One Day When I Was Lost - Softcover
James Baldwin's screenplay based on Alex Haley's now classic The Autobiography Of Malcolm X makes immediate and terrfyingly real the stunning events that gave birth to a forceful, determined man . . . and created the atmosphere of hate that ultimately murdered him. Juxtaposing eloquence and violence, the highest of human ideals with the basest of human violence, this rare screenplay recreates Malcolm X as a symbol for his times . . . and as a flesh and blood black man who feels, loves, hates, and forgives through a life torn by pain, healed by faith, and finally ended by the bullets from a black brother's gun.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
James Baldwin was born in 1924 and educated in New York. He is the author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
From the Trade Paperback edition.
(The late afternoon, in New York, from the Statue of Liberty in the bay, and the busy water traffic, the downtown spires, the midtown spires, then the garage of the New York Hilton Hotel.
The garage is utterly silent, long and ominous.
The door leading to the hotel opens, and a man's long, lean silhouette crosses the garage swiftly and gets into a car.
There is a long pause before he turns on the ignition and the sound of the motor rolls through the garage.
The moment we hear the sound of the motor, the car s side-view mirror fills the screen--as blank as the garage. The radio begins to play--"soul" music--and the car's side-view mirror begins to move, up, into the daylight.
We see the driver's bespectacled eyes in the rear-view mirror: eyes both haunted and alert.
The music pauses. We hear an announcement that MALCOLM X will be appearing at the Audubon Ballroom in the evening.
The side-view mirror, reflecting darkness, then light, then the traffic in the streets.
A red light; people crossing the street; soul music.
We now see the driver, MALCOLM X, bearded, harried, and yet, at the same time, calm and proud.
As the car begins to move again, the side-view mirror begins to reflect inexplicable images, swift, overlapping, blurred.
A fire fills the screen. Then, hooded men, on horseback, smashing in the windows of a country house; a fair, young mulatto woman, pregnant, flinching as the horsemen ride between her and the house; and between her and the camera.
A voice is heard, shouting, "Brothers, sisters, this is not our home! Our homeland is in Africa! In Africa!"
We hear a trolley-car's clanging bell, and see, from the point of view of the motorman, a beaten, one-eyed black man, lying across the streetcar tracks, watching his death approach.
MALCOLM's face.
The car is moving uptown, through the streets of Manhattan, and we watch MALCOLM watching the people and watching the tall, proud buildings. Following MALCOLM's eye, we begin picking out, isolating, certain details of these buildings:
A cupola, at the topmost height of a New York building, transforms itself, as we pass, into the balcony of the presidential mansion in Dakar: flags flying, throngs of black people cheering. The bearded MALCOLM is smiling and responding to the cheers.
A very young black STUDENT, male, with a bright and eager face, is speaking to him.)
STUDENT You must return. You must come back to us.
MALCOLM I have come back. After many centuries.
Thank you--thank you!--for welcoming me. You have given me a new name!
(MALCOLM, in a great hall, somewhere in Africa, being draped in an African robe.
The black ruler, who places this robe on him, pronounces this new name at the same time that MALCOLM repeats it to the STUDENT.)
MALCOLM Omowale.
STUDENT It means: the son who has returned.
MALCOLM I have had so many names--
(We see the Book of the Holy Register of True Muslims. A hand inscribes in this book the name: El-Haji Malik El Shabazz.
We see a family Bible and a black hand inscribing: Malcolm Little, May 19, 1925.)
I will come back to you. I promise--(After a moment) God willing.
(The windows of New York buildings, blinding where the sun strikes.)
MALCOLM'S VOICE OVER So many names--
(We hear the raucous sound of a Lindy Hop.
In the side-view mirror: a conked and sweating
MALCOLM, dancing, spinning.
A voice yells, "Hey, Red! Go on, Red!"
MALCOLM acknowledges this, without missing a beat. He is dancing with a very young, radiant, black girl, LAURA. They execute a particularly spectacular and punishing pas de deux, the crowd roaring them on, and when MALCOLM has, literally, set LAURA's feet on solid ground again, he holds her against him a moment. They are very, very young: and they smile at each other that way.)
MALCOLM You are the cutest thing.
(MALCOLM'S present, weary, bearded face: very much alone. Idly, he watches a very attractive blond girl striding along the avenue.)
MALCOLM'S VOICE OVER Sophia--
(The car stops for a light.
The blond girl, who is actually not SOPHIA, enters a jewelry shop. We see her through the glass.
