Blues for Mister Charlie: A Play

HAZEL: Sometimes they can sound so nice. Used to take my breath away when I was a girl.

ELLIS: What’s happened to this town? It was peaceful here, we all got along, we didn’t have no trouble.

GEORGE: Oh, we had a little trouble from time to time, but it didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Niggers was all right then, you could always get you a nigger to help you catch a nigger.

LILLIAN: That’s right. They had their ways, we had ours, and everything went along the way God intended.

JO: I’ve never been scared in this town before—never. They was all like my own people. I never knew of anyone to mistreat a colored person—have you? And they certainly didn’t act mistreated. But now, when I walk through this town—I’m scared—like I don’t know what’s going to happen next. How come the colored people to hate us so much, all of a sudden? We give them everything they’ve got!

REVEREND PHELPS: Their minds have been turned. They have turned away from God. They’re a simple people—warmhearted and good-natured. But they are very easily led, and now they are harkening to the counsel of these degenerate Communist race-mixers. And they don’t know what terrible harm they can bring on themselves—and on us all.

JO: You can’t tell what they’re thinking. Why, colored folks you been knowing all your life—you’re almost afraid to hire them, almost afraid to talk to them—you don’t know what they’re thinking.

ELLIS: I know what they’re thinking.

SUSAN: We’re not much better off than the Communist countries—that’s what Ralph says. They live in fear. They don’t want us to teach God in our schools—you send your child to school and you don’t know what kind of Godless atheist is going to be filling the little one’s mind with all kinds of filth. And he’s going to believe it, of course, kids don’t know no better. And now they tell us we got to send our kids to school with niggers—why, everybody knows that ain’t going to work, won’t nobody get no education, white or black. Niggers can’t learn like white folks, they ain’t got the same interests.

ELLIS: They got one interest. And it’s just below the belly button.

GEORGE (Laughs): You know them yellow niggers? Boy, ain’t they the worst kind? There own folks don’t want them, don’t nobody want them, and you can’t do nothing with them—you might be able to scare a black nigger, but you can’t do nothing with a yellow nigger.

REVEREND PHELPS: That’s because he’s a mongrel. And a mongrel is the lowest creation in the animal kingdom.

ELLIS: Mrs. Britten, you’re married and all the women in this room are married and I know you’ve seen your husband without no clothes on—but have you seen a nigger without no clothes on? No, I guess you haven’t. Well, he ain’t like a white man, Mrs. Britten.

GEORGE: That’s right.

ELLIS: Mrs. Britten, if you was to be raped by an orang-outang out of the jungle or a stallion, couldn’t do you no worse than a nigger. You wouldn’t be no more good for nobody. I’ve seen it.

GEORGE: That’s right.

RALPH: That’s why we men have got to be so vigilant. I tell you, I have to be away a lot nights, you know—and I bought Susan a gun and I taught her how to use it, too.

SUSAN: And I’m a pretty good shot now, too. Ralph says he’s real proud of me.

RALPH: She’s just like a pioneer woman.

HAZEL: I’m so glad Esther’s not here to see this. She’d die of shame. She was the sweetest colored woman—you remember her. She just about raised us, used to sing us to sleep at night, and she could tell just the most beautiful stories—the kind of stories that could scare you and make you laugh and make you cry, you know? Oh, she was wonderful. I don’t remember a cross word or an evil expression all the time she was with us. She was always the same. And I believe she knew more about me than my own mother and father knew. I just told her everything. Then, one of her sons got killed—he went bad, just like this boy they having a funeral for here tonight—and she got sick. I nursed her, I bathed that woman’s body with my own hands. And she told me once, she said, “Miss Hazel, you are just like an angel of light.” She said, “My own couldn’t have done more for me than you have done.” She was a wonderful old woman.

JO: I believe I hear Lyle stirring.

SUSAN: Mrs. Britten, somebody else is coming to call on you. My! It’s that Parnell James! I wonder if he’s sober this morning. He never looks sober.

ELLIS: He never acts it, either.

PARNELL: Good morning, good people! Good morning, Reverend Phelps! How good it is to see brethren—and sistren—walking together. Or, in this case, standing together—something like that, anyway; my Bible’s a little rusty. Is church over already? Or are you having it here? Good morning, Jo.

JO: Good morning, Parnell. Sit down, I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.

GEORGE: You look like you could use it.

REV. PHELPS: We were all just leaving.

PARNELL: Please don’t leave on my account, Reverend Phelps. Just go on as you were, praying or singing, just as the spirit may move you. I would love that cup of coffee, Jo.

ELLIS: You been up all night?

PARNELL: Is that the way I look? Yes, I have been up all night.

ELLIS: Tom-catting around, I’ll bet. Getting drunk and fooling with all the women.

PARNELL: Ah, you flatter me. And in games of chance, my friend, you have no future at all. I’m sure you always lose at poker. So stop betting. I was not tom-catting, I was at home, working.

GEORGE: You been over the way this morning? You been at the nigger funeral?

PARNELL: The funeral takes place this evening. And, yes, I will be there. Would you care to come along? Leaving your baseball bat at home, of course.

JO: We heard the singing—

PARNELL: Darkies are always singing. You people know that. What made you think it was a funeral?

JO: Parnell! You are the limit! Would anybody else like a little more coffee? It’s still good and hot.

