by David Mamet
CHARLES: I . . . we were . . . I was in college. Yes. I wrote him. From the Caribbean.
HENRY: Long time ago.
CHARLES: That’s right.
HENRY: Have you had any contact since?
CHARLES: No.
JACK: What you ever do to him?
CHARLES: Do to him? Nothing. We were friends. I wrote to him. From my trip.
JACK (Reads): “Getting off the plane at night. The heat and wet salt air hits you. It’s like being in some hot black . . .” What is that word?
CHARLES: That’s, that’s . . . I was speaking. About the heat at night. He . . . isn’t that obvious?
HENRY: Listen to the words. “A hot black cunt.”
CHARLES: But, that’s not what the words mean.
HENRY: What’s not what the words mean?
CHARLES: It. It’s not a racial epithet.
HENRY: It’s not a racial epithet . . .
JACK: You want to hear that quote in court?
CHARLES: But it would be taken out of context.
JACK: Well that is the definition of a quote. (Pause)
HENRY: Why did he save the letter?
CHARLES: I don’t know.
HENRY: That’s quite a while ago. Why would he do that?
CHARLES: We save things.
HENRY: Yes, we do.
CHARLES: We . . .
HENRY: We put them in the attic. Yes. We put them in boxes.
CHARLES: That’s right.
HENRY: And forget them.
CHARLES: Yes.
HENRY: We forget about them.
CHARLES: That’s right.
HENRY: But your friend remembered this. (Pause) Why?
CHARLES: He saw my name in the . . . I don’t have to fucking defend myself to you.
HENRY: No, but we have to defend you. To defend you.
CHARLES: He . . .
HENRY: . . . alright.
CHARLES: He saved the letter. Because.
HENRY: Help me through this.
CHARLES: I have a certain . . . a certain celebrity.
HENRY: . . . that’s good.
CHARLES: Due to my position, due . . .
HENRY: Alright.
CHARLES: I . . . he saved the letter because. I am wealthy . . . I am . . .
HENRY: Yes.
CHARLES: And when the . . .
HENRY: When the accusation occurred . . .
CHARLES: That’s right. (Pause) He. (Pause) I don’t know why he saved the letter.
JACK: You have some “notoriety.”
CHARLES: I have, for some time . . .
JACK: But you did not in college . . .
CHARLES: Not particularly, no.
JACK: Or for some time afterward.
CHARLES: I . . . No, I . . . Not at all.
HENRY: You fuck some black women while you were down there. In the Caribbean.
CHARLES: Why would he do this to me?
HENRY: What is that?
CHARLES: Why would he save the letter?
HENRY: You can’t think of any reason?
CHARLES: No.
HENRY: You fuck some black woman down there?
CHARLES: . . . why would he do this to me?
HENRY: Is he black? (Pause) Z’he a black man? This friend.
CHARLES: He’s my friend.
HENRY: Is he black?
CHARLES: How would you know that from the postcard?
JACK: Is he black?
CHARLES: Yes. (Pause) Did you know that from the “list”?
JACK: The list . . . ?
CHARLES: You asked me to write down a list, of my indiscretions . . .
HENRY: . . . and this Bill was your friend.
CHARLES: Yes.
HENRY: As your friend, and as a black man, how do you think he felt, receiving that postcard?
(Pause.)
CHARLES: We joked about it.
HENRY: You joked about the postcard.
CHARLES: Yes. He found the language “amusing” . . . The language we used . . .
HENRY: You slap palms with him, did you? Back then . . . Talking’bout the black women in the Caribbean?
JACK: What does he want?
HENRY: I believe he wants reparation.
JACK: How much?
HENRY: I don’t think it’s money.
JACK: You don’t think it’s money?
CHARLES: You’re saying my remark was racist.
(Pause.)
HENRY: You’re kidding.
CHARLES: No.
HENRY: The remark on the postcard?
CHARLES: Yes.
HENRY: How can you say that to a black man.
CHARLES: We were friends.
HENRY: Well, then. Let me ask you. Why did he save the letter?
