RICHARD: You know I don’t believe in God, Grandmama.
MOTHER HENRY: You don’t know what you talking about. Ain’t no way possible for you not to believe in God. It ain’t up to you.
RICHARD: Who’s it up to, then?
MOTHER HENRY: It’s up to the life in you—the life in you. That knows where it comes from, that believes in God. You doubt me, you just try holding your breath long enough to die.
RICHARD: You pretty smart, ain’t you? (A pause) I convinced Daddy that I’d be better off in New York—and Edna, she convinced him too, she said it wasn’t as tight for a black man up there as it is down here. Well, that’s a crock, Grandmama, believe me when I tell you. At first I thought it was true, hell, I was just a green country boy and they ain’t got no signs up, dig, saying you can’t go here or you can’t go there. No, you got to find that out all by your lonesome. But—for awhile—I thought everything was swinging and Edna, she’s so dizzy she thinks everything is always swinging, so there we were—like swinging.
MOTHER HENRY: I know Edna got lost somewhere. But, Richard—why didn’t you come back? You knew your Daddy wanted you back, your Daddy and me both.
RICHARD: I didn’t want to come back here like a whipped dog. One whipped dog running to another whipped dog. No, I didn’t want that. I wanted to make my Daddy proud of me—because, the day I left here, I sure as hell wasn’t proud of him.
MOTHER HENRY: Be careful, son. Be careful. Your Daddy’s a fine man. Your Daddy loves you.
RICHARD: I know, Grandmama. But I just wish, that day that Mama died, he’d took a pistol and gone through that damn white man’s hotel and shot every son of a bitch in the place. That’s right. I wish he’d shot them dead. I been dreaming of that day ever since I left here. I been dreaming of my Mama falling down the steps of that hotel. My Mama. I never believed she fell. I always believed that some white man pushed her down those steps. And I know that Daddy thought so, too. But he wasn’t there, he didn’t know, he couldn’t say nothing, he couldn’t do nothing. I’ll never forget the way he looked—whipped, whipped, whipped, whipped!
MOTHER HENRY: She fell, Richard, she fell. The stairs were wet and slippery and she fell.
RICHARD: My mother fell down the steps of that damn white hotel? My mother was pushed—you remember yourself how them white bastards was always sniffing around my mother, always around her—because she was pretty and black!
MOTHER HENRY: Richard, you can’t start walking around believing that all the suffering in the world is caused by white folks!
RICHARD: I can’t? Don’t tell me I can’t. I’m going to treat everyone of them as though they were responsible for all the crimes that ever happened in the history of the world—oh, yes! They’re responsible for all the misery I’ve ever seen, and that’s good enough for me. It’s because my Daddy’s got no power that my Mama’s dead. And he ain’t got no power because he’s black. And the only way the black man’s going to get any power is to drive all the white men into the sea.
MOTHER HENRY: You’re going to make yourself sick. You’re going to make yourself sick with hatred.
RICHARD: No, I’m not. I’m going to make myself well. I’m going to make myself well with hatred—what do you think of that?
MOTHER HENRY: It can’t be done. It can never be done. Hatred is a poison, Richard.
RICHARD: Not for me. I’m going to learn how to drink it—a little every day in the morning, and then a booster shot late at night. I’m going to remember everything. I’m going to keep it right here, at the very top of my mind. I’m going to remember Mama, and Daddy’s face that day, and Aunt Edna and all her sad little deals and all those boys and girls in Harlem and all them pimps and whores and gangsters and all them cops. And I’m going to remember all the dope that’s flowed through my veins. I’m going to remember everything—the jails I been in and the cops that beat me and how long a time I spent screaming and stinking in my own dirt, trying to break my habit. I’m going to remember all that, and I’ll get well. I’ll get well.
MOTHER HENRY: Oh, Richard. Richard. Richard.
RICHARD: Don’t Richard me. I tell you, I’m going to get well.
(He takes a small, sawed-off pistol from his pocket.)
MOTHER HENRY: Richard, what are you doing with that gun?
RICHARD: I’m carrying it around with me, that’s what I’m doing with it. This gun goes everywhere I go.
MOTHER HENRY: How long have you had it?