ELLIS: We heard that a nigger got killed. That’s why we thought it was a funeral.

GEORGE: They bury their dead over the way, don’t they?

PARNELL: They do when the dogs leave enough to bury, yes.

ELLIS: Dogs?

PARNELL: Yes—you know. Teeth. Barking. Lots of noise.

ELLIS: A lot of people in this town, Parnell, would like to know exactly where you stand, on a lot of things.

PARNELL: That’s exactly where I stand. On a lot of things. Why don’t you read my paper?

LILLIAN: I wouldn’t filthy my hands with that Communist sheet!

PARNELL: Ah? But the father of your faith, the cornerstone of that church of which you are so precious an adornment, was a communist, possibly the first. He may have done some tom-catting. We know he did some drinking. And he knew a lot of—loose ladies and drunkards. It’s all in the Bible, isn’t it, Reverend Phelps?

REV. PHELPS: I won’t be drawn into your blasphemous banter. Ellis is only asking what many of us want to know—are you with us or against us? And he’s telling you what we all feel. We’ve put up with your irresponsibility long enough. We won’t tolerate it any longer. Do I make myself clear?

PARNELL: Not at all. If you’re threatening me, be specific. First of all, what’s this irresponsibility that you won’t tolerate? And if you aren’t going to tolerate it, what are you going to do? Dip me in tar and feathers? Boil me in oil? Castrate me? Burn me? Cover yourselves in white sheets and come and burn crosses in front of my house? Come on, Reverend Phelps, don’t stand there with your mouth open, it makes you even more repulsive than you are with it closed, and all your foul, graveyard breath comes rushing out, and it makes me want to vomit. Out with it, boy! What’s on your mind?

ELLIS: You got away with a lot of things in this town, Parnell, for a long time, because your father was a big man here.

PARNELL: One at a time. I was addressing your spiritual leader.

SUSAN: He’s worse than a nigger.

PARNELL: I take that as a compliment. I’m sure no man will ever say as much for you. Reverend Phelps?

REV. PHELPS: I think I speak for us all—for myself and for us all, when I say that our situation down here has become much too serious for flippancy and cynicism. When things were more in order here, we didn’t really mind your attitude, and your paper didn’t matter to us, we never read it, anyway.

ELLIS: We knew you were just a spoiled rich boy, with too much time on his hands that he didn’t know what to do with.

REV. PHELPS: And so you started this paper and tried to make yourself interesting with all these subversive attitudes. I honestly thought that you would grow out of it.

GEORGE: Or go North.

REV. PHELPS: I know these attitudes were not your father’s attitudes, or your mother’s. I was very often invited to your home when they were alive—

PARNELL: How well I remember! What attitudes are you speaking of?

HAZEL: Race-mixing!

PARNELL: Race-mixing! Ladies and gentlemen, do you think anybody gives a good goddamn who you sleep with? You can go down to the swamps and couple with the snakes, for all I care, or for all anybody else cares. You may find that the snakes don’t want you, but that’s a problem for you and the snakes to work out, and it might prove astonishingly simple—the working out of the problem, I mean. I’ve never said a word about race-mixing. I’ve talked about social justice.

LILLIAN: That sounds Communistic to me!

PARNELL: It means that if I have a hundred dollars, and I’m black, and you have a hundred dollars, and you’re white, I should be able to get as much value for my hundred dollars—my black hundred dollars—as you get for your white hundred dollars. It also means that I should have an equal opportunity to earn that hundred dollars—

ELLIS: Niggers can get work just as well as a white man can. Hell, some niggers make more money than me.

PARNELL: Some niggers are smarter than you, Ellis. Much smarter. And much nicer. And niggers can’t get work just as well as a white man can, and you know it.

ELLIS: What’s stopping them? They got hands.

PARNELL: Ellis, you don’t really work with your hands—you’re a salesman in a shoe store. And your boss wouldn’t give that job to a nigger.

GEORGE: Well, goddammit, white men come before niggers! They got to!

PARNELL: Why?

LYLE: What’s all this commotion going on in my house?

JO: Oh, Lyle, good morning! Some folks just dropped in to see you.

LYLE: It sounded like they was about to come to blows. Good morning, Reverend Phelps, I’m glad to see you here. I’m sorry I wasn’t up, but I guess my wife might have told you, I’ve not been sleeping well nights. When I do go to sleep, she just lets me sleep on.

REV. PHELPS: Don’t you apologize, son—we understand. We only came by to let you know that we’re with you and every white person in this town is with you.

JO: Isn’t that nice of them, Lyle? They’ve been here quite a spell, and we’ve had such a nice time.

LYLE: Well, that is mighty nice of you, Reverend, and all of you—hey there, Ellis! Old George! And Ralph and Susan—how’s married life suit you? Guess it suits you all right, ain’t nobody seen you in months, ha-ha! Mrs. Proctor, Mrs. Barker, how you all? Hey! Old Parnell! What you doing up so early?

PARNELL: I was on my way to church, but they seemed to be having the meeting here. So I joined the worshippers.

LYLE: On your way to church, that’s a good one. Bet you ain’t been to bed yet.

PARNELL: No, I haven’t.

LYLE: You folks don’t mind if I have a little breakfast? Jo, bring me something to eat! Susan, you look mighty plump and rosy, you ain’t keeping no secrets from us, are you?

