The Piano Lesson August Wilson "Stupendous ... rich and resonant." —Washingt "Feisty, ebullient, exuberant ... Wilson is a consummate storyteller." —Los Angeles f In his second Pulitzer Prize winner, August Wilson a haunting and dramatic work. At the heart of th stands the ornately carved upright piano that h gathering dust in the parlor of Berniece Charles br Pittsburgh home. When Boy Willie, her exuberant sam bursts into her life with his dreams of buying the slaves, Mississippi land that their family had worked as s plans to sell their antique piano for The cash he need clingin stake his future. Berniece refuses to sell, though, the piano as a reminder of the history that is their family legacy. AUTHOR OF FENCES AND MA RAINEY S BLACK BOTTOM AUGUST WILSON Tie pima LeSSON "Heart-stopping.... The play's real music is in the language....Mr. Wilson's most virtuosic writing to date." --THE NEW YORK TIMES WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR DRAMA E•V•E•R•B-PN•D Lodi, N.I 07644 • 800-842-4234 www.everbind.com ACT rI NE SCENE 1 (The lights come up on the Charles household. It is five o'clock in the morning. The dawn is beginning to announce itself, but there is something in the air that belongs to the night. A stillness that is a portent, a gathering, a coming together of something akin to a storm. There is a loud knock at the door.) (Off stage, calling.) Hey, Doaker . . . Doaker! (He knocks again and calls.) Hey, Doaker! Hey, Berniece! Berniece! (DOAKER enters from his room. He is a tall, thin man of forty-seven, with severe features, who has for all intents and purposes retired from the world though he works full-time as a railroad cook.) DOAKER: Who is it? BOY WILLIE: Open the door, nigger! It's me . . . Boy Willie! BOY WILLIE: DOAKER: Who? Boy Willie! Open the door! (DOAKER opens the door and BOY WILLIE and LYMON enter. BOY WILLIE is thirty years old. He has an infectious grin and a boyishness that is apt for his name. He is brash and impulsive, talkative and somewhat BOY WILLIE: 2 • ACT ONE, THE PIANO LESSON crude in speech and manner. LYMON is twenty-nine. BOY WILLIE's partner, he talks little, and then with a straightforwardness that is often disarming.) DOAKER: What you doing up here? BOY WILLIE: I told you, Lymon. Lymon talking about you might be sleep. This is Lymon. You remember Lymon Jackson from down home? This my Uncle Doaker. DOAKER: What you doing up here? I couldn't figure out who that was. I thought you was still down in Mississippi. BOY WILLIE: Me and Lymon selling watermelons. We got a truck out there. Got a whole truckload of watermelons. We brought them up here to sell. Where's Berniece? (Calls.) Hey, Berniece! DOAKER: Berniece up there sleep. BOY WILLIE: Well, let her get up. (Calls.) Hey, Berniece! DOAKER: She got to go to work in the morning. BOY WILLIE: Well she can get up and say hi. It's been three years since I seen her. (Calls.) Hey, Berniece! It's me . . . Boy Willie. DOAKER: Berniece don't like all that hollering now. She got to work in the morning. BOY WILLIE: She can go on back to bed. Me and Lymon been riding two days in that truck . . . the least she can do is get up and say hi. DOAKER: (Looking out the window.) Where you all get that truck from? BOY WILLIE: It's Lymon's. I told him let's get a load of watermelons and bring them up here. Scene 1 • 3 Boy Willie say he going back, but I'm gonna stay. See what it's like up here. BOY WILLIE: You gonna carry me down there first. LYMON: I told you I ain't going back down there and take a chance on that truck breaking down again. You can take the train. Hey, tell him Doaker, he can take the train back. After we sell them watermelons he have enough money he can buy him a whole railroad car. DOAKER: You got all them watermelons stacked up there no wonder the truck broke down. I'm surprised you made it this far with a load like that. Where you break down at? BOY WILLIE: We broke down three times! It took us two and a half days to get here. It's a good thing we picked them watermelons fresh. LYMON: We broke down twice in West Virginia. The first time was just as soon as we got out of Sunflower. About forty miles out she broke down. We got it going and got all the way to West Virginia before she broke down again. BOY WILLIE: We had to walk about five miles for some water. LYMON: It got a hole in the radiator but it runs pretty good. You have to pump the brakes sometime before they catch. Boy Willie have his door open and be ready to jump when that happens. BOY WILLIE: Lymon think that's funny. I told the nigger I give him ten dollars to get the brakes fixed. But he thinks that funny. LYMON: They don't need fixing. All you got to do is pump them till they catch. (BERNIECE enters on the stairs. Thirty-five years old, with an eleven-year-old daughter, she is still in mourning for her husband after three years.) LYMON: • 4 • THE PIANO LESSON BERNIECE: What you doing all that hollering for? BOY WILLIE: Hey, Berniece. Doaker said you was sleep. I said at least you could get up and say hi. BERNIECE: It's five o'clock in the morning and you come in here with all this noise. You can't come like normal folks. You got to bring all that noise with you. BOY WILLIE: Hell, I ain't done nothing but come in and say ACT ONE, Scene 1 • 5 BOY WILLIE: wILLIE: About three weeks ago. Me and Lymon was over in Stoner County when we heard about it. We laughed. We thought it was funny. A great big old threehundred-and-forty-pound man gonna fall down his well. LYMON: It remind me of Humpty Dumpty. BOY WILLIE: Everybody say the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog BERNIECE: That's what I'm talking about. You start all that hollering and carry on as soon as you hit the door. pushed him. BERNIECE: I don't want to hear that nonsense. Somebody down there pushing them people in their wells. DOAKER: What was you and Lymon doing over in Stoner County? BOY WILLIE: Aw hell, woman, I was glad to see Doaker. BOY WILLIE: We was down there working. Lymon got some You ain't had to come down if you didn't want to. I come eighteen hundred miles to see my sister I figure she might want to get up and say hi. Other than that you can go back upstairs. What you got, Doaker? Where your bottle? Me and Lymon want a drink. (To BERNIECE.) This is Lymon. You remember Lymon Jackson from down home. people down there. LYMON: My cousin got some land down there. We was helping him. BOY WILLIE: Got near about a hundred acres. He got it set up real nice. Me and Lymon was down there chopping down trees. We was using Lymon's truck to haul the wood. Me and Lymon used to haul wood all around them parts. (To BERNIECE.) Me and Lymon got a truckload of watermelons out there. (BERNIECE crosses to the window to the parlor.) Doaker, where your bottle? I know you got a bottle stuck up in your room. Come on, me and Lymon want a drink. (DOAKER exits into his room.) hi. I ain't got in the house good. LYMON: How you doing, Berniece. You look just like I thought you looked. BERNIECE: Why you all got to come in hollering and carry- ing on? Waking the neighbors with all that noise. BOY WILLIE: They can come over and join the party. We fixing to have a party. Doaker, where your bottle? Me and Lymon celebrating. The Ghosts of the Yellow Dog got Sutter. BERNIECE: Where you all get that truck from? BERNIECE: Say what? BOY WILLIE: I told you it's Lymon's. BOY WILLIE: Ask Lymon, they found him the next morning. BERNIECE: Where you get the truck from, Lymon? Say he drowned in his well. DOAKER: When this happen, Boy Willie? LYMON: I bought it. BERNIECE: Where he get that truck from, Boy Willie? 6 • THE PIANO LESSON • He told you he bought it. Bought it for a twenty dollars. I can't say where he got that and hundred hundred and twenty dollars from . . . but he bought that old piece of truck from Henry Porter. (To LYMON.) Where you get that hundred and twenty dollars from, nigger? LYMON: I got it like you get yours. I know how to take care of money. (DOAKER brings a bottle and sets it on the table.) BOY WILLIE: Aw hell, Doaker got some of that good whiskey. Don't give Lymon none of that. He ain't used to good whiskey. He liable to get sick. LYMON: I done had good whiskey before. BOY WILLIE: Lymon bought that truck so he have him a place to sleep. He down there wasn't doing no work or nothing. Sheriff looking for him. He bought that truck to keep away from the sheriff. Got Stovall looking for him too. He down there sleeping in that truck ducking and dodging both of them. I told him come on let's go up and see my sister. BERNIECE: What the sheriff looking for you for, Lymon? BOY WILLIE: The man don't want you to know all his business. He's my company. He ain't asking you no questions. LYMON: It wasn't nothing. It was just a misunderstanding. BERNIECE: He in my house. You say the sheriff looking for him, I wanna know what he looking for him for. Otherwise you all can go back out there and be where nobody don't have to ask you nothing. LYMON: It was just a misunderstanding. Sometimes me and the sheriff we don't think alike. So we just got crossed on each other. BOY WILLIE: ACT ONE, Scene 1 • 7 • Might be looking for him about that truck. He stole that truck. have might BOY WILLIE: We ain't stole no truck, woman. I told you Lymon bought it. DOAKER: Boy Willie and Lymon got more sense than to ride all the way up here in a stolen truck with a load of watermelons. Now they might have stole them watermelons, but I don't believe they stole that truck. BOY WILLIE: You don't even know the man good and you calling him a thief. And we ain't stole them watermelons either. Them old man Pitterford's watermelons. He give me and Lymon all we could load for ten dollars. DOAKER: No wonder you got them stacked up out there. You must have five hundred watermelons stacked up out there. BERNIECE: Boy Willie, when you and Lymon planning on going back? BOY WILLIE: Lymon say he staying. As soon as we sell them watermelons I'm going on back. BERNIECE: (Starts to exit up the stairs.) That's what you need to do. And you need to do it quick. Come in here disrupting the house. I don't want all that loud carrying on around here. I'm surprised you ain't woke Maretha up. BOY WILLIE: I was fixing to get her now. (Calls.) Hey, Maretha! DOAKER: Berniece don't like all that hollering now. BERNIECE: Don't you wake that child up! BOY wILLIE: You going up there . . . wake her up and tell her her uncle's here. I ain't seen her in three years. Wake her up and send her down here. She can go back to bed. BERNIECE: 8 • THE PIANO LESSON BERNIECE: I ain't waking that child up . . . and don't you be making all that noise. You and Lymon need to sell them watermelons and go on back. (BERNIECE exits up the stairs.) BOY WILLIE: I see Berniece still try to be stuck up. DOAKER: Berniece alright. She don't want you making all that noise. Maretha up there sleep. Let her sleep until she get up. She can see you then. BOY WILLIE: I ain't thinking about Berniece. You hear from Wining Boy? You know Cleotha died? DOAKER: Yeah, I heard that. He come by here about a year ago. Had a whole sack