The Gardener's Son (12 page)

Exterior. Jail. Mr McEvoy arrives and bangs at the door. He is half addled with grief. He is admitted but the jailer shakes his head no. Another jailer is brought into the room.

F
IRST
J
AILER
I done told him. You tell him. Look at him.

S
ECOND
J
AILER
Mr McEvoy, you better just go on home. You’re not in no condition to help your son.

Mr McEvoy looks from one to the other of them in disbelief.

M
R
M
C
E
VOY
You got to let me see him.

F
IRST
J
AILER
You’re drunk.

M
R
M
C
E
VOY
I’m not.

F
IRST
J
AILER
You caint see him.

M
R
M
C
E
VOY
Whynot?

F
IRST
J
AILER
You’re drunk.

S
ECOND
J
AILER
You’d better go along now. Dont let your son see you like this.

M
C
E
VOY
I swear to God. I’ve not had a drink . . .

S
ECOND
J
AILER
Tommy, if he wont go peaceably you’ll have to take him out. We caint have this here. This is a sacred time.

F
IRST
J
AILER
Let’s go.

He takes Mr McEvoy by the arm and escorts him to the door.

M
R
M
C
E
VOY
Please....

Jailer opens door and eases Mr McEvoy outside and shuts the door. Mr McEvoy raises his hand as if he'd bang on the door but then he merely touches the door and lets his forehead fall against it.

Exterior. Jail. Two men arrive on a wagon in front of the doors and one climbs down and taps at the door with the butt of his whip. The door opens and the jailer looks out. The teamster nods toward the wagon and they talk and the jailer nods and the teamster goes back to the wagon and the two teamsters slide a black wooden coffin off the tailboard and carry it in.

Interior. McEvoy's cell. The cell door opens and the sheriff and a deputy enter.

S
HERIFF
Bob.

McEvoy raises his head and stares at the sheriff without expression.

S
HERIFF
Are you ready, son?

McEvoy stands, rather quickly, taking up his crutch. He is still holding the flowers.

M
C
E
VOY
Yes. I’m ready.

The jailer comes forward and removes the irons from his wrists.

Exterior. Jail. A crowd of some thirty people at the door. The church hell clock strikes twelve. The door opens and the people enter.

Interior. The jail corridor. McEvoy supported by the priest and by his crutch. They enter the execution chamber, a small room with one window. The rope hangs from an overhead beam which has been bored to receive it. There is a trapdoor cut in the floor. McEvoy looks about at the faces of the spectators. They watch him with interest. He steps onto the platform and turns. The deputy is standing by respectfully with a long white robe over one arm. Now he comes forward and he and the priest help McEvoy into the robe, McEvoy cooperating and serious, like a priest being dressed for a sacrament. The hangman, Mr Clements, stands by. He is dressed neatly in a suit. The robe is fitted and smoothed and McEvoy hands by his crutch to the priest who steps from the platform.

S
HERIFF
Boh, did you want to say anything?

McEvoy quickly shakes his head no. The deputy steps forward and binds his hands behind him and Mr Clements comes forward and adjusts the noose about his neck and steps back again and stands with his hands folded in front of him. The sheriff steps forward and pulls a black hood over his head and steps back. McEvoy is standing on one leg. The sheriff looks at the spectators, then he looks to Mr Clements and nods. McEvoy, under the hood, clears his throat. Mr Clements pulls the rope and the trap opens and McEvoy starts down through the floor.

Interior. The room below. The trap doors slam open with a crash, the blocks crash to the floor and the body of McEvoy hurtles down into the room. Dr Perceval and his black attendant watch by lamplight the figure dangling above them. The doctor consults his watch. They wait for a few moments and the doctor steps forward and reaches up to take the dangling figure’s pulse. Behind them is the black wooden coffin. He checks his watch. There is a sound of feet on wooden stairs outside and a sharp rap at the door. The doctor nods to the black, who opens the door. The sheriff and Mr Clements enter. Outside in the hallway is an old man leaning back in a chair. The camera holds on this man in the hallway throughout the scene. He watches in through the door, which remains open. Beyond him in the hallway is a window with light coming in. In the foreground are stairs coming down from the floor above. The old man watches in the door and when all is clear he takes from the bib of his overalls a piece of wood he is carving together with his jack-knife and falls to carving very methodically, letting the chips fall into the upturned cuff of his overalls.

D
OCTOR
(os)
You dont have to fill that in. It’s down here. Violent or accidental death.

S
HERIFF
(os)
Does Mr Clements have to sign this?

D
OCTOR
(os)
Mr Clements has to sign the release. No. It just says that the state relinquishes all claims.

V
OICE
(os)
Give us some more slack.

V
OICE
2
(os)
Get his foot there.

D
OCTOR
(os)
Yes. Time of death is 1:13 p.m.

S
HERIFF
(os)
What about this ‘how did injury occur’?
Sounds of the body being lowered, grunts.

V
OICE
(os)
Easy.