SUSAN: I don’t think so, Lyle.

LYLE: I don’t know, you got that look—like a real ripe peach, just right for eating. You ain’t been slack in your duty, have you, Ralph? Look at the way she’s blushing! I guess you all right, boy.

ELLIS: You know what time they coming for you tomorrow?

LYLE: Sometime in the morning, I reckon. I don’t know.

REV. PHELPS: I saw the Chief of Police the other day. He really doesn’t want to do it, but his hands are tied. It’s orders from higher up, from the North.

LYLE: Shoot, I know old Frank don’t want to arrest me. I understand. I ain’t worried. I know the people in this town is with me. I got nothing to worry about.

ELLIS: They trying to force us to put niggers on the jury—that’s what I hear. Claim it won’t be a fair trial if we don’t.

HAZEL: Did you ever hear anything like that in your life?

LYLE: Where they going to find the niggers?

ELLIS: Oh, I bet your buddy, Parnell, has got that all figured out.

LYLE: How about it, Parnell? You going to find some niggers for them to put on that jury?

PARNELL: It’s not up to me. But I might recommend a couple.

GEORGE: And how they going to get to court? You going to protect them?

PARNELL: The police will protect them. Or the State troopers—

GEORGE: That’s a good one!

PARNELL: Or Federal marshals.

GEORGE: Look here, you really think there should be niggers on that jury?

PARNELL: Of course I do, and so would you, if you had any sense. For one thing, they’re forty-four percent of the population of this town.

ELLIS: But they don’t vote. Not most of them.

PARNELL: Well. That’s also a matter of interest to the Federal government. Why don’t they vote? They got hands.

ELLIS: You claim Lyle’s your buddy—

PARNELL: Lyle is my buddy. That’s why I want him to have a fair trial.

HAZEL: I can’t listen to no more of this, I’m sorry, I just can’t. Honey, I’ll see you all tonight, you hear?

REV. PHELPS: We’re all going to go now. We just wanted to see how you were, and let you know that you could count on us.

LYLE: I sure appreciate it, Reverend, believe me, I do. You make me feel much better. Even if a man knows he ain’t done no wrong, still, it’s a kind of troublesome spot to be in. Wasn’t for my good Jo, here, I don’t know what I’d do. Good morning, Mrs. Barker. Mrs. Proctor. So long, George, it’s been good to see you. Ralph, you take good care of Susan, you hear? And name the first one after me—you might have to bring it on up to the jail house so I can see it.

SUSAN: Don’t think like that. Everything’s going to be all right.

LYLE: You’re sure?

SUSAN: I guarantee it. Why they couldn’t—couldn’t—do anything to you!

LYLE: Then I believe it. I believe you.

SUSAN: You keep right on believing.

ELLIS: Remember what we said, Parnell.

PARNELL: So long, Ellis. See you next Halloween.

LYLE: Let’s get together, boy, soon as this mess is over.

ELLIS: You bet. This mess is just about over now—we ain’t going to let them prolong it. And I know just the thing’ll knock all this clear out of your mind, this, and everything else, ha-ha! Bye-bye, Mrs. Britten.

JO: Goodbye. And thanks for coming!

LYLE: They’re nice people.

JO: Yes. They are.

PARNELL: They certainly think a lot of you.

LYLE: You ain’t jealous, are you, boy? No. We’ve all had the same kind of trouble—it’s the kind of trouble you wouldn’t know about, Parnell, because you’ve never had to worry about making your living. But me! I been doing hard work from the time I was a puppy. Like my Mama and Daddy before me, God rest their souls, and their Mama and Daddy before them. They wore themselves out on the land—the land never give them nothing. Nothing but an empty belly and some skinny kids. I’m the only one growed up to be a man. That’s because I take after my Daddy—he was skinny as a piece of wire, but he was hard as any rock. And stubborn! Lord, you ain’t never seen nobody so stubborn. He should have been born sooner. Had he been born sooner, when this was still a free country, and a man could really make some money, I’d have been born rich as you, Parnell, maybe even richer. I tell you—the old man struggled. He worked harder than any nigger. But he left me this store.

JO: You reckon we going to be able to leave it to the little one?

LYLE: We’re going to leave him more than that. That little one ain’t going to have nothing to worry about. I’m going to leave him as rich as old Parnell here, and he’s going to be educated, too, better than his Daddy; better, even, than Parnell!

PARNELL: You going to send him to school in Switzerland?

LYLE: You went there for a while, didn’t you?

JO: That’s where Parnell picked up all his wild ideas.

PARNELL: Yes. Be careful. There were a couple of African princes studying in the school I went to—they did a lot more studying than I did, I must say.

LYLE: African princes, huh? What were they like? Big and black, I bet, elephant tusks hanging around their necks.

PARNELL: Some of them wore a little ivory, on a chain—silver chain. They were like everybody else. Maybe they thought they were a little better than most of us—the Swiss girls certainly thought so.

LYLE: The Swiss girls? You mean they didn’t have no women of their own?

PARNELL: Lots of them. Swiss women, Danish women, English women, French women, Finns, Russians, even a couple of Americans.

JO: I don’t believe you. Or else they was just trying to act like foreigners. I can’t stand people who try to act like something they’re not.

