Blues for Mister Charlie Page 7

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 enters, carrying the child.)

  Hi, honey. What a transformation. You look like you used to look when you come courting.

  LYLE: I sure didn’t come courting carrying no baby. He was awake, just singing away, and carrying on with his toes. He acts like he thinks he’s got a whole lot of candy attached to the end of his legs. Here. It’s about time for him to eat, ain’t it? How come you looking at me like that? Why you being so nice to me, all of a sudden?

  PARNELL: I’ve been lecturing her on the duties of a wife.

  LYLE: That so? Well, come on, boy, let’s you and me walk down the road a piece. Believe I’ll buy you a drink. You ain’t ashamed to be seen with me, I hope?

  PARNELL: No, I’m not ashamed to be seen with you.

  JO: You going to be home for supper?

  LYLE: Yeah, sugar. Come on, Parnell.

  JO: You come, too, Parnell, you and Loretta, if you’re free. We’d love to have you.

  PARNELL: We’ll try to make it. So long, Jo.

  JO: So long.

  (They exit Jo walks to the window. Turns back into the room, smiles down at the baby. Sings.)

  Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,

  Mama’s going to buy you a mocking bird—

  But you don’t want no mocking bird right now, do you? I know what you want. You want something to eat. All right, Mama’s going to feed you.

  (Sits, slowly begins to unbutton her blouse. Sings.)

  If that mocking bird don’t sing,

  Mama’s going to buy you a diamond ring.

  (LYLE’S STORE: Early evening. Both Lyle and Parnell are a little drunk.)

  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.

  (A pause. The music stops.)

  He come in here one Monday afternoon. Everybody heard about it, it was all over this town quicker’n a jack-rabbit gets his nuts off. You just missed it. You’d just walked out of here.

  (Lyle rises, walks to the doors and opens them. Sunlight fills the room. He slams the screen doors shut; we see the road.)

  JO (Off): Lyle, you want to help me bring this baby carriage inside? It’s getting kind of hot out here now.

  PARNELL: Let
me.

  (Lyle and Parnell bring in the baby carriage. Jo enters.)

  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.

  (Exits, into back of store.)

  JO: Why, no, they won’t. Our Cokes is poisoned. I get up every morning before daybreak and drop the arsenic in myself.

  PARNELL: Well, then, I won’t have a Coke. See you, Jo. So long, Lyle!

  LYLE (Off): Be seeing you!

  (Parnell exits. Silence for a few seconds. Then we hear Lyle hammering in the back. Jo picks up a magazine, begins to read. Voices. Richard and Lorenzo appear in the road.)

  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 raises the hammer. Richard grabs his arm, forcing it back. They struggle.)

  JO: Lyle! The baby!

  LORENZO: Richard!

  (He comes into the store.)

  JO: Please get that boy out of here, get that boy out of here—he’s going to get himself killed.

  (Richard knocks the hammer from Lyle’s hand, and knocks Lyle down. The hammer spins across the room. Lorenzo picks it up.)

  LORENZO: I don’t think your husband’s going to kill no more black men. Not today, Mrs. Britten. Come on, Richard. Let’s go.

  (Lyle looks up at them.)

  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!

  (Exits. Richard’s laughter continues in the dark. Lyle and Parnell as before.)

  LYLE: Niggers was laughing at me for days. Everywhere I went.

  PARNELL: You never did call the Sheriff.

  LYLE: No.

  (Parnell fills their glasses. We hear singing.)

  PARNELL: It’s almost time for his funeral.

  LYLE: And may every nigger like that nigger end like that nigger—face down in the weeds!

  (A pause.)

  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!

  (The singing continues in the dark, BLACKTOWN: The church, packed. Meridian in the pulpit, the bier just below him.)

  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.