WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.215 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.215 --> 00:00:02.840 align:middle line:84%
My husband and I are supposed to
be going to Paris in February.

00:00:02.840 --> 00:00:06.300 align:middle line:84%
He's just like
afraid to go with me.

00:00:06.300 --> 00:00:07.560 align:middle line:90%
Hey.

00:00:07.560 --> 00:00:09.720 align:middle line:90%
Oh let's see, what will we do?

00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:10.220 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:00:10.220 --> 00:00:13.830 align:middle line:90%


00:00:13.830 --> 00:00:19.350 align:middle line:84%
My father was killed in
a robbery when I was 21.

00:00:19.350 --> 00:00:22.210 align:middle line:84%
And my mother,
I'm an only child.

00:00:22.210 --> 00:00:24.190 align:middle line:84%
And my mother was
very protective.

00:00:24.190 --> 00:00:27.240 align:middle line:84%
So my mother did
not allow me to go

00:00:27.240 --> 00:00:29.820 align:middle line:84%
to the trial of the man who
shot my father because she

00:00:29.820 --> 00:00:31.300 align:middle line:90%
didn't want the man to see me.

00:00:31.300 --> 00:00:33.510 align:middle line:90%
She was very frightened.

00:00:33.510 --> 00:00:35.820 align:middle line:84%
And I often wondered what
that would have been like

00:00:35.820 --> 00:00:38.910 align:middle line:84%
if I had been able to look
in his face and confront him.

00:00:38.910 --> 00:00:43.500 align:middle line:84%
So when Dexter King,
Martin Luther King's son

00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:48.240 align:middle line:84%
met James Earl Ray, I
was fascinated by that.

00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:50.730 align:middle line:90%
And I watched it on television.

00:00:50.730 --> 00:00:54.300 align:middle line:84%
And then afterwards, I came away
feeling kind of empty about it.

00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:57.060 align:middle line:84%
So this is "When Dexter
King Met James Earl Ray."

00:00:57.060 --> 00:01:00.630 align:middle line:90%


00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:04.500 align:middle line:84%
"There was a tender in them
both, a place picked raw.

00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:08.430 align:middle line:84%
As Southern men do, the clasping
of hands that know weather.

00:01:08.430 --> 00:01:11.250 align:middle line:84%
Eye linked to eye,
unflinching, the flat tongued

00:01:11.250 --> 00:01:12.400 align:middle line:90%
muttered how do.

00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:13.500 align:middle line:90%
How do you.

00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:16.290 align:middle line:84%
And the scripted respect,
the pudge cheeked preacher

00:01:16.290 --> 00:01:19.920 align:middle line:84%
inquiring idly after
the dying man's days.

00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:23.910 align:middle line:84%
Whole wars in them with
just a single rupture.

00:01:23.910 --> 00:01:26.100 align:middle line:84%
Their halos florid,
over glowing,

00:01:26.100 --> 00:01:28.860 align:middle line:84%
some news reporter hissing
unexpectedly into a mic,

00:01:28.860 --> 00:01:29.670 align:middle line:90%
say it.

00:01:29.670 --> 00:01:31.140 align:middle line:90%
Say it.

00:01:31.140 --> 00:01:33.960 align:middle line:84%
James Earl, liver-toned,
wobbly on old bone.

00:01:33.960 --> 00:01:37.530 align:middle line:90%
One lazy eye, perked for it.

00:01:37.530 --> 00:01:39.960 align:middle line:84%
The King rolls his
R's, throats elegant,

00:01:39.960 --> 00:01:42.090 align:middle line:90%
sweats bullets into his collar.

00:01:42.090 --> 00:01:43.980 align:middle line:84%
Having shaved too
keenly, his beard

00:01:43.980 --> 00:01:46.410 align:middle line:84%
is peppered red and
whispering blood.

00:01:46.410 --> 00:01:48.720 align:middle line:90%
And still the pleasantries.

00:01:48.720 --> 00:01:51.520 align:middle line:84%
Exactly how does one go from
commenting on the weather,

00:01:51.520 --> 00:01:54.300 align:middle line:84%
it's hot, awfully humid,
smells more like rain,

00:01:54.300 --> 00:01:55.710 align:middle line:90%
hope it lets up.