of money. He stayed here about two weeks. Ain't offered nothing. Berniece asked him fdr three dollars to buy some food and he got mad and left. LYMON: Who's Wining Boy? BOY WILLIE: That's my uncle. That's Doaker's brother. You heard me talk about Wining Boy. He play piano. He done made some records and everything. He still doing that, Doaker? DOAKER: He made one or two records a long time ago. That's the only ones I ever known him to make. If you let him tell it he a big recording star. BOY WILLIE: He stopped down home about two years ago. That's what I hear. I don't know. Me and Lymon was up on Parchman Farm doing them three years. He don't never stay in one place. Now, he been here about eight months ago. Back in the winter. Now, you subject not to see him for another two years. It's liable to be that long before he stop by. BOY WILLIE: If he had a whole sack of money you liable never to see him. You ain't gonna see him until he get DOAKER: • ACT ONE, Scene 1 9 broke. Just as soon as that sack of money is gone you look up and he be on your doorstep. LYMON: (Noticing the piano.) Is that the piano? soy WILLIE: Yeah...look here, Lymon. See how it got all those carvings on it. See, that's what I was talking about. See how it's carved up real nice and polished and everything? You never find you another piano like that. LYMON: Yeah, that look real nice. BOY WILLIE: I told you. See how it's polished? My mama used to polish it every day. See all them pictures carved on it? That's what I was talking about. You can get a nice price for that piano. LYMON: That's all Boy Willie talked about the whole trip up here. I got tired of hearing him talk about the piano. BOY WILLIE: All you want to talk about is women. You ought to hear this nigger, Doaker. Talking about all the women he gonna get when he get up here. He ain't had none down there but he gonna get a hundred when he get up here. DOAKER: How your people doing down there, Lymon? LYMON: They alright. They still there. I come up here to see what it's like up here. Boy Willie trying to get me to go back and farm with him. BOY WILLIE: Sutter's brother selling the land. He say he gonna sell it to me. That's why I come up here. I got one part of it. Sell them watermelons and get me another part. Get Berniece to sell that piano and I'll have the third part. DOAKER: Berniece ain't gonna sell that piano. BOY WILLIE: I'm gonna talk to her. When she see I got a chance to get Sutter's land she'll come around. DOAKER: You can put that thought out your mind. Berniece ain't gonna sell that piano. "TieTC) "§kr T- • 7,A ACT ONE, Scene 1 • 11 - 10 • THE PIANO LESSON BOY WILLIE: I'm gonna talk to her. She been playing on it? You know she won't touch that piano. I ain't never known her to touch it since Mama Ola died. That's over seven years now. She say it got blood on it. She got Maretha playing on it though. Say Maretha can go on and do everything she can't do. Got her in an extra school down at the Irene Kaufman Settlement House. She want Maretha to grow up and be a schoolteacher. Say she good enough she can teach on the piano. DOAKER: BOY WILLIE: Maretha don't need to be playing on no piano. She can play on the guitar. DOAKER: How much land Sutter got left? Got a hundred acres. Good land. He done sold it piece by piece, he kept the good part for himself. Now he got to give that up. His brother come down from Chicago for the funeral . . . he up there in Chicago got some kind of business with soda fountain equipment. He anxious to sell the land, Doaker. He don't want to be bothered with it. He called me to him and said cause of how long our families done known each other and how we been good friends and all, say he wanted to sell the land to me. Say he'd rather see me with it than Jim Stovall. Told me he'd let me have it for two thousand dollars cash money. He don't know I found out the most Stovall would give him for it was fifteen hundred dollars. He trying to get that extra five hundred out of me telling me he doing me a favor. I thanked him just as nice. Told him what a good man Sutter was and how he had my sympathy and all. Told him to give me two weeks. He said he'd wait on me. That's why I come up here. Sell them watermelons. Get Berniece to sell that piano. Put them two parts with the part I done saved. Walk in there. Tip my hat. Lay my money down on the table. Get BOY WILLIE: my deed and walk on out. This time I get to keep all the cotton. Hire me some men to work it for me. Gin my cotton. Get my seed. And I'll see you again next year. Might even plant some tobacco or some oats. DOAKER: You gonna have a hard time trying to get Berniece to sell that piano. You know Avery Brown from down there don't you? He up here now. He followed Berniece up here trying to get her to marry him after Crawley got killed. He been up here about two years. He call himself a preacher now. used BOY WILLIE: I know Avery. I know him from when he to work on the Willshaw place. Lymon know him too. tellDOAKER: He after Berniece to marry him. She keep ing him no but he won't give up. He keep pressing her on it. He BOY WILLIE: Avery think all white men is bigshots. don't know there some white men ain't got as much as he got. this morning. DOAKER: He supposed to come past here Berniece going down to the bank with him to see if he can get a loan to start his church. That's why I know Berniece ain't gonna sell that piano. He tried to get her to sell it to help him start his church. Sent the man around and everything. BOY WILLIE: What man? to all the DOAKER: Some white fellow was going around colored people's houses looking to buy up musical instruments. He'd buy anything. Drums. Guitars. Harmonicas. Pianos. Avery sent him past here. He looked at the piano and got excited. Offered her a nice price. She turned him down and got on Avery for sending him past. The man kept on her about two weeks. He seen where she wasn't gonna sell it, he gave her his number and told • 12 • THE PIANO LESSON • • ACT ONE, her if she ever wanted to sell it to call him first. Say he'd go one better than what anybody else would give her for BERNIECE: it. DOAKER: How much he offer her for it? Now you know me. She didn't say and I didn't ask. I just know it was a nice price. LYMON: All you got to do is find out who he is and tell him somebody else wanna buy it from you. Tell him you can't make up your mind who to sell it to, and if he like Doaker say, he'll give you anything you want for it. BOY WILLIE: DOAKER: That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna find out who he is from Avery. DOAKER: It ain't gonna do you no good. Berniece ain't gonna sell that piano. BOY WILLIE: She ain't got to sell it. I'm gonna sell it. I own just as much of it as she does. BERNIECE: (Offstage, hollers.) Doaker! Go on get away. Doaker! DOAKER: (Calling.) Berniece? (DOAKER and BOY WILLIE rush to the stairs, BOY WILLIE runs up the stairs, passing BERNIECE as she enters, running.) BOY WILLIE: Berniece, what's the matter? You alright? What's the matter? (BERNIECE tries to catch her breath. She is unable to speak.) DOAKER: That's alright. Take your time. You alright. What's the matter? (He calls.) Hey, Boy Willie? BOY WILLIE: (Offstage.) Ain't nobody up here. DOAKER: Scene 1 • 13 • Sutter . . . Sutter's standing at the top of the steps. (Calls.) Boy Willie! (LYMON crosses to the stairs and looks up. BOY WILLIE enters from the stairs.) BOY WILLIE: Hey Doaker, what's wrong with her? Berniece, what's wrong? Who was you talking to? DOAKER: She say she seen Sutter's ghost standing at the top of the stairs. BOY WILLIE: Seen what? Sutter? She ain't seen no Sutter. BERNIECE: He was standing right up there. BOY WILLIE: (Entering on the stairs.) That's all in Berniece's head. Ain't nobody up there. Go on up there, Doaker. DOAKER: I'll take your word for it. Berniece talking about what she seen. She say Sutter's ghost standing at the top of the steps. She ain't just make all that up. BOY WILLIE: She up there dreaming. She ain't seen no ghost. LYMON: You want a glass of water, Berniece? Get her a glass of water, Boy Willie. BOY WILLIE: She don't need no water. She ain't seen nothing. Go on up there and look. Ain't nobody up there but Maretha. DOAKER: Let Berniece tell it. BOY WILLIE: I ain't stopping her from telling it. DOAKER: What happened, Berniece? BERNIECE: I come out my room to come back down here and Sutter was standing there in the hall. BOY WILLIE: What he look like? BERNIECE: He look like Sutter. He look like he always look. 110 14 • THE PIANO LESSON BOY WILLIE: • Sutter couldn't find his way from Big Sandy to Little Sandy. How he gonna find his way all the way up here to Pittsburgh? Sutter ain't never even heard of Pittsburgh. DOAKER: Go on, Berniece. BERNIECE: Just standing there with the blue suit on. BOY WILLIE: The man ain't never left Marlin County when he was living . . . and he's gonna come all the way up here now that he's dead? DOAKER: Let her finish. I want to hear what she got to say. BOY WILLIE: I'll tell you this. If Berniece had seen him like she think she seen him she'd still be running. DOAKER: Go on, Berniece. Don't pay Boy Willie no mind. BERNIECE: He was standing there . . . had his hand on top of his head. Look like he might have thought if he took his hand down his head might have fallen off. LYMON: Did he have on a hat? BERNIECE: Just had on that blue suit . . . I told him to go away and he just stood there looking at me . . . calling Boy Willie's name. BOY WILLIE: What he calling my name for? BERNIECE: I believe you pushed him in the well. BOY WILLIE: Now what kind of sense that make? You telling me I'm gonna go out there and hide in the weeds with all them dogs and things he got around there . . . I'm gonna hide and wait till I catch him looking down his well just right . . then I'm gonna run over and push him in. A great big old three-hundred-and-forty-pound man. BERNIECE: Well, what he calling your name for? BOY WILLIE: He bending over looking down his well, woman . . . how he know who pushed him? It could have been anybody. Where was you when Sutter fell in his well? ACT ONE, Scene 1 • 15 Where was Doaker? Me and Lymon was over in Stoner County. Tell her, Lymon. The Ghosts of the Yellow Dog got Sutter. That's what happened to him. BERNIECE: You can talk all that Ghosts of the Yellow Dog stuff if you want. I know better. The Ghosts of the Yellow Dog pushed him. That's what, the people say. They found him in his well and all LYMON: the people say it must be the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. Just like all them other men. Come talking about he looking for me. What he come all the way up here for? If he looking for me all he got to do is wait. He could have saved himself a trip if he looking for me. That ain't nothing but in Berniece's head. Ain't no telling what she liable to come up with next. BERNIECE: Boy Willie, I want you and Lymon to go ahead and leave my house. Just go on somewhere. You don't do nothing but bring trouble with you everywhere you go. If it wasn't for you Crawley would still be alive. BOY WILLIE: Crawley what? I