RICHARD: I’ve had it a long, long time.
MOTHER HENRY: Richard—you never—?
RICHARD: No. Not yet. But I will when I have to. I’ll sure as hell take one of the bastards with me.
MOTHER HENRY: Hand me that gun. Please.
RICHARD: I can’t. This is all that the man understands. He don’t understand nothing else. Nothing else!
MOTHER HENRY: Richard—your father—think of your father—
RICHARD: Don’t tell him! You hear me? (A pause) Don’t tell him!
MOTHER HENRY: Richard. Please.
RICHARD: Take the tray away, old lady. I ain’t hungry no more.
(After a moment, Mother Henry takes the tray and exits. Richard stretches out on the bed.)
JUANITA (Off): Meridian? Mother Henry? Anybody home in this house? (Enters) Oh! Excuse me.
RICHARD: I think they might be over at the church. I reckon Grandmama went over there to pray for my soul.
JUANITA: Grandmama?
RICHARD: Who are you? Don’t I know you?
JUANITA: Yes. I think you might.
RICHARD: Is your name Juanita?
JUANITA: If your name is Richard.
RICHARD: I’ll be damned.
JUANITA: Ain’t you a mess? So you finally decided to come back here—come here, let me hug you! Why, you ain’t hardly changed at all—you just a little taller but you sure didn’t gain much weight.
RICHARD: And I bet you the same old tomboy. You sure got the same loud voice—used to be able to hear you clear across this town.
JUANITA: Well, it’s a mighty small town, Richard, that’s what you always said—and the reason my voice got so loud so early, was that I started screaming for help right quick.
(Pete enters.)
Do you know Pete Spivey? He’s someone come on the scene since you been gone. He’s going to school down here, you should pardon the expression.
RICHARD: How do you do, man? Where you from?
PETE: I’m from a little place just outside Mobile.
RICHARD: Why didn’t you go North, man? If you was going to make a move. That’s the place. You get lost up there and I guarantee you some swinging little chick is sure to find you.
JUANITA: We’ll let that pass. Are you together? Are you ready to meet the day?
RICHARD: I am always together, little sister. Tell me what you got on your mind.
PETE: We thought we’d just walk around town a little and maybe stop and have a couple of drinks somewhere. Or we can drive. I got a car.
RICHARD: I didn’t think I’d never see you no more, Juanita. You been here all this time?
JUANITA: I sure have, sugar. Just waiting for you to come home.
RICHARD: Don’t let this chick upset you, Pete. All we ever did was climb trees together.
PETE: She’s had me climbing a few trees, too. But we weren’t doing it together.
(PAPA D.’S JUKE JOINT: Juke box music, loud. Less frantic than Richard’s song. Couples dancing, all very young, doing very lively variations of the “Twist,” the “Wobble,” etc. Papa D. at the counter. It is now early evening. Juanita, Pete and Richard enter.)
JUANITA: How you making it, Papa D.? We brought someone to see you—you recognize him?
PAPA D.: It seems to me I know your face, young man. Yes, I’m sure I know your face. Now, wait a minute, don’t tell me—you ain’t Shirelee Anderson’s boy, are you?
RICHARD: No. I remember Shirelee Anderson, but we ain’t no kin.
PETE: Try again, Papa D.
>
PAPA D.: You your father’s boy. I just recognized that smile—you Reverend Henry’s son. Well, how you doing? It’s nice to have you back with us. You going to stay awhile?
RICHARD: Yes sir. I think I’ll be around for awhile.
PAPA D.: Yeah, I remember you little old string bean of a boy, full of the devil. How long you been gone from here?
RICHARD: Almost eight years now. I left in September—it’ll be eight years next month.
PAPA D.: Yeah—how’s your Daddy? And your Grandmother? I ain’t seen them for awhile.
PETE: Ain’t you been going to church, Papa D.?
PAPA D.: Well, you know how it is. I try, God knows I try!
RICHARD: They fine, Papa D.
PAPA D.: You all don’t want nothing to eat?
RICHARD: We’ll think about it.
(They sit down.)
PETE: Old Papa D. got something on everybody, don’t he?
