CONTENTS: (i) License (ii) Quick Note (iii) Characters NORTON I (All Scenes 1-8) (iv) Historical Notes and Liberties ===== (i) License This play (without significant alterations to the original text) can be noncommercially produced by anyone, anywhere, and distributed in any medium without further permission from or obligation to the author P. Aaron Mitchell than that this entire License section be presented to the audience (in a manner easily intelligible according to the medium). This play (without significant alterations to the original text) can be commercially produced by anyone, anywhere, and distributed in any medium without further permission from or obligation to the author P. Aaron Mitchell than the following: (i) this entire License section must be presented to the audience (in a manner easily intelligible according to the medium); (ii) for each person involved in the production, a "copy" of the play must be newly purchased from paaronmitchell.com (or through approved channel); (iii) on your honor, if the gross revenue of the production exceeds 1 million USD, then 1% of the total gross revenue will be paid to P. Aaron Mitchell as royalty in a timely manner. If you enjoy this play, consider buying a copy of the original text, complete with the author's historical notes, to read at your own leisure, from paaronmitchell.com. ===== (ii) Quick Note If a writer begins with "how to read" something, you should generally run - but maybe this is an exception. This play is meant for internet video. Each scene is quite short, no more than a few minutes at most. The line-breaks are in place to help the actors find the internal music of the dialogue. In the same way, you will likely enjoy it more if you read aloud - but, while reading, simply ignore the line-breaks, reading from punctuation to punctuation as you normally would, and let the rhyme and rhythm of the language emerge. ===== (iii) Characters JOSHUA NORTON I, self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States MARK TWAIN, a writer for the San Francisco newspaper The Morning Call ALBERT EVANS, a writer for the San Francisco newspaper The Alta California FLORIST DOCTOR POLICE SERGEANT SPECIAL OFFICER, a sort of security-guard or supplemental policeman BOY, son to Special Officer VARIOUS POLICE VARIOUS SAN FRANCISCANS AH HOW, a Chinese friend to Joshua Norton I (speaking Chinese) ===== NORTON I ===== 1. (Streets of San Francisco.) N - Joshua Norton I, F - Florist, T - Mark Twain, E - Albert Evans, O - Special Officer ----- N: Take warning, all! I call you to a good morning and a good afternoon, and to do to each man forming the reach of my empire's span whether small or grand as you would have done to you! F: Aye, I shall, Your Majesty. For I'm not one to strew the land with fall- en flowers nor wasted exhortation. Your Majesty, take this hour this carnation and let beak the power and art of your command on my neighbors' hearts to make them pay for their floral needs at my cart. N: I cannot decree where these people buy. But I can suggest. F: Your Majesty, even a sigh from you is blessed. And a commendation is all I ask. Now back to my task. For I cannot rest myself in your awesome might nor bask too long in your sovereign light when my right station is a sight down the road selling roses. Good day, my lord. N: Good day, for sure, good man. (Florist exits.) T: Your Majesty! I report a tragedy and travesty in this your sacred capitol city of San Francisco! It seems that early this co- ld dawn a fantastically large spawn of some phantasmic insect put his gro- ssest excrement on the Alta California floor and then played eggs with it by smearing it more- over onto all the newspapers! And the filth is so infused to make your eyes water while reading, your breath hotter than the seething insect vomit on its typeface. And this all from the presence of one disgrace- ful bug named Albert Evans - this ug- ly creature you see before me. E: Forgive him, Your Majesty, for he is sorely broke and sober, having used poorly his last dollar from a weakly written joke for a holler and a poke with a whore over on Pike Street, who stopped pouring whiskey down his throat likely just ten minutes earlier than your sublime arrival. No worthier stretch of time has my rival here ever gone without being blind drunk, and without the alcoholic diet he follows his mind is now sunk so far into sobriety that all of his deplorable impiety becomes no more than this squawking like a hen, which I say is still better than the wildly slobbered drivel that comes from his pen. N: You men are en- trusted with the news of my em- pire and this is how you s- pend your days! Mend your use- less ways! End the time you waste in slander and fill each paper's page with understanda- ble information! And if you handle that with time still left for allocation then write great books or rhyme or plays for my great nation. T: Well, I'll do it but I won't like it. E: And I'll like it but I won't do it. N: Well, either way go to it! Begone! E: Yes, Your Hon- or! T: You mean Your Majesty. It's maddening how you mix up words! E: You only heard me wrong because your mind is addledly fix- ed with syphilitic slurs. T: You said you're on her? E (exiting): I said instead of your purse you'd better bed her next time with sonor- ous purrs. T (exiting): Mine or hers? N: Good day, good sirs! ... Dear God, look how low to the bott- om of this hole in the road! It's shaped like a bottle and it'll probably hobble forever the next unknow- ing horse who hits it! Of course I must have someone fix it immediately! Am I not the emperor? Is my station no more than tedious li- aison with the pleading simperers who would sway my nation and twist it for their own purposes? For just as certain is my might to check them so I must do right down to farthest fleck in my realm. I cannot just walk by. For I am the high and helm and respected and sworn and ordained, and I hold elem- ental that sacred warn- ing to the main- stays of kingdoms that he who would do good for his people must