The Human Stain

This is the story...

and the tricky life and bitter downfall of Coleman Silk.

You mean to tell me you're President of the United States

and you're banging some 22 year-old intern in the White House

and you ask her to keep her mouth shut,

and you really think she's gonna do it? I mean, come on, give me a break!

Clinton. He should count himself lucky she didn't go straight to Oprah.

Come on, she was overwhelmed by Starr's team in that hotel room.

No, poor thing. Eleven guys hitting on her?

- That's a gang-bang. - Oh, right.

That's why she's talking to Linda Tripp.

She's talking to everybody.

She's part of that whole dopey culture. Yak yak yak.

Oh, look, if Clinton couldn't figure Monica Lewinsky,

then he shouldn't have been president.

That's grounds for impeachment right there.

- That's true. - You're right.

I'm telling you, if he'd just fucked her.

That's the way you create loyalty.

- Yeah. - That's the way.

But you know what Kennedy would have done to her? Or Nixon?

They would have told her, Not only are you not gonna work,

you're not gonna work ever again. And your father's gonna be out of work.

And your mother. And your brother

Everybody in your family is not gonna make one more thin dime

unless you keep your mouth shut.

Well, but Clinton plays it like a lawyer. That's why he didn't want to come.

Hey, when he came, he was finished.

Evidence. Smoking come.

Nineteen ninety-eight was the summer of sanctimony.

After the fall of Communism and before the horrors of terrorism,

there was a brief interlude when the nation was preoccupied by cocksucking.

This is Coleman Silk

once the powerful Dean of Faculty and professor of Classics

at Athena College in western Massachusetts.

One of the first Jews to teach in a Classics department anywhere in America.

When Coleman had been appointed Dean, he had ruthlessly

hacked away the debt woods, streamlined the curriculum and dragged Athena

kicking and screaming, from mediocrity to excellence.

Of course, in the process, he made a good many enemies.

Sing, O Gods, of the wrath of Achilles

And finally, "the persecuting spirit" caught up with Coleman.

All of European literature springs from a fight,

a barroom brawl, really.

And what was Achilles so angry about?

Well, he and King Agamemnon were quarrelling over a woman,

a young girl and her body

and the delights of sexual rapacity.

Achilles, the most hypersensitive

fighting machine in the history of warfare.

Achilles, who, because of his rage at having to give up the girl,

isolates himself defiantly outside the very society

whose protector he is and whose need of him is enormous.

Achilles, has to give up the girl. He has to give her back.

And that is how the great imaginative literature of Europe begins,

and that is why three thousand years later,

we are going to begin there today.

Miss Cummings, Tracy Cummings, can you tell us

Still not here. Okay. Mr. Thomas, William Thomas.

Is he here?

We're five weeks into the semester

and I haven't even laid eyes on these folks.

Can anyone tell me, do these people exist?

Or are they spooks?

Were you aware, Professor Silk,

that Tracy Cummings and William Thomas are African-Americans?

How could I be? I've never seen them.

But you are aware of the connotation of the word "spook."

Ghost Professor Roux. Ghost.

I was referring to their ectoplasmic character.

Here is the, uh, first definition of the word. I quote

Spook, Informal Ghost, Spectre

But, Dean Silk, let me remind you of the second definition

Negro.

I'd never laid eyes on them. How could I know they were black? Hmm?

All I did know was that they were invisible.

Nevertheless, they have lodged a complaint.

Miss Cummings was devastated. Now the issue here

These students have never attended a single class.

Do they exist or are they spooks? Consider the context.

- But, Dean Silk - I've not finished!

The only issue is the nonattendance of these students,

their inexcusable neglect of work and their sheer chutzpah.

Oh, Miss Cummings is devastated. Give me a break, will you?

To charge me with racism is not only false,

it is spectacularly false! And you know it!

Thanks a lot, Herb.

- Well, I've quit. - What?

I've resigned from that half-assed college.

Where's that last year's phone book?

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What happened?

- I've been accused of a racist epithet. - What racist epithet?

I used the word "spooks," which fifty years ago was just a slang

I know what it was slang for.

Where's that phone book? We'll sue these wimpy bastards.

- I want that lawyer, Alfred or whatever - Wait, did you remind them

- that when you were dean you... - Yeah, I reminded them.

