The Stonemason (4 page)

The house was built in 1836 and that date is cut into the lintel stone over the front door. The Telfairs black and white came here from South Carolina in the 1820's. His father and mother were slaves as was his brother Harris, born 1861, and his sister Emmanuelle, born Christmas day of 1862. Seven days before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The stone sills of the cabin where he was born are still there behind the house.

I can remember the house when it had a roof on it. We'd take visiting relatives out there on Sundays when I was a child. There were black people living in it then but I don't know what their name was. I bought the place in 1966, the house and forty two acres in three separate parcels, and I gave him the deed at his one hundredth birthday party four years later. He looked at it for a long time. Nobody knew what it was that he was looking at. It got more and more quiet and finally Carlotta said: "What is it, Papaw?" and he had tears in his eyes and he just handed it to her and looked away.

He had me promise not to disturb the pale renters interred on our farm but I had no intention to do so. He says that for himself we can just throw him out in a sinkhole when he quits this world. But he'll be buried with his ancestors black and white in full possession of the earth whereunder he lies. It balances out, he says. Yes. The arc of the moral universe is indeed long but it does bend toward justice. At the root of all this of course is the trade. As he always calls it. His craft is the oldest there is. Among man's gifts it is older than fire and in the end he is the final steward, the final custodian. When the last gimcrack has swallowed up its last pale creator he will be out there, preferring the sun, trying the temper of his trowel. Placing stone on stone in accordance with the laws of God. The trade was all they had, the old masons. They understood it both in its utility and in its secret nature. We couldn't read nor write, he says. But it was not in any book. We kept it close to our hearts. We kept it close to our hearts and it was like a power and we knew it would not fail us. We knew that it was a thing that if we had it they could not take it from us and it would stand by us and not fail us.

Not ever fail us.

— CURTAIN —

ACT II

SCENE I

Late morning in the kitchen. Ben is standing with a cup of coffee looking out the window. The breakfast dishes are on the sideboard and there is still a plate of biscuits and other things on the kitchen table. Big Ben enters. He is dressed in a double breasted cream colored suit with a gabardine shirt the open collar of which is worn folded down outside the suit lapels. He carries a camelhair overcoat over his arm and a hat in his hand. Soldier comes in from outside stamping the snow from his shoes.

B
IG
B
EN
You get the rearview mirror?

S
OLDIER
Done got it all.

Big Ben rummages in his pocket and comes up with a quarter and doles it out to Soldier and then shrugs himself into his coat and buttons it and turns up the collar and puts on his hat and goes out.

S
OLDIER
I bet he tips better'n that away from the house.

B
EN
I bet he does too.

S
OLDIER
(
Looking out the window as the car pulls away
) Big Cadillac man.

B
EN
He worked for it.

S
OLDIER
What he think I goin to do with a quarter?

B
EN
Get in half the trouble you would if he gave you fifty cents.

S
OLDIER
(
Turning away from the window
) Shit.

Ben looks after him as he crosses the kitchen and exits. He looks out the window and shakes his head.

Ben's wife
MAVEN
enters the kitchen.

She is dressed in jeans and a sweater. Ben turns and looks at her and smiles.

M
AVEN
Hi.

She goes to the sink and begins to wash the dishes.

B
EN
Babe can you still get in those jeans?

M
AVEN
These are Carlotta's.

B
EN
Is she bigger than you?

M
AVEN
Yes, smartie. She's bigger than me.

B
EN
I don't guess Mama has any jeans does she?

M
AVEN
Why don't you bring your head over here where I can drub it.

B
EN
(
Smiling
) Drub?

M
AVEN
Drub.

Ben smiles and shakes his head. He drains his cup and brings it to the sink and sets it down and kisses Maven.

M
AVEN
What are your plans today, Hotshot?

B
EN
Work on the house.

M
AVEN
How's it coming?

B
EN
Why don't you come out and see?

M
AVEN
I've got a doctor's appointment at eleven.

B
EN
You could come out this afternoon.

M
AVEN
Will you build a fire in the fireplace?