toil for even the soil that is put beneath them. You there, officer! Come take a new share of lofty ser- vice to the empire. Guard you where I stand while I go to hire and command a man to smooth off these dangerous ledges and resupply ear- th to this treacherous hole until this road is edge-less and well-planed. I would remain while you went instead, but as I reign by righteous care and you are only a paid flint- lock I dare- say you'll be met with incred- ulity and some will swear you're out of your head or up to tom-foolery. O: Excuse me? N: I said stand dutifully here and lose me neither horse nor man from my imperial pur- view while I source a hand to mend this this mur- derous through- fare true. O: You don't tell me what to do. N: Do you understand who I am, you damn incompetent? At least let your common sen- se glue you to this spot while I - O: Did you just sli- ght me, you rot- ten complement to outhou- se piss? Come now, this is the end of your unblessed solic- iting in San Francis- co. You're under arrest! Let's go! N: Stop! Unhand me! Let go, you unmanly unreason- ing bandit! This is treason and my subjects won't stand it! O: You're a madman! N: You're a ruffian! O: Take that, man! That's enough of your mouth! ===== ===== 2. (Holding cell in San Francisco jail.) N - Joshua Norton I, O - Special Officer, B - Boy (to emerge from hiding) ----- N: Do you hear me? Do you harken? You are bleary- brained and barking mad to weary me so long with your strong- arm seditiousness and abuse! How vicious is your wrong- headed use of my sacred person! You have given me hurts and bruises and I will make you no excuses when my subjects burst in- to this jail to free me! I am the emperor! O: You're a madman! A fail- ure! Deceiving yourself by weakness and wimpering from the bleak mis- ery eng- ulfing your future! But this jail cell should suit you fine! And maybe even suture your disjointed mind! N: I think you'll find that you're the one self-deceived! I guarantee in less than an hour by the force of our subjects voices at your back you'll give me reprieve from these cruel black bars! O (exiting): I guarantee you're eyes'll be rolling wrack- ed with stars if you don't shut up! N: What impudence! What simpletons have become the implements of justice and right in my imperial city! That I am cussed and s- eized in my magisterial might by such piti- less beasts and interned not to be released until my subjects have learned my plight and come to fetch me! How unfledged these "spec- ial officers"! Did I not retch be- neath my teeth when I first heard my police would be "unburd- ened" by these merc- enaries! To help them in them in their rounds! And it sounds of course even worse to me now that I am forced- ly impound- ed in their pens! Here I pay down th- e account of my own sins of neglect - that I would let such infect- ion fester without check in my empire! And that I would - ho! by Your Grace Holy Sire who deign- ed to appoint me to my reign from the mire, what is this? What are you doing here, lad? B (emerging): You're the man who's mad, whom they call the emperor, aren't you? N: I warrant you, I'm the emperor whom some call deranged. But when you've exchanged your your years for letters you'll find, I fear, that my forebears and betters too were harangued in private by forgetters of their allegiance in all regions at all times. B: You talk funny, sir. I think you're out of your mind. N: I talk as I am. And I am a man like no other. I tell you in truth the tongue's right use is what persuades women to the mother- hood act and shades uncouth ungainly fact with wings of debonair fiction; the tongue is the ver- y bur- i- er of great imperia, and good diction is the scepter of kings. B: Are you really a king, then? on high? N: A good monarch has no need to lie. B: Then why are you in jail? N: Without fail great men must suffer prison. It is in the emblem of our risen God that we see to what degree. I am a sovereign but I also must listen to Him who rules over me. And you too have your own du- ty to God and myself and the tools of my reign, so why aren't you in school? B: I don't want to go. I don't have to explain myself to you. N: And does your father know that you abstain from your own good? B: No, he would bludgeon me till I died. N: I should doubt that even a bad father's pride would let him go so far - B: My father is made of tar and bout- s of violence and belts. You can see my welts. N: My God, boy, what has happened to you? B: That is my father's handiwork and care. You know the man - he put you where you are now. N: The special officer? O Blessed God, I w- on't have such unholy harm in my domain! I'll see the man's whole arms torn off his frame should he hurt you again! I give you my word as your sovereign emperor that your father's temper will extend to your flesh nevermore after today! Ho, there! Jailer beyond the door, you are not beyond my sore disfavor, my sway, nor my wrath! Come here! B: Shut up, you raver! You mad- man! Shut up! N: Officer, come now here or fear where you will be! B: My God, he'll kill me! Shut up! N: Officer! B (hiding): Stop! Please! N: Officer! I command you to come! ===== ===== 3. (Holding cell in San Francisco jail.) N - Joshua Norton I, O - Special Officer (to enter), B - Boy ----- O (entering): What is this racket and thunder, you cracked ir- ration- al blunder- ing madman! Shut up! Shut your mouth! Or I swear I'll cut your tongue out of your reality-sundered head! Dammit, I said - N: Enough now, you rude incompetent crook! I've brooked too much of your spewed effrontery! your pomp and contumely! your rook-like screeching has become to me too many antediluvial portents that a flood of thuggery impends upon my sovereignty and my dominions! My negligence comes home! But my atone- ment begins now, for the good stone of service one puts down with his own hands today best begins any other plans he may have for dams of future justice and halls of man- ly peace. I say enough of your diseased brutality and severity. You may call me mad but in