. The reporter flips through his notebook and folds it away in his coat pocket. He holds out his hand.

R
EPORTER
Well, thank you. It was a great party.

B
EN
(
Shaking hands
) Thank you for coming.

The reporter has turned to leave and then looks back.

R
EPORTER
What is the trade? He mentioned a couple of times something about the trade.

B
EN
The stonemason's trade.

R
EPORTER
Ah. Of course. Got it.

The reporter raises a hand and exits from the kitchen. Ben goes to the window and looks out. The lights come on stage right where there are picnic tables covered with red crepe and there are lanterns and folding chairs and cups and plates and the remainders of Papaw's birthday party. A wind has come up and it is evening and the buntings strung across the yard sway in the wind and a few cups blow across the yard. Papaw is sitting alone at the tables, dressed in his black suit. His hat sits on the table beside him and he holds it with one hand against it being blown away. The lights have dimmed to black in the kitchen. The light comes on at the podium and Ben appears there.

B
EN
I'd pretend ignorance to get you to stay. If I thought you could be fooled. But only people with wants can be fooled and you have none.

Cups and leaves blow across the yard. The old man sits holding his hat. The light dims to black and the light comes up in the kitchen. It is night and Ben's double is sitting at the table. Ben continues to speak from the podium.

B
EN
He always said the trade. As if there were only the one. He didn't even call it masonry. Just called it the work. Called it the trade. Does call it. Does call it.

He—(Ben's double)—sips his tea.

B
EN
He was a journeyman mason for eighty odd years. Journeyman comes from the word for day, and a journey was originally a day's travel. He began to contract for himself before my father married and he and my father were in business together for thirty years and technically they are yet. But the rule of the journeyman is his rule even now and he has always quit at quitting time no matter where he was on the job. The wisdom of the journeyman is to work one day at a time and he always said that any job even if it took years was made up out of a day's work. Nothing more. Nothing less. That was hard for me to learn. I always wanted to be finished. In the concept of a day's work is rhythm and pace and wholeness. And truth and justice and peace of mind. You're smiling. I smile. But very often now the stones come to hand for me as they do for him. I don't think or select. I build. So I begin to live in the world. Nothing is ever finally arrived at. The journeyman becomes a master when he masters the journeyman's trade. He becomes a master when he ceases to wish to be one.

Ben folds shut his notebook and folds his hands in front of his chest.

B
EN
As for the rest. As for the rest. I know that evil exists. I think it is not selective but only opportunistic. I don't know where the spirit resides. I think in all things rather than none. My experience is very limited. But it is because of him that I am no longer reduced by these mysteries but rather am one more among them. His life is round and whole but it is not discrete. Because it is connected to a way of life which he exemplifies but which is not his invention. I know nothing of God. But I know that something knows. Something knows or else that old man could not know. Something knows and will tell you. It will tell you when you stop pretending that you know.

M
AVEN
(
Calling from downstairs
) Ben! Ben!

Ben looks up and smiles.

SCENE V

The scene at stage left is the interior of a church, at a baptismal font, the black
MINISTER
holding the baby and giving the blessing. The minister hands the baby to Papaw and Papaw and Ben (his double) and Maven and Mama turn to have their picture taken. Carlotta and Mason are in the front pew with Big Ben and Osreau and other
RELATIVES
. They come forward now that the ceremony is over. A black
WORKER
in overalls comes forward from the rear of the crowd and looks at the baby.