JUANITA: You better believe it.
RICHARD: He’s kind of a Tom, ain’t he?
PETE: Yeah. He talks about Mister Charlie, and he says he’s with us—us kids—but he ain’t going to do nothing to offend him. You know, he’s still trading with Lyle Britten.
RICHARD: Who’s Lyle Britten?
PETE: Peckerwood, owns a store nearby. And, man, you ain’t seen a peckerwood until you’ve seen Lyle Britten. Niggers been trading in his store for years, man, I wouldn’t be surprised but if the cat was rich—but that man still expects you to step off the sidewalk when he comes along. So we been getting people to stop buying there.
JUANITA: He shot a colored man a few years back, shot him dead, and wasn’t nothing never said, much less done, about it.
PETE: Lyle had been carrying on with this man’s wife, dig, and, naturally, Old Bill—his name was Bill Walker, everybody called him Old Bill—wanted to put a stop to it.
JUANITA: She was a pretty little thing—real little and real black.
RICHARD: She still around here?
PETE: No. She disappeared. She went North somewhere.
RICHARD: Jive mothers. They can rape and kill our women and we can’t do nothing. But if we touch one of their dried-up, pale-assed women, we get our nuts cut off. You remember that chick I was telling you about earlier, lives in Greenwich Village in New York?
PETE: What about her?
RICHARD: She’s white, man. I got a whole gang of white chicks in New York. That’s right And they can’t get enough of what little Richard’s got—and I give it to them, too, baby, believe me. You say black people ain’t got no dignity? Man, you ought to watch a white woman when she wants you to give her a little bit. They will do anything, baby anything! Wait—I got some pictures. That’s the one lives in the Village. Ain’t she fine? I’d hate to tell you where I’ve had that long yellow hair. And, dig this one, this is Sandy, her old man works on Wall Street—
PETE: We’re making Juanita nervous.
JUANITA: Don’t worry about me. I’ve been a big girl for a long time. Besides, I’m studying abnormal psychology. So please feel free. Which one is this? What does her father do?
RICHARD: That’s Sylvia. I don’t know what her father does. She’s a model. She’s loaded with loot.
PETE: You take money from her?
RICHARD: I take their money and they love it. Anyway, they ain’t got nothing else to do with it. Every one of them’s got some piss-assed, faggoty white boy on a string somewhere. They go home and marry him, dig, when they can’t make it with me no more—but when they want some loving, funky, down-home, bring-it-on-here-and-put-it-on-the-table style—
JUANITA: They sound very sad. It must be very sad for you, too.
RICHARD: Well, I want them to be sad, baby, I want to screw up their minds forever. But why should I be so sad? Hell, I was swinging, I just about had it made. I had me some fine chicks and a fine pad and my car, and, hell, I was on my way! But then—then I screwed up.
JUANITA: We heard you were sick.
RICHARD: Who told you I was sick?
JUANITA: Your father. Your grandmother. They didn’t say what the sickness was.
(Papa D. passes their table.)
RICHARD: Hey, Papa D., come on over here. I want to show you something.
(Papa D. comes over.)
Hey, look at these, man, look! Ain’t they some fine chicks? And you know who each one of them calls: Baby! Oh, baby? That’s right. You looking at the man.
PAPA D.: Where’d you steal those pictures, boy?
RICHARD (Laughs): Steal them! Man, I ain’t got to steal girls’ pictures. I’m telling you the truth!
PAPA D.: Put them pictures away. I thought you had good sense.
(He goes back to the counter.)
RICHARD: Ain’t that a bitch. He’s scared because I’m carrying around pictures of white girls. That’s the trouble with niggers. They all scared of the man.
JUANITA: Well, I’m not scared of the man. But there’s just no point in running around, asking—
PETE: —to be lynched.
RICHARD: Well, okay, I’ll put my pictures away, then. I sure don’t want to upset nobody.
PETE: Excuse me. I’ll be back.
(Exits.)
RICHARD: You want to dance?
JUANITA: No. Not now.
RICHARD: You want something to eat?
JUANITA: No. Richard?
RICHARD: Yeah?
JUANITA: Were you very sick?
RICHARD: What d’you want to know for?