reality is not he who would sav- age his own being the one who's verily deranged? And how much more sadly insane is one who'd stain uncaringly his spirit? who'd tear a pit in his own heart and strike his own son? I know what you've done! What hard, unho- ly scum have you let fester in your brain that you would pester me with blame of dan- gerous disturbance when you know in no uncertain ways that you are the one gone crazy! How dare you strike your own child! O: You lazy ranter! N: Stop! I swear! No lon- ger mild and gently shall I remonstrate with the likes of you! But I decree that you shall do no more violence nor demonstrate more menace to your son! On pain of imprisonment or exile from my imperial city of San Francisco! O: How many more sick fits of your insolence must I listen to, you lunatic old man! (The officer discovers the boy.) Ho! Boy, what are you doing here! Have you been communic- ating with this brain-seared witless old maniac! With your slyness and prating and lack of virtue I'm sure you'll end up like his highness here, cursed to hell and fettered by lonely insanity, unless I hurt you enough to kill you and damn your di- seased person once and for all right now - if only my hand and my mettle were so hard! But still you'll learn better than to breed calamity under my guard- ianship, you blighted urchin! B (as officer beats him): Stop! Stop, please! I'm sorry! Stop! N: You sick beast of a man! Stop! You release me and I'll drop you like the piece of putrescent feces that you are! You horrible coward and cesspit of mankind to bar me while you lessen and sour our entire species with such deplorabl- y mind- less vileness! I'll piss in your spine when I've broken your back! Jesus, I'll murder you, you sack of unholy defilement! You pissant! You filth! O (opening cell-door and beating Norton): Take that! And be still or I'll kill you! I'll plant my boot in your shattered jaw and spill your addled brains out on the floor with all your ranc- id teeth rattl- ing round about me! Do you want some more! Speak now, you spouting sewer-drain! Speak now! You can't! ===== ===== 4. (Holding cell in San Francisco jail.) N - Joshua Norton I, O - Special Officer, T - Mark Twain (to enter), E - Albert Evans (to enter) ----- T (entering): My God, what have you done to him you un- scrupu- lous sump of piss! Get back! Or get something to stop and undo this bleeding! And get a sack for me to put your slack corpse in when I'm finished beating you to death! Get back and leave him breath! Emperor! O: Why are you in this cell! Get out! E (entering): What the hell is this about! T: We've come to tell you there's dread rout and heedless pell-mell riot down in the heat- ed streets around Chinatown, but instead we find out you've dealt out your own needless rounds of impiet- y against an unsound old man! You've killed him! You've drowned him in cold and villain- ous barbarity! E: I swear it if he's dead that you die too! What did you do! O: He was fum- ing incoherently when I came into this room! It was just a few m- inutes before you two m- en arrived - he was blathering inhuman- ly and slavering like a rabidly dying dog in agony until he suddenly writhed and collapsed l- ike this! T: You conniv- ing capsule of piss, you lie! On his body are maps of l- ashing and welts, and your eyes are flashing like the last melts of a candle in the hands of a desperate man - and your gaze goes flickering to the door again! Do you perhaps sup- pose you're quick enough or that someone else will come? I told you all San Francisco's now sickly suc- cumb- ed to horr- or against the Chinese - who are not too weak in the knees to stand and fight back for their slums. The streets and alleys are alight with fire, and the cracks and drums of bullets have seized every inch of the air! The police are indisposed out there! Listen and despair! For you are alone with us, you scum! You villain! And the blood and hair and skin of our own true San Franciscan friend is still in the quick of your nails, where you were sick- eningly tear- ing him to bones before we came in. I say you suff- er, you wail in pain, and die! E: I say Amen! N: Enough, say I! T: Your Majesty! N: Get back from me! God save my empire from its men's dire alacrity to mire themselves in antagony and bloodshed! What good comes back to me should that man dangle red from a rough dread scaffold! trussed or strangled or cut in half up- on it like some demonic simulacrum of the angels! What good is that, you mad un- learning strangers to reason! If you remain unchanged in spite of God's immaculate decrees and command to love each other as holy tabernacles of His Light, then how could your benight- ed treason- ous mangl- ing of a brother- man give you an- y better understand- ing of right or good? So, stop! I am not another fran- tic-minded hood- winked bedlamite like yourselves! I am emperor! I shall be understood or else! E: Your Majesty, please be calm! N: By God, all m- y life I've been as patient as a midwife in delivery of my nation from its darkness! Yet for all m- y staid and solemn ministrations, still Satan's heartless hatred crawls in every in- ch of my dominions - my men in- ure themselves to violence in front of me! They pinion each other's souls! They make rents and holes in humanity! And then with wild effrontery and vanity, they tell me be calm, old father, even as they pierce my palms and foot-soles and complain how bother- some I am to hold out at them my alms and offer- ings of sanity! But enough now of forbearance! Enough of sane consideration! You men are sold adherents to soul-garrison- ing hate's drain and contamination, forswearing love and making mutual banes of each neighbor you meet! And you leave me no recourse but to be your savior by reign of force complete! E: Your Majesty, the walls quaver and strain for havoc in the street! Step away! N: Get back from me I say! My apocalypse on your blood-stained heads! Behold my dread all-eclips- ing power now as from this profaned hour I take in grip s- vereignty and the whips of