V
OICE
(os)
You’ll have to cut it.

The old man in the hallway raises the carving and blows on it and looks at it and continues whittling.

S
HERIFF
(os)
Thank you Mr Clements. Yes.

Sounds of feet on the wooden stairs. The old man looks up and carefully tucks the carving and the knife into the bib of his overalls. The deputy and another man come down the steps and come past the old man and enter the room. The door remains open. The old man stares straight ahead. After a moment he turns and looks into the room, then carefully takes out his earthing and his knife again. Sounds of hammering the coffinlid nails.

Interior. Narrow hallway. Six men struggling along the passage with the coffin.

Exterior. Long shot of jail and an empty wagon standing in the front with Patrick McEvoy waiting. The doors open and the men come out with the coffin and load it into the back of the wagon. The sheriff approaches McEvoy with a paper and gets him to sign it. The other men stand around somewhat uneasily. McEvoy looks at them and then turns and takes up the reins and chucks up the mule and they start off.

Exterior. Day. The Graniteville cemetery. A scaffolding of poles is erected over the monument of William Gregg and the monument is being hoisted with a block and tackle. A heavy freight wagon with an eight-mule team is waiting to be backed under and receive the monument. A crew of gravediggers wait on with shovels. Teamsters back the mules and the stone is lowered into the bed of the wagon and the diggers come forth with their picks and shovels and proceed to exhume the bodies of the Gregg family. Mrs Gregg in her carriage waits on in the distance. It is a quiet and sunny scene. She gives the word to her man and he chucks up the team and they go on out the road among the stones.

Interior. Late afternoon. The state hospital at Columbia. The young man from the opening of the film approaches the desk. He and the young woman at the desk converse briefly and he signs his name on the visitors roster and she motions to an orderly who comes over. They converse and the orderly beckons the young man to follow him. The young man is carrying a bouquet of flowers. There is a muted sound of voices beyond the walls. A hall in the hospital. The orderly coming along. The young man following behind. An old man is mopping the floor and he stands at a sort of attention with his mop while they pass and then turns and makes a strange mudra after them with his hands before taking up his mop again.

The orderly and the young man pause in front of a small cubicle and the orderly nods to the young man and he enters. A white light comes in at the window. Old sheets for curtains. An old woman in an institutional robe is sleeping in a chair by the window. The young man comes in and takes a seat carefully on the bed. He puts his hat down and looks at the old woman. He folds his hands together, holding the flowers, and sits looking down at his feet like one holding a vigil. Shot reminiscent of Bobby in his cell before execution. After a while he looks up. He might almost have been praying at a wake. When he looks up he sees with a start that her eyes are on him, awake and intense.

M
ARTHA
Do I know you?

Y
OUNG
M
AN
No Mam.

M
ARTHA
Are you a doctor?

Y
OUNG
M
AN
No Mam. My name is William Chaffee. I’m from Charleston.

M
ARTHA
Well you look like you’re somebody.

He realizes that he is holding the flowers and he extends them toward her. She looks at them for a moment and then she reaches out and takes them.

Y
OUNG
M
AN
I Was At Graniteville This Morning. Miss McEvoy. I came up on the train.

M
ARTHA
I lived there as a young girl.

Y
OUNG
M
AN
Yes Mam.

M
ARTHA
These are just the prettiest flowers. Are these for me?

Y
OUNG
M
AN
Yes.

M
ARTHA
Well I declare.

Y
OUNG
M
AN
I guess most ladies like flowers.

M
ARTHA
I was always a fool about flowers. I guess I take after my daddy thataway. He was a nurseryman. He had peach orchards . . . You never seen the like of peaches. They used to ship em out by train. Just carloads of em. He had a touch with anything growin. Just had a sleight for it. He never did have no luck about people.

Y
OUNG
M
AN
I talked to a Mr Bolinger down at Graniteville. He asked to be remembered to you.

M
ARTHA
Well I dont know. They was several of them. They was some of em got high up in the mill.

Y
OUNG
M
AN
I believe he’s about your age. I cant remember . . .

M
ARTHA
Harvey.

Y
OUNG
M
AN
Yes. That was it.

M
ARTHA
He has a son that’s a district court judge. He had five children and they wasnt a one of em ever worked the first day in that mill. He’s got a slew of grandchildren. I dont have no kin. I had a nephew . . . My sister had a boy but he got gone from here years ago I couldnt tell ye where to. She and her husband is both dead.

Y
OUNG
M
AN
I see.

M
ARTHA
She was lots different from me. She didnt hardly remember Mama at all and she was ... I dont know. She must of been ten or eleven when Mama died. She died in the dead of winter and I remember they had her laid out—back then ye had your services at the house, they wasnt no funeral homes—had her laid out and they brought Maryellen in there and she looked at Mama and she said: What’s Mama doin in bed with her clothes on? I mean she was big enough to understand . . . Years later she told me, said she didnt hardly even remember Mama. I was five year older. I know. But I remember her from when I was just teenineey.