Craig Burns
Free Writing
Transcript of Recording
I
listened to a story last night. Reading
hurts my eyes now. So I listen. A famous writer wrote this story. His name is Stephen Crane. He also wrote The Red Badge of Courage.
Most people have heard of that one.
It is a Civil War story.
But
this is not a war story. It’s just a sad
story. A very, very sad story.
It
was about a black man named Henry. He
was a very handsome man who worked for a doctor. Henry took care of the doctor’s horses. Henry was friends with the doctor’s little
boy, Jimmie. Jimmie liked to come visit
Henry down in the stables.
There
is a fire at the doctor’s house one Saturday night. Henry runs to the house. In all the smoke and confusion, no one can
find Jimmie, the little boy. Henry runs
upstairs. He thinks he knows where
Jimmie is. He calls out the little boy’s
name, over and over.
He
runs into Jimmie’s room and finds him there, sitting in bed, terrified. Henry grabs him, wraps him in a blanket, runs
back to the stairs.
But
the stairs are gone. The fire has eaten
them.
But
Henry remembers a back staircase. He
runs for it. Down the stairs he goes, into
the doctor’s laboratory. There Henry
sees an amazing sight. “The room was
like a garden,” that’s what the story says.
Little flames of all different colors were blooming everywhere. Colorful little flames were rising from all
the little containers that held the doctor’s chemicals.
I
guess it might have been beautiful, all those little flowers of flame.
But
Henry cannot stop to look. Tongues of
flame are licking his ankles. Hurting
him. Oh, they hurt him so much.
He
struggles over to a window, shoves the little boy Jimmie out onto the lawn.
But
Henry is overcome with smoke and passes out right under one of the doctor’s
laboratory tables. Right below a glass
beaker of boiling chemicals.
Here’s
what happens next. The glass explodes
with heat. A thick red snake of liquid
slides across the top of the desk, pauses a moment, then glides over the edge
and pours onto Johnson’s face.
In
a few minutes a young man grabs Henry and brings him outside, puts him down on
the grass.
No
one thinks he will live. Everyone gives
up on Henry Johnson—Johnson, that is his last name. But not the doctor. The doctor does everything he can to save
Henry because, you see, Henry saved Jimmie, saved the little boy’s life.
And
Henry does not die. The doctor saves him.
But
for what? What kind of life does Henry
have now?
His
face is horribly burned. Children hide
from him. Adults look away. Friends quit coming to visit the doctor. Soon his patients stop coming, too. They just can’t stand the thought that Henry
Johnson will be there. People say he
looks like the devil. People say the
doctor should have let him die. In this
case, they say, death would be better than life. Much better.
And
do you know what was the worst of all?
Jimmie was afraid of Henry, too. Afraid of the man who saved his life.
Pretty
soon some of the most important citizens in the town come to see the
doctor. They tell him he should send
Henry away, away from where people have to look at him. Otherwise, the doctor will have no friends
and no patients at all.
The
doctor refuses. He will not betray
Henry.
And
so the town betrays the doctor and his family.
He will probably have to move away, that’s what I thought as I listened
to the end of it.
It
was really a sad story.
I
cried as I listened to it. I’m crying as
I say these words into my recorder.
I
didn’t tell you the worst thing about the story. But I guess I will. The title.
The title is “The Monster.”
Of
course, you’ll think that the monster is Henry Johnson, the man with the
horrible face.
But
I think the monster is the whole town.
The whole stupid blind town.
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