On America’s 232nd birthday, we lost one of the most craven pigs ever to have attained elected office, North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. In a country that has never shied away from its retrograde racists and backward stump-jumpers, Helms stood out as a kind of walking, sweating, cross-burning caricature of the Old South. Son of a cop, he supported Pinochet and Salvadoran rightist death squads, threatened the safety of President Clinton in 1994, created race-baiting political ads and crushed NEA funding.

Moved by his death, I have written a play.

CAST

Senator Jesse Helms (deceased)

Senator Strom Thurmond (deceased)

ACT I

Jesse: Well, hello there, Strom.

Strom: What?

Jesse: I say hello there, Strom!

Strom: Oh, Jesse. When’d you get here?

Jesse: What?

Strom: (turns, yells) Damn nigra, turn that racket down! (To Jesse) I said when’d you get here?

Jesse: Just today. I’ll tell you, I haven’t been in a nightclub in I don’t know how long.

Strom: What?

Jesse: Say, when’s this Hendrix guy gonna finish so we can get outta here?

Strom: Ain’t no doors, Jesse.

END