(The lights come up on the jitney station, early afternoon. BECKER sits at his desk reading a newspaper. TURNBO sits downstage of him, reading a Playboy magazine. He holds the magazine up for BECKER to see.)
TURNBO
Look at this one, Becker.
(BECKER barely looks up.)
BECKER
Yeah.
TURNBO
Boy, what a man wouldn’t do with that! If I get up to heaven and she ain’t there, I’m gonna ask God to send me straight to hell.
(YOUNGBLOOD enters.)
YOUNGBLOOD
Turnbo, give me my thirty cents.
TURNBO
What thirty cents you talking about?
YOUNGBLOOD
For the coffee. You know what I’m talking about.
(TURNBO motions to the coffee on the stove.)
TURNBO
There it is. I ain’t touched it. That’s your coffee.
YOUNGBLOOD
I know you better give me my thirty cents.
Boy, I ain’t studying you.
YOUNGBLOOD (in disbelief)
You asked me to get you some coffee and now you ain’t gonna pay me?
BECKER
Give the man his money, Turnbo.
TURNBO
I ain’t giving him nothing.
BECKER
I ain’t gonna have that dissension in here. Give the man his money!
(TURNBO goes into his pocket.)
TURNBO
Here. Here’s your thirty cents.
(He throws it on the floor. YOUNGBLOOD crosses and stands over TURNBO, angry.)
YOUNGBLOOD
Pick it up!
TURNBO
It’s yours. You pick it up.
YOUNGBLOOD
I ain’t threw it down there.
TURNBO
Well, let it lay there then. I’m through with it.
(TURNBO goes back to reading his magazine. YOUNGBLOOD backs off.)
YOUNGBLOOD
Well, let it lay there then. But before this day is over you gonna pick up my thirty cents.
(TURNBO suddenly jumps up and picks up the money.)
Here! Here! Here’s your thirty cents. You satisfied?
(They stare at each other for a beat. The phone rings, and YOUNGBLOOD moves to answer it. TURNBO moves behind him.)
TURNBO
That’s my trip!
BECKER
You know that’s his trip, Turnbo.
TURNBO
I thought he just come back from a trip.
YOUNGBLOOD
(into phone) Car service.
BECKER
He had to go downtown to take care of some business. You know everything else I’m surprised you didn’t know that.
YOUNGBLOOD
Yeah, okay. Red Chevy.
(YOUNGBLOOD exits.)
TURNBO
That boy ain’t got good sense.
BECKER
If you leave it to you, ain’t nobody got no sense.
TURNBO
They ain’t! What sense it make for that McNeil boy to steal his grandmama’s television? What sense it make for Shealy’s nephew to break in Taylor’s bar? What sense it make for that boy to run with his girlfriend’s sister? Half these niggers around here running on empty and that boy at the top of the list.
(BECKER throws the newspaper down on the sofa and starts for the door.)
BECKER
Turnbo, sometimes you act like a kid. If Lucille call tell her I’m picking up the groceries. If you pass a car wash you might want to stop in and get your car washed. What sense it make to haul people around in a dirty car?
(BECKER exits. TURNBO goes back to reading his magazine. The phone rings.)
TURNBO (into phone)
Car service. Youngblood? He ain’t here. Who’s this? Peaches? (pause) Yeah, I thought that was you. Naw, Youngblood ain’t here. Is there anything you want me to tell him? (pause) Pick you up at four o’clock instead of three. Okay I’ll tell him.
(He hangs up the phone. RENA enters.)
RENA
Mr. Turnbo, Darnell around here?
TURNBO
He went on a trip.
RENA
He say when he’s coming back?
TURNBO
He’ll be back in a minute. You may as well wait on him. How you doing? You don’t come by too much no more. I remember you used to come by and see Youngblood … get some money to buy the baby some milk. He getting big I bet. How old is he now?
RENA
Two. Going on three. Running around, trying to talk.
TURNBO
Time just keep going. It don’t wait on nobody. Everything change. I remember when you was wearing diapers. Your mother did a good job of raising you. You can tell that right off. Your mother can be proud of you. It ain’t easy these days to raise a child. I don’t know what’s in these young boys’ heads. Seem like they don’t respect nobody. They don’t even respect themselves. When I was coming along that was the first thing you learned. If you didn’t respect yourself … quite naturally you couldn’t respect nobody else. When I was coming along the more respect you had for other people … the more people respected you. Seem like it come back to you double.
These young boys don’t know nothing about that … and it’s gonna take them a lifetime to find out. They disrespect everybody and don’t think nothing about it. They steal their own grandmother’s television. Get hold of one woman … time another one walk by they grab hold to her. Don’t even care who it is. It could be anybody. I just try to live and let live. My grandmother was like that. She the one raised me. She didn’t care what nobody else done as long as it didn’t cross her path. She was a good woman. She taught me most everything I know. She wouldn’t let you lie. That was just about the worst thing you could be. A liar didn’t know the truth and wasn’t never gonna find out. And everybody know it’s the truth what set you free. Now I ain’t trying to get in your business or nothing. Like I say I just live and let live. But some things just come up on you wrong and you have to say something about it otherwise it throw your whole life off balance.
