The Stand play series - "Going Back"
(An old-fashioned study in the back room of the Barrister Tavern. CARSON HILL stands in his suspenders and rebuttons his shirt. MAYELLA SINCLAIR, in her slip, sits on the chaise and mopes.)
CARSON: Are you sure you can stay this late?
MAYELLA: Oh, certainly. Arlen’s out late with the hands again tonight. He’s always preferred their company to mine.
CARSON: And Rebecca?
MAYELLA: Her nursemaid’s about if she needs anything. She’s far better with the girl than I’ve ever been.
CARSON: You seem glum tonight.
MAYELLA: Oh, I’m always glum. It’s my nature.
CARSON: More so than usual, then.
MAYELLA: I suppose my typical diversions have failed to distract me.
CARSON: Isn’t that what I’m for?
MAYELLA: Well, you’re doing no good for me tonight. I’m so bored I could die.
CARSON: You wound me, ma’am. Is something new wrong?
MAYELLA: It’s only that… things… things haven’t gone quite as I planned.
CARSON: Planned? What do you mean?
MAYELLA: Oh, nothing. Just my malaise. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. Nothing ever happens on this empty range.
CARSON: I’ve never minded that.
MAYELLA: I don’t see how. I’ve never understood why a man of your breeding and education would stay in a town like this.
CARSON: What makes you think I’ve got any breeding or education?
MAYELLA: Come now, darling, I’m no fool. It may escape most of the bumpkins around these parts, but I’m from real society. It takes only a few words with you to give you away.
CARSON: I see.
MAYELLA: And one look around here is enough. This isn’t any cowboy roadhouse.
CARSON: Nobody’s ever back here except you.
(MAYELLA rises and goes to the bookshelf over the desk to rifle through the contents.)
MAYELLA: See, you have too many books to be just another roughneck. And… is this a playbill for The Spanish Tragedy? Where did you ever see this?
(He takes the playbill out of her hands and files it back on the bookshelf.)
CARSON: Mayella. It’s not polite to pry into a man’s things.
(She sighs exaggeratedly.)
MAYELLA: Fine. I suppose this place has worn away my manners. Of course, I have always given you your privacy. I never pried all those times you avoided telling me where you came from to this godforsaken town.
CARSON: It’s not something I like to talk about.
MAYELLA: I know, you’ve made that clear.
CARSON: It isn’t all theaters and galas back in the cities, you know. Where you get society, you also get a lot of shady fellows trying to take advantage of it.
(CARSON turns away as he speaks. While his back is turned, MAYELLA begins looking through the items in the shelf and desk again.)
CARSON: It’s peaceful out here. I like that peace. No… hustle and bustle. No scheming politicians. No wrangling for control, no twisting the law into knots. Just a lot of cowboys working to make a living.
(MAYELLA finds a letter. She unfolds and begins to read it.)
CARSON: Sure, it’s dull, sometimes, but I say it’s a fair change of pace.
(CARSON turns back around to see her reading the letter.)
CARSON: Jesus Christ, Mayella, what are you doing? Give me that, now.
(He reaches for the letter but she yanks it out of the way.)
MAYELLA: This is a letter… from your father? Jackson Hill, esquire? Yelling at you to come back home and take up your responsibility before you shame the family name?
CARSON: I asked you not to go through my things.
MAYELLA: What responsibility? What have you done?
CARSON: That is none of your never mind!
MAYELLA: This letter is from Albany! You got rich family back in Albany? This is what you’ve been keeping from me?
CARSON: Mayella—
MAYELLA: Carson, you tell me what this is right this minute!
(CARSON glares at her for a moment, then relents.)
CARSON: All right. All right, Mrs. Sinclair. You always wanted to know what brought me out to the territory. Well, I’ll tell you. You’re right, Mayella. I do come from breeding and money. My family runs one of the biggest tobacco plantations in George, and my pap was the head of the toniest law firm in Albany. I was going to follow after him. I was a prodigy. Graduated Harvard at sixteen, aced every other fellow in law school. I had everything in the world ahead of me.