ain't had nothing to do with Crawley getting killed. Crawley three time seven. He had his own mind. BERNIECE: Just go on and leave. Let Sutter go somewhere else looking for you. BOY WILLIE: I'm leaving. Soon as we sell them watermelons. Other than that I ain't going nowhere. Hell, I just got here. Talking about Sutter looking for me. Sutter was looking for that piano. That's what he was looking for. He had to die to find out where that piano was at . . . If I was you I'd get rid of it. That's the way to get rid of Sutter's ghost. Get rid of that piano. BOY WILLIE: 743/NUOINIIIMISSIMOMMENZWIFIR • 16 • THE PIANO LESSON • BERNIECE: I want you and Lymon to go on and take all this confusion out of my house! BOY WILLIE: Hey, tell her, Doaker. What kind of sense that make? I told you, Lymon, as soon as Berniece see me she was gonna start something. Didn't I tell you that? Now she done made up that story about Sutter just so she could tell me to leave her house. Well, hell, I ain't going nowhere till I sell them watermelons. BERNIECE: Well why don't you go out there and sell them! Sell them and go on back! BOY WILLIE: We waiting till the people get up. LYMON: Boy Willie say if you get out there too early and wake the people up they get mad at you and won't buy nothing from you. DOAKER: You won't be waiting long. You done let the sun catch up with you. This the time everybody be gettin g up around here. BERNIECE: Come on, Doaker, walk up here with me. Let me get Maretha up and get her started. I got to get ready myself. Boy Willie, just go on out there and sell them watermelons and you and Lymon leave my house. (BERNIECE and DOAKER exit up the stairs.) BOY WILLIE: (Calling after them. ) If you see Sutter up there . . . tell him I'm down here waiting on him. LYMON: What if she see him again? BOY WILLIE: That's all in her head. There ain't no ghost up there. (Calls.) Hey, Doaker . . . I told you ain't nothing up there. LYMON: I'm glad he didn' t say he was looking for me. BOY WILLIE: I wish I would see Sutter's ghost. Give me a chance to put a whupping on him. ACT ONE, Scene 1 • 17 You ought to stay up here with me. You be down there working his land . . . he might come looking for you all the time. BOY WILLIE: I ain't thinking about Sutter. And I ain't think ing about staying up here. You stay up here. I'm going back and get Sutter's land. You think you ain't got to work up here. You think this the land of milk and hone y. But I ain't scared of work. I'm going back and farm every acre of that land. (DOAKER enters from the stairs.) I told you there ain't nothing up there, Doaker. Bern iece dreaming all that. DOAKER: I believe Berniece seen something. Berniece levelheaded. She ain't just made all that up. She say Sutter had on a suit. I don't believe she ever seen Sutter in a suit. I believe that's what he was buried in, and that's what Berniece saw. BOY WILLIE: Well, let her keep on seeing him then. As long as he don't mess with me. (DOAKER starts to cook his breakfast.) I heard about you, Doaker. They say you got all the wom en looking out for you down home. They be looking to see you coming. Say you got a different one every two weeks. Say they be fighting one another for you to stay with them . (To LYMON.) Look at him, Lymon. He know it's true. DOAKER: I ain't thinking about no women. They never get me tied up with them. After Coreen I ain't got no use for them . I stay up on Jack Slattery's place when I be down there . All them women want is somebody with a steady payd ay. BOY WILLIE: That ain't what I hear. I hear every two week s the women all put on their dresses and line up at the railroad station. LYMON: • 18 • THE PIANO LESSON • ACT ONE, Scene 1 • 19 DOAKER: I don't get down there but onc e a month. I used to go down there every two weeks but they keep switching me around. They keep switching all the fellows around. BOY Doaker can't turn that railroad loos e. He was working the railroad when I was walking around crying for sugartit. My mama used to brag on him. DOAKER: I'm cooking now, but I used to line track. I pieced together the Yellow Dog stitch by stitch. Rail by rail. Line track all up around ther e. I lined track all up around Sunflower and Clarksdale. Wining Boy worked with me. He helped put in some of that track. He'd work it for six months and quit. Go bac k to playing piano and gambling. BOY WILLIE: How long you been with the railroad now ? DOAKER: Twentyseven years. Now, I'll tell you som ething about the railroad. What I done learned after twentyseven years. See, you got North. You got West. You look over here you got South. Ove r there you got East. Now, you can start from anywhe re. Don't care where you at. You got to go one of them four ways. And whichever way you decide to go they got a railroad that will take you there. Now, that's something simple. You think anybody would be able to understand that. But you'd be surprised how many peo ple trying to go North get on a train going West. The y think the train's supposed to go where they going rather than where it's going. Now, why people going? Their siste r's sick. They leaving before they kill somebody . . . and they sitting across from somebody who's leaving to keep from getting killed. They leaving cause they can't get satisfied. They going to meet someone. I wish I had a doll ar for every time that someone wasn't at the station to meet them. I done seen that a lot. In between the time they sent the telegram and the time the person get ther e . . . they done forgot all about them. They got so many trains out ther e they have a hard time keeping them from running into each other. Got trains going every whichaway. Got people on all of them. Somebody going where somebody just left. If everybody stay in one place I believe this wou ld be a better world. Now what I done learned after twenty-seven years of railroading is this . . . if the train stays on the track . . . it's going to get where it's going. It might not be where you going. If it ain't, then all you got to do is sit and wait cause the train's coming back to get you. The train don't never stop. It'll come back every time. Now I'll tell you another thing . . . BOY WILLIE: What you cooking over there, Doa ker? Me and Lymon's hungry. DOAKER: Go on down there to Wylie and Kir kpatrick to Eddie's restaurant. Coffee cost a nickel and you can get two eggs, sausage, and grits for fifteen cents. He even give you a biscuit with it. BOY WILLIE: That look good what you got. Giv e me a little piece of that grilled bread. DOAKER: Here . . . go on take the whole piece. BOY WILLIE: Here you go, Lymon . . . you wan t a piece? (He gives LYMON a piece of toast. MARETHA enters from the stairs.) BOY wILLIE: Hey, sugar. Come here and give me a hug. Come on give Uncle Boy Willie a hug. Don't be shy. Look at her, Doaker. She done got bigger. Ain't she got big? • 715 A'F; 14 •;1...- • 20 THE PIANO LESSON ACT ONE, DOAKER: Yeah, she getting up there. BOY WILLIE: Ho w you doing, sugar? MARETHA: Fine. BOY WILLIE: You was just a little old thing last time I seen you. You remember me, don't you? This your Uncle Boy Willie from down South. Th at there's Lymon. He my friend. We come up here to sel l watermelons. You like watermelons? (MARETHA nods.) We got a whole truckload out front. You can have as many as you want. What you been doing? MARETHA: Nothin g. BOY WILLIE: Do n't be shy now Look at you getting all big. How old is you? MARETHA: Ele ven. I'm gonna be twelve soon. BOY WILLIE: You like it up here? You like the North? MARETHA: It's alri ght. BOY WILLIE: That there's Lymon. Did you say hi to Lymon? MARETHA: Hi. LYMON: How you doing? You look jus t like your mama. I remember you when you was wearing diapers. BOY WILLIE: You gonna come down South and see me? Uncle Boy Willie gonna get him a farm. Gonna get a great big old farm. Come do wn there and I'll teach you how to ride a mule. Teach you how to kill a chicken. too. MARETHA: I seen my mama do that. Ain't nothing to it. You just gra b him by his neck and twist it. Get you a rea l good grip and then you just wring his neck and throw him in the pot. Cook him up. Then you got some good eating. What you like to eat? What kind of food you like ? BOY WILLIE: Scene 1 • 21 I like everything . . . except I don't like no black-eyed peas. BOY WILLIE: Uncle Doaker tell me your mama got you playing that piano. Come on pla y something for me. (BOY WILLIE crosses over to the piano followed by MARETHA.) Show me what you can do. Come on now. Here . . . Uncle Boy Willie give you a dim e . . . show me what you can do. Don't be bashful now . That dime say you can't be bashful. (MARETHA plays. It is something any beg inner first learns.) Here, let me show you someth ing. (BOY WILLIE sits and plays a simple boo gie - woogie.) See that? See what I'm doing? That's what you call the boogie-woogie. See now . . . you can get up and dance to that. That's how good it sound. It sound like you wanna dance. You can dance to that. It'll hold you up. Whatever kind of dance you wanna do you can dance to that right there. See that? See how it go? Ain't nothing to it. Go on you do it. MARETHA: I got to read it on the paper. BOY WILLIE: You don't need no pap er. Go on. Do just like that there. BERNIECE: Maretha! You get up her e and get ready to go so you be on time. Ain't no need you trying to take advantage of company. MARETHA: I got to go. BOY WILLIE: Uncle Boy Willie gon na get you a guitar. Let Uncle Doaker teach you how to play that. You don't need to read no paper to play the guitar. Your mama told you about that piano? You know how them pictures got on there? MARETHA: 22 MARETHA: She say it just always been like that since she got it. You hear that, Doaker? And you sitting up here in the house with Berniece. DOAKER: I ain't got nothing to do with that. I don't get in the way of Berniece's raising her. BOY WILLIE: You tell your mama to tell you about that piano. You ask her how them pictures got on there. If she don't tell you I'll tell you. BERNIECE: Maretha! MARETHA: I got to get ready to go. BOY WILLIE: She getting big, Doaker. You remember her, Lymon? LYMON: She used to be real little. (There is a knock on the door. DOAKER goes to answer it. AVERY enters. Thirty-eight years old, honest and ambitious, he has taken to the city like a fish to water, finding in it opportunities for growth and advancement that did not exist for him in the rural South. He is dressed in a suit and tie with a gold cross around his neck. He carries a small Bible.) DOAKER: Hey, Avery. come on in. Berniece upstairs. BOY WILLIE: Look at him . . look at him . . . he don't know what to say. He wasn't expecting to see me. AVERY: Hey. Boy Willie. What you doing up here? BOY WILLIE: Look at him, Lymon. AVERY: Is that Lymon? Lymon Jackson? BOY WILLIE: Yeah, you know Lymon. DOAKER: Berniece be ready in a minute, Avery. BOY WILLIE: Doaker say you a preacher now. What . . . we supposed to call you Reverend? You used to be plain old Avery. When you get to he a preacher, nigger? BOY WILLIE: ACT ONE, Scene 1 THE PIANO LESSON 23 Avery say he gonna be a preacher