In the side-view mirror, we see:
MALCOLM'S long hands tangled in SOPHIA's long blond hair. They kiss--a long moment--and then we see that they are in a room, on a bed. SOPHIA is wearing a loose robe. MALCOLM is naked to the waist.)
MALCOLM And what you going to tell your white boy about your black boy? your fine black stud? your nigger?--You hear me talking to you, Miss Anne?
SOPHIA I am not going to speak about you at all.
MALCOLM Suppose somebody else tells him?
SOPHIA Who could make him believe it?
MALCOLM (laughs) You keep telling me you know how white men are. (She kisses him.) Don't nobody care about you people at all?
(He pulls her down on top of him. She buries her head in his chest. Then she looks up at him.)
SOPHIA I don't think so--don't laugh--only you--
(And MALCOLM pulls her head down on his chest.)
(MALCOLM, in prison, in a fist-fight. He and his opponent are separated by the guards.
A voice yells, "Satan!")
MALCOLM (shouting) I didn't do a damn thing! I was minding my own business when this joker come fucking over me! I ain't no punk!
(The GUARDS subdue him and hurl him into solitary, MALCOLM shouting and cursing every inch of the way. When the door locks behind him, he begins beating on the door, finally slumps.)
MALCOLM'S VOICE OVER So many names.
(A tree, from which flutter old, discolored rags--which once were clothes, which once were bloodstained; great birds circling in a luminous gray sky; and then clothes billowing from the clothesline of the Little home.
A lone female black voice, singing:
"Bye and bye,
Bye and bye,
I'm going to lay down
This heavy, heavy load."
The very fair, young mulatto woman, pregnant, trudges from the clothesline toward this house. This is LOUISE LITTLE.
The one-eyed EARL LITTLE, preaching.)
EARL God has sent us a prophet who will take us home. Do you understand that, brothers and sisters? do you understand that? To take us home! Back to Africa! We're going to leave this accursed people, who been slaughtering us so long! (His listeners all are black: a not overwhelming number. We are in a black church.) But we must raise ourselves so that we need nothing from the white man--nothing!
(Holster of a white man on horseback. The horse is restless.
From within a white house a black hand lifts a white curtain, lets the curtain drop.)
A BLACK VOICE Lord have mercy.
EARL We shall establish our own businesses, raise our own food--
(LOUISE, at the stove, cooking: and watching the clock.)
EARL And when we have established our sufficiency, we will do as Christ told us to do--we will shake the dust of this most accursed of nations from off our feet. And join our brother, Marcus Garvey, and go home!
(The Klan, riding through the night.
LOUISE hears this. She looks quickly at the children, who are silent.
The clothes on the line, billowing over the heads of some of the riders as they enter the Little yard.
LOUISE walks to the door, and faces the riders. LOUISE is nearly as white as they are and this lends her a very particular bitterness and a contemptuous authority.
If they are intimidated by the particular quality of her fury, they are nevertheless together and she is alone.)
LOUISE What you all want here, this time of night? I got my children's supper on the stove.
A RIDER Where's your husband?
LOUISE lf he was home, would I be standing out here in the yard?
A RIDER If you want to keep on standing, you better watch your tongue.
LOUISE You can veil your face, but you can't hide your voice, Mr. Joel. I know every one of you.
(A RIDER laughs. His horse rears.)
A RIDER Well, if you know every one of us, you know we mean business. You tell your one-eyed liverlipped preacher husband--
LOUISE You tell him whatever it is you got to tell him! or ain't you man enough?
A RIDER We trying to be patient--
A RIDER You half-white bitch--
LOUISE I might be your daughter, for all you know--or your sister--!
A RIDER Your husband keep on stirring up the bad niggers in this town, we going to have his ass in a sling--you tell him that!
A RIDER He going to lose his other eye!
(His restless horse rears again, and, in a sudden fury, the RIDER smashes in one of the windows with the butt of his gun. He prods his horse, and all the RIDERS follow him. They ride around the house, smashing in every window with their gun butts, and ride away.
LOUISE's clenched hands on her swollen belly.)
(Night. The streetcar tracks, from the motorman's point of view.
EARL rushes to catch this streetcar but misses it. He stands, in an odd and violent frustration, on the tracks, watching the streetcar vanish. He begins walking home.
A car with Nebraska license plates moves slowly along the dark streets, and we see that the two white men in the car are armed.
EARL walks under the billowing clothesline, and the light falls on his face as his wife opens the door. He walks slowly around his violated house; we hear the children whispering and weeping.