PARNELL: They were just trying to act like women—poor things. And the Africans were men, no one had ever told them that they weren’t.

LYLE: You mean there weren’t no African women around at all? Weren’t the Swiss people kind of upset at having all these niggers around with no women?

PARNELL: They didn’t seem to be upset. They seemed delighted. The niggers had an awful lot of money. And there weren’t many African girls around because African girls aren’t educated the way American girls are.

JO: The American girls didn’t mind going out with the Africans?

PARNELL: Not at all. It appears that the Africans were excellent dancers.

LYLE: I won’t never send no daughter of mine to Switzerland.

PARNELL: Well, what about your son? He might grow fond of some little African princess.

LYLE: Well, that’s different. I don’t care about that, long as he leaves her over there.

JO: It’s not different—how can you say that? White men ain’t got no more business fooling around with black women than—

LYLE: Girl, will you stop getting yourself into an uproar? Men is different from women—they ain’t as delicate. Man can do a lot of things a woman can’t do, you know that.

PARNELL: You’ve heard the expression, sowing wild oats? Well, all the men we know sowed a lot of wild oats before they finally settled down and got married.

LYLE: That’s right. Men have to do it. They ain’t like women. Parnell is still sowing his wild oats—I sowed mine.

JO: And a woman that wants to be a decent woman just has to—wait—until the men get tired of going to bed with—harlots!—and decide to settle down?

PARNELL: Well, it sounds very unjust, I know, but that’s the way it’s always been. I suppose the decent women were waiting—though nobody seems to know exactly how they spent the time.

JO: Parnell!

PARNELL: Well, there are some who waited too long.

JO: Men ought to be ashamed. How can you blame a woman if she—goes wrong? If a decent woman can’t find a decent man—why—it must happen all the time—they get tired of waiting.

LYLE: Not if they been raised right, no sir, that’s what my Daddy said, and I’ve never known it to fail. And look at you—you didn’t get tired of waiting. Ain’t nobody in this town ever been able to say a word against you. Man, I was so scared when I finally asked this girl to marry me. I was afraid she’d turn me out of the house. Because I had been pretty wild. Parnell can tell you.

JO: I had heard.

LYLE: But she didn’t. I looked at her, it seemed almost like it was the first time—you know, the first time you really look at a woman?—and I thought, I’ll be damned if I don’t believe I can make it with her. I believe I can. And she looked at me like she loved me. It was in her eyes. And it was just like somebody had lifted a great big load off my heart.

JO: You shouldn’t be saying these things in front of Parnell.

LYLE: Why not? I ain’t got no secrets from Parnell—he knows about men and women. Look at her blush! Like I told you. Women is more delicate than men.
(He touches her face lightly.)
I know you kind of upset, sugar. But don’t you be nervous. Everything’s going to be all right, and we’re going to be happy again, you’ll see.

JO: I hope so, Lyle.

LYLE: I’m going to take me a bath and put some clothes on. Parnell, you sit right there, you hear? I won’t be but a minute.

JO: What a funny man he is! It don’t do no good at all to get mad at him, you might as well get mad at that baby in there. Parnell? Can I ask you something?

PARNELL: Certainly.

JO: Is it true that Lyle has no secrets from you?

PARNELL: He said that neither of you had any secrets from me.

JO: Oh, don’t play. Lyle don’t know a thing about women—what they’re really like, to themselves. Men don’t know. But I want to ask you a serious question. Will you answer it?

PARNELL: If I can.

JO: That means you won’t answer it. But I’ll ask it, anyway. Parnell—was Lyle—is it true what people said? That he was having an affair with Old Bill’s wife and that’s why he shot Old Bill?

PARNELL: Why are you asking me that?

JO: Because I have to know! It’s true, isn’t it? He had an affair with Old Bill’s wife—and he had affairs with lots of colored women in this town. It’s true. Isn’t it?

PARNELL: What does it matter who he slept with before he married you, Jo? I know he had a—lot of prostitutes. Maybe some of them were colored. When he was drunk, he wouldn’t have been particular.

JO: He’s never talked to you about it?

PARNELL: Why would he?

JO: Men talk about things like that.

PARNELL: Men often joke about things like that. But, Jo—what one man tells another man, his friend—can’t be told to women.

JO: Men certainly stick together. I wish women did. All right. You can’t talk about Lyle. But tell me this. Have you ever had an affair with a colored girl? I don’t mean a—a night. I mean, did she mean something to you, did you like her, did you—love her? Could you have married her—I mean, just like you would marry a white woman?

PARNELL: Jo—

JO: Oh! Tell me the truth, Parnell!

PARNELL: I loved a colored girl, yes. I think I loved her. But I was only eighteen and she was only seventeen. I was still a virgin. I don’t know if she was, but I think she was. A lot of the other kids in school used to drive over to niggertown at night to try and find black women. Sometimes they bought them, sometimes they frightened them, sometimes they raped them. And they were proud of it, they talked about it all the time. I couldn’t do that. Those kids made me ashamed of my own body, ashamed of everything I felt, ashamed of being white—

JO: Ashamed of being white.

PARNELL: Yes.

JO: How did you meet—this colored girl?