00:01:55.710 --> 00:01:58.170 align:middle line:84%
To asking him did you
frame my father's head

00:01:58.170 --> 00:01:59.320 align:middle line:90%
in your gun sight?

00:01:59.320 --> 00:02:01.830 align:middle line:84%
Did you empty his dinner
chair, lonely my nights,

00:02:01.830 --> 00:02:04.440 align:middle line:90%
pull back on that trigger?

00:02:04.440 --> 00:02:07.890 align:middle line:84%
Jesus, he looks just like
his daddy, James Earl thinks.

00:02:07.890 --> 00:02:10.259 align:middle line:84%
I bet he can call on God
and turn the other cheek

00:02:10.259 --> 00:02:11.280 align:middle line:90%
with the best of them.

00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:12.660 align:middle line:90%
Go on, get it out, boy.

00:02:12.660 --> 00:02:14.670 align:middle line:90%
I'm dying here.

00:02:14.670 --> 00:02:16.320 align:middle line:90%
Camera spin.

00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:19.050 align:middle line:84%
The men are like fools,
silent, damn respectful.

00:02:19.050 --> 00:02:21.720 align:middle line:84%
Exactly a yardstick
between them.

00:02:21.720 --> 00:02:24.060 align:middle line:90%
And it's the wind up, the pitch.

00:02:24.060 --> 00:02:25.890 align:middle line:90%
Sir, I have to ask you.

00:02:25.890 --> 00:02:29.730 align:middle line:84%
Sir, my kind sir, excuse me,
I hate to bother you, sir.

00:02:29.730 --> 00:02:34.860 align:middle line:84%
But I have to ask for the
record, did you kill my father?

00:02:34.860 --> 00:02:36.600 align:middle line:84%
And if the answer
is yes, will there

00:02:36.600 --> 00:02:39.960 align:middle line:84%
be a throttling, an errant
sob, a small silver pistol

00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:42.400 align:middle line:90%
slipped from an inside pocket?

00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:44.340 align:middle line:84%
And if the answer
is no, will there

00:02:44.340 --> 00:02:47.190 align:middle line:84%
be a throttling an errant
sob, a small silver

00:02:47.190 --> 00:02:50.430 align:middle line:84%
pistol slipped from
an inside pocket?

00:02:50.430 --> 00:02:52.950 align:middle line:84%
Time has a way of
growing things all huge,

00:02:52.950 --> 00:02:55.950 align:middle line:84%
lifting up our soul to
shove in the splinter.

00:02:55.950 --> 00:02:58.200 align:middle line:84%
But surprisingly,
James Earl resists

00:02:58.200 --> 00:03:00.780 align:middle line:90%
double take and the wide-eye.

00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:02.980 align:middle line:90%
No, I didn't.

00:03:02.980 --> 00:03:04.980 align:middle line:90%
No, sir.

00:03:04.980 --> 00:03:06.390 align:middle line:90%
That settles it then.

00:03:06.390 --> 00:03:07.740 align:middle line:90%
That settles it.

00:03:07.740 --> 00:03:09.660 align:middle line:84%
And we're locked in
on this limp drama

00:03:09.660 --> 00:03:11.190 align:middle line:84%
long after the
credits have rolled

00:03:11.190 --> 00:03:13.080 align:middle line:84%
and Hollywood Squares
has taken over.

00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:15.480 align:middle line:84%
Long after the network
has anthemed and dimmed

00:03:15.480 --> 00:03:16.860 align:middle line:90%
to the snow.

00:03:16.860 --> 00:03:18.900 align:middle line:90%
Time for a Twinkie and a brew.

00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:21.330 align:middle line:84%
Time to fall asleep
with a clear head.

00:03:21.330 --> 00:03:24.840 align:middle line:84%
Time to celebrate the slow
sweet of Southern men.

00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:28.380 align:middle line:84%
It's time to rejoice in the
fact that nobody killed nobody.

00:03:28.380 --> 00:03:32.100 align:middle line:84%
And high time to forget
that somebody died anyway."

00:03:32.100 --> 00:03:35.439 align:middle line:90%


00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:40.505 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:03:40.505 --> 00:03:44.000 align:middle line:90%