I know you don’t want to hear this … but you don’t need no hot-headed young boy like Youngblood. What you need is somebody level-headed who know how to respect and appreciate a woman … I can see the kind of woman you is. You ain’t the kind of woman for Youngblood and he ain’t the kind of man for you. You need a more mature … responsible man.
RENA
I don’t think so.
TURNBO
You just wait awhile. You’ll see that I’m right. I done seen many a young girl wake up when it’s too late. Don’t you be like that. You go on and find yourself a man that know how to treat you. You don’t need nobody run the streets all hours of the day and night. You ain’t that kind of woman.
RENA
Darnell don’t run the streets. I don’t know what you talking about.
TURNBO
Oh, I see him … running around with other women. I see him with your sister all the time. (The phone rings.) Day and night.
RENA
Your phone’s ringing.
I ain’t trying to get in your business now. I’m telling you this for your own good. If you was some other kind of woman, I wouldn’t be wasting my time.
RENA
I got to go. Tell Darnell I was by to see him.
(RENA exits. TURNBO goes to answer the phone.)
TURNBO
(into phone) Car service. (pause) Becker? Oh, hello Lucille. He’s not here right now. He said to tell you he was going to pick up some groceries. Okay, I’ll tell him.
(He hangs up the phone as DOUB enters.)
DOUB
Fielding been back here?
TURNBO
I ain’t seen him. I told you he laid up somewhere drunk on your four dollars. You ain’t gonna see him till he sober.
(YOUNGBLOOD enters.)
YOUNGBLOOD
Man, these white folks is slick. (The phone rings.) They think of all kind of ways to get your money.
DOUB
If you just now finding that out … then God help what you don’t know.
(RENA enters.)
RENA
Darnell, I want to see you.
YOUNGBLOOD
What you want to see me about. I’m working, woman. I told you about coming by my work.
DOUB
Your trip, Turnbo.
TURNBO
Naw it ain’t!
I just come back, nigger take this trip!
(TURNBO reluctantly takes the phone.)
TURNBO
Car service. (pause) Okay. Brown car. You be ready now, cause I ain’t gonna wait.
(TURNBO hangs up and exits, followed by DOUB.)
RENA
Darnell, I don’t understand. I try so hard. I’m doing everything I can to try and make this work.
YOUNGBLOOD
What? What’s the matter?
RENA
I’m working my little job down there at the restaurant … going to school … trying to take care of Jesse … trying to take care of your needs … trying to keep the house together … trying to make everything better. Now, I come home from work I got to go to the store. I go upstairs and look in the drawer and the food money is gone. Now you explain that to me. There was eighty dollars in the drawer that ain’t in there now.
YOUNGBLOOD
I needed it. I’m gonna put it back.
RENA
What you need it for? You tell me. What’s more important than me and Jesse eating?
YOUNGBLOOD
I had to pay a debt. I’m gonna put it back.
RENA
You know I don’t touch the grocery money. Whatever happens we got to eat. If I need clothes … I do without. My little personal stuff … I do without. If I ain’t got no electricity … I do without … but I don’t never touch the grocery money. Cause I’m not gonna be that irresponsible to my child. Cause he depend on me. I’m not going to be that irresponsible to my family. I ain’t gonna be like that. Jesse gonna have a chance at life. He ain’t going to school hungry cause I spent the grocery money on some nail polish or some Afro Sheen. He ain’t gonna be laying up in the bed hungry and unable to sleep cause his daddy took the grocery money to pay a debt.
YOUNGBLOOD
Aw, woman I try and do what’s right and this is what I get.
RENA
You know what you be doing better than I but whatever it is it ain’t enough.
YOUNGBLOOD
What you talking about now? I told you I’m gonna put the money back.
RENA
It ain’t all about the money, Darnell. I’m talking about the way you been doing. You ain’t never home no more.
YOUNGBLOOD
I be working. You know I’m out here hustling. I got two jobs looking for three.
RENA
You be out half the night. I wake up and you ain’t there.
YOUNGBLOOD
That’s what time the people say come to work! Two A.M. to six A.M. I can’t tell UPS what to do! What time to have people come to work. I told you that when I took the job. I told you that I wouldn’t be home. You said okay. Now you wanna come with this about me not being home. You know where I’m at.
RENA
You say you working at UPS but I don’t never see no UPS money.
YOUNGBLOOD
I had some debts to pay. I told you that too. I told you I wouldn’t see no money for awhile.
RENA
What kind of debt?
Look baby, just hang with me awhile. That’s all I ask. Just for a minute.
RENA
I been hanging with you! That’s what you said last time. “Hang with me and it’ll all turn around.” When’s it gonna turn around, Darnell?
