Free Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings by Stephen O'Connor

pink brain. There is a moment of stillness, followed by a nod that is mainly a lowering of eyelids, and then there is a gun blast and the appearance of a single dot of blood on the rim of the commander’s right nostril.
    â€œWhat!” cries Thomas Jefferson, leaping from his seat. “No! No!”
    James and Dolley Madison have also leapt to their feet, but only todrag their friend back down into his seat. People in the back of the theater are shouting for them all to sit down.
    â€œThat never happened!” says Thomas Jefferson. “That simply never happened!”
    A man sitting behind them taps Thomas Jefferson on the elbow. “For chrissakes! It’s only a movie! Would you just sit down?”
    Dolley Madison speaks softly into his ear. “It’s all right, Tom. Just wait, you’ll see, the ending is quite uplifting.”

“W hy did you do that?” says Max, dropping the script onto his desk. “Do what?” says Jeremy, who has been lying on the couch under the window, texting his girlfriend.
    â€œI liked that scene.”
    â€œWhat scene?” Jeremy rests his phone on his solar plexus.
    â€œThe one where Sally’s brother says, ‘Fire away!’”
    â€œOh.” Jeremy swings his bare feet to the floor and sits up. He puts his phone facedown on the couch beside him. “I like it better that way.”
    â€œSo what?”
    â€œI think it’s better.”
    â€œBut they didn’t shoot him.”
    Jeremy shrugs just as his phone sounds the electric
clink-clonk
of an incoming text. At first he seems to be ignoring the text, but then he picks the phone up, looks at it and puts it down.
    â€œI want to change it back to the way I wrote it,” says Max.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause that’s what actually happened, and I think it’s a cool scene.”
    â€œHow do you know it happened?”
    â€œIt’s in every single one of the books. And anyway Martin was alive until—”
    â€œI don’t believe it.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat he said that. It’s so fucking corny! So morally fucking uplifting! ‘Fire away!’ That’s like something out of a fucking Victorian children’s story. Like Sunday school.” His unanswered text
clink-clonk
s a second time. “Hold on a second.” He thumbs a one-word message into the phone and hits SEND .
    â€œBut you have him say it,” says Max.
    Jeremy looks at him blankly.
    â€œâ€˜Fire away,’” says Max. “That’s the part you left in.”
    â€œYeah, but shooting him makes it all ironic.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œHe gets all moralistic and full of himself, then—whammo!—he’s dead. I think that’s funny.”
    â€œI think you’re a fucking sick individual.”
    â€œIt’s ironic.” There’s another
clink-clonk.
Jeremy picks up his phone, smiles and sets it down. “But the main thing is that it puts Jefferson in more danger. Now the audience knows that the British are these actual evil bastards, so . . . you know, everybody will be on the edge of their seats. Maybe we can even have a chase scene.”
    â€œOh, come on!”
    â€œBut it also makes Jefferson look better. The way it really happened, he seems like a total coward. Quitting being governor and everything. And Martin seems way braver than him.”
    â€œMaybe he was.”
    â€œBut Jefferson’s our protagonist. Who’s going to want to see a movie about a slave-owning, slave-fucking hypocrite who’s also a total coward? We’ve got to give the audience something to hang on to here. We’ve got to give them someone they can love.”
    â€œBut he wrote the Declaration of Independence.”
    â€œSo the fuck what!”
    â€œHe invented the swivel chair!” Max laughs as he swivels his own chair, first left, then