PARNELL: Her mother worked for us. She used to come, sometimes, to pick up her mother. Sometimes she had to wait. I came in once and found her in the library, she was reading Stendhal. The Red and The Black. I had just read it and we talked about it. She was funny—very bright and solemn and very proud—and she was scared, scared of me, but much too proud to show it. Oh, she was funny. But she was bright.

JO: What did she look like?

PARNELL: She was the color of gingerbread when it’s just come out of the oven. I used to call her Ginger—later. Her name was really Pearl. She had black hair, very black, kind of short, and she dressed it very carefully. Later, I used to tease her about the way she took care of her hair. There’s a girl in this town now who reminds me of her. Oh, I loved her!

JO: What happened?

PARNELL: I used to look at her, the way she moved, so beautiful and free, and I’d wonder if at night, when she might be on her way home from someplace, any of those boys at school had said ugly things to her. And then I thought that I wasn’t any better than they were, because I thought my own thoughts were pretty awful. And I wondered what she thought of me. But I didn’t dare to ask. I got so I could hardly think of anyone but her. I got sick wanting to take her in my arms, to take her in my arms and love her and protect her from all those other people who wanted to destroy her. She wrote a little poetry, sometimes she’d show it to me, but she really wanted to be a painter.

JO: What happened?

PARNELL: Nothing happened. We got so we told each other everything. She was going to be a painter, I was going to be a writer. It was our secret. Nobody in the world knew about her inside, what she was like, and how she dreamed, but me. And nobody in the world knew about me inside, what I wanted, and how I dreamed, but her. But we couldn’t look ahead, we didn’t dare. We talked about going North, but I was still in school, and she was still in school. We couldn’t be seen anywhere together—it would have given her too bad a name. I used to see her sometimes in the movies, with various colored boys. She didn’t seem to have any special one. They’d be sitting in the balcony, in the colored section, and I’d be sitting downstairs in the white section. She couldn’t come down to me, I couldn’t go up to her. We’d meet some nights, late, out in the country, but—I didn’t want to take her in the bushes, and I couldn’t take her anywhere else. One day we were sitting in the library, we were kissing, and her mother came in. That was the day I found out how much black people can hate white people.

JO: What did her mother do?

PARNELL: She didn’t say a word. She just looked at me. She just looked at me. I could see what was happening in her mind. She knew that there wasn’t any point in complaining to my mother or my father. It would just make her daughter look bad. She didn’t dare tell her husband. If he tried to do anything, he’d be killed. There wasn’t anything she could do about me. I was just another horny white kid trying to get into a black girl’s pants. She looked at me as though she were wishing with all her heart that she could raise her hand and wipe me off the face of the earth. I’ll never forget that look. I still see it. She walked over to Pearl and I thought she was going to slap her. But she didn’t. She took her by the hand, very sadly, and all she said was, “I’m ready to go now. Come on.” And she took Pearl out of the room.

JO: Did you ever see her again?

PARNELL: No. Her mother sent her away.

JO: But you forgot her? You must have had lots of other girls right quick, right after that.

PARNELL: I never forgot her.

JO: Do you think of her—even when you’re with Loretta?

PARNELL: Not all of the time, Jo. But some of the time—yes.

JO: And if you found her again?

PARNELL: If I found her again—yes, I’d marry her. I’d give her the children I’ve always wanted to have.

JO: Oh, Parnell! If you felt that way about her, if you’ve felt it all this time!

PARNELL: Yes. I know. I’m a renegade white man.

JO: Then Lyle could have felt that way about Old Bill’s wife—about Willa Mae. I know that’s not the way he feels about me. And if he felt that way—he could have shot Old Bill—to keep him quiet!

PARNELL: Jo!

JO: Yes! And if he could have shot Old Bill to keep him quiet—he could have killed that boy. He could have killed that boy. And if he did—well—that is murder, isn’t it? It’s just nothing but murder, even if the boy was black. Oh, Parnell! Parnell!

PARNELL: Jo, please. Please, Jo. Be quiet.

LYLE (Off): What’s all that racket in there?

PARNELL: I’m telling your wife the story of my life.

LYLE (Off): Sounds pretty goddamn active.

PARNELL: You’ve never asked him, have you, Jo?

JO: No. No. No.

PARNELL: Well, I asked him—

JO: When?

PARNELL: Well, I didn’t really ask him. But he said he didn’t do it, that it wasn’t true. You heard him. He wouldn’t lie to me.

JO: No. He wouldn’t lie to you. They say some of the niggers have guns—did you hear that?

PARNELL: Yes. I’ve heard it. But it’s not true.

JO: They wouldn’t lie to you, either? I’ve just had too much time to worry, I guess—brood and worry. Lyle’s away so often nights—he spends so much time at that store. I don’t know what he does there. And when he comes home, he’s just dead—and he drops right off to sleep.

LYLE: Didn’t you ever get like that? Sure, you must have got like that sometimes—just restless! You got everything you need and you can’t complain about nothing—and yet, look like, you just can’t be satisfied. Didn’t you ever get like that? I swear, men is mighty strange! I’m kind of restless now.

PARNELL: What’s the matter with you? You worried about the trial?

LYLE: No, I ain’t worried about the trial. I ain’t even mad at you, Parnell. Some folks think I should be, but I ain’t mad at you. They don’t know you like I know you. I ain’t fooled by all your wild ideas. We both white and we both from around here, and we been buddies all our lives. That’s all that counts. I know you ain’t going to let nothing happen to me.