so he don't have to work. BOY WILLIE: I remember when you was down there on the Willshaw place planting cotton. You wasn't thinking about no Reverend then. AVERY: That must be your truck out there. I saw that truck with them watermelons, I was trying to figure out what it was doing in front of the house. BOY WILLIE: Yeah, me and Lymon selling watermelons. That's Lymon's truck. DOAKER: Berniece say you all going down to the bank. AVERY: Yeah, they give me a half day off work. I got an appointment to talk to the bank about getting a loan to start my church. BOY WILLIE: Lymon say preachers don't have to work. Where you working at, nigger? DOAKER: Avery got him one of them good jobs. He working at one of them skyscrapers downtown. AVERY: I'm working down there at the Gulf Building running an elevator. Got a pension and everything. They even give you a turkey on Thanksgiving. LYMON: How you know the rope ain't gonna break? Ain't you scared the rope's gonna break? AVERY: That's steel. They got steel cables hold it up. It take a whole lot of breaking to break that steel. Naw, I ain't worried about nothing like that. It ain't nothing but a little old elevator. Now, I wouldn't get in none of them airplanes. You couldn't pay me to do nothing like that. LYMON: That be fun. I'd rather do that than ride in one of them elevators. BOY WILLIE: How many of them watermelons you wanna buy? LYMON: • '• •x7i774.'3".' • 24 • THE PIANO LESSON thought you was gonna give me one seeing as how you got a whole truck full. BOY WILLIE: You can get one, get two. I'll give you two for a dollar. AVERY: I can't eat but one. How much are they? BOY WILLIE: Aw, nigger, you know I'll give you a watermelon. Go on, take as many as you want. Just leave some for me and Lymon to sell. AVERY: I don't want but one. BOY WILLIE: How you get to be a preacher, Avery? I might want to be a preacher one day. Have everybody call me Reverend Boy Willie. AVERY: . It come to me in a dream. God called me and told me he wanted me to be a shepherd for his flock. That's what I'm gonna call my church . . . The Good Shepherd Church of God in Christ. DOAKER: Tell him what you told me. Tell him about the three hobos. AVERY: Boy Willie don't want to hear all that. LYMON: I do. Lots a people say your dreams can come true. AVERY: Naw. You don't want to hear all that. DOAKER: Go on. I told him you was a preacher. He didn't want to believe me. Tell him about the three hobos. AVERY: Well, it come to me in a dream. See . . . I was sitting out in this railroad yard watching the trains go by. The train stopped and these three hobos got off. They told me they had come from Nazareth and was on their way to Jerusalem. They had three candles. They gave me one and told me to light it . . . but to be careful that it didn't go out. Next thing I knew I was standing in front of this house. Something told me to go knock on the AVERY: I ACT ONE, Scene 1 - 25 door. This old woman opened the door and said they had been waiting on me. Then she led me into this room. It was a big room and it was full of all kinds of different people. They looked like anybody else except they all had sheep heads and was making noise like sheep make. I heard somebody call my name. I looked around and there was these same three hobos. They told me to take off my clothes and they give me a blue robe with gold thread. They washed my feet and combed my hair. Then they showed me these three doors and told me to pick one. I went through one of them doors and that flame leapt off that candle and it seemed like my whole head caught fire. I looked around and there was four or five other men standing there with these same blue robes on. Then we heard a voice tell us to look out across this valley. We looked out and saw the valley was full of wolves. The voice told us that these sheep people that I had seen in the other room had to go over to the other side of this valley and somebody had to take them. Then I heard another voice say, "Who shall I send?" Next thing I knew I said, "Here I am. Send me." That's when I met Jesus. He say, "If you go, I'll go with you." Something told me to say, "Come on. Let's go." That's when I woke up. My head still felt like it was on fire . . . but I had a peace about myself that was hard to explain. I knew right then that I had been filled with the Holy Ghost and called to be a servant of the Lord. It took me a while before I could accept that. But then a lot of little ways God showed me that it was true. So I became a preacher. LYMON: I see why you gonna call it the Good Shepherd Church. You dreaming about them sheep people. I can see that easy. ACT ONE, Scene 1 • 27 26 • THE PIANO LESSON Doaker say you sent some white man past the house to look at that piano. Say he was going around to all the colored people's houses looking to buy up musical instruments. AVERY: Yeah, but Berniece didn't want to sell that piano. After she told me about it . . . I could see why she didn't want to sell it. BOY WILLIE: What's this man's name? AVERY: Oh, that's a while back now. I done forgot his name. He give Berniece a card with his name and telephone number on it, but I believe she throwed it away. (BERNIECE and MARETHA enter from the stairs.) BERNIECE: Maretha, run back upstairs and get my pocketbook. And wipe that hair grease off your forehead. Go ahead, hurry up. (MARETHA exits up the stairs.) How you doing, Avery? You done got all dressed up. You look nice. Boy Willie, I thought you and Lymon was going to sell them watermelons. BOY WILLIE: Lymon done got sleepy. We liable to get some sleep first. LYMON: I ain't sleepy. DOAKER: As many watermelons as you got stacked up on that truck out there, you ought to have been gone. BOY WILLIE: We gonna go in a minute. We going. BERNIECE: Doaker. I'm gonna stop down there on Logan Street. You want anything? DOAKER: You can pick up some ham hocks if you going down there. See if you can get the smoked ones. If they ain't got that get the fresh ones. Don't get the ones that got all that fat under the skin. Look for the long ones. They nice and lean. BOY WILLIE: (He gives her a dollar.) Don't get the short ones lessen they smoked. If you got to get the fresh ones make sure that they the long ones. If they ain't got them smoked then go ahead and get the short ones. (Pause.) You may as well get some turnip greens while you down there. I got some buttermilk . . . if you pick up some cornmeal I'll make me some cornbread and cook up them turnip greens. (MARETHA enters from the stairs.) MARETHA: We gonna take the streetcar? you off at the settleBERNIECE: Me and Avery gonna drop down there. Don't people them mind ment house. You Boy Willie, I color. be going down there showing your done told you what to do. I'll see you later, Doaker. AVERY: I'll be seeing you again, Boy Willie. name of that BOY WILLIE: Hey, Berniece . . . what's the piano? the buy to want he man Avery sent past say seen you. I BERNIECE: I knew it. I knew it when I first knew you was up to something. land to me. BOY WILLIE: Sutter's brother say he selling the two weeks. me give he'd me Told now. me on He waiting another me get s I got one part. Sell them watermelon part. Then we can sell that piano and I'll have the third part. I ain't selling that piano, Boy Willie. If that's why you come up here you can just forget about it. (To DOAKER.) Doaker, I'll see you later. Boy Willie ain't nothing but a whole lot of mouth. I ain't paying him no mind. If he come up here thinking he gonna sell that piano then he done come up here for nothing. BERNIECE: 28 • THE PIANO LESSON (BERNIECE, AVERY, and MARE THA exit the front door.) ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 29 Wining Boy! WINING BOY: And I'll tell you another thing . . . Berniece BOY WILLIE: Hey, Lymon! You ready to go sell these ain't gonna sell that piano. watermelons. DOAKER: That's what she told him. He say he gonna cut it (BOY WILLIE and LYMON start to exit. At the door in half and go on and sell his half. They been around BOY WILLIE turns to DOAKER.) here three days trying to sell them watermelons. They Hey, Doaker . . . if Berniece don't want to sell that trying to get out to where the white folks live but the piano . . . I'm gonna cut it in half and go on and sell my truck keep breaking down. They go a block or two and it half. break down again. They trying to get out to Squirrel Hill (BOY WILLIE and LYMON exit.) and can't get around the corner. He say soon as he can get that truck empty to where he can set the piano up in (The lights go down on the scene.) there he gonna take it out of here and go sell it. WINING BOY: What about them boys Sutter got? How come SCENE 2 they ain't farming that land? DOAKER: One of them going to school. He left down there (The lights come up on the kitchen. It is three days later. and come North to school. The other one ain't got as WINING BOY sits at the kitche much sense as that frying pan over yonder. That is the n table. There is a halfempty pint bottle on the table. DOAK dumb est white man I ever seen. He'd stand in the river ER busies himself washing pots. WINING BOY and watch it rise till it drown him. is fifty-six years old. DOAKER's older brother, he tries to present the image of WINING BOY: Other than seeing Sutter's ghost how's Berniece a successful musician and gambler, but his music, his doing? clothes, and even his manner of presentation are old. He DOAKER: She doing alright. She still got Crawley on her is a man who looking back over his life continues to live it mind. He been dead three years but she still holding on with an odd mixture of zest and sorrow.) to him. She need to go out here and let one of these fellows grab a whole handful of whatever she got. She act WINING BOY: So the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog got Sutter. like it done got precious. That just go to show you I believe I always lived right. They say every dog gonna have his day and time it go WINING BOY: They always told me any fish will bite if you around it sure come back to you. I done seen that a got good bait. thousand times. I know the truth of that. But I'll tell you DOAKER: She stuck up on it. She think it's better than she outright . . . if I see Sutter's ghost I'll be on the first is. I believe she messing around with Avery. They got thing I find that got wheels on it. something going. He a preacher now. If you let him tell (DOAKER enters from his room.) it the Holy Ghost sat on his head and heaven opened up DOAKER: 30 THE PIANO LESSON with thunder and lightning and God was calling his name. Told him to go out and preach and tend to his flock. That's what he gonna call his church. The Good Shepherd Church. WINING BOY: They had that joker down in Spear walking around talking about he Jesus Christ. He gonna live the life of Christ. Went through the Last Supper and everything. Rented him a mule on Palm Sunday and rode through the town. Did everything . . talking about he Christ. He did everything until they got up to that crucifixion part. Got up to that part and told everybody to go home and quit pretending. He got up to the crucifixion part and changed his mind. Had a whole bunch of folks come down there to see him get nailed to the cross. I don't know who's the worse fool. Him or them. Had all them folks come down there . . . even carried the cross up this little hill. People standing around waiting to see him get nailed to the cross and he stop everything and preach a little sermon and told everybody to go home. Had enough nerve to tell them to come to church on Easter Sunday to celebrate his resurrection. DOAKER: I'm surprised Avery ain't thought about that. He trying every little thing to get him a congregation together. They meeting over at his house till he get him a church. WINING BOY: Ain't nothing wrong with being a preacher. You got the preacher on one hand and the gambler on the other. Sometimes there ain't too much difference in them. DOAKER: How long you been in Kansas City? WINING BOY: Since I left here. I got tied up with some old gal down there. (Pause.) You know Cleotha died. ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 31 Yeah, I heard that last time I was down there. I was sorry to hear that. WINING BOY: One of her friends wrote and told me. I got the letter right here. (He takes the letter out of his pocket.) I was down in Kansas City and she wrote and told me Cleotha had died. Name of Willa Bryant. She say she know cousin Rupert. (He opens the letter and reads.) Dear Wining Boy: I am writing this letter to let you know Miss Cleotha Holman passed on Saturday the first of May she departed this world in the loving arms of her sister Miss Alberta Samuels. I know you would want to know this and am writing as a friend of Cleotha. There have been many hardships since last you seen her but she survived them all and to the end was a good woman whom I hope have God's grace and is in His Paradise. Your cousin Rupert Bates is my friend also and he give me your address and I pray this reaches you about Cleotha. Miss Willa Bryant. A friend. (He folds the letter and returns it to his pocket.) They was nailing her coffin shut by the time I heard about it. I never knew she was sick. I believe it was that yellow jaundice. That's what killed her mama. DOAKER: Cleotha wasn't but forty-some. WINING BOY: She was forty-six. I got ten years on her. I met her when she was sixteen. You remember I used to run around there. Couldn't nothing keep me still. Much as I loved Cleotha I loved to ramble. Couldn't nothing keep me still. We got married and we used to fight about it all the time. Then one day she asked me to leave. Told me she loved me before I left. Told me, Wining Boy, you got a home as long as I got mine. DOAKER: 32 • THE PIANO LESSON And I believe in my heart I always felt that and that kept me safe. DOAKER: Cleotha always did have a nice way about her. ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 33 What you mean broke? I got a whole pocketful of money. DOAKER: Did you all get that truck fixed? D WINING BOY: Man that woman was something. I used to BOY WILLIE: We got it running and got halfway out there thank the Lord. Many a night I sat up and looked out on Centre and it broke down again. Lymon went out over my life. Said, well, I had Cleotha. When it didn't there and messed it up some more. Fellow told us we got look like there was nothing else for me, I said, thank to wait till tomorrow to get it fixed. Say he have it God, at least I had that. If ever I go anywhere in this life running like new. Lymon going back down there and I done known a good woman. And that used to hold me sleep in the truck so the people don't take the watermelons. till the next morning. LYMON: Lymon nothing. You go down there and sleep in (Pause.) it. What you got? Give me a little nip. I know you got BOY WILLIE: You was sleeping in it down home, nigger! I something stuck tip in your room. don't know nothing about sleeping in no truck. DOAKER: I ain't seen you walk in here and put nothing on LYMON: I ain't sleeping in no truck. the table. You done sat there and drank up your whisBOY WILLIE: They can take all the watermelons. I don't key. Now you talking about what you got. care. Wining Boy, where you coming from? Where you WINING BOY: I got plenty money. Give me a little nip. been? (DOAKER carries a glass into his room and returns with it WINING BOY: I been down in Kansas City. half filled. He sets it on the table in front of WINING BOY.) BOY WILLIE: You remember Lymon? Lymon Jackson. WINING BOY: You hear from Coreen? WINING BOY: Yeah, I used to know his daddy. DOAKER: She up in New York. I let her go from my mind. BOY WILLIE: Doaker say you don't never leave no address WINING BOY: She was something back then. She wasn't too with nobody. Say he got to depend on your whim. See pretty but she had a way of looking at you made you when it strike you to pay a visit. know there was a whole lot of woman there. You got NING BOY: I got four or five addresses. WINING married and snatched her out from under us and we all BOY WILLIE: Doaker say Berniece asked you for three dolgot mad at you. lars and you got mad and left. DOAKER: She up in New York City. That's what I hear. WINING BOY: Berniece try and rule over you too much (The door opens and BOY WILLIE and LYMON enter.) for me. That's why I left. It wasn't about no three BOY WILLIE: Aw hell . . . look here! We was just talking dollars. about you. Doaker say you left out of here with a whole BOY WILLIE: Where you getting all these sacks of money sack of got money. I told him from? we wasn't going see you tillbe with you. Doaker say you had a you broke. I need to whole sack of money . . . turn some of it loose. - WINING BOY: 34 • THE PIANO LESSON WINING BOY: ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 35 each other . . . I stood right there on that spot and called out their names. They talk back to you, too. BOY WILLIE: I ain't got no money. I'm trying to get some. Doaker tell you about Sutter? The Ghosts of the Yellow LYMON: People say you can ask them questions. They talk Dog got him about three weeks ago. Berniece done seen to you like that? his ghost and everything. He right upstairs. WINING BOY: A lot of things you got to find out on your (Calls. own. I can't say how they talked to nobody else. But to Hey Sutter! Wining Boy's here. Come on, get a drink! me it just filled me up in a strange sort of way to be WINING BOY: How many that make the Ghosts of the Yel- standing there on that spot. I didn't want to leave. It felt low Dog done got? like the longer I stood there the bigger I got. I seen the BOY WILLIE: Must be about nine or ten, eleven or twelve. I train coming and it seem like I was bigger than the train. don't know. I started not to move. But something told me to go ahead and get on out the way. The train passed and I DOAKER: You got Ed Saunders. Howard Peterson. Charlie started to go back up there and stand some more. But Webb. Robert Smith. That fellow that shot Becky's something told me not to do it. I walked away from there WINING BOY: feeling like a king. Went on and had a stroke of luck that boy . . . say he was stealing peaches . . run on for three years. So I don't care if Berniece believe DOAKER: You talking about Bob Mallory. or not. Berniece ain't got to believe. I know cause I BOY WILLIE: Berniece say she don't believe all that about been there. Now Doaker'll tell you about the Ghosts of the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. the Yellow Dog. WINING BOY: She ain't got to believe. You go ask them DOAKER: I don't try and talk that stuff with Berniece. white folks in Sunflower County if they believe. You go Avery got her all tied up in that church. She just think ask Sutter if he believe. I don't care if Berniece believe it's a whole lot of nonsense. or not. I done been to where the Southern cross the BOY WILLIE: Berniece don't believe in nothing. She just Yellow Dog and called out their names. They talk back think she believe. She believe in anything if it's conveto you, too. nient for her to believe. But when that convenience run What they sound like? The wind or something? out then she ain't got nothing to stand on. BOY WILLIE: You done been there for real, Wining Boy? WINING BOY: Let's not get on Berniece now. Doaker tell WI me you talking about selling that piano. WINING BOY: Nineteen thirty. July of nineteen thirty I stood right there on that spot. It didn't look like nothing was BOY WILLIE: Yeah . . . hey, Doaker, I got the name of that man Avery was talking about. The man what's fixing the going right in my life. I said everything can't go wrong all truck gave me his name. Everybody know him. Say he the time . . . let me go down there and call on the Ghosts buy up anything you can make music with. I got his name of the Yellow Dog, see if they can help me. I went down and his telephone number. Hey, Wining Boy, Sutter's there and right there where them two railroads cross I was just fixing to ask you for five dollars. 36 • THE PIANO LESSON brother say he selling the land to me. I got one part. Sell them watermelons get me the second part. Then . . . soon as I get them watermelons out that truck I'm gonna take and sell that piano and get the third part. DOAKER: That land ain't worth nothing no more. The smart white man's up here in these cities. He cut the land loose and step back and watch you and the dumb white man argue over it. WINING BOY: How you know Sutter's brother ain't sold it already? You talking about selling the pian o and the man's liable to sold the land two or three time s. BOY WILLIE: He say he waiting on me. He say he give me two weeks. That's two weeks from Friday. Say if I ain't back by then he might gonna sell it to somebody else. He say he wanna see me with it. WINING BOY: You know as well as I know the man gonna sell the land to the first one walk up and hand him the money. BOY WILLIE: That's just who I'm gonna be. Look, you ain't gotta know he waiting on me. I know. Oka y. I know what the man told me. Stoval already done tried to buy the land from him and he told him no. The man say he waiting on me . . . he waiting on me. Hey, Doa ker . . . give me a drink. I see Wining Boy got his glass . (DOAKER exits into his room.) Wining Boy, what you doing in Kansas City? What they got down there? LYMON: I hear they got some nice-looking women in Kansas City. I sure like to go down there and find out. WINING BOY: Man, the women down there is something else. (DOAKER enters with a bottle of whiskey. He sets it on the table with some glasses.) ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 37 You wanna sit up here and drink up my whiskey, leave a dollar on the table when you get up. BOY WILLIE: You ain't doing nothing but showing your hospitality. I know we ain't got to pay for your hospitality. WINING BOY: Doaker say they had you and Lymon dow n on the Parchman Farm. Had you on my old stomping grounds. BOY WILLIE: Me and Lymon was down there haul ing wood for Jim Miller and keeping us a little bit to sell. Some white fellows tried to run us off of it. That's when Crawley got killed. They put me and Lymon in the peni tentiary. LYMON: They ambushed us right there where that road dip down and around that bend in the creek. Craw ley tried to fight them. Me and Boy Willie got away but the sheriff got us. Say we was stealing wood. They shot me in my stomach. BOY WILLIE: They looking for Lymon down there now. They rounded him up and put him in jail for not working. LYMON: Fined me a hundred dollars. Mr. Stovall come and paid my hundred dollars and the judge say I got to work for him to pay him back his hundred dollars. I told them I'd rather take my thirty days but they wouldn't let me do that. BOY WILLIE: As soon as Stovall turned his back , Lymon was gone. He down there living in that truck dodg ing the sheriff and Stovall. He got both of them looking for him. So I brought him up here. LYMON: I told Boy Willie I'm gonna stay up here. I ain't going back with him. BOY WILLIE: Ain't nobody twisting your arm to mak e you go back. You can do what you want to do. WINING BOY: I'll go back with you. I'm on my way down there. You gonna take the train? I'm gonna take the train. DOAKER: ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 39 38 • THE PIANO LESSON LYMON: They treat you better up here. BOY WILLIE: I ain't worried about nobody mistreating me. They treat you like you let them treat you. They mistreat me I mistreat them right back. Ain't no difference in me and the white man. WINING BOY: Ain't no difference as far as how somebody supposed to treat you. I agree with that. But I'll tell you the difference between the colored man and the white man. Alright. Now you take and eat some berries. They taste real good to you. So you say I'm gonna go out and get me a whole pot of these berries and cook them up to make a pie or whatever. But you ain't looked to see them berries is sitting in the white fellow's yard. Ain't got no fence around them. You figure anybody want something they'd fence it in. Alright. Now the white man come along and say that's my land. Therefore everything that grow on it belong to me. He tell the sheriff, "I want you to put this nigger in jail as a warning to all the other niggers. Otherwise first thing you know these niggers have everything that belong to us." BOY WILLIE: I'd come back at night and haul off his whole patch while he was sleep. Alright. Now Mr. So and So, he sell the land to you. And he come to you and say, "John, you own the land. It's all yours now. But them is my berries. And come time to pick them I'm gonna send my boys over. You got the land . . but them berries, I'm gonna keep them. They mine." And he go and fix it with the law that them is his berries. Now that's the difference between the colored man and the white man. The colored man can't fix nothing with the law. BOY WILLIE: I don't go by what the law say. The law's liable to say anything. I go by if it's right or not. It WINING BOY: don't matter to me what the law say. I take and look at it for myself. LYMON: That's why you gonna end up back down there on the Parchman Farm. BOY WILLIE: I ain't thinking about no Parchman Farm. You liable to go back before me. LYMON: They work you too hard down there. All that weeding and hoeing and chopping down trees. I didn't like all that. WINING BOY: You ain't got to like your job on Parchman. Hey, tell him, Doaker, the only one got to like his job is the waterboy. DOAKER: If he don't like his job he need to set that bucket down. BOY WILLIE: That's what they told Lymon. They had Lymon on water and everybody got mad at him cause he was lazy. That water was heavy. BOY WILLIE: They had Lymon down there singing: (Sings.) LYMON: O Lord Berta Berta 0 Lord gal oh-ah O Lord Berta Berta 0 Lord gal well (LYMON and WINING BOY join in.) Go 'head marry don't you wait on me oh-ah Go 'head marry don't you wait on me well Might not want you when I go free oh-ah Might not want you when I go free well Come on, Doaker. Doaker know this one. joins in the men stamp and clap to keep DOAKER (As time. They sing in harmony with great fervor and style.) BOY WILLIE: 40 ACT ONE, Scene 2 THE PIANO LESSON O Lord Berta Berta 0 Lord gal oh-ah O Lord Berta Berta 0 Lord gal well Raise them up higher, let them drop on down oh-ah Raise them up higher, let them drop on down well Don't know the difference when the sun go down oh-ah Don't know the difference when the sun go down well Berta in Meridan and she living at ease oh-ah Berta in Meridan and she living at ease well I'm on old Parchman, got to work or leave oh-ah I'm on old Parchman, got to work or leave well O Alberta, Berta, 0 Lord gal oh-ah O Alberta, Berta, 0 Lord gal well When you marry, don't marry no farming man oh-ah When you marry, don't marry no farming man well Everyday Monday, hoe handle in your hand oh-ah Everyday Monday, hoe handle in your hand well When you marry, marry a railroad man, oh-ah When you marry, marry a railroad man, well Everyday Sunday, dollar in your hand oh-ah Everyday Sunday, dollar in your hand well O Alberta, Berta, 0 Lord gal oh-ah O Alberta, Berta, 0 Lord gal well BOY WILLIE: Doaker like that part. He like that railroad part. LYMON: Doaker sound like Tangleye. He can't sing a lick. BOY WILLIE: Hey, Doaker, they still talk about you down 41 BOY WILLIE: I don't want to see them either. Hey, Wining Boy, come on play some piano. You a piano player, play some piano. Lymon wanna hear you. WINING BOY: I give that piano up. That was the best thing that ever happened to me, getting rid of that piano. That piano got so big and I'm carrying it around on my back. I don't wish that on nobody. See, you think it's all fun being a recording star. Got to carrying that piano around and man did I get slow. Got just like molasses. The world just slipping by me and I'm walking around with that piano. Alright. Now, there ain't but so many places you can go. Only so many road wide enough for you and that piano. And that piano get heavier and heavier. Go to a place and they find out you play piano, the first thing they want to do is give you a drink, find you a piano, and sit you right down. And that's where you gonna be for the next eight hours. They ain't gonna let you get up! Now, the first three or four years of that is fun. You can't get enough whiskey and you can't get enough women and you don't never get tired of playing that piano. But that only last so long. You look up one day and you hate the whiskey, and you hate the women, and you hate the piano. But that's all you got. You can't do nothing else. All you know how to do is play that piano. Now, who am I? Am I me? Or am I the piano player? Sometime it seem like the only thing to do is shoot the piano player cause he the cause of all the trouble I'm having. DOAKER: What you gonna do when your troubles get like mine? on Parchman. They ask me, "You Doaker Boy's nephew?" I say, "Yeah, me and him is family." They treated me alright soon as I told them that. Say, "Yeah, he my uncle." LYMON: If I knew how to play it, I'd play it. That's a nice DOAKER: I don't never want to see none of them niggers no BOY WILLIE: Whoever playing better play quick. Sutter's more. piano. brother say he waiting cn me. I sell them watermelons. --7777,77, ACT ONE, 42 • THE PIANO LESSON Get Berniece to sell that piano. Put them two parts with the part I done saved . . . WINING BOY: Berniece ain't gonna sell that piano. I don't see why you don't know that. What she gonna do with it? She ain't doing nothing but letting it sit up there and rot. That piano ain't doing nobody no good. BOY WILLIE: That's a nice piano. If I had it I'd sell it. Unless I knew how to play like Wining Boy. You can get a nice price for that piano. LYMON: Now I'm gonna tell you something, Lymon don't know this . . . but I'm gonna tell you why me and Wining Boy say Berniece ain't gonna sell that piano. BOY WILLIE: She ain't got to sell it! I'm gonna sell it!. Berniece ain't got no more rights to that piano than I do. DOAKER: I'm talking to the man . . . let me talk to the man. See, now . . . to understand why we say that . . . to understand about that piano . . . you got to go back to slavery time. See, our family was owned by a fellow named Robert Sutter. That was Sutter's grandfather. Alright. The piano was owned by a fellow named Joel Nolander. He was one of the Nolander brothers from down in Georgia. It was coming up on Sutter's wedding anniversary and he was looking to buy his wife . . . Miss Ophelia was her name . . . he was looking to buy her an anniversary present. Only thing with him . . . he ain't had no money. But he had some niggers. So he asked Mr. Nolander to see if maybe he could trade off some of his niggers for that piano. Told him he would give him one and a half niggers for it. That's the way he told him. Say he could have one full grown and one half grown. Mr. Nolander agreed only he say he had to pick them. He didn't want Sutter to give him just any old nigger. He DOAKER: Scene 2 • 43 say he wanted to have the pick of the litter. So Sutter lined up his niggers and Mr. Nolander looked them over and out of the whole bunch he picked my grandmother . . . her name was Berniece . . . same like Berniece . . . and he picked my daddy when he wasn't nothing but a little boy nine years old. They made the trade off and Miss Ophelia was so happy with that piano that it got to be just about all she would do was play on that piano. Just get up in the morning, get all dressed up and sit down and play on that piano. go along. Miss DOAKER: Alright. Time go along. Time Ophelia got to missing my grandmother . . . the way she would cook and clean the house and talk to her and what not. And she missed having my daddy around the house to fetch things for her. So she asked to see if maybe she could trade back that piano and get her niggers back. Mr. Nolander said no. Said a deal was a deal. Him and Sutter had a big falling out about it and Miss Ophelia took sick to the bed. Wouldn't get out of the bed in the morning. She just lay there. The doctor said she was WINING BOY: wasting away. up WINING BOY: That's when Sutter called our granddaddy to the house. was Boy Willie. DOAKER: Now, our granddaddy's name only they called . . . after named Willie's Boy That's who him Willie Boy. Now, he was a worker of wood. He could make you anything you wanted out of wood. He'd make you a desk. A table. A lamp. Anything you wanted. Them white fellows around there used to come up to Mr. Sutter and get him to make all kinds of things for them. Then they'd pay Mr. Sutter a nice price. See, everything my granddaddy made Mr. Sutter owned cause he owned him. That's why when Mr. Nolander offered to buy him , Zczabr;EZIWAFg 44 • THE PIANO LESSON ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 45 to keep the family together Mr. Sutter wouldn't sell him Told Mr. Nolander he didn't have enough money to bu: him. Now . . . am I telling it right, Wining Boy? WINING BOY: You telling it. DOAKER: Sutter called him up to the house and told him tc carve my grandmother and my daddy's picture on the piano for Miss Ophelia. And he took and carved this . . (DOAKER crosses over to the piano.) See that right there? That's my grandmother, Berniece. She looked just like