He turns to LOUISE, who stands in the doorway, who has not moved.)
LOUISE Earl, maybe now you'll listen to me. We can't stay here. Earl. We got to go.
EARL I ain't going to let them drive me away like this.--Oh, no. Oh, no.
LOUISE Listen to your children in there, crying, scared to death! Man, can't you hear your children?
EARL I hear my children. That's why we ain't going to run.
(He s...
The garage is utterly silent, long and ominous.
The door leading to the hotel opens, and a man's long, lean silhouette crosses the garage swiftly and gets into a car.
There is a long pause before he turns on the ignition and the sound of the motor rolls through the garage.
The moment we hear the sound of the motor, the car s side-view mirror fills the screen--as blank as the garage. The radio begins to play--"soul" music--and the car's side-view mirror begins to move, up, into the daylight.
We see the driver's bespectacled eyes in the rear-view mirror: eyes both haunted and alert.
The music pauses. We hear an announcement that MALCOLM X will be appearing at the Audubon Ballroom in the evening.
The side-view mirror, reflecting darkness, then light, then the traffic in the streets.
A red light; people crossing the street; soul music.
We now see the driver, MALCOLM X, bearded, harried, and yet, at the same time, calm and proud.
As the car begins to move again, the side-view mirror begins to reflect inexplicable images, swift, overlapping, blurred.
A fire fills the screen. Then, hooded men, on horseback, smashing in the windows of a country house; a fair, young mulatto woman, pregnant, flinching as the horsemen ride between her and the house; and between her and the camera.
A voice is heard, shouting, "Brothers, sisters, this is not our home! Our homeland is in Africa! In Africa!"
We hear a trolley-car's clanging bell, and see, from the point of view of the motorman, a beaten, one-eyed black man, lying across the streetcar tracks, watching his death approach.
MALCOLM's face.
The car is moving uptown, through the streets of Manhattan, and we watch MALCOLM watching the people and watching the tall, proud buildings. Following MALCOLM's eye, we begin picking out, isolating, certain details of these buildings:
A cupola, at the topmost height of a New York building, transforms itself, as we pass, into the balcony of the presidential mansion in Dakar: flags flying, throngs of black people cheering. The bearded MALCOLM is smiling and responding to the cheers.
A very young black STUDENT, male, with a bright and eager face, is speaking to him.)
STUDENT You must return. You must come back to us.
MALCOLM I have come back. After many centuries.
Thank you--thank you!--for welcoming me. You have given me a new name!
(MALCOLM, in a great hall, somewhere in Africa, being draped in an African robe.
The black ruler, who places this robe on him, pronounces this new name at the same time that MALCOLM repeats it to the STUDENT.)
MALCOLM Omowale.
STUDENT It means: the son who has returned.
MALCOLM I have had so many names--
(We see the Book of the Holy Register of True Muslims. A hand inscribes in this book the name: El-Haji Malik El Shabazz.
We see a family Bible and a black hand inscribing: Malcolm Little, May 19, 1925.)
I will come back to you. I promise--(After a moment) God willing.
(The windows of New York buildings, blinding where the sun strikes.)
MALCOLM'S VOICE OVER So many names--
(We hear the raucous sound of a Lindy Hop.
In the side-view mirror: a conked and sweating
MALCOLM, dancing, spinning.
A voice yells, "Hey, Red! Go on, Red!"
MALCOLM acknowledges this, without missing a beat. He is dancing with a very young, radiant, black girl, LAURA. They execute a particularly spectacular and punishing pas de deux, the crowd roaring them on, and when MALCOLM has, literally, set LAURA's feet on solid ground again, he holds her against him a moment. They are very, very young: and they smile at each other that way.)
MALCOLM You are the cutest thing.
(MALCOLM'S present, weary, bearded face: very much alone. Idly, he watches a very attractive blond girl striding along the avenue.)
MALCOLM'S VOICE OVER Sophia--
(The car stops for a light.
The blond girl, who is actually not SOPHIA, enters a jewelry shop. We see her through the glass.
In the side-view mirror, we see:
MALCOLM'S long hands tangled in SOPHIA's long blond hair. They kiss--a long moment--and then we see that they are in a room, on a bed. SOPHIA is wearing a loose robe. MALCOLM is naked to the waist.)
MALCOLM And what you going to tell your white boy about your black boy? your fine black stud? your nigger?--You hear me talking to you, Miss Anne?
SOPHIA I am not going to speak about you at all.
MALCOLM Suppose somebody else tells him?
SOPHIA Who could make him believe it?
