The Mark of Cain by Gary Earl Ross

This Play is the copyright of the Author and must NOT be Performed without the Author's PRIOR consent

ACT ONE

Scene 1

(Lights focus only on CAIN, seated on a downstage bench)

CAIN
I am called Ossian Cain. I hear there are preachers using my name to
denounce me from their pulpits. They say my skin is the Mark of Cain,
my flesh the flesh of the first murderer. They say it’s only natural
that I should be in jail for killing somebody.
(Pauses.)
All we wanted was to make a home of the house we bought, to live life
unmolested. After all, the Civil War ended sixty years ago. If America
isn’t free and equal in 1925, when will it be?

MULTIPLE VOICES (v.o.)
Get out, nigger! Go back to your own side of town. Better yet, go back
to Africa! We don’t want no darkies ‘round here! We want our
neighborhood back! You can walk out and go live someplace else or we
can drag you out and put you up in a tree! We want our country back!

(Voices continue as rocks hit wood, shatter glass. More rocks,
more breaking glass. A man screams. Three gunshots. Silence.)

CAIN
If the mob hadn’t come, nobody would’ve died that night. I guess
the folks threatening us forgot that part in the Bible that says
whosoever slays Cain will face vengeance sevenfold.

(CAIN rises, moves upstage into darkness. Lights rise on full
stage. Upstage looks like a sparsely furnished house, a table and a
few chairs. Stairs may lead to an unseen upper floor. Huddled upstage
center is the Cain family: CAIN, ALICE, LIZBETH, and MARCELLUS. ALICE
holds a bundled blanket, and we hear a baby crying. LIZBETH embraces
MARCELLUS, whose head and eye are covered by a bloody cloth. All look
terrified. CAIN holds a gun, hands shaking as he points it offstage.
The baby’s crying is gradually replaced by angry voices outside.)

MULTIPLE VOICES (v.o.)
Damn niggers killed Lou Brainerd. I say we go in and get ‘em. What
are we waitin’ for? They got guns. Hell, we got more guns than they
do. And we got rope too. I say we burn ‘em out. We got women and
children out here could get hurt. Somebody already got hurt. Killed
Lou, they did. Shot him dead. Come on out, nigger. Don’t make us
come in after you . . .

ALICE
(Clutching baby tightly.)
They’re gonna kill us, Ossian! They’re gonna break down the door
and kill us all!

CAIN
(Still aiming the gun offstage.)
No. I’m the one they want. If I go out—

ALICE
No!

CAIN
If I go out, they’ll take me and leave the rest of you alone.

LIZBETH
Papa, no!

MARCELLUS
(In obvious pain.)
Ossie, Alice is right. They’ll kill all of us. The least you can do
is take some of them with us.

CAIN
I’ve got only four bullets.

MARCELLUS
If you aim true, brother, that’s four who will never do this to
another colored family.

(A sharp knock at the door rises above the steady crowd buzz.)

GRUBER (v.o.)
Ossian Cain, this is Inspector Gruber of the police! Open up or
we’ll break in the door!

CAIN
I’ve got a gun!

GRUBER (v.o.)
I know you got a gun. You shot a man dead. Now put down that gun and
let us in!

CAIN
This is my house. I was defending my house. Somebody out there shot first.

GRUBER (v.o.)
Nobody . . . nobody out here fired a shot.

CAIN
That man—are you sure he’s dead? I’m a doctor. Maybe I can help.

GRUBER (v.o.)
There’s nothin’ anybody can do for him now . . . doctor.

CAIN
I didn’t mean to shoot anybody. I just wanted them . . . to stop.

GRUBER (v.o.)
If you put down your gun and come out we can sort this out.

CAIN
How many people are out there? Two or three hundred? Talking about
ropes and trees. What are we going to sort out, which side of the mob
gets my wife and children?

GRUBER (v.o.)
If you let us in, we can take you out surrounded by police and nobody
will get hurt. I hear you got a baby in there.

CAIN
She’s only five months old! What kind of people throw rocks or fire
guns at a house with a five-month old baby?

GRUBER (v.o.)
I told you, nobody fired a gun! We can make sure your baby is safe. We
have a lady out here who’ll look after her.

CAIN
Inspector, do you have any children?

GRUBER (v.o.)
Yes, three.