PARNELL: That’s good to hear.

LYLE: After all the trouble started in this town—but before that crazy boy got himself killed, soon after he got here and started raising all that hell—I started thinking about her, about Willa Mae, more and more and more. She was too young for him. Old Bill, he was sixty if he was a day, he wasn’t doing her no good. Yet and still, the first time I took Willa Mae, I had to fight her. I swear I did. Maybe she was frightened. But I never had to fight her again. No. It was good, boy, let me tell you, and she liked it as much as me. Hey! You still with me?

PARNELL: I’m still with you. Go on.

LYLE: What’s the last thing I said?

PARNELL: That she liked it as much as you—which I find hard to believe.

LYLE: Ha-ha! I’m telling you. I never had it for nobody bad as I had it for her.

PARNELL: When did Old Bill find out?

LYLE: Old Bill? He wouldn’t never have thought nothing if people hadn’t started poisoning his mind. People started talking just because my Daddy wasn’t well and she was up at the house so much because somebody had to look after him. First they said she was carrying on with him. Hell, my Daddy would sure have been willing, but he was far from able. He was really wore out by that time and he just wanted rest. Then people started to saying that it was me.

PARNELL: Old Bill ever talk to you about it?

LYLE: How was he going to talk to me about it? Hell, we was right good friends. Many’s the time I helped Old Bill out when his cash was low. I used to load Willa Mae up with things from the kitchen just to make sure they didn’t go hungry.

PARNELL: Old Bill never mentioned it to you? Never? He never gave you any reason to think he knew about it?

LYLE: Well, I don’t know what was going on in his mind, Parnell. You can’t never see what’s in anybody else’s mind—you know that. He didn’t act no different. Hell, like I say, she was young enough to be his granddaughter damn near, so I figured he thought it might be a pretty good arrangement—me doing his work, ha-ha! because he damn sure couldn’t do it no more, and helping him to stay alive.

PARNELL: Then why was he so mad at you the last time you saw him?

LYLE: Like I said, he accused me of cheating him. And I ain’t never cheated a black man in my life. I hate to say it, because we’ve always been good friends, but sometimes I think it might have been Joel—Papa D.—who told him that. Old Bill wasn’t too good at figuring.

PARNELL: Why would Papa D. tell him a thing like that?

LYLE: I think he might have been a little jealous.

PARNELL: Jealous? You mean, of you and Willa Mae?

LYLE: Yeah. He ain’t really an old man, you know. But I’m sure he didn’t mean—for things to turn out like they did. (A pause) I can still see him—the way he looked when he come into this store.

PARNELL: The way who looked when he came into this store?

LYLE: Why—Old Bill. He looked crazy. Like he wanted to kill me. He did want to kill me. Crazy nigger.

PARNELL: I thought you meant the other one. But the other one didn’t die in the store.

LYLE: Old Bill didn’t die in the store. He died over yonder, in the road.

PARNELL: I thought you were talking about Richard Henry.

LYLE: That crazy boy. Yeah, he come in here. I don’t know what was the matter with him, he hadn’t seen me but one time in his life before. And I treated him like—like I would have treated any man.

PARNELL: I heard about it. It was in Papa D.’s joint. He was surrounded by niggers—or you were—

LYLE: He was dancing with one of them crazy young ones—the real pretty nigger girl—what’s her name?

PARNELL: Juanita.

LYLE: That’s the one. (Juke box music, soft. Voices. Laughter) Yeah. He looked at me like he wanted to kill me. And he insulted my wife. And I hadn’t never done him no harm. (As above, a little stronger) But I been thinking about it. And you know what I think? Hey! You gone to sleep?

PARNELL: No. I’m thinking.

LYLE: What you thinking about?

PARNELL: Us. You and me.

LYLE: And what do you think about us—you and me? What’s the point of thinking about us, anyway? We’ve been buddies all our lives—we can’t stop being buddies now.

PARNELL: That’s right, buddy. What were you about to say?

LYLE: Oh. I think a lot of the niggers in this town, especially the young ones, is turned bad. And I believe they was egging him on.

JO: My, it’s hot! Wish we’d gone for a ride or something. Declare to goodness, we ain’t got no reason to be sitting around this store. Ain’t nobody coming in here—not to buy anything, anyway.

PARNELL: I’ll buy some bubble gum.

JO: You know you don’t chew bubble gum.

PARNELL: Well, then, I’ll buy some cigarettes.

JO: Two cartons, or three? It’s all right, Parnell, the Britten family’s going to make it somehow.

LYLE: Couple of niggers coming down the road. Maybe they’ll drop in for a Coke.

RICHARD: Hey, you want a Coke? I’m thirsty.

LORENZO: Let’s go on a little further.

RICHARD: Man, we been walking for days, my mouth is as dry as that damn dusty road. Come on, have a Coke with me, won’t take but a minute.

LORENZO: We don’t trade in there. Come on—

RICHARD: Oh! Is this the place? Hell, I’d like to get another look at the peckerwood, ain’t going to give him but a dime. I want to get his face fixed in my mind, so there won’t be no time wasted when the time comes, you dig? (Enters the store) Hey, Mrs. Ofay Ednolbay Ydalay! you got any Coca Cola for sale?

JO: What?

