Read Online The Stonemason by Cormac McCarthy - Free Book Online Page B

back into the room and begins to undress. He puts his watch and billfold on the table. He hangs his suit carefully on a hanger together with his tie and lays it across the bed. He crumples his shirt and throws it in the corner and he takes off his shoes and takes off his socks and garters and puts them in the shoes and puts the shoes under the bed. Then he rises, dressed only in very clean white shorts and undershirt and takes up the revolver and goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. Mama has been busy at the stove. She is reaching up to the shelf for the pepper when the sound of the shot reaches her. She freezes, then lowers her hand and turns to look at the door stage left. She crosses the kitchen.
    M AMA Ben? Ben?
    She crosses to the door.
    M AMA Ben? That was outside wasn't it? That was outside wasn't it honey?
    She exits and goes up the stairs.
    — CURTAIN —

ACT V
    SCENE I
    The kitchen. It is empty. The woodstove remains although the stove pipe is lying in the floor. The windows have been boarded over. Ben's pickup pulls into the drive and the truck door opens and closes and the kitchen door opens and Ben enters. He leaves the door open. He stands in the kitchen and looks around, then goes out and up the stairs. The light comes on stage right where the naked iron bedstead is the only piece of furniture left in Big Ben's bedroom. Ben comes through the room and comes around the bed and sits slowly on the bedsprings and looks out, his hands clasped, his elbows on his knees. The light comes on at the podium.
    B EN The big elm tree died. The old dog died. Things that you can touch go away forever. I don't know what that means. I don't know what it means that things exist and then exist no more. Trees. Dogs. People. Will that namelessness into which we vanish then taste of us? The world was before man was and it will be again when he is gone. But it was not this world nor will it be, for where man lives is in this world only.
    Ultimately there is no one to tell you if you are justified in your own house.
    The people I know who are honorable never think about it. I think of little else.
    If I'd ransomed everything and given it all to him would it have saved him?
    No.
    Was I obligated to do so?
    Yes.
    Why did you not?
    Ben sitting on the bed, lowers his head.
    B EN Papaw. Papaw. Why were you everything to me and nothing to him?

SCENE II
    Stage left. Ben is standing on the porch of a small frame house. It is night and the porch light is on. He taps at the door (again). The door opens and MARY WEAVER —a woman in her midforties, not unattractive, looks out at him. She is wearing a housedress but she is well groomed.
    B EN Hello. Are you Mary Weaver?
    She studies him. She nods her head.
    M ARY I guess you're Benny.
    B EN Yes mam.
    M ARY I cain't do nothin for you child. Let the dead sleep.
    B EN I just wondered if I could talk to you for a minute.
    M ARY What would be the use in it?
    Ben looks away. He gestures futilely. He is almost crying.
    B EN I'm not here to bother you Mrs Weaver.
    She shakes her head resignedly. She looks up at him. She pushes open the door.
    M ARY Come on in.
    He enters and she closes the door and goes past him to a kitchen table with two chairs.
    M ARY You want a glass of iced tea?
    B EN Yes mam. That would be fine.
    She goes past him just offstage. She returns with a pitcher and two glasses.
    M ARY And quit callin me mam. I ain't that old. This is done got sugar in it.
    B EN That's all right.
    M ARY Well set down.
    She pours the glasses. He sits. She takes her cigarettes from her housedress pocket and puts them on the table and sits down.
    B EN Thank you.
    He sips the tea. She watches him. She sighs and reaches for the cigarettes.
    M ARY What did you want me to tell you?
    B EN Anything that you'd be willing to. About my father. Anything...
    M ARY You talk like he died fore you was born.
    She lights a cigarette and studies him through the smoke.
    M ARY I knew when I seen you standin there you