MALCOLM (laughs) You keep telling me you know how white men are. (She kisses him.) Don't nobody care about you people at all?
(He pulls her down on top of him. She buries her head in his chest. Then she looks up at him.)
SOPHIA I don't think so--don't laugh--only you--
(And MALCOLM pulls her head down on his chest.)
(MALCOLM, in prison, in a fist-fight. He and his opponent are separated by the guards.
A voice yells, "Satan!")
MALCOLM (shouting) I didn't do a damn thing! I was minding my own business when this joker come fucking over me! I ain't no punk!
(The GUARDS subdue him and hurl him into solitary, MALCOLM shouting and cursing every inch of the way. When the door locks behind him, he begins beating on the door, finally slumps.)
MALCOLM'S VOICE OVER So many names.
(A tree, from which flutter old, discolored rags--which once were clothes, which once were bloodstained; great birds circling in a luminous gray sky; and then clothes billowing from the clothesline of the Little home.
A lone female black voice, singing:
"Bye and bye,
Bye and bye,
I'm going to lay down
This heavy, heavy load."
The very fair, young mulatto woman, pregnant, trudges from the clothesline toward this house. This is LOUISE LITTLE.
The one-eyed EARL LITTLE, preaching.)
EARL God has sent us a prophet who will take us home. Do you understand that, brothers and sisters? do you understand that? To take us home! Back to Africa! We're going to leave this accursed people, who been slaughtering us so long! (His listeners all are black: a not overwhelming number. We are in a black church.) But we must raise ourselves so that we need nothing from the white man--nothing!
(Holster of a white man on horseback. The horse is restless.
From within a white house a black hand lifts a white curtain, lets the curtain drop.)
A BLACK VOICE Lord have mercy.
EARL We shall establish our own businesses, raise our own food--
(LOUISE, at the stove, cooking: and watching the clock.)
EARL And when we have established our sufficiency, we will do as Christ told us to do--we will shake the dust of this most accursed of nations from off our feet. And join our brother, Marcus Garvey, and go home!
(The Klan, riding through the night.
LOUISE hears this. She looks quickly at the children, who are silent.
The clothes on the line, billowing over the heads of some of the riders as they enter the Little yard.
LOUISE walks to the door, and faces the riders. LOUISE is nearly as white as they are and this lends her a very particular bitterness and a contemptuous authority.
If they are intimidated by the particular quality of her fury, they are nevertheless together and she is alone.)
LOUISE What you all want here, this time of night? I got my children's supper on the stove.
A RIDER Where's your husband?
LOUISE lf he was home, would I be standing out here in the yard?
A RIDER If you want to keep on standing, you better watch your tongue.
LOUISE You can veil your face, but you can't hide your voice, Mr. Joel. I know every one of you.
(A RIDER laughs. His horse rears.)
A RIDER Well, if you know every one of us, you know we mean business. You tell your one-eyed liverlipped preacher husband--
LOUISE You tell him whatever it is you got to tell him! or ain't you man enough?
A RIDER We trying to be patient--
A RIDER You half-white bitch--
LOUISE I might be your daughter, for all you know--or your sister--!
A RIDER Your husband keep on stirring up the bad niggers in this town, we going to have his ass in a sling--you tell him that!
A RIDER He going to lose his other eye!
(His restless horse rears again, and, in a sudden fury, the RIDER smashes in one of the windows with the butt of his gun. He prods his horse, and all the RIDERS follow him. They ride around the house, smashing in every window with their gun butts, and ride away.
LOUISE's clenched hands on her swollen belly.)
(Night. The streetcar tracks, from the motorman's point of view.
EARL rushes to catch this streetcar but misses it. He stands, in an odd and violent frustration, on the tracks, watching the streetcar vanish. He begins walking home.
A car with Nebraska license plates moves slowly along the dark streets, and we see that the two white men in the car are armed.
EARL walks under the billowing clothesline, and the light falls on his face as his wife opens the door. He walks slowly around his violated house; we hear the children whispering and weeping.
He turns to LOUISE, who stands in the doorway, who has not moved.)
LOUISE Earl, maybe now you'll listen to me. We can't stay here. Earl. We got to go.
EARL I ain't going to let them drive me away like this.--Oh, no. Oh, no.
LOUISE Listen to your children in there, crying, scared to death! Man, can't you hear your children?
EARL I hear my children. That's why we ain't going to run.
(He s...
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- PublisherDell
- Publication date1990
- ISBN 10 044020660X
- ISBN 13 9780440206606
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages272
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