You can only be free if I am free.

Host: The alley behind the courthouse was washed in rain — a long, narrow street of puddles and flickering light. The scent of wet concrete, tobacco, and weary justice hung in the air. The clock tower struck nine, each chime echoing through the stillness like a warning that the day had outlived itself.

Jack leaned against a brick wall, his collar turned up, cigarette smoke curling like ghosts into the damp night. Jeeny approached slowly, her heels splashing through the puddles, her trench coat pulled tight around her. The courtroom had emptied an hour ago, but their argument had followed them into the dark — unfinished, like all arguments about freedom.

Host: The streetlight above them flickered, the yellow glow slicing through the rain, falling across two faces — one tired of cynicism, the other tired of hope.

Jeeny: “Clarence Darrow once said, ‘You can only be free if I am free.’”

Jack: (quietly) “Yeah. He defended that like it was religion.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Maybe freedom’s the only faith left worth having.”

Jack: “It’s also the most abused word in the language. Everyone says they believe in it — right up until someone else uses it differently.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what Darrow meant. Freedom isn’t freedom if it only works for you.”

Jack: (half-smiling) “You mean if my liberty depends on your silence, it’s not liberty at all.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The rain softened, but the city kept dripping — from pipes, from rooftops, from memory. A siren moaned far off, a lonely sound bending through the night.

Jack: “Funny. Darrow was a lawyer who didn’t believe in punishment. He saw the law as a mirror of man’s fear, not his morality.”

Jeeny: “Because he understood that justice without empathy is just vengeance wearing a robe.”

Jack: “And yet we keep building systems that call it balance.”

Jeeny: “He wanted to remind people that freedom isn’t an individual accomplishment — it’s a collective inheritance.”

Jack: “You mean, I’m not really free until the person I hate is.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And that’s why it terrifies people.”

Host: The wind caught her coat, flaring it for a second before settling it again. Her eyes held that quiet fire of someone who believes not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.

Jack: “You know, people talk about freedom like it’s personal — like it’s something you can lock away, protect. But Darrow saw it as contagious. A condition of conscience.”

Jeeny: “And interdependence.”

Jack: “Which makes it fragile.”

Jeeny: “No — sacred. Because it binds us to each other. My dignity is tied to yours, whether I admit it or not.”

Host: The rain began again, heavier now — drops striking their shoulders, faces, the pavement around them. It sounded like applause for a truth too often ignored.

Jack: “It’s strange, isn’t it? We live in a world that celebrates individuality but forgets solidarity. Everyone wants freedom — but no one wants the responsibility that comes with it.”

Jeeny: “Because real freedom demands humility. It says, ‘Your rights and mine are the same cloth. If I tear yours, mine fray too.’”

Jack: “And yet we keep tearing.”

Jeeny: “Because it’s easier to blame than to build.”

Host: The light flickered again, throwing their shadows large and distorted against the brick. The city’s noise seemed to dim around them, as though listening.

Jack: “You know, I used to think freedom was the ability to walk away — to answer to no one.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I think it’s the ability to stay — and still be whole.”

Jeeny: “That’s closer to truth. Freedom isn’t flight; it’s recognition. The moment you realize your neighbor’s chains are your own.”

Jack: “That sounds like a sermon.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. But the kind that saves you from yourself.”

Host: She stepped closer, rain dripping from her hair, her voice low and steady — the sound of compassion sharpened by realism.

Jeeny: “Darrow defended the outcasts, the radicals, the accused — not because they were saints, but because he knew that if we let fear justify one injustice, the whole structure collapses.”

Jack: “He said something like that during the Leopold and Loeb case, didn’t he? That we can’t call ourselves civilized while we kill in the name of order.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. He wasn’t just defending two boys. He was defending the idea that even monsters are human — and that mercy is a form of courage.”

Jack: “People hated him for it.”

Jeeny: “And history called him right.”

Host: The thunder rolled softly in the distance. The alley glistened under the flickering light — every puddle reflecting fragments of sky, pieces of freedom scattered on the ground.

Jack: “You know what gets me about that quote? It doesn’t leave room for apathy. You can’t just live your own comfortable life and call that freedom. It demands involvement.”

Jeeny: “Yes. It demands empathy in action. Otherwise, your liberty is just privilege with better lighting.”

Jack: “And we confuse the two all the time.”

Jeeny: “Because privilege feels like peace. Until the storm hits.”

Host: A brief silence settled, broken only by the sound of rain dripping from the gutter. Jack dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his boot.

Jack: “You know, when he said ‘You can only be free if I am free,’ he wasn’t being poetic. He was stating a law of nature. Like gravity — invisible, inescapable, absolute.”

Jeeny: “And yet we live like we can cheat it. Build fences. Borders. Hierarchies.”

Jack: “But the gravity always wins.”

Jeeny: “Always.”

Host: She looked up — the rain now a steady curtain. The courthouse loomed behind them, its columns like ancient bones holding up a structure built on contradictions.

Jeeny: “Freedom isn’t built on walls or laws. It’s built on recognition — that every soul is born untamed. The law just tries to manage what love should have already solved.”

Jack: “You sound like Darrow now.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Then I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Jack: “You should.”

Host: A faint light flickered in the courthouse window — the janitor, moving through the empty corridors of justice. It looked almost holy from where they stood — a single human presence in the machinery of power.

Jack: “So maybe the apprenticeship we can’t have for freedom — the one Baraka warned about — is because it’s not learned through privilege. It’s learned through empathy.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Freedom’s not a skill — it’s a relationship.”

Jack: “And it either exists between us or not at all.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Darrow was saying. I can’t claim to be free if I build my comfort on someone else’s cage.”

Jack: “But the world’s built exactly that way.”

Jeeny: “And that’s why his words still hurt. Because they indict us all.”

Host: The rain finally eased, leaving behind the smell of iron and renewal. The city glowed wet and alive.

Jack: “So what do we do with that truth?”

Jeeny: “We start small. We listen. We unlearn indifference. We protect someone else’s voice as if it were our own.”

Jack: “Even if they’d never do the same for us?”

Jeeny: “Especially then. That’s what makes it freedom — not transaction, but conviction.”

Host: The first light of dawn crept along the horizon, pale and hesitant. The streetlight blinked once more, then went out.

Jack: “You know, Darrow would’ve liked this moment — the city quiet, the rain clean, the world waking up with one more chance to get it right.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe we should try not to waste it.”

Host: They stood there for a while longer, the courthouse looming behind them, the city breathing ahead — the old debate between law and love, justice and mercy, always unresolved, always human.

Host: And as the morning began to break, Clarence Darrow’s words seemed to echo through the wet air, steady and defiant:

Host: that freedom cannot exist in isolation,
that liberty shared unequally is not liberty at all,
and that until every chain is named and broken,
the world remains in partial bondage.

Host: For the truth, as Darrow knew,
is that no man walks free
while another kneels unseen.