CAIN
A father will understand what I’m about to say. I saw a lynching
once, when I was a boy back in South Carolina. I hid in a thicket and
watched a crowd of white folk have a picnic under a body still hanging
from a tree. Cornbread, chicken, and lemonade—while blood dripped
off the dead man’s toes.
(Pause as he looks at his family, all visibly afraid.)
I’ll kill another twenty men—or a hundred men—before I let that
happen to my children!

GRUBER (v.o.)
Then let us in and we’ll make sure nobody gets lynched.

MARCELLUS
You can’t trust them!

CAIN
(To MARCELLUS.)
If I can talk to them, man to man, father to father—

ALICE
No, Ossie!

CAIN
What else can I do? Shoot them and get us all shot? If I can talk to
them, you all get to live.

ALICE
(Crying, clutching the baby tighter.)
This is our house. We bought it. The police should be chasing them
away, not coming after us.

CAIN
(To GRUBER)
Sir, send the crowd away first. For my baby girl. Please. Then I’ll
let you in.
(Pauses.)
Yes, I fired the shot that killed that man. I admit that. I’ll put
down the gun and you can take me away. Only me. My wife and children
and brother had nothing to do with this. And my brother needs to go to
hospital. He got glass in his eye from one of the windows. Please.

GRUBER (v.o.)
All right, Cain.
(After a beat.)
You men move that crowd back and keep ‘em back.

(At that moment wood cracks loudly, and three police officers
burst onstage, two from behind, guns drawn. OFFICERS 1
and 2 speak simultaneously; OFFICER 3 says nothing.)

POLICE OFFICER 1
(Entering behind the family.)
Drop it or you’re dead!

POLICE OFFICER 2
(Entering from the side at which CAIN pointed the gun.)
Everybody down, now!

(As the family reacts and complies, the police officers kick the
gun aside and manacle CAIN, LIZBETH, and MARCELLUS. GRUBER, in
plainclothes, enters with a woman in a drab gray CHARITY WORKER
uniform. After a brief struggle, she takes the baby from ALICE, who
cries as GRUBER manacles her.)

ALICE
My baby! Please! My baby!

(Blackout)

Scene 2

(Lights rise on OSSIAN CAIN seated at a small table, his hands
manacled behind his back. Sitting across from him is GRUBER, in
shirtsleeves and holding a pencil above blank sheets of paper. For a
moment, as lights rise, the men regard each other without speaking.
They have been at this for some time; both are clearly tired.)

GRUBER
All right, Cain. Let’s go over it one more time.

CAIN
You’ve been asking me the same questions for two hours. Do you think
my answers are going to change?

GRUBER
You killed a man. Murder means a thorough investigation.

CAIN
I’ve already confessed. I’ll plead guilty. All I ask is that my
family—

GRUBER
You can’t plead guilty.

CAIN
I don’t understand.

GRUBER
You can’t plead guilty to murder. You gotta have a trial.

CAIN
Seems a waste of time and money when you and I both know they’re
going to put me in the electric chair.

GRUBER
You seem pretty calm for a fella who’s sure he’s going to die.

CAIN
I’m not calm. I’m tired, and they won’t put me in the chair
tonight. But maybe I deserve it. I shot somebody. Me, who’s sworn to
save life. What I didn’t deserve is people attacking my house,
scaring my family.

GRUBER
So, you still maintain your house was under attack?
CAIN
Weren’t you there? Didn’t you see them? Hear them?

GRUBER
Look, Cain, there was a crowd outside your place, true enough. But it
was a hot August night. If fifteen or twenty people step outside to
cool off—

CAIN
Fifteen or twenty?

GRUBER
That doesn’t give you the right to shoot.

CAIN
Somebody shot at my house first and threw rocks at it. My windows
didn’t break themselves. My brother didn’t jam glass in his own
eye.
(Pauses.)
Is he in hospital yet? And where are my wife and children?

GRUBER
I’ll find out about your family when we’re finished here.

CAIN
When will that be?

GRUBER
When . . . we’re . . . finished.

(CAIN says nothing.)

GRUBER
All right. Where were you when the stone hit your house?

CAIN
Rocks hit my house. Lots of them.

GRUBER
Lots of kids were playing in the heat, throwing stones at each other.
A few may have hit your house. Boys will be boys. Where were you when
the window broke? The upstairs window.

CAIN
Downstairs, in the dark, trying to keep my wife and baby away from all
the broken glass.

