ABE:
(a bit condescending)
Is that your shack, across the river?
The MAN WITH BOAT looks at him calmly. There’s a breeze, which blows wisps of gray hair across his face.
MAN WITH BOAT:
That was my native village.
ABE:
You mean your home now, surely?
SWEDEN hands the man coffee in a tin cup. The man sips it.
MAN IN BOAT:
I was born and raised there, but 60 years ago I ran
away. I went to the United States and joined the
Army, then fought in Korea, and later, Vietnam.
I settled finally in Alabama. Had a shop in Mobile,
down South in what they used to call a n****r town.
Soon as I was ready I wrote to the girl I left here to
come down to me. She came and we were married.
I’ve had two wives since down there. Now they’re
all buried in a little churchyard outside Mobile.
ABE