wrathful rule! Since you remain unschool- ed in love you you shall follow me in cower- ing fear! Let him who has ear- s to hear come hark! Let him who has eyes to see come mark the glower- ing angels ris- ing up about me! I am emperor, do not doubt me for any comman man! I can command the skies and mountains go down be- neath the sea for drowning! And Elish- a like around me fly ch- ariots of fire s- ounding out my s- acred day now come! Do you suppose you hear some gun- play in the streets! the throes of un- staid sons of men! I tell you no beat of drum- ming feet nor heat of bullets now sway these walls! No sums of men you hear at all! It is the whirlwind and the reckon-call! O, Father God, now let fall your separating curtain! Unfurl and rend this serpent- like veil, this imitating of a mad frail saint amidst all hating mankind; unwrap this world-in- terred seeming at life from my city's bale- fully dreaming mind! Unbind them from strife and murder and blackmail and scheming! And unblind them to my true naked sun- like importance in the Earth! Glorify me now, Your Second-Son, before them! Show them Your chosen, Your Emperor Norton the First! Behold me, all! (The walls and roof collapse on top of Norton.) ===== ===== 5. (Holding cell in San Francisco jail.) T - Mark Twain, E - Albert Evans, O - Special Officer ----- T: My God! My God, I swear! E: My devil better! Someone out there has a trebuchet or an arbalest for all unblessed, unfetter- ed bang and hell! T: The onanist! E: A mangonel! T: I own he's less th- an-pleased with his dangled pl- easure-beats so he goes and blows a cannon off in San Francisco's streets! E: May his hands come off! T: He'll use his feet! E: The bastard! He's blasted half your future paychecks away! T: And I'd say that's the last of yours! You never put together a better speck of wordplay than a deaf whore's bored poor- ly paid moaning before the Emperor came roaming. What else can your newspaper print? E: I suppose the emp- eror's only ten percent- of your material! T: Hear that whimpering! Hear him yell- ing under this splintered end of the rafter, half-embedded in the wrack! E: Your Honor! We're coming after you! We're getting this stack off your back! T: It's Your Majesty, you unbridled lackey idiot! E: How tactlessly you spit out your idle grabby acquisitiveness! I'm not address- ing you as Your Majesty - that's the emperor's title - no matter how mad at me you get! T: Not me! You called the emperor Your Honor again! E: When? T: Just then! You said, "Your Honor, we're - " Remember? E: No, I said, "You're on a weir." Can't you hear? See, I'll contend there's enough resemblance to this dust up-ending itself over the shelf of that toppled truss to allow a nearness of imagery in speech: like water breach- ing over a small dam, or a weir, where you're stan- ding. T: God damn, ink- sling- er! You can't drink or write worth a whiz. But you're quick on your feet. E: Yeah, well, let's get His Lordship on his. O: Help me, sweet God, please! E: That's not the emperor! It's that diseased rat maggot we caught beat- ing and abus- ing our sovereign. T: Then let's let him rot. And let's get some hot burning coals and use them to light the wood like an offering upon him. O: No, please! Heave me out! T: Damn, I forgot. Emperor Norton might be beneath that lout. E: Can you breathe? Do you see th- e emperor? Is he dead? O: The emperor? Not a mote of dust touched his glorious head! Believe me! He was t- ot- ally enfold- ed in lustr- ous light like a muzzle-fl- ash burning too bright and too long! And around him a throng of amazing white- robed angels stood in song and held up the in-caving wood from coming near him! The tumbl- ing rock itself seemed to craven- ly fear him! Thank God that man's too good to humble and shock the world with a clear glim- pse of his true blazing magnificence! E: You brazen blackguard! What backwater simpletons do you misapprehend us for? to forget your violence in this insinc- ere outpour of stupid and weary exaggeration. T: Dear God, look behind his ear! He'- s got a laceration through half his head! His neck's coagulated and sheathed with so much gleaming red I can't believe it isn't full exsanguination yet! E: How's he not dead? T: Sit still, don't move! Dear God, I know there's no time to lose but I'd kill for a smoke and some booze right now. E: You'd kill him. He's ooz- ing out blood by the pound and needs help ten minutes ago. Stay with him. T: Stay yourself. E (exiting): No, you're too slow, and if someone show- ed you a drink you'd stop to throw it down and think you were doing right all around. T: God knows it'd sharpen my senses. I'm staring out the lenses of my eyes looking at the warp and s- kew of that skull and its insens- ate eel- like leaking. I can't prize or peel my c- urdling pupils from its bleak and sour seeping. And I can't stop stupid- ly speaking about it either. Hey! Come back! Come release my two pit- ifully unblinking gogglers from drinking up this Medusa-black mind-boggle of a sight! Come rack me with your putrid hubris and distrac- t me with your incoherent blights of logomachy! Come bother me with your benight- ed word-cobbling once for good! God, man, not you! Don't move! O: Where did he go? What should I do? He just wants to be understood! T: Who? What are you talking about? O: My boy! He runs out into the bedlam and violence! T: No, that was Albert Evans, the scourge of all silence. The babble of guns and bunk and hot air he mistook for his own tongue and dashed off somewhere to listen to himself, though when he comes back he'll swear he went for help. O (struggling away): But there's yelp- ing and warfare out there non-stop! There's bloodshed and looting! You hear the city's head- count drop with the shooting! It's a riot and my son could die if I don't get to him! T: You''ll blow yourself to bits, you im- becile! Stop, you madman! The streets are full of missiles! Get back! Damn! ===== ===== 6. (Streets of San Francisco.) N - Joshua Norton I, F - Florist, E - Albert Evans (to enter), D - Doctor (to enter), S - Police Sergeant (to enter), S - Special Officer (non-speaking, to enter), V - various police (non-speaking, to enter) ----- N: Damn your closed and froz- en minds, my beloved blind of San Francisco's troubled fogs! Your woes were mine: your ungovern- able dogs of covet- ous hate; your throws of shoveled rocks in '49 since strayed to bloodl- etting blows; your Sutter- bait- ed bogs of low and job- less and desperate lawless men. I have kept within mine honest, royal breast my promis- es of loyal friend- ship and clemen- cy for you; I've honored you as guests and in- timates, not as toil- ing subjects; I've blessed you with the oil and incen- se of compassion, and I've stretched myself thin to respect s- uch lashing, boil- ing passions as have swayed you. But I am not made to rule forever over madmen; I shall not be tether- ed nor displayed to mules, nor captain such unfetter- ed fire- blooded fools. No, I must sever myself from mine own sadness, from empire and throne, before you'd all make stool and black mess of my higher yet to-you-undigest- ible jewel- like reason. Your treason is your own unschool- able derangement and it's best if I make estrangement our future relationship. For I'd not be insane if I can escape it - I'd not be like you. Didn't I, though enraged, yet patiently apply to you, my nation, to let me guide you through the secession question, instead of letting that pride-filled and voracious gangland of wangl- ing senators divide you up into bleeding brother soldiers? are you forgetting I said disband that gangren- ous congress and trust my mother- like modest hands to enfold you with concern? But no! You made my empire burn! And even beyond that, when I saw slack- jaw insanity leering where you were steering your- selves for war, though I might have single-handedly called for- th My Father's searing right- eous sword to commandingly have my way, did I not pray for you instead, and once more handsomely lay aside my read- y force of power and supremacy, to set example of how one both legitimately proud and manful in doughty strength and sense can yet - like a gentlemanly prince - still get along with another whose winc- ing and wrong for now? - this in sinc- erest and simplest service to their future friendsh- ip and mutual long-term purpose - did I not give earn- est for this in my own being that you might then, s- eeing me, so too turn? But no! You made my empire burn! And even now, am I not a plain thank- ful friend to Ah How, the old Chinaman, whom the papers name and honor in official rank as my Grand Chamberlain, we twain a fresh living emblem and instance of indifference to the flesh's rang- ing pigments? Yet in what seems strange- ly only an instant s- ince the Civil War you would endanger him and other innocent c- itizens in my real- m for no more than the mel- anin in their skins! So, enough of your hell- ish and unrepentant whore- dom to sins and hate! enough of your burn and burn! Before ins- anity shall once more worm- like sate its impotent and S- atanic y- earn- ing for violence in you, I will take this churn- ing and squawl ing intolerance pent up inside you and break it once and for all by holy demonstration! I will make you my nation's Golden C- ity truly, San Francisco, a place in- spired to such new l- evels of saneness and mind-illumination that it seem- s like only a fooli- sh plain mess of unruly dream- ing and over-approbation of friendliness, questions, acceptance, and fun - but tonight I enter the heavens! I will make an end of this, and then I am done! You will see me no more! F: Your Majesty! Nor- ton! Get over here on the floor! Can't you hear the bullets blast- ing and soaring? Get down! N: No, there is one last orna- men- t for me to win unto my crown! F: What! N: I'm leaving! F: You can't! Your Majesty believe me I'll go out of business! My flowers are always a little listless and brown! They're not as good as the Chinese's somehow! N: I don't know him. F: I mean my shipments are all dependent on you, and if you go then no one will choo- se to buy even a few ornamental shoots of hibiscus from me! Can't you see? I'm known to San Francisco's tourists as the florist for His Majesty! N: You would saddle me with moral s- way of remorse and guilt! But I have seen you in Chinatown kill- ing the tilt- ed displays of your honest compet- ition, trampling to the ground immodest- ly their bouquets and nosegays - and their traditions and lawful rights - in broadest day- light! F: I know! O God, you're right! I'm so sorry! That was the low- est point in my lifetime, before I struck my own go- ldmine with the no- tion of using... N: Of using me? F: Yes, Your Majesty. N: But do you see I'm not offended! I would rather be tendered myself to your service as your gentle limber- hearted emperor, imparting to your purpose and simple p- rofit and good my own noblesse as surety, than that you shoud be bes- tially sche- ming against or hurting or scaring even my most worthless subject or friend. That is my office, my royal chair, and my philosophy. F: Your Majesty, I swear I will never cheat a Chinaman again! Just don't leave San Francisco! N: Beware! And speak slow and carefully what you would swear to me this night! E (arriving): Your Majesty! Are you all right? What happened back when the wall collapsed? How, with your uniform so torn and your skin so fright- fully black and blue from such painfully borne vicous attacks, do you stand here as lord- ly as morn- ing, practic- ally as if you had never been scratched? N: And how do you ask about me and play pity, when half my city is sacked with the very hide- ous fears and infighting you've been hack- ing at and inciting these past years in your papers! E: Me? N: At the Call and the Al- ta all the ink to its last vapors is full of apallingly dyslogistic names and blasphemies aimed at my modest friends the Chinese! Now, sure you can maim my prestige and minimize me with your pelts of vulgar blabbery, for I'm not so insecure in myself nor in my majesty to require that men