JACK: Why did he save it?
CHARLES: People, people, they “save things.”
HENRY: Yes?
CHARLES: They, they keep them in the attic . . .
HENRY: As we’ve said, but why did he remember it, for all these years?
CHARLES: We joked about it. Don’t you understand? . . .
HENRY: Yes. But. All these years? . . .
JACK: Hold on, you joked?
CHARLES: We joked about . . .
JACK: Go on.
CHARLES: “Black women . . .”
HENRY (To self): . . . ah ha . . .
JACK: What about them?
CHARLES: How . . .
HENRY (To self): . . . there it is . . .
JACK: “How?”
CHARLES: How they . . . (Pause) You know . . . How they “are more” . . .
JACK: How they are more?
CHARLES: . . . yes . . .
(Pause.)
HENRY: What?
(Pause.)
JACK: “Sexually active”?
CHARLES: . . . yes.
(Pause.)
HENRY: And are they?
CHARLES: I don’t know. I . . .
HENRY: But you joked about it. That they were more . . . ?
CHARLES: Yes . . .
HENRY: “Promiscuous”?
CHARLES: To my “schoolboy mind,” do you understand? I’m not saying it was “right,” it wasn’t right, it was what a young . . .
HENRY: And did your friend share your thoughts?
CHARLES: We joked about it.
HENRY: And you talked in a “Negro” voice, and “said” things.
CHARLES: We both did.
HENRY: Mister, you’ve got yourself an enemy.
CHARLES: An “enemy.”
HENRY: And how do you think your friend felt? When he thought about that? “Joking” with you. What do you think he felt. Over the years. You’re a sensitive man. What did he feel? For “playing along with you”?
CHARLES: Perhaps he felt shame. (He rises) Are you done with me?
JACK: Mr. Strickland. With any figure of your prominence. One accusation will call forth another. People crave attention, they crave money, “they” are envious and sinful, just like you and me. A case, will grow, and develop, and “declare” itself. As it develops. Just like any illness. Mr. Strickland. All we’re talking about is a postcard. Believe it or not, there is nothing here, which will debar us. From winning your case.
CHARLES: . . . I . . . I . . .
JACK: The fact remains: that you are innocent. And that we can and will establish your innocence. In a court of law. Your innocence. Of that of which you were accused. Irrespective of: your personal beliefs or statements. Or prejudices . . .
CHARLES: I believe . . .
JACK: And irrespective of whatever other true, false, or arguable peccadillos or . . .
CHARLES: I believe . . .
JACK: Or sins you may think yourself guilty of.
CHARLES: I believe . . . that I should talk to the press.
JACK: You can’t talk to the press.
HENRY: Why would you want to do that?
CHARLES: To explain . . .
JACK: It’s our job Mr. Strickland to get
you acquitted, not to explain. Not to apologize. To win the case. Look, everyone wants to be cleansed, it is attractive to confess . . . I understand , but . . .
CHARLES: . . . I wronged that man. I called him my friend. And I did him a great wrong. And I never knew it.
(Susan enters with a sheet of paper.)
JACK: Whatever other “slurs,” or acts you may feel yourself accused of. (Pause) You’ve been charged with rape. The charge is unsustainable, and we’re going to see that you’re exonerated. (Pause) You cannot confess. You cannot talk to the press. Whatever you feel, listen to me. You must control your desire to confess. (Pause; referring to the postcard) This, this man can be bought off.
HENRY: That may not be so, Jack . . .
JACK (Waving it off): Be that as it may . . . it has nothing whatever to do with the case at hand.
CHARLES: My friend hated me. I humiliated him. So badly. That he remembered. All these years.
HENRY: Do you know. Mister Strickland.
(Pause.)
CHARLES: What?
HENRY: We all have to put up with a lot. From each other.
(Pause.)
CHARLES (He starts off): That’s very generous.
HENRY: I’ll walk you out.
(He does so.)