RICHARD: Coke! Me and my man been toting barges and lifting bales, that’s right, we been slaving, and we need a little cool. Liquid. Refreshment. Yeah, and you can take that hammer, too.

JO: Boy, what do you want?

RICHARD: A Coca Cola, ma’am. Please ma’am.

JO: They right in the box there.

RICHARD: Thank you kindly. (Takes two Cokes, opens them) Oh, this is fine, fine. Did you put them in this box with your own little dainty dish-pan hands? Sure makes them taste sweet.

JO: Are you talking to me?

RICHARD: No ma’am, just feel like talking to myself from time to time, makes the time pass faster. (At screen door) Hey, Lorenz, I got you a Coke.

LORENZO: I don’t want it. Come on out of there.

JO: That will be twenty cents.

RICHARD: Twenty cents? All right. Don’t you know how to say please? All the women I know say please—of course, they ain’t as pretty as you. I ain’t got twenty cents, ma’am. All I got is—twenty dollars!

JO: You ain’t got nothing smaller?

RICHARD: No ma’am. You see, I don’t never carry on me more cash than I can afford to lose.

JO: Lyle! (Lyle enters, carrying the hammer) You got any change?

LYLE: Change for a twenty? No, you know I ain’t got it.

RICHARD: You all got this big, fine store and all—and you ain’t got change for twenty dollars?

LYLE: It’s early in the day, boy.

RICHARD: It ain’t that early. I thought white folks was rich at every hour of the day.

LYLE: Now, if you looking for trouble, you just might get it. That boy outside—ain’t he got twenty cents?

RICHARD: That boy outside is about twenty-four years old, and he ain’t got twenty cents. Ain’t no need to ask him.

LYLE (At the door): Boy! You got twenty cents?

LORENZO: Come on out of there, Richard! I’m tired of hanging around here!

LYLE: Boy, didn’t you hear what I asked you?

LORENZO: Mister Britten, I ain’t in the store, and I ain’t bought nothing in the store, and so I ain’t got to tell you whether or not I got twenty cents!

RICHARD: Maybe your wife could run home and get some change. You got some change at home, I know. Don’t you?

LYLE: I don’t stand for nobody to talk about my wife.

RICHARD: I only said you was a lucky man to have so fine a wife. I said maybe she could run home and look and see if there was any change—in the home.

LYLE: I seen you before some place. You that crazy nigger. You ain’t from around here.

RICHARD: You know you seen me. And you remember where. And when. I was born right here, in this town. I’m Reverend Meridian Henry’s son.

LYLE: You say that like you thought your Daddy’s name was some kind of protection. He ain’t no protection against me—him, nor that boy outside, neither.

RICHARD: I don’t need no protection, do I? Not in my own home town, in the good old USA. I just dropped by to sip on a Coke in a simple country store—and come to find out the joker ain’t got enough bread to change twenty dollars. Stud ain’t got nothing—you people been spoofing the public, man.

LYLE: You put them Cokes down and get out of here.

RICHARD: I ain’t finished yet. And I ain’t changed my bill yet.

LYLE: Well, I ain’t going to change that bill, and you ain’t going to finish them Cokes. You get your black ass out of here—go on! If you got any sense, you’ll get your black ass out of this town.

RICHARD: You don’t own this town, you white mother-fucker. You don’t even own twenty dollars. Don’t you raise that hammer. I’ll take it and beat your skull to jelly.

JO: Lyle! Don’t you fight that boy! He’s crazy! I’m going to call the Sheriff! (Starts toward the back, returns to counter) The baby! Lyle! Watch out for the baby!

RICHARD: A baby, huh? How many times did you have to try for it, you no-good, ball-less peckerwood? I’m surprised you could even get it up—look at the way you sweating now.

LYLE: It took two of you. Remember that.

LORENZO: I didn’t lay a hand on you, Mister Britten. You just ain’t no match for—a boy. Not without your gun you ain’t. Come on, Richard.

JO: You’ll go to jail for this! You’ll go to jail! For years!

LORENZO: We’ve been in jail for years. I’ll leave your hammer over at Papa D.’s joint—don’t look like you’re going to be doing no more work today.

RICHARD (Laughs): Look at the mighty peckerwood! On his ass, baby—and his woman watching! Now, who you think is the better man? Ha-ha! The master race! You let me in that tired white chick’s drawers, she’ll know who’s the master! Ha-ha-ha!

PARNELL: Was he lying face down?

LYLE: Hell, yeah, he was face down. Said so in the papers.

PARNELL: Is that what the papers said? I don’t remember.

LYLE: Yeah, that’s what the papers said.

PARNELL: I guess they had to turn him over—to make sure it was him.

LYLE: I reckon. (Laughs) Yeah. I reckon.

PARNELL: You and me are buddies, huh?

LYLE: Yeah, we’re buddies—to the end!

PARNELL: I always wondered why you wanted to be my buddy. A lot of poor guys hate rich guys. I always wondered why you weren’t like that.

LYLE: I ain’t like that. Hell, Parnell, you’re smarter than me. I know it. I used to wonder what made you smarter than me. I got to be your buddy so I could find out. Because, hell, you didn’t seem so different in other ways—in spite of all your ideas. Two things we always had in common—liquor and poon-tang. We couldn’t get enough of neither one. Of course, your liquor might have been a little better. But I doubt if the other could have been any better!

