A Scene from "Guilty Parties of New Orleans," a Play in Two Acts

2.3. HOME OF CLAY SHAW - 1313 DAUPHINE STREET

(A hooded figure in a black robe appears. He puts the needle on a record of a sinister aria. He pours himself another brandy, before removing the hood to be revealed as CLAY SHAW. He sits in an armchair, numb with drink, and lights a cigarette.)

SHAW

The morning I was arrested, they searched my home. A photographer from Life magazine snapped pictures. Of this black hood and cape. My Mardi Gras costume.

They also got some terrific shots of… whips… rope… leather… chains.

Of course, none of this is talked about between hammers of the gavel, within hearing of the stenographer, but it’s why we’re all here...

We all have dark corners of the soul that few ever get a glimpse of. And now there are pictures of mine in Life Magazine. The ghoul is all people see. As if I’m the only monster who ever enjoyed a little S & M. We live in that kind of society, don’t we? People dominating and being dominated…

It’s all about control. That’s the human condition. Working for order in the face of nature’s chaos. Despite our best efforts to make the play run smoothly, there are mishaps. One is suddenly assaulted with disappointment and pain. And so he inflicts pain upon himself, or upon others, to regain that sense that he is in control. Of all the pain.

                        (Displaying his cigarette:)

I must quit this awful habit. Circumstances aren’t the best for such resolve.

The murder of John Kennedy was one such traumatic event. When death comes to the figure of a prince, it is almost impossible to accept that some poor little psychotic loser, crouched with a mail-order rifle behind a stack of cardboard boxes in a warehouse, simply snapped.

Kennedy found himself – and so have I found myself – a player in the most important of all human myths, the greatest story ever told, in fact: that of the scapegoat. Burdened with everyone’s guilt and removed from life, under the panoply of great tragedy, with all the resulting high court intrigue.

                      (With satisfaction:)

It will be more than a decade before it’s made public that I was, at one time, involved with the Central Intelligence Agency. I’m not the only businessman to have been debriefed about trips to Latin America… It's one part of my identity that is sacred. If I’m asked about it, I’ll lie with no guilt whatsoever. Not all secrets are corrosive. Only those I feel obliged to confess.

My priest friend speaks often about how we are all living members of Christ’s body. Eastern religions share this idea—about the oneness of mankind. And here is the problem with the District Attorney: He’s a stubborn individual. Intimate only with himself. He therefore views the rest of the world with suspicion. It is only the conspiratorial mind that sees conspiracy everywhere it looks.

In theory, I admire his mission to make it all fit. The truth has always been a nebulous fabric that we garland our facts with. But facts and logic, however cold and hard, must scaffold whatever it is we call truth. One must integrate his sober observations with those of his broader community. If he does not, he is in a dream – in a fantasy, looking only for the facts that validate that fantasy.

That our government is so Machiavellian as to murder its own president is, to me, pure fantasy cut loose from the facts on the ground. Yes, elements of the government are in the business of hiding things. Likewise, human organs cannot function properly when exposed. If I am wrong, then there is a cancer on this country which will soon kill us.

For now, this incredible and bizarre drama continues to play. And I continue to take up the burden of supporting the insupportable, tolerating the intolerable, and bearing the unbearable.

                  (Lights fade on SHAW.)