JACK (To Susan): He’s been accused of rape. Of which he’s innocent. (Pause) He hasn’t been accused of being racist. (Pause) Look, you work in this racket, you are going to meet a lot of people. At Their Most Human which is to say “at their worst.” There are things all of us, would rather . . . (Susan hands him a sheet of paper) What is this?
SUSAN: A statement. From the hotel cleaning lady. She now remembers. Finding sequins underneath the bed.
(Pause; she turns to go.)
JACK: Hold the fuck on. Tell me again.
SUSAN: They have a statement from the maid who now remembers finding red sequins underneath the bed.
JACK: What prompted her to think again?
(Pause.)
SUSAN: I beg your pardon?
JACK: Why did the cleaning lady think again? She all of a sudden “got the idea” . . . ?
SUSAN: I . . .
JACK: . . . to remember something she “forgot”? Why would she do that?
SUSAN: How would I know?
JACK: How did we get the statement?
(Henry reenters.)
HENRY: . . . what?
JACK (To Susan): Get Kelley on the phone.
(She goes to the phone and dials.)
They’ve got a statement from the hotel cleaning lady . . . (He gives it to Henry; to phone) Hello, Kelley. (Pause) When? (Pause) At whose instigation? (Pause) She just “came in”? (Pause) The maid. (Pause) Just “came in” . . . You’re telling me, some half-literate illegal hotel maid, suddenly, takes it upon herself: to go back to the police . . .
SUSAN: “Half-literate . . .”
JACK (Referring to sheet of paper): Rosa fucking Gonzales. (To phone) I have to call you back.
SUSAN: “Half-literate.” Hotel Maid.
JACK: Can we call things: by their name? Her social security number is false, her employment application is written in a misspelled scrawl, she is illegal. God bless her, that’s what she is. (Pause) When, in a million years, is this woman going of her own free will back to the police. In a case, she probably can’t even understand. To call their attention to a fact that she cannot possibly feel is important. (Pause) You tell me that. Our client, did our client talk to someone ’cause if not Somebody told the other side, and there’s our fucking case, and an innocent man’s going to jail. (Pause) I do not understand. (Pause) Alright . . .
(Pause.)
SUSAN: We . . .
HENRY (To Susan): Susan, I left my briefcase in the car, would . . .
JACK: No. (To Susan) She should be here . . . We . . .
HENRY: I need the fucking briefcase.
SUSAN: I’ll get it.
HENRY: Thank you.
(She exits.)
JACK: I. Do. Not. Understand. How in the fuckin’ world. Does this immigrant. Suddenly; “get the idea” to remember the sequins. And go to the cops? The fucking cops are “la migra.” (Pause) The prosecution? Thought of it? They? “Suggested” her? They “planted the idea.” I’ll take her apart. On the Stand? I’ll fucking murder her. Okay. We need:
HENRY: . . . the prosecution . . .
JACK: We need her deposition . . . Her . . .
HENRY: The prosecution didn’t “suggest” her.
JACK: Then where does she suddenly “get the idea”?
HENRY: Did you mind that I sent Susan for the briefcase?
JACK: I don’t understand why you need it.
HENRY: I don’t need it.
JACK: Then why did you send her away?
(Pause.)
HENRY: Pretty girl.
JACK: Why’d you send her away?
HENRY: Well, I wanted to talk to you alone.
(Pause.)
JACK: Why?
HENRY: Because she sold us out.
(Pause.)
JACK: The girl sold us out.
HENRY: That is correct.
JACK: How do you know that? (Pause) “Because she’s black?”
HENRY: No. Because I’m black. And I am not affected, by her bullshit.
JACK: And I am?
HENRY: What the girl has been doing in this office, do you see, Jack, is the postmodern equivalent of a “nigger” act. For the right response, when you ask her to put on the dress, is not, “Fuck you, whitey,” but, “I’d rather not, and thank you for the job.” With a white man you would see that, white woman you might see it, black woman, you’re blind as a bat.
JACK: Is that so?
HENRY: You bet your life it is.
JACK: And why is that?
HENRY: ’Cause you’re guilty?
JACK: What am I guilty about? “Slavery”?