No, you hired Herb Keble, the first black...

- Please, "African-American," please. - Okay

- African-American, ever on the faculty. - Where's that book?

Isn't Herb on the same committee?

- But wait, wait, just tell me - Yes, he is.

And they're our friends, for God's sake!

- Did Herb even open his mouth? - Yes, yes.

I'm sorry, Coleman, I can't be with you on this. Bullshit.

Fine, fine. They want to fight?

I'll give them a fight that they'll never forget!

This is absolute lunacy! After 35 years of your devotion

Now you know what we're going to do? We're going to organize.

We're going to get them to sign a petition. That's what we'll do.

No. You know what we're going to do? We're going to do a two-pronged attack.

We're going to attack We're going to get lawyers,

because I know some... Okay. I know. Which is why

- Coly? - What?

- Something's wrong. - I know there is. What do you mean?

- Coly - What's the matter?

- Coly - Hey, come on, sit down.

What's the matter? Come on.

- Come on. - I'm sorry.

It's all right.

I'm sorry

Iris Silk died several hours later in her husband's arms.

Six months after that, Coleman came into my life.

I had been living alone in a small cabin by a lake not far from Athena.

Including questions about my private life...

questions no American citizen would ever want to answer.

Still, I must take complete responsibility

for all my actions both public and private.

And that is why I am speaking to you tonight.

- As you know, in a deposition in January - Hello?

I was asked questions about my relationship

- Are you Mr. Zuckerman? - Yeah.

- Are you Nathan Zuckerman? - Yeah.

You're the Zuckerman that's the writer, correct?

- Yeah, but - We've got to talk. May I come in?

Thanks. Your last book won some sort of prize, right?

- It was short-listed for the - That was 5 years ago. What happened?

You're blocked, right? You're blocked!

You're worried you don't have another story in you.

Well, I can fix that. I'm the answer to your prayers.

- You know who I am? - Dean Silk?

Dean Coleman Silk. That's right.

The late, retired and now resigned and unlamented Dean Silk,

following the murder you clock that?

Following the murder of my wife.

How's that grab you, Zuckerman?

That good enough to get your juices flowing?

I'm not sure I understand.

Those sons of bitches killed my wife, Nathan.

They killed my wife as if they'd taken a gun and fired it into her heart.

Yeah. Who would've thought Iris couldn't take it

as strong as she was, brave as she was? But, uh

yeah, their kind of stupidity was too much even for a juggernaut like my Iris.

Massive embolism.

Pow! I got her to the hospital, but it was too late.

The point is they meant to kill me but they got her instead.

All in the name of political correctness.

There's an oxymoron if ever I heard one.

So, there's your book, Nathan.

You mind if I call you Nathan?

- Look, Dean... - Just Coleman.

All my other titles I have given away.

Coleman. Look, I'm sorry but I write fiction, and at the moment I'm...

Believe me this thing will read like The Manchurian Candidate.

They murdered the wrong person, for Christ's sakes!

For one word! Spooks!

Spooks! It's unbelievable.

Let me tell you something, Nathan.

My father was a saloonkeeper in New Jersey.

Yeah, he was the only Jewish saloonkeeper in East Orange.

He only got as far as the seventh grade.

But he insisted on the precision of words.

And I have kept faith with him. I have kept faith with him.

If you don't mind a suggestion

maybe you ought to write this book yourself.

Yeah.

Maybe I ought to.

Yeah.

I guess I ought to go. Let me ask you something

Why are you hiding out here, in the middle of the woods?

- Hiding out? - Yeah. Isn't that what you're doing?

What's the moment called in Greek tragedy,

you know, the one where the hero learns that everything he knows is wrong?

It's called peripeteio or peripetia. Take your choice.

Yeah. That's me.

Hey. You by any chance play gin rummy?

And this was how my friendship with Coleman Silk began.

And how I came out from my reclusive life,

living alone in a cabin by a lake.

You're divorced, huh?

Does it show?

Yeah, you have the look about you of a man at loose ends.

Takes one to know one.

Why did your wife leave you?

Which one?

The first or the second?

Several years ago,

I had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Although the treatment was successful,

I had nevertheless withdrawn to my cabin in the woods,