Blues for Mister Charlie Page 5

  PARNELL: That can’t have anything to do with it, it can’t. We must forget about all—all the past injustice. We have to start from scratch, or do our best to start from scratch. It isn’t vengeance we’re after. Is it?

  MERIDIAN: I don’t want vengeance. I don’t want to be paid back—anyway, I couldn’t be. I just want Lyle to be made to know that what he did was evil. I just want this town to be forced to face the evil that it countenances and to turn from evil and do good. That’s why I’ve stayed in this town so long!

  PARNELL: But if Lyle didn’t do it? Lyle is a friend of mine—a strange friend, but a friend. I love him. I know how he suffers.

  MERIDIAN: How does he suffer?

  PARNELL: He suffers—from being in the dark-from having things inside him that he can’t name and can’t face and can’t control. He’s not a wicked man. I know he’s not, I’ve known him almost all his life! The face he turns to you, Meridian, isn’t the face he turns to me.

  MERIDIAN: Is the face he turns to you more real than the face he turns to me? You go ask him if he killed my son.

  PARNELL: They’re going to ask him that in court. That’s why I fought to bring about this trial. And he’ll say no.

  MERIDIAN: I don’t care what he says in court. You go ask him. If he’s your friend, he’ll tell you the truth.

  PARNELL: No. No, he may not. He’s—he’s maybe a little afraid of me.

  MERIDIAN: If you’re his friend, you’ll know whether he’s telling you the truth or not. Go ask him.

  PARNELL: I can’t do it. I’m his friend. I can’t betray him.

  MERIDIAN: But you can betray me? You are a white man, aren’t you? Just another white man—after all.

  PARNELL: Even if he says yes, it won’t make any difference. The jury will never convict him.

  MERIDIAN: Is that why you fought to bring about the trial? I don’t care what the jury does. I know he won’t say yes to them. He won’t say yes to me. But he might say yes to you. You say we don’t know. Well, I’ve got a right to know. And I’ve got the right to ask you to find out—since you’re the only man who can find out. And I’ve got to find out—whether we’ve been friends all these years, or whether I’ve just been your favorite Uncle Tom.

  PARNELL: You know better than that.

  MERIDIAN: I don’t know, Parnell, any longer—any of the things I used to know. Maybe I never knew them. I’m tired. Go home.

  PARNELL: You don’t trust me anymore, do you, Meridian?

  MERIDIAN: Maybe I never trusted you. I don’t know. Maybe I never trusted myself. Go home. Leave me alone. I must look back at my record.

  PARNELL: Meridian—what you ask—I don’t know if I can do it for you.

  MERIDIAN: I don’t want you to do it for me. I want you to do it for you. Good night.

  PARNELL: Good night.

  (Parnell exits. Meridian comes downstage. It is dawn.)

  MERIDIAN: My record! Would God—would God—would God I had died for thee—my son, my son!

  Curtain

  END OF ACT ONE

  ACT II

  WHITETOWN. The kitchen of LYLE’s house. Sunday morning. Church bells. A group of white people, all ages, men and women.

  Jo and an older woman, HAZEL, have just taken a cake out of the oven. HAZEL sets it out to cool.

  HAZEL: It’s a shame—having to rush everything this way. But it can’t be helped.

  JO: Yes. I’m just so upset. I can’t help it. I know it’s silly. I know they can’t do nothing to Lyle.

  HAZEL: Girl, you just put all those negative thoughts right out of your mind. We’re going to have your little anniversary celebration tonight instead of tomorrow night because we have reason to believe that tomorrow night your husband might be called away on business. Now, you think about it that way. Don’t you go around here with a great long face, trying to demoralize your guests. I won’t have it. You too young and pretty for that.

  LILLIAN: Hallelujah! I do believe that I have finally mastered this recipe.

  SUSAN: Oh, good! Let me see.

  LILLIAN: I’ve only tried it once before, and it’s real hard. You’ve got to time it just right.

  SUSAN: I have tried it and tried it and it never comes out! But yours is wonderful! We’re going to eat tonight, folks!

  RALPH: You supposed to be cooking something, too, ain’t you?

  SUSAN: I’m cooking our contribution later, at our own house. We got enough women here already, messing up Jo’s kitchen.

  JO: I’m just so glad you all come by I don’t know what to do. Just go ahead and mess up that kitchen, I got lots of time to clean it.

  ELLIS: Susan’s done learned how to cook, huh?

  RALPH: Oh, yeah, she’s a right fine cook. All you got to do is look at me. I never weighed this much in my life.

  ELLIS: Old Lyle’s done gained weight in this year, too. Nothing like steady home cooking, I guess, ha-ha! It really don’t seem like it was a year ago you two got married. Declare, I never thought Lyle was going to jump up and do that thing. But old Jo, here, she hooked him.

  REV. PHELPS: Well, I said the words over them, and if I ever saw a happy man in my life, it was Big Lyle Britten that day. Both of them—there was just a light shining out of them.

  GEORGE: I’d propose a toast to them, if it wasn’t so early on a Sunday, and if the Reverend wasn’t here.

  REV. PHELPS: Ain’t nothing wrong with toasting happy people, no matter what the day or hour.

  ELLIS: You heard the Reverend! You got anything in this house we can drink to your happiness in, Mrs. Britten?

  JO: I’m pretty sure we do. It’s a pity Lyle ain’t up yet. He ain’t never slept through this much racket before.

  ELLIS: No ma’am, he ain’t never been what you’d call a heavy sleeper. Not before he passed out, ha-ha! We used to have us some times together, him and me, before he got him some sense and got married.

  GEORGE: Let him sleep easy. He ain’t got no reason not to.

  JO: Lyle’s always got his eye on the ball, you know—and he’s just been at that store, night after night after night, drawing up plans and taking inventory and I don’t know what all—because, come fall, he’s planning to branch out and have a brand new store, just about. You all won’t recognize the place, I guarantee you!

  ELLIS: Lyle’s just like his Daddy. You can’t beat him. The harder a thing is, well, the surer you can be that old Lyle Britten will do it. Why, Lyle’s Daddy never got old—never! He was drinking and running after women—and getting them, too!—until just before they put him in his grave. I could tell you stories about the old man, boy—of course, I can’t tell them now, on a Sunday morning, in front of all these women!

  JO: Here you are, gentlemen. I hope you all drink bourbon.

  RALPH: Listen to her!

  GEORGE: Ladies! Would you all like to join us in a morning toast to the happy and beloved and loving couple, Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Britten, on the day immediately preceding their first wedding anniversary?

  ELLIS: The bridegroom ain’t here because he’s weary from all his duties, both public and private. Ha-ha! But he’s a good man, and he’s done a lot for us, and I know you all know what I’m talking about, and I just feel like we should honor him and his lovely young wife. Ladies! Come on, Reverend Phelps says it’s all right.

  SUSAN: Not too much for me, Ralph.

  LILLIAN: I don’t think I’ve ever had a drink at this hour of a Sunday morning, and in the presence of my pastor!

  (They pour, drink, and sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”)

  HAZEL: Now you’ve started her to crying, naturally. Here, honey, you better have a little drink yourself.

  JO: You all have been so wonderful. I can’t imagine how Lyle can go on sleeping. Thank you, Hazel. Here’s to all of you! (Drinks) Listen. They’re singing over there now.

  (They listen.)

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

  ELLIS: What’s happ
ened 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 enters.)

  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.

  (A pause)

  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?<
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  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.