not fashion gags of me or have some laughs at me - indeed even the First and Last King of all the earth and the rapture hereafter was blackguardly mocked, so it only proves my worth when you miscapture me in ink as addledly ing- lorious and half-cocked - but when your story is steady inc- ulcation of brain-blocked racism what are you betting on but the abysm- ally shameful blood- letting of the minority? E: That was before! When I need- ed some security to my income! But then I split from the Call for the Alta and I've made up for all that and then some! And Sam's foll- owing form now at the former where he's haul- ing that sheet in from its invidious luff! N: And even with my city ins- ane with inc- endiaries and searing streets, you yet stand here swearing seriously to me you've changed enough? D (arriving): Okay, I've got my stuff! Is this the man? Why didn't you mention it was San Fran- cisco's emperor? He's been thrashed in flesh but not in temperament or core; you said he had a huge fresh gash and was half- or-more- dead. E: It's not him. The man we're looking for has something wrong with his head. D: I'm sorry I've got n- o time to spare, Your Majesty, but I want to say that the practical alacrity of your imperial care today has perhaps saved many lives in this city - N: Quit spitting up your flatteries and revive your piti- fully unraveling soul with the medicining I've prepared for your remedy. D: Excuse me? N: Did you swear no Hippocratic Oath at inagur- ation of your yoke to health? Can you care for only half a city's suffering folk and call your- self a doctor? Are not your obligations toward the help of all God's glor- ious temples brought your way? Yet from my station I've watched your curtains wimple and your shop doors close on all those other than Caucasians. Is that all the man you have chose- n to be? a simple mercenary of pimples and medications and the nose- crimpl- ing apothecari- al voodoo? Or will you finally spinefully see through to reality and true hu- man salubrity, which is man in full commu- nion with his own individuality, his God, and his community? Will you finally live up to your calling? Am I apalling you, man? Do I seem odd or dim-witted that you stare at me awed and speechless? Or would you see the teacher teach his apo- stles all true power, might, and meekness! Then very well, here comes my hour! Watch tonight now as I - the sweetness and greatness and mainstay - of the entire empire lay down my inspired life and body for every one of my subjects - for every one of you, in such dire typhlotic need; for every one of you, race, color, or creed - now I flex my haughty soul and brave the ancient hypdroptic lauda- num of death to save you! D: You lay your life down, Joshua? You rave worse with each breath, and I'm afraid to say, fr- iend, that now to the depths of your brain your wits have given way at last. N: Then why are they here, might I ask? (Police Sergeant enters with police and Special Officer.) S: Joshua Norton! Stand fast! You are captured, you freakish creature! Get that man and thrash him, and cinch him hands and feet, and drag him back here in the streets where we can lynch him! ===== ===== 7. (Streets of San Francisco.) N - Joshua Norton I, D - Doctor, E - Albert Evans, F - Florist, S - Police Sergeant, O - Special Officer, T - Mark Twain, V - various police, R - various rioters ----- D: What! Get away! E: Stay back, you barging band of idiots! F: You better go marching the other way, sergeant! Don't lay even a slack hand on his eminence! N: God, all of you quit with your infinite s- oul-parching lack of sentience! Let's hear what they're charging me with! S: You've abducted a kid! And you've struck to the insensate pith through this man's head. O: He plucked up my son and went slith- ering like a dead snake into the blue-red drake- breath fire enslaving San Francisco. D: That man is raving! Take a look at his go- ry skull and ignore his stor- y completely! He's witless! I need to treat the awful wound he's been given! S: How can I witness where his cranium's hull is riven and divided, and then refrain from lifting with the right and lawful hangman's halter this vile d- eranged degenerate who might've killed him! E: Look who's arriving! I told you to keep an eye f- ixed on this villain- ous liar! T (arriving): Sorry! Why're you all mixed together in the midst of a rotten mob? Damn, I've never been s- o tired! Sergeant, that slob should be quick s- trung up with a garrote un- der his chin for the unkind blood he's wrung out of our friend! He should be hung! hanged! like a puppet from twine, except he's banged his brains and he's lost his mind. S: His misaligned reason shall not release him from fanged and furious justice! He has shown egregious injurious lust for violence and death, and our hard judgments upon him are f- rom right guidance and in good stead - we shall teth- er him up by the head until his soul departs, until his breath is gone and his heart is silence. T: That's fine by me. E: You idiot swine! They're talking about Emperor Nor- ton, not who you're supposing. T: That's just what I'm disclosing, how that mor- on was ferocious- ly pouring kicks and blows ign- obly onto His Majesty's back and skull. E: In fact, they think it's exactly full backward from how you're putting your story. T: What, that His Majesty was dull- y head-butting the man's gory boots and fists? E: No, that the emperor inglori- ously whis- ked the man's runaway son away and then for hoots busted his s- kull in like that with unjust at- tack. T: That's ludicrous that! That's fatuous, black brainless bunk! These monk- eys aren't that insane and s- tupid, are they? O: Wai- t, that was my son c- rying blameless- ly out to me! V: He sounds like he's dying! V: He's out in the street where the main mess of bullets are flying round him! V: Damn, get down, man! The Chinese have mulish- ly let s- lip their semblance of domestication! They're firing blindly at anyone who's not Asian! The air is frying for the foolish thick num- ber and scintillation