B
EN
The mortar's still too wet.

Maven shakes her head.

M
AVEN
No deal

B
EN
I could build one outside.

M
AVEN
Not the same thing. Are you taking Papaw with you?

B
EN
Yep.

She looks past him to Papaw's door.

M
AVEN
Ben don't you think he's a little old to be out in the freezing cold doing stonework?

B
EN
Well, I think he's old enough to say for himself.

M
AVEN
What if he died out there?

B
EN
Maybe he'd prefer it.

M
AVEN
Your mother would never forgive you.

B
EN
I know. I've thought about that. It's just a chance I'll have to take.

M
AVEN
She thinks you don't take care of him. I think you don't take care of him.

B
EN
I know. He's tougher than you think. Babe I wouldn't take him out there if it didn't mean a lot to him. That's his house. He wants to see it done. He wants to do it. He sees it as some kind of final evidence of justice in the world. For him it's like the workings of Providence.

M
AVEN
Has he ever said that?

B
EN
(
Smiling
) No.

M
AVEN
Do you think that?

B
EN
I don't know. Maybe. I think I'd like to.

M
AVEN
Soldier has his version too. What is it he says? What goes around comes around?

B
EN
I think what Soldier has in mind is revenge.

M
AVEN
Mm hm.

B
EN
(
Smiling
) Is that what justice is? Revenge?

M
AVEN
Probably it is for those being treated unjustly.

B
EN
But the rain falls on the just and the unjust.

M
AVEN
The rain falls upon the just and also on the unjust fellas. But mostly it falls upon the just. Cause the unjust have the just's umbrellas.

B
EN
(
Smiling
) Is that what you learned in school?

M
AVEN
That's what I learned at my mammy's knee.

B
EN
Do they talk about justice in your classes or just about the law?

M
AVEN
Mostly the law. It's a pretty pragmatic business. I think that was an older generation that discussed the philosophy of law.

B
EN
Probably. Papaw was talking about the law yesterday. He says that law can only work in a just society.

M
AVEN
He said that?

B
EN
(
Smiling
) Well, more or less. It's what he meant anyway.

M
AVEN
You think his opinions are valuable because he's worked all his life. Isn't that a pretty romantic notion?

B
EN
Yes. It's also true. You can't separate wisdom from the common experience and the common experience is just what the worker has in great plenty.

M
AVEN
Then why aren't more workers wise?

B
EN
I guess for the same reason that more college professors aren't wise. Thinking's rare among all classes. But a laborer who thinks, well, his thought seems more likely to be tempered with humanity. He's more inclined to tolerance. He knows that what is valuable in life is life.

M
AVEN
And the professor?

B
EN
I think he's more apt to just be dangerous. Marx never worked a day in his life.

M
AVEN
Sounds a little neat to me.

B
EN
I don't have a theory about it. I think most people feel that books are dangerous and they're probably right.

M
AVEN
I'll bear that in mind.

B
EN
(
Smiling
) I don't think it's a problem for you. You've got a pretty good anchoring in reality anyway. One downstairs and one in here.

He puts his hand on her stomach.

M
AVEN
You've got a pretty romantic notion about motherhood too.

B
EN
I hope so.

M
AVEN
You're a fairly strange person. I knew that when I married you. Have you become more strange or were you hiding the worst from me?

B
EN
I don't hide anything from you.

She puts the last of the dishes in the drainer and wipes her hands on a towel.

M
AVEN
I've got to get ready.

B
EN
Is Melissa awake?

Maven puts her arm around Ben and kisses him.

M
AVEN
Yes. She's playing. Playing, Ben.

B
EN
(
Smiling
) I know how to play.

M
AVEN
How many blocks did you lay yesterday on your father's new job?

B
EN
It's my new job too.

M
AVEN
How many.

B
EN
Why?

M
AVEN
I heard you put on quite a performance.

B
EN
I was just working.

M
AVEN
You had a gallery all afternoon.

B
EN
Well, people don't have much to do.

M
AVEN
How many.

B
EN
Seven hundred and something.

M
AVEN
Seven hundred and what.