MAYELLA: You’re a lawyer come from money, and you’re running some saloon out here?
CARSON: That isn’t the end of it. To make my fortune, my uncle sent a man from a neighboring plantation who wanted me to represent him in a case. Mr. Richard Corbett, a cotton baron, a real high roller down south. He wanted the state of New York to return five runaway slaves to him that had escaped past the border. The state didn’t want to return them. But I argued that case, used every legal trick in my book, and I got them back. Was a hell of a piece of lawyering, I’ll say that myself. And Corbett was pleased. He invited me down to his place in thanks. I hadn’t been on a plantation in a long time… and I saw what it was really like. All those slaves working themselves to the bone under the whips of their masters. Suffering, dying... I turned to Corbett and asked him what he did with the property I returned to him. He told me he had them beaten and set the dogs on them to make an example to the others. All because of what I did. I got them sent back to that hell. And there I was, feeling like I’d killed them myself, when all anybody could talk about was what a triumph of law I’d accomplished.
(Pause.)
CARSON: So that’s it, Mayella. That’s why I ran out here. That’s the culture and society that I came out here from.
(MAYELLA claps her hands over her mouth. She starts wordlessly laughing.)
CARSON: What’s gotten into you?
MAYELLA: Carson— what are you frowning over? This— this is wonderful!
CARSON: What? No, it ain’t!
MAYELLA: Don’t you see? We can go back. We can get away from this cow town forever.
CARSON: What are you talking about?
MAYELLA: You’ve got a place there, your father wants you back.
CARSON: He’s mad as hell at me for running off! He doesn’t understand what it did to me.
MAYELLA: There’s something for you back there! Money, family, society! You could take me away from here. We could get married and have a real life!
CARSON: Married? You’re already married!
MAYELLA: I don’t care about Arlen, he dragged me out to the middle of nowhere and forgot about me!
CARSON: He’s still your husband.
MAYELLA: I’ll get a divorce. You’re a lawyer, you could divorce us!
CARSON: You want that scandal on your head?
MAYELLA: Once we’re back east, that won’t matter! Who’ll give a damn about a scandal out on some frontier?
CARSON: And what about Rebecca? Doesn’t she matter?
MAYELLA: I don’t want to think about her anymore!
CARSON: How can you say that? She’s your child, for God’s sake!
MAYELLA: I’m no good to anyone like this, much less that girl.
CARSON: You can’t just leave your own child.
MAYELLA: Carson, this place is killing me! You’ve got to get me out of here!
CARSON: Mayella, I’m not going.
MAYELLA: What do you mean?
CARSON: Don’t you understand? I couldn’t bear that life anymore. I came out here to escape all that.
MAYELLA: How could you choose life in this nowhere to having a place somewhere real?
CARSON: Because out here there ain’t nobody celebrating the worst thing I ever did! I’d run to Russia if that’s what it took to never know that again.
MAYELLA: But… I thought you loved me. I thought you loved me enough to save me. Don’t you?
(CARSON is silent.)
MAYELLA: Of course not. Of course not.
CARSON: I care you for you, Mayella. And I’m sorry you feel so trapped. But I am never going back there. Not for you, not for anybody.
(MAYELLA looks at him in uncomprehending shock for a moment. Then she starts shaking and breaking into hysterics.)
MAYELLA: No. No. You can’t… you can’t just leave me here! You can’t just condemn me to this place!
CARSON: Mayella, be reasonable.
MAYELLA: I thought you’d be the one to save me from all this. But you’re abandoning me when I need you!
CARSON: Hush up, someone will hear you.
(He goes to her to quiet her, but she struggles.)
MAYELLA: You’ll regret this, my love. You’ll be so sorry for what you’ve done to me. You’ll see!
CARSON: Mayella, you’re talking crazy!
MAYELLA: Just wait. Just wait, Carson Hill. You’ll see. You’ll see. You’re going to regret this, mark my words.
(She shoves him off, grabs the rest of her clothes in an armful, and runs out. CARSON collapses on the chaise and rakes back his hair, stricken.)