of their blasts! N: You strike them, they kick, and you call them an ass! S: You'll be on a pike when we annihilate them anyways! Grab that laz- y molest- ing maniac and hike him up fast to the first thing with upright orientation, be it mast or raised mason- ry or some spike in some unblessed tree! The rest, help me reveille every white man with gun or blades in grip to finally set free San Francisco of these damn slipp- ery Chinese! Let white carnal blood-craze rip and run! Let white Cain-like hands now bathe in jets and libations from undone yellow flesh and organs! We're the police, but we are for them and we shall not see! T: This is madness! Insanity! V: Dammit, he's insane! The bullets tear his raim- ent but he stands in mere- st calm where I would not reach my palm to seize him! V: Jesus! Get down! Don't shoot him! He's diseased in his brain to do what he's doing! (Norton has emerged into the street, alone in the gunfire. Opposite, Ah How, with the Chinese, begins yelling.) R: Don't shoot! It's Old Norton! The madman! The emperor! N: Thou, O Lord in light above, thy Father hath afford- ed thee all right and love and power, and Thou, by ford- ing death itsel- f and hell f- or our poor d- amning sins, hast might shown more than any king since then or since all time before! Thy Name divine! Thou, holy sword! Thy Name a dour d- efender of remor- seful and repentant all! Come forth, thy promised hall! Let pour th- ine honest ol- ive oil on thy s- acred sons and daugh- ters of the fall- en, shaken earth, thy solemn sure th- eocracy at birth in every heart! nor dark nor end of all creation part- ing such a nation! such elation! Such lawless sprees of friend- liness and tolerance and confident content begin with me this instant by thy providence and good, and redound to me with interest when I spend with indiscriminate forgiveness all my love just as Thou would; for though I stood upon Gehenna's bluffs, yet Thou should put my foot- falls on dependa- ble and c- ertain perches for Thy dove- white perfect government of one who's sure of thine engirdled gent- le hands. Amen for all thy plans! Amen thy sturdy bands! thy sallied love! Thine aliya spans every man's and woman's soul and stands eternal, whole, and circled o- ver all thy hol- y human family! Thine amnesty for all! Magnanimous thine awe- some fire-fall- ing thunderbol- ts of concscience! thy spirit law! thy God-ness given into me! and I in Thee eternally and in this living instant! Go home, men! Go, inhabitants of San Francisco, and pray as I've just prayed! Go and kiss tho- se children, wives, and friends await- ing you! Be grate- ful for your lives, and if tonight you've killed in stupid fits of hating, then make amends for it so many days your eyes shall see! Go home and save yourselves! Be free of your madness at last! (From the streets, grown quiet, a single gunshot; Norton, who is carrying the boy, staggers.) V/R: What happened! An accident! He's straightened up again! Don't shoot! He's mad! He's our friend! He's Norton! The emperor! N: I said go home! Enough! No m- ore of ling- ering, watching, but release me from your sights! And leave an old king to walk his streets in peace tonight! Here, now all is right. Your boy is fright- ened but fine in body and mind and soul. He's whole. Get him someplace warm for a bite of brac- ing soup then rest. And for m- e, well God bless my empire but tonight it's one earnest servant less! T: He's shot! E: He's dying! T: Help him! O: He's dead on the spot where he's lying! ===== ===== 8. (Inside Doctor's store in San Francisco.) D - Doctor, O - Special Officer, E - Albert Evans (to enter), T - Mark Twain (to enter), S - Police Sergeant (to enter), B - Boy (to enter), N - Joshua Norton I (to enter) ----- D: Squeeze here, please. Right. And seize these dangling keys here by the hollow ring, please. Right. And follow this light- spangling mirror with unblink- ing sight, please. Right. You're fine. You know, after the last two nights to find you so improved and almo- st perf- ectly back to u- sual o- nly shows that the mind is a universe unto itself. Who can observe what the brain is doing? this stran- ge unexplain- able kels- on gluing all our pers- onal cosmos together, and whether and how it tethers to whatever is really real? For my livelihood I deal in healing, yet I've found I've never understood the cores of health, the mind that's good, the heart that's sound, the happy self. But I talk round and round and wear- y you. Your friends are here to help you home. E (entering): Well, look - a sturdy fere he is! A poem of haleness: "Man at ease." T (entering): Doctor, you've uncook- ed his once-sear- ed sanity and saved him from disease. His frailness gone in 36 sways of the minute hand - hardly a day and a half in span of time - he's free to go his way again in peace of mind and in fine health, if but he will. E: I bet he will. T: Bert, be still. O: Doctor, these aren't friends of mine. S (entering with Boy): No, but please receive them with me while I'm taking time to get you home. I know n- ow just how foam- y wrathful and rou- sed to stark stone venge- ful obsession you must have felt, when you beheld the ghastly blackened welts and marks entrench- ed so m- eanly in your son's flesh and bones. O: My son? S: Yes, we've seen him in private and there's been un- seemly violence done un- to him. And the len- gthy period of the vile a- buse makes it clear he was- n't misused and scored by Norton, so these men will help me look for the m- an who did it. E: We're sleuths and whores to voyeur- philic truths such as yours. T: We're news- men and no stor- ies get past us. In fact, every fact sticks fast in our labial doors of printed talk and we have sourc- es to ask when facts are needed - we have them ten t- o every half-s- tep we walk. So, if this man starts beating your son again, we'll get him and then print him in the press as fast as asses balk backwards and we'll blackguard him full like bad cracks are caulked. You understand? O: Not really. S: They mean if anyone