PARNELL: Did you find out what made me smarter?

LYLE: Yeah. You richer!

PARNELL: I’m richer! That’s all you got to tell me—about Richard Henry?

LYLE: Ain’t nothing more to tell. Wait till after the trial. You won’t have to ask me no more questions then!

PARNELL: I’ve got to get to the funeral.

LYLE: Don’t run off. Don’t leave me here alone.

PARNELL: You’re supposed to be home for supper.

LYLE: Supper can wait. Have another drink with me—be my buddy. Don’t leave me here alone. Listen to them! Singing and praying! Singing and praying and laughing behind a man’s back!

MERIDIAN: My heart is heavier tonight than it has ever been before. I raise my voice to you tonight out of a sorrow and a wonder I have never felt before. Not only I, my Lord, am in this case. Everyone under the sound of my voice, and many more souls than that, feel as I feel, and tremble as I tremble, and bleed as I bleed. It is not that the days are dark—we have known dark days. It is not only that the blood runs down and no man helps us; it is not only that our children are destroyed before our eyes. It is not only that our lives, from day to day and every hour of each day, are menaced by the people among whom you have set us down. We have borne all these things, my Lord, and we have done what the prophets of old could not do, we have sung the Lord’s song in a strange land. In a strange land! What was the sin committed by our forefathers in the time that has vanished on the other side of the flood, which has had to be expiated by chains, by the lash, by hunger and thirst, by slaughter, by fire, by the rope, by the knife, and for so many generations, on these wild shores, in this strange land? Our offense must have been mighty, our crime immeasurable. But it is not the past which makes our hearts so heavy. It is the present. Lord, where is our hope? Who, or what, shall touch the hearts of this headlong and unthinking people and turn them back from destruction? When will they hear the words of John? I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would that thou wert cold or hot. So, then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Now, when the children come, my Lord, and ask which road to follow, my tongue stammers and my heart fails. I will not abandon the land—this strange land, which is my home. But can I ask the children forever to sustain the cruelty inflicted on them by those who have been their masters, and who are now, in very truth, their kinfolk, their brothers and their sisters and their parents? What hope is there for a people who deny their deeds and disown their kinsmen and who do so in the name of purity and love, in the name of Jesus Christ? What a light, my Lord, is needed to conquer so mighty a darkness! This darkness rules in us, and grows, in black and white alike. I have set my face against the darkness, I will not let it conquer me, even though it will, I know, one day, destroy this body. But, my Lord, what of the children? What shall I tell the children? I must be with you, Lord, like Jacob, and wrestle with you until the light appears—I will not let you go until you give me a sign! A sign that in the terrible Sahara of our time a fountain may spring, the fountain of a true morality, and bring us closer, oh, my Lord, to that peace on earth desired by so few throughout so many ages. Let not our suffering endure forever. Teach us to trust the great gift of life and learn to love one another and dare to walk the earth like men. Amen.

MOTHER HENRY: Let’s file up, children, and say goodbye.

JUANITA: What’s the matter, Parnell? You look sick.

PARNELL: I tried to come sooner. I couldn’t get away. Lyle wouldn’t let me go.

JUANITA: Were you trying to beat a confession out of him? But you look as though he’s been trying to beat a confession out of you. Poor Parnell!

PARNELL: Poor Lyle! He’ll never confess. Never. Poor devil!

JUANITA: Poor devil! You weep for Lyle. You’re luckier than I am. I can’t weep in front of others. I can’t say goodbye in front of others. Others don’t know what it is you’re saying goodbye to.

PARNELL: You loved him.

JUANITA: Yes.

PARNELL: I didn’t know.

JUANITA: Ah, you’re so lucky, Parnell. I know you didn’t know. Tell me, where do you live, Parnell? How can you not know all of the things you do not know?

PARNELL: Why are you hitting out at me? I never thought you cared that much about me. But—oh, Juanita! There are so many things I’ve never been able to say!

JUANITA: There are so many things you’ve never been able to hear.

PARNELL: And—you’ve tried to tell me some of those things?

JUANITA: I used to watch you roaring through this town like a St. George thirsty for dragons. And I wanted to let you know you haven’t got to do all that; dragons aren’t hard to find, they’re everywhere. And nobody wants you to be St. George. We just want you to be Parnell. But, of course, that’s much harder.

PARNELL: Are we friends, Juanita? Please say that we’re friends.

JUANITA: Friends is not exactly what you mean, Parnell. Tell the truth.

PARNELL: Yes. I’ve always wanted more than that, from you. But I was afraid you would misunderstand me. That you would feel that I was only trying to exploit you. In another way.

JUANITA: You’ve been a grown man for a long time now, Parnell. You ought to trust yourself more than that.

PARNELL: I’ve been a grown man far too long—ever to have dared to dream of offering myself to you.

JUANITA: Your age was never the question, Parnell.

PARNELL: Was there ever any question at all?

JUANITA: Yes. Yes. Yes, once there was.

PARNELL: And there isn’t—there can’t be—anymore?

JUANITA: No. That train has gone. One day, I’ll recover. I’m sure that I’ll recover. And I’ll see the world again—the marvelous world. And I’ll have learned from Richard—how to love. I must. I can’t let him die for nothing.

ACT II