GRUBER
You heard a crash upstairs. Then what happened?

CAIN
I heard a shot.

GRUBER
(After a pause.)
I already told you it was probably a firecracker, from one of those
boys running around.

CAIN
My daughter screamed. Lizbeth. She’d helped my brother take a few
things up to his bedroom. They were upstairs when the rock throwing
started.

GRUBER
What did she say, exactly?

CAIN
She didn’t say. She screamed, “Uncle Marcellus has glass in his
eye!” Right after I heard the shot. That was the last straw. I
crawled to the front window and stuck my gun out. And pulled the
trigger.

GRUBER
How many times did you shoot?

CAIN
Twice.

GRUBER
You didn’t go upstairs right away to help your brother? You,
supposedly a doctor?

CAIN
I said it was the last straw. I went up after I fired. I took him to
the bathroom and wrapped his face . . .
(Pauses.)
I tried to shoot high. I just wanted to scare them away. I didn’t
mean to kill that man.

(JASPER LANDIS, in a suit, enters and approaches CAIN.)

LANDIS
You don’t look so dangerous now that I see you up close. You’re
just another scared colored man who’s run afoul of the law.

CAIN
Defending one’s home is against the law?

LANDIS
Boy, do you have any idea who I am?

CAIN
You’re the district attorney. I’ve seen your picture in the
newspaper. I can read.

LANDIS
(Slapping CAIN.)
I will not tolerate disrespect from a quasi-intelligent Negro who
thinks he’s special because he went to some fancy colored vocational
school.

CAIN
Sir, I am a graduate of Howard University College of Medicine and
recently studied at La Sorbonne in Par—

LANDIS
(Quickly putting his face near CAIN’s.)
I don’t care if you studied at Barnum and Bailey, Cain. You’re in
manacles for a reason. You’re a cold-blooded killer, and nothing is
going to make this easier for you.
(Turns to GRUBER.)
Gruber, a word with you.

(GRUBER rises and follows LANDIS out of CAIN’s earshot.)

LANDIS
What is he saying?

GRUBER
He admits he pulled the trigger, sir, but claims self-defense. He
didn’t shoot until a rock broke a window and glass showered his
brother’s face. He says somebody outside shot first.

LANDIS
(Studying him for a moment.)
The chief tells me he sent you there to keep an eye on things.

GRUBER
He got word the NPA—the Neighborhood Preservation Association—was
planning to gather in front of a house on Mapother tonight because a
colored family moved in yesterday. He sent me to observe.

LANDIS
How could you let it get to this point?

GRUBER
Do you how many people were out there?
(Lowering his voice.)
Hundreds, and I’m one man, in plainclothes. I went to a call box and
told the precinct captain we might have a riot on our hands. He sent
twenty cops, but by the time they got there, there might have been
three hundred people. Shouting, throwing rocks, maybe shooting . . .

LANDIS
All right. It’s not your fault. But we still have a problem.

GRUBER
Look, sir, I’m not keen on the idea of a dinge shooting a white man
and walking away from it, but this was no back alley crime. This case
is different. This man is different.

LANDIS
How? That he’s more arrogant than your run-of-the-mill darkie?

GRUBER
He’s a doctor. His wife’s a teacher. His brother’s a
dentist—or was. Looks like he’s gonna lose that eye. The mob
attacked their house. Their house. I told him it was a firecracker but
somebody outside might’ve shot first. For Christ’s sake, they had
a baby inside—

LANDIS
Are you suggesting I file no charges? A white man shot dead in front
of a couple hundred—

GRUBER
Mr. Landis, he already confessed.

LANDIS
—in front of maybe three hundred witnesses, and a colored man
holding the gun. If I don’t do something—something big—they’ll
ride me out of town on a rail before the next election.

GRUBER
He expects the electric chair. All he wants is for his family to be safe.

LANDIS
They moved in yesterday? The house barely has any furniture. A table
and chairs, a couple of old beds. Who moves in without furniture
unless it’s for some criminal purpose?

GRUBER
Maybe it hasn’t come yet. Maybe he spent everything on the house and
can’t afford furniture.

LANDIS
It doesn’t matter. This is going to trial, and I expect your report
to back me.

GRUBER
Then please consider manslaughter, sir. He doesn’t deserve to die
for this.

LANDIS
No, I’m going to charge them with murder. All of them . . . except
the tar baby.

(Blackout)

[End of Extract]