in San Francisco sees your son with so much as his toe hurting, they'll come alerting these men and myself. We'll go find the hell-f- ledged bastard faster than lightning falls, and in print his name will be shamed to both shelv- es of the continent while he hangs from a neck-belt to a tall s- pire as we stab out his guts till they bleed from his balls and we set him on fire. You understand now? O: Yes, sir. S: And I've hire- d the doctor too. He'll check every few days for new bruises on your boy, and if he finds clues of threat or force employed against the child we'll act with wild dread against the noisome abuser and beget- ter of such harm as I've already said - hung by the head, torn apart by the arms. You understand? O: Yes, sir. S: Good. I'm sure we all agree to a man with your curs- ing and damn- ing of your s- on's molester the other night, whoever he may be. So, I hope you understand me right. We will show not a single blessed de- gree of patience if the man is brainless enough to leave another painful mark on the boy or pester him again. We are just as determined as you. We will murder who- ever's hurt him without another word of warning - I don't care if he's in this room this very morning, the man will be tied and tried before he's even heard our arriving, and then die upturning in slowest dire writhing of bleeding, strangled breathing, and burning. You really understand? O: Yes, sir. S: Then we'll be your compan- ions back to your place. Ready? Need a hand? O: I feel steady enough. Just give me space to stand for a beat. There I am. I'm fine on my feet. We - (Norton enters.) D, S, E, T: Your Majesty. D: You came for your cane, I presume? It's more than the nation's boon to have you at your station with the reins of empire so soon in your hands again, sire - it's transcendence and angel-choir- ed elation for your friends, your loyal men and women all. We're glad you survived. N: Thank you for that. But I've a sol- emn King even over me and He was bad- ly appall- ed and displeased that I tried to bring Him my soul before He had called for it. While you bore me up He tol- d me in spirit- ual con- ference not to waver in my job here, to foster more cheer- fulness in my sphere and make it safer and more prosperous; then He sent me back with clear decree to serve my s- acred empire for as long as He requires. D: Lucky for us. Also, about your cane - I meant to explain that because you left it glinting sun in the lane at that awful drop, my daughter saw it, paused, and slowed our dun and wain to a stop. She had been going un- flinchingly full-hop before that; and likely the hor- se would have sprain- ed or crack- ed its fore- leg and flung her; she'd have been un- doubtedly hurt and maybe killed, and the cart would have certainly spilled; it was filled with the pills, mercury compounds, and anti-septic phenol I've needed to treat all the people in town, including Your Majesty, who received injury in the hectic rounds of tragedy and unclean violence; without these medicines there'd be infections, maddening amputations, and vile sense- less suffering. What I mean is, because you're a king who neglects not even his nation's shoddy roads when they need seeing to, your subjects remain whole in body and being through- out your dominion. Thank you, Emperor Nor- ton, for being a friend and father for all America - holding each of us as dear as every other. S, E, T: Hear hear! Good teacher! Good brother! D: And please believe that half my patients these last two eve- nings have been Asian and Chinese, just as you commanded me. N: Outstanding, sir. I am relieved. Thank you for your ser- vice to my empire. D (exiting): With pleasure cer- tainly, Sire. Now let me retrieve new bandages for you. Please stand at your ease, or sit comfortably, just a mom- ent or two. These men are leav- ing to help the officer home and I'll be right back just me. S, E, T, B (exiting): Your majesty. O (exiting): Your majesty. ===== ===== (iv) Historical Notes and Liberties In 1859 in San Francisco, Joshua Norton, who had once been a successful businessman but had fallen on hard times, left a note with the local newspaper The Evening Bulletin declaring himself Emperor of the United States. He was probably 40 years old. For the next 21 years various decrees, proclamations, and exhortations of "Norton I" would appear in the Evening Bulletin and in competing newspapers. Some were genuinely his. Some were fraudulent. It's hard to know which was which. Certain citizens of San Francisco began addressing Norton as emperor whether for fun or profit - he was something of a tourist draw - and his fame spread. He became known personally to Mark Twain, who was a newspaperman in San Francisco at that time. And other American writers such as Stevenson and Bierce wrote about him after. During his life, nearby cities, such as Oroville and Marysville, would invite Norton as an honored guest to inspect new railroad tracks and attend meetings of legislature. In 1867 Norton was arrested in San Francisco by a special officer - a sort of local supplement to the police force, but not actual police - at the Palace Hotel and taken to the police station at City Hall. He was "detained for involuntary treatment of a mental disorder". The newspapers were in uproar. Within days the Police Chief, Patrick Crowley, had Norton released, earning belated praise from Albert Evans in the newspaper The Alta California; Ah How, a Chinese man whom Evans had dubbed Norton's "Grand Chamberlain" served as witness when Norton received back his effects. Anti-Chinese sentiment ran high in San Francisco in the latter half of the 19th century. There was a particularly serious riot in 1877. Legend holds that at this or a similar riot, to prevent further violence, Norton stood between the two races and recited the Lord's prayer until all the antagonists went home. This play takes great liberty with that event and with San Francisco's people and timeline; the story is mostly fictitious; the inclusion of the special officer's son is fictitious.