YOUNGBLOOD
Soon, baby. Soon. Just hang with me.
RENA
I just want you to know I ain’t no fool, Darnell. I know you been running around with Peaches and her crowd all hours of the night. Doing whatever you be doing. I may not know everything but I know something’s going on. I know you all doing something.
YOUNGBLOOD
Who told you that? Me and Peaches doing what?
RENA
She’s my sister, Darnell. Don’t you think I can tell she’s trying to hide something from me.
YOUNGBLOOD
Hide what? What you talking about? Hide what? What she trying to hide?
RENA
Ain’t no need in you bothering to come home cause I just might not be there when you get there.
(RENA exits. The phone rings. YOUNGBLOOD starts to go after her, changes his mind and comes back and stands in the middle of the room perplexed. Suddenly he takes his notebook from his pocket and throws it on the floor. He regains his composure, picks up the book and exits. BECKER enters on the fourth ring.)
BECKER (into phone)
Car service. (pause) Shealy don’t work here!
(BECKER slams the phone down as DOUB enters.)
I was just talking to Clifford next door. He say the man is gonna board his place up next month.
BECKER
Yeah, I know. The man from the city was by here two weeks ago, too. They’re gonna tear it all down, this whole block.
DOUB
The man was by here and you ain’t told nobody! What he say?
BECKER
They’re gonna board the place up first of next month.
DOUB
Why in the hell didn’t you tell somebody!
BECKER
I’m telling you now.
DOUB
Fine time to tell me, two weeks later. It ain’t like that’s a small piece of news. I got rent to pay. Doctor bills. Every man in here depending on this station for their livelihood. The city’s gonna board it up … you’ve known for two weeks … and you ain’t bothered to get around to telling nobody. That ain’t like you Becker. What we gonna do now? In the two weeks we got.
BECKER
I don’t know. I kinda figured we’d all just go in together somewhere else. Find another place. But I don’t know now. I’m just tired, Doub. Can’t hardly explain it none. You look up one day and all you got left is what you ain’t spent. Everyday cost you something and you don’t all the time realize it.
I used to question God about everything. Why he hardened Pharaoh’s heart? Why he let Jacob steal his brother’s birthright? After Coreen died I told myself I wasn’t gonna ask no more questions. Cause the answers didn’t matter. They didn’t matter right then. I thought that would change but it never did. It still don’t matter after all these years. It don’t look like it’s never gonna matter. I’m tired of waiting for God to decide whether he want to hold my hand. I been running cars out of here for eighteen years and I think I’m just tired of driving.
I been with you for twelve of them eighteen years and I would have thought you would have told me we was gonna have to move cause they boarding up the station.
BECKER
I’m telling you now.
DOUB
That ain’t what I mean, Becker. It’s like you just a shadow of yourself. The station done gone downhill. Some people overcharge. Some people don’t haul. Fielding stay drunk. I just watch you and you don’t do nothing.
BECKER
What’s to be done? I try to keep cars running out of here and keep everybody happy. I post the rates up on the board. If somebody charge extra and people complain, I give them the difference and tell the driver about it. I ain’t gonna put nobody out unless they totally irresponsible. As for Fielding, I don’t let him drink in here, but I can’t tell the man about his personal business unless people start to complain.
DOUB
Complain? Hell, they don’t do no complaining. They just call somebody else. Somebody ask them for a number, they don’t give them Court 1-9802. They give them somebody else’s number. Complain? You think they’re gonna call you up and complain? Nigger, they don’t even know you’re alive.
BECKER
I just do the best I can do.
DOUB
Sometime your best ain’t enough.
(TURNBO enters.)
DOUB
Turnbo, they boarding up the station the first of the month. Becker talking about quitting, so we ought to start thinking about moving somewhere or getting on with somebody else.
TURNBO
Who’s boarding up the station?
The city. They fixing to tear down the whole block. Clifford and everybody done got their notices. The man was by here two weeks ago.
TURNBO
So that’s what they was doing! I seen them snooping around here. Told me they was conducting a survey. Well, what we gonna do? Becker, you quitting?
BECKER
I ain’t said I was quitting.
DOUB
That’s what you told me.
BECKER
I said I was thinking about it.
(The phone rings.)
DOUB
We ought to have a meeting and figure out one way or another what we gonna do.
TURNBO
They never could leave well enough alone.
(TURNBO answers the phone.)
Car service. (pause) Oh hello Lucille, he’s here. Just a minute. Becker!
(He hands BECKER the phone.)
They won’t be satisfied until they tear the whole goddamn neighborhood down!
BECKER
(into phone) Becker here. (pause) Yeah, I know, Lucille. (pause) Tomorrow? I thought it wasn’t until next month. Who called? (pause) Are you sure? (pause) Yeah, well okay. I’ll talk to you.
(BECKER hangs up the phone.)
TURNBO
They gonna board up the place tomorrow!
BECKER
My boy’s getting out tomorrow.
(The lights go down on the scene.)