White What did he say?
Black What did he say?
White I mean in the line. What did he say.
Black I aint goin to repeat it.
White That doesnt seem fair.
Black Dont seem fair.
White No.
Black Hm. Well, here I’m tellin you a bonafide blood and guts tale from the Big House. The genuine article. And I cant get you to fill in the blanks about what this nigger said?
White Do you have to use that word?
Black Use that word.
White Yes.
Black We aint makin much progress here, is we?
White It just seems unnecessary.
Black You dont want to hear nigger but you about to bail out on me on account of I wont tell you some terrible shit the nigger said. You sure about this?
White I just dont see why you have to say that word.
Black Well it’s my story aint it? Anyway I dont remember there bein no Afro-Americans or persons of color there. To the best of my recollection it was just a bunch of niggers.
White Go ahead.
Black Well at some point I had pulled the knife out and I reckon I’d done dropped it in the floor. I’m wailin on this nigger’s head and all the time I’m doin that his buddy has got hold of me from behind. But I’m holdin on to the rail with one hand and I aint goin nowhere. Course what I dont know is that this other dude has picked up the knife and he’s tryin to gut me with it. I finally felt the blood and I turned around and busted him in the head and he went skitterin off across the floor, and by now they done pushed the button and the alarm is goin and everbody’s down on the floor and we’re in lockdown and the guard up on the tier is got a shotgun pointed at me and he hollers at me to put down my weapon and get on the floor. And he’s about to shoot me when the lieutenant comes in and hollers at him to hold his fire and he tells me to throw that club down and I looked around and I’m the only one standin. I seen the nigger’s feet stickin out from under the servin counter where he’d crawled so I throwed the thing down and I dont remember much after that. They told me I’d lost about half my blood. I remember slippin around in it but I thought it was this other dude’s.
White (Dryly) That’s quite a story.
Black Yeah. That’s really just the introduction to the actual story.
White Did the man die?
Black No he didnt. Everbody lived. They thought he was dead but he wasnt. He never was right after that so I never had no more trouble out of him. He was missin a eye and he walked around with his head sort of sideways and one arm hangin down. Couldnt talk right. They finally shipped him off to another facility.
White But that’s not the whole story.
Black No. It aint.
White So what happened.
Black I woke up in the infirmary. They had done operated on me. My spleen was cut open. Liver. I dont know what all. I come pretty close to dyin. And I had two hundred and eighty stitches holdin me together and I was hurtin. I didnt know you could hurt that bad. And still they got me in leg irons and got me handcuffed to the bed. If you can believe that. And I’m layin there and I hear this voice. Just as clear. Couldnt of been no clearer. And this voice says: If it was not for the grace of God you would not be here. Man. I tried to raise up and look around but of course I couldnt move. Wasnt no need to anyways. They wasnt nobody there. I mean, they was somebody there all right but they wasnt no use in me lookin around to see if I could see him.
White You dont think this is a strange kind of story?
Black I do think it’s a strange kind of story.
White What I mean is that you didnt feel sorry for this man?
Black You gettin ahead of the story.
White The story of how a fellow prisoner became a crippled one-eyed halfwit so that you could find God.
Black Whoa.
White Well isnt it?
Black I dont know.
White You hadnt thought of it that way.
Black Oh I’d thought of it that way.
White And?
Black And what?
White Isnt that the real story?
Black Well. I dont want to get on the wrong side of you. You seem to have a powerful wish for that to be the real story. So I will say that that is certainly one way to look at it. I got to concede that. I got to keep you interested.
White String me along.
Black That okay with you?
White And then put me in the what was it? The trick bag?
Black Yeah.
White Right.
Black You got to remember this is a jailhouse story.
White All right.
Black Which you specifically asked for.
White All right.
Black The point is, Professor, that I aint got the first notion in the world about what makes God tick. I dont know why he spoke to me. I wouldnt of.
White But you listened.
Black Well what choice would you have?
White I dont know. Not listen?
Black How you goin to do that?
White Just dont listen.
Black Do you think he goes around talkin to people that he knows aint goin to listen in the first place? You think he’s got that kind of free time?