JUANITA: Like that. Because I used to be your girl friend.
RICHARD: You was more like a boy than a girl, though. I couldn’t go nowhere without you. You were determined to get your neck broken.
JUANITA: Well, I’ve changed. I’m now much more like a girl than I am like a boy.
RICHARD: You didn’t turn out too bad, considering what you had to start with.
JUANITA: Thank you. I guess.
RICHARD: How come you ain’t married by now? Pete, now, he seems real fond of you.
JUANITA: He is fond of me, we’re friends. But I’m not in any hurry to get married—not now. And not here. I’m not sure I’m going to stay here. I’ve been working very hard, but next year I think I’ll leave.
RICHARD: Where would you go?
JUANITA: I don’t know. I had always intended to go North to law school and then come back down here to practice law—God knows this town could stand it. But, now, I don’t know.
RICHARD: It’s rough, huh?
JUANITA: It’s not that so much. It is rough—are you all right? Do you want to go?
RICHARD: No, no. I’m all right. Go on. (A pause) I’m all right. Go on.
JUANITA: It’s rough because you can’t help being scared. I don’t want to die—what was the matter with you, Richard, what were you sick with?
RICHARD: It wasn’t serious. And I’m better now.
JUANITA: Well, no, that’s just it. You’re not really better.
RICHARD: How do you mean?
JUANITA: I watch you—
RICHARD: Why do you watch me?
JUANITA: I care about you.
RICHARD: You care about me! I thought you could hold your liquor better than that, girl.
JUANITA: It’s not liquor. Don’t you believe that anyone can care about you?
RICHARD: Care about me! Do you know how many times chicks have told me that? That they cared about me?
JUANITA: Well. This isn’t one of those times.
RICHARD: I was a junkie.
JUANITA: A what?
RICHARD: A junkie, a dope addict, a hop-head, a mainliner—a dope fiend! My arms and my legs, too, are full of holes!
JUANITA: I asked you tell me, not the world.
RICHARD: Where’d Pete go?
JUANITA: He’s dancing.
RICHARD: You want to dance?
JUANITA: In a minute.
RICHARD: I got hooked about five years ago. See, I couldn’t stand these chicks I was making it with, and I was working rea
l hard at my music, and, man, I was lonely. You come off a gig, you be tired, and you’d already taken as much shit as you could stand from the managers and the people in the room you were working and you’d be off to make some down scene with some pasty white-faced bitch. And so you’d make the scene and somehow you’d wake up in the morning and the chick would be beside you, alive and well, and dying to make the scene again and somehow you’d managed not to strangle her, you hadn’t beaten her to death. Like you wanted to. And you get out of there and you carry this pain around inside all day and all night long. No way to beat it—no way. No matter how you turned, no matter what you did—no way. But when I started getting high, I was cool, and it didn’t bother me. And I wasn’t lonely then, it was all right. And the chicks—I could handle them, they couldn’t reach me. And I didn’t know I was hooked—until I was hooked. Then I started getting into trouble and I lost a lot of gigs and I had to sell my car and I lost my pad and most of the chicks, they split, naturally—but not all of them—and then I got busted and I made that trip down to Lexington and—here I am. Way down upon the Swanee River. But I’m going to be all right. You can bet on it.
JUANITA: I’d like to do better than that. I’d like to see to it.
RICHARD: How?
JUANITA: Well, like I used to. I won’t let you go anywhere without me.
RICHARD: You still determined to break your neck.
JUANITA: Well, it’s a neck-breaking time. I wouldn’t like to appear to be above the battle.
RICHARD: Do you have any idea of what you might be letting yourself in for?
JUANITA: No. But you said you were lonely. And I’m lonely, too.
(Lyle enters, goes to the counter. His appearance causes a change in the atmosphere, but no one appears to stop whatever they are doing.)
LYLE: Joel, how about letting me have some change for cigarettes? I got a kind of long drive ahead of me, and I’m out.
PAPA D.: Howdy, Mister Lyle, how you been? Folks ain’t been seeing much of you lately.
LYLE (Laughs): That’s the truth. But I reckon old friends just stays old friends. Ain’t that right?