HENRY: No, you weren’t here for slavery.
JACK: Then why am I guilty?
HENRY: All people are guilty. Didn’t you say that? And she exploited it. And, plus why the fuck shouldn’t she put on the dress? Is she a member of this firm? I told you, Day One, not to hire this girl. Day one.
JACK: . . . yes you did . . .
HENRY: And you overrode my suggestion.
JACK: You went along with it.
HENRY: I was wrong.
JACK: What should you have done?
HENRY: I should have told you, “You’re a fool.”
(Pause.)
JACK: I was concerned . . .
HENRY: . . . I’m listening.
JACK: That with her record . . .
HENRY: . . . alright.
JACK: With her credentials . . .
HENRY: You were concerned she’d sue us. If we turned her down.
JACK: Well, you know what, yes, I was.
HENRY: And now look what she’s done. The girl, do you see, black or white, doesn’t make a difference, she’s trouble . . .
JACK: And you knew that on Day One.
HENRY: Her thesis, Jack, in college. Her college thesis was on . . . (Takes a paper and reads) “Structural Survivals of Racism in Supposedly Bias-free Transactions.” Quote. “The nexus of oppression is ineluctable. Even the consciousness of the oppressor, indeed, this consciousness least of all, is capable of expunging from his acts and utterances the dialectic of dominance.” (Pause) You think, Jacky, you are immune. Because you understand the problem. What you don’t see, is, that, to her, you are the problem. And you’re so fucking proud of yourself. For not making a pass at her, for “respecting” her as a “human being,” that you do not see, this ungrateful little girl, looking at me, and, in her eyes, “where is your watermelon.” While her privileged, Affirmative Action self is here on a pass, Jack, on a motherfucking pass. Which you gave her. However smart she is. (Pause) I would be mortified, to go through life, thinking that I’d received a dispensation because of my race. And I am ashamed of her that she is not. (Pause) And she sold us out. B
ecause of the Race of our client. Who is innocent. (Pause) That’s all.
JACK: “She sold us out”?
HENRY: She called the prosecution with the information on the dress, and I’ll bet you a fucking dollar, that she called the college roommate.
JACK: How would she get his name?
HENRY (Holds up a piece of paper): . . . whose name appears on the “List of Sins” you had him write. (Reads) “I used to go ‘tomcatting’ with my college friend, Bill . . .”
(Susan reenters with the briefcase.)
Susan, may I ask you something?
SUSAN: Of course.
HENRY: When our client came in, did you ask him for a check?
SUSAN: That’s right.
HENRY: Why?
SUSAN: You told me to keep him occupied.
JACK (Simultaneous with “occupied”): But, we’ve had several clients before, whom you spoke to. Did you do that with them? (Pause) Did you?
SUSAN: I was doing as I was asked.
JACK: But you never did it before.
SUSAN: I don’t understand where you’re going.
HENRY: And you called the Court—to have us listed as Attorneys of Record.
SUSAN: That’s not why I called the court.
HENRY: Why did you call the Court?
SUSAN: Kelley was unavail . . . Why do you think I called the court?
HENRY: Perhaps you wanted the client here.
SUSAN: Of course I wanted him here. I believed you wanted him here.
HENRY: Well—we were in the process of deciding when your act committed us. You believe he’s guilty.
SUSAN: I think it’s irrelevant.
JACK: But you believe he’s guilty.
SUSAN: In fact I do.
JACK: You believe he is.
SUSAN: I’m certain of it.
JACK: When did you reach that conclusion?
(Pause.)
SUSAN: I, I don’t know. I read, in his . . . you asked him to write a, to write a confession, of the things he’d done, I . . .
HENRY (To Jack): . . . you see?
JACK (To Susan): You said you thought he was guilty when you first saw him. Because I asked you what you thought. And you told me that he “looked” guilty. (Pause) But you say now, You always knew he was guilty.
SUSAN: The evidence seems to indicate he is.
JACK: Yes, but you thought so previous to the evidence. (Pause) You thought so when you first saw him.