that. And he put a picture of m) daddy when he wasn't nothing but a little boy the way ht remembered him. He made them up out of his memory. Only thing . . . he didn't stop there. He carved all this. He got a picture of his mama . . . Mama Esther . . . and his daddy, Boy Charles. WINING BOY: That was the first Boy Charles. DOAKER: Then he put on the side here all kinds of things See that? That's when him and Mama Berniece got mar. vied. They called it jumping the broom. That's how you got married in them days. Then he got here when my daddy was born . . . and here he got Mama Esther's funeral . . and down here he got Mr. Nolander taking Mama Berniece and my daddy away down to his place in Georgia. He got all kinds of things what happened with our family. When Mr. Sutter seen the piano with all them carvings on it he got mad. He didn't ask for all that. But see . . . there wasn't nothing he could do about it. When Miss Ophelia seen it . . . she got excited. Now she had her piano and her niggers too. She took back to playing it and played on it right up till the day she died. Alright . . . now see, our brother Boy Charles . . . that's Berniece and Boy Willie's daddy . . . he was the oldest of us three boys. He's dead now. But he would have . been fifty-seven if he had lived. He died in 1911 when he was thirty-one years old. Boy Charles used to talk about that piano all the time. He never could get it off his mind. Two or three months go by and he be talking about it again. He be talking about taking it out of Sutter's house. Say it was the story of our whole family and as long as Sutter had it . . . he had us. Say we was still in slavery. Me and Wining Boy tried to talk him out of it but it wouldn't do any good. Soon as he quiet down about it he'd start up again. We seen where he wasn't gonna get it off his mind . . . so, on the Fourth of July, 1911 . . . when Sutter was at the picnic what the county give every year . . . me and Wining Boy went on down there with him and took that piano out of Sutter's house. We put it on a wagon and me and Wining Boy carried it over into the next county with Mama Ola's people. Boy Charles decided to stay around there and wait until Sutter got home to make it look like business as usual. Now, I don't know what happened when Sutter came home and found that piano gone. But somebody went up to Boy Charles's house and set it on fire. But he wasn't in there. He must have seen them coming cause he went down and caught the 3:57 Yellow Dog. He didn't know they was gonna come down and stop the train. Stopped the train and found Boy Charles in the boxcar with four of them hobos. Must have got mad when they couldn't find the piano cause they set the boxcar afire and killed everybody. Now, nobody know who done that. Some people say it was Sutter cause it was his piano. Some people say it was Sheriff Carter. Some people say it was Robert Smith and Ed Saunders. But don't nobody know for sure. It was about two months after that that Ed Saunders fell down his well. Just upped and fell down his well for no reason. People say it was the ghost of them 46 • THE PIANO LESSON men who burned up in the boxcar that pushed him in his well. They started calling them the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. og. Now, that's how all that got started and that wh' we say Berniece ain't gonna sell that piano. Cause het daddy died over it. BOY WILLIE: All that's in the past. If my daddy had seen where he could have traded that piano in for some land of his own, it wouldn't be sitting up here now. He spent his whole life farming on somebody else's land. I ain't gonna do that. See, he couldn't do no better. When he come along he ain't had nothing he could build on. His daddy ain't had nothing to give him. The only thing my daddy had to give me was that piano. And he died over giving me that. I ain't gonna let it sit up there and rot without trying to do something with it. If Berniece can't see that, then I'm gonna go ahead and sell my half. And you and Wining Boy know I'm right. DOAKER: Ain't nobody said nothing about who's right and who's wrong. I was just telling the man about the piano. I was telling him why we say Berniece ain't gonna sell it. Yeah, I can see why you say that now. I told Boy Willie he ought to stay up here with me. BOY WILLIE: You stay! I'm going back! That's what I'm gonna do with my life! Why I got to come up here and learn to do something I don't know how to do when I already know how to farm? You stay up here and make your own way if that's what you want to do. I'm going back and live my life the way I want to live it. (WINING BOY gets up and crosses to the piano.) WINING BOY: Let's see what we got here. I ain't played on this thing for a while. LYMON: ACT ONE, Scene 2 47 You can stop telling that. You was playing on it the last time you was through here. We couldn't get you off of it. Go on and play something. (WINING BOY sits down at the piano and plays and sings. The song is one which has put many dimes and quarters in his pocket, long ago, in dimly remembered towris and way stations. He plays badly, without hesitation, and sings in a forceful voice.) DOAKER: WINING BOY: (Singing.) I am a rambling gambling man I gambled in many towns I rambled this wide world over I rambled this world around I had my ups and downs in life And bitter times I saw But I never knew what misery was Till I lit on old Arkansas. I started out one morning to meet that early train He said, "You better work for me I have some land to drain. I'll give you fifty cents a day, Your washing, board and all And you shall be a different man In the state of Arkansas." I worked six months for the rascal Joe Herrin was his name He fed me old corn dodgers They was hard as any rock My tooth is all got loosened And my knees begin to knock That was the kind of hash I got In the state of Arkansas. • - 48 • THE PIANO LESSON ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 49 Traveling man I've traveled all around this world Traveling man I've traveled from land to land Traveling man I've traveled all around this world Well it ain't no use writing no news I'm a traveling man. (The door opens and BERNIECE enters with MARETHA.) BERNIECE: Is that . . . Lord, I know that ain't Wining Boy sitting there. WINING BOY' Hey, Berniece. BERNIECE: You all had this planned. You and Boy Willie had this planned. WINING BOY: I didn't know he was gonna be here. I'm on my way down home. I stopped by to see you and Doaker first. DOAKER: I told the nigger he left out of here with that sack of money, we thought we might never see him again Boy Willie say he wasn't gonna see him till he got broke. I looked up and seen him sitting on the doorstep asking for two dollars. Look at him laughing. He know it's the truth. BERNIECE: Boy Willie, I didn't see that truck out there. I thought you was out selling watermelons. BOY WILLIE: We done sold them all. Sold the truck too. BERNIECE: I don't want to go through none of your stuff. I done told you to go back where you belong. BOY WILLIE: I was just teasing you, woman. You can't take no teasing? . BERNIECE: Wining Boy, when you get here? A little while ago. I took the train from Kansas City. BERNIECE: Let me go upstairs and change and then I'll cook you something to eat. BOY WILLIE: You ain't cooked me nothing when I come. BERNIECE: Boy Willie, go on and leave me alone. Come on, Maretha, get up here and change your clothes before you get them dirty. (BERNIECE exits up the stairs, followed by MARETHA.) WINING BOY: Maretha sure getting big, ain't she, Doaker. And just as pretty as she want to be. I didn't know Crawley had it in him. (BOY WILLIE crosses to the piano.) BOY WILLIE: Hey, Lymon . . . get up on the other side of this piano and let me see something. WINING BOY: Boy Willie, what is you doing? BOY WILLIE: I'm seeing how heavy this piano is. Get up over there, Lymon. WINING BOY: Go on and leave that piano alone. You ain't taking that piano out of here and selling it. BOY WILLIE: Just as soon as I get them watermelons out that truck. WINING BOY: Well, I got something to say about that. BOY WILLIE: This my daddy's piano. WINING BOY: He ain't took it by himself. Me and Doaker helped him. BOY WILLIE: He died by himself. Where was you and Doaker at then? Don't come telling me nothing about this piano. This is me and Berniece's piano. Am I right, Doaker? DOAKER: Yeah, you right. BOY WILLIE: Let's see if we can lift it up, Lymon. Get a good grip on it and pick it up on your end. Ready? Lift! WINING BOY: 50 • THE PIANO LESSON ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 51 (As they start to move the piano, the sound of SUTTER's GHOST is heard. DOAKER is the only one to hear it. With difficulty they move the piano a little bit so it is out of place.) BOY WILLIE: What you think? LYMON: It's heavy . . . but you can move it. Only it ain't gonna be easy. BOY WILLIE: It wasn't that heavy to me. Okay , let's put it back. (The sound of SUTTER's GHOST is heard again. They all hear it as BERNIECE enters on the stairs.) BERNIECE: Boy Willie . . you gonna play aroun d with me one too many times. And then God's gonna bless you and West is gonna dress you. Now set that piano back over there. I done told you a hundred times I ain't selling that piano. BOY WILLIE: I'm trying to get me some land, woman. I need that piano to get me some money so I can buy Sutter's land. BERNIECE: Money can't buy what that piano cost. You can't sell your soul for money. It won't go with the buyer. It'll shrivel and shrink to know that you ain't taken on to it. But it won't go with the buyer. BOY WILLIE: I ain't talking about all that, woman. I ain't talking about selling my soul. I'm talking about tradin g that piece of wood for some land. Get something under your feet. Land the only thing God ain't making no more of. You can always get you another piano. I'm talkin g about some land. What you get something out the groun d from. That's what I'm talking about. You can't do nothing with that piano but sit up there and look at it. BERNIECE: That's just what I'm gonna do. Winin g Boy, you want me to fry you some pork chops? BOY WILLIE: Now, I'm gonna tell you the way I see it. The only thing that make that piano worth something is them carvings Papa Willie Boy put on there. That's what make it worth something. That was my great-grandaddy. Papa Boy Charles brought that piano into the house. Now, I'm supposed to build on what they left me. You can't do nothing with that piano sitting up here in the house . That's just like if I let them watermelons sit out there and rot. I'd be a fool. Alright now, if you say to me, Boy Willie, I'm using that piano. I give out lessons on it and that help me make my rent or whatever. Then that be something else. I'd have to go on and say, well, Berniece using that piano. She building on it. Let her go on and use it. I got to find another way to get Sutter's land. But Doaker say you ain't touched that piano the whole time it's been up here. So why you wanna stand in my way? See, you just looking at the sentimental value. See, that's good. That's alright. I take my hat off when ever somebody say my daddy's name. But I ain't gonna be no fool about no sentimental value. You can sit up here and look at the piano for the next hundred years and it's just gonna be a piano. You can't make more than that. Now I want to get Sutter's land with that piano. I get Sutter's land and I can go down and cash in the crop and get my seed. As long as I got the land and the seed then I'm alright. I can always get me a little something else. Cause that land give back to you. I can make me another crop and cash that in. I still got the land and the seed. But that piano don't put out nothing else. You ain't got nothing working for you. Now, the kind of man my daddy was he would have understood that. I'm sorry you can't see it that way. But that's why I'm gonna take that piano out of here and sell it. • 52 • THE PIANO LESSON You ain't taking that piano out of my house. (She crosses to the piano.) Look at this piano. Look at it. Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in . . . mixed it up with the rest of the blood on it. Every day that God breathed life into her body she rubbed and cleaned and polished and prayed over it. "Play something for me, Berniece. Play something for me, Berniece." Every day. "I cleaned it up for you, play something for me, Berniece. - You always talking about your daddy but you ain't never stopped to look at what his foolishness cost your mama. Seventeen years' worth of cold nights and an empty bed. For what? For a piano? For a piece of wood? To get even with somebody? I look at you and you're all the same. You, Papa Boy Charles, Wining Boy, Doaker, Crawley . . . you're all alike. All this thieving and killing and thieving and killing. And what it ever lead to? More killing and more thieving. I ain't never seen it come to nothing. People getting burned up. People getting shot. People falling down their wells. It don't never stop. DOAKER: Come on now, Berniece, ain't no need in getting upset. BERNIECE: done a little bit of stealing here and there, but I ain't never killed nobody. I can't be speaking for nobody else. You all got to speak for yourself, but I ain't never killed nobody. BOY WILLIE: I You killed Crawley just as sure as if you pulled the trigger. BERNIECE: See, that's ignorant. That's downright foolish for you to say something like that. You ain't doing nothing but showing your ignorance. If -the nigger was here I'd whup his ass for getting me and Lymon shot at. BOY WILLIE: ACT ONE, Scene 2 • 53 Crawley ain't knew about the wood. BOY WILLIE: We told the man about the wood. Ask Lymon. He knew all about the wood. He seen we was sneaking it. Why else we gonna be out there at night? Don't come telling me Crawley ain't knew about the wood. Them fellows come up on us and Crawley tried to bully them. Me and Lyrnon seen the sheriff with them and give in. Wasn't no sense in getting killed over fifty dollars' worth of wood. BERNIECE: Crawley ain't knew you stole that wood. BOY WILLIE: We ain't stole no wood. Me and Lymon was hauling wood for Jim Miller and keeping us a little bit on the side. We dumped our little bit down there by the creek till we had enough to make a load. Some fellows seen us and we figured we better get it before they did. We come up there and got Crawley to help us load it. Figured we'd cut him in. Crawley trying to keep the wolf from his door . . we was trying to help him. LYMON: Me and Boy Willie told him about the wood. We told him some fellows might be trying to beat us to it. He Say let me go back and get my thirty-eight. That's what caused all the trouble. BOY WILLIE: If Crawley ain't had the gun he'd be alive today. LYMON: We had it about half loaded when they come up on us. We seen the sheriff with them and we tried to get away. We ducked around near the bend in the creek . . . but they was down there too. Boy Willie say let's give in. But Crawley pulled out his gun and started shooting. That's when they started shooting back. BERNIECE: All I know is Crawley would be alive if you hadn't come up there and got him. BERNIECE: 77:777;177 54 • THE PIANO LESSON I ain't had nothing to do with Crawley getting killed. That was his own fault. BERNIECE: Crawley's dead and in the ground and you still walking around here eating. That's all I know. He went off to load some wood with you and ain't never come back. BOY WILLIE: I told you, woman . . . I ain't had nothing to do with . . BERNIECE: He ain't here, is he? He ain't here! (BERNIECE hits BOY WILLIE.) I said he ain't here. Is he? (BERNIECE continues to hit BOY WILLIE, who doesn't move to defend himself, other than back up and turning his head so that most of the blows fall on his chest and arms.) DOAKER: (Grabbing BERNIECE.) Come on, Berniece . let it go, it ain't his fault. BERNIECE: He ain't here, is he? Is he? BOY WILLIE: I told you I ain't responsible for Crawley. BERNIECE: He ain't here. BOY WILLIE: Come on now, Berniece . . . don't do this now. Doaker get her. I ain't had nothing to do with Crawley . . . BERNIECE: You come up there and got him! BOY WILLIE: I done told you now. Doaker, get her. I ain't playing. DOAKER: Come on. Berniece. (MARETHA is heard screaming upstairs. It is a scream of stark terror.) MARETHA: Mama! . . . Mama! (The lights go down to black. End of Act One.) BOY WILLIE: ACT TWO SCENE ONE (The lights come up on the kitchen. It is the following morning. DOAKER is ironing the pants to his uniform. He has a pot cooking on the stove at the same time. He is singing a song. The song provides him with the rhythm for his work and he moves about the kitchen with the ease born of many years as a railroad cook) DOAKER: Gonna leave Jackson Mississippi and go to Memphis and double back to Jackson Come on down to Hattiesburg Change cars on the Y.D. coming through the territory to Meridian and Meridian to Greenville and Greenville to Memphis I'm on my way and I know where Change cars on the Katy Leaving Jackson and going through Clarksdale Hello Winona! 56 • THE PIANO LESSON Courtland! Bateville! Como! Senitobia! Lewisberg! Sunflower! Glendora! Sharkey! And double back to Jackson Hello Greenwood I'm on my way Memphis Clarksdale Moorhead Indianola Can a highball pass through? Highball on through sir Grand Carson! Thirty First Street Depot Fourth Street Depot Memphis! (WINING BOY enters carrying a suit of clothes.) thought you took that suit to the pawnshop? WINING BOY: I went down there and the man tell me the suit is too old. Look at this suit. This is one hundred percent silk! [low a silk suit gonna get too old? I know what it was he just didn't want to give me five dollars for it. Best he wanna give me is three dollars. I figure a silk suit is worth five dollars all over the world. I wasn't gonna part with it for no three dollars so I brought it hack. DOAKER: They got another pawnshop up on Wylie. WINING BOY: I carried it up there. He say he don't take no clothes. Only thing he take is guns and radios. Maybe a guitar or two. Where's Berniece? DOAKER: I ACT TWO, Scene 1 • 57 Berniece still at work. Boy Willie went down there to meet Lymon this morning. I guess they got that truck fixed, they been out there all day and ain't come back yet. Maretha scared to sleep up there now. Berniece don't know, but I seen Sutter before she did. WINING BOY: Say what? DOAKER: About three weeks ago. I had just come back from down there. Sutter couldn't have been dead more than three days. He was sitting over there at the piano. I come out to go to work . . . and he was sitting right there. Had his hand on top of his head just like Berniece said. I believe he broke his neck when he fell in the well. I kept quiet about it. I didn't see no reason to upset Berniece. WINING BOY: Did he say anything? Did he say he was looking for Boy Willie? DOAKER: He was just sitting there. He ain't said nothing. I went on out the door and left him sitting there. I figure as long as he was on the other side of the room everything be alright. I don't know what I would have done if he had started walking toward me. WINING BOY: Berniece say he was calling Boy Willie's name. DOAKER: I ain't heard him say nothing. He was just sitting there when I seen him. But I don't believe Boy Willie pushed him in the well. Sutter here cause of that piano. I heard him playing on it one time. I thought it was Berniece but then she don't play that kind of music. I come out here and ain't seen nobody, but them piano keys was moving a mile a minute. Berniece need to go on and get rid of it. It ain't done nothing but cause trouble. WINING BOY: I agree with Berniece. Boy Charles ain't took it to give it back. He took it cause he figure he had more right to it than Sutter did. If Sutter can't understand that DOAKER: 58 • THE PIANO LESSON . . . then that's just the way that go. Sutter dead and in the ground . . . don't care where his ghost is. He can hover around and play on the piano all he want. I want to see him carry it out the house. Tha t's what I want to see. What time Berniece get home? I don't see how I let her get away from me this morning. DOAKER: You up there slee p. Berniece leave out of here early in the morning. She out ther e in Squirrel Hill cleaning house for some bigshot dow n there at the steel mill. They don't like you to come late . You come late they won't give you your carfare. Wha t kind of business you got with Berniece? WINING BOY: My business . I ain't asked you what kind of business you got. DOAKER: Berniece ain't got no money. If that's why you was trying to catch her. She having a hard enough time trying to get by as it is. If she go ahea d and marry Avery . . he working every day . . . she go ahead and marry him they could do alright for themselv es. But as it stands she ain't got no money. WINING BOY: Well, let me have five dollars. DOAKER: I just give you a dollar before you left out of here. You ain't gonna take my five doll ars out there and gamble and drink it up. WINING BOY: Aw, nigger, give me five dollars. I'll give it back to you. DOAKER: You wasn't look ing to give me five dollars when you had that sack of money. You was n't looking to throw nothing my way. Now you wanna come in here and borrow five dollars. If you going back with Boy Willie you need to be trying to figure out how you gonna get train fare. ACT TWO, Scene 1 • 59 WINING BOY: That's why I need the five dollars. If I had five dollars I could get me some mon ey. (DOAKER goes into his pocket.) Make it seven. DOAKER: You take this five dollars . . . and you bring my money back here too. (BOY WILLIE and LYMON enter. They are happ y and excited. They have money in all of their pock ets and are anxious to count it.) DOAKER: How'd you do out there? BOY WILLIE: They was lining up for them . LYMON: Me and Boy Willie couldn't sell them fast enough. Time we got one sold we'd sell another. BOY WILLIE: I seen what was happening and told Lymon to up the price on them. LYMON: Boy Willie say charge them a quar ter more. They didn't care. A couple of people give me a dollar and told me to keep the change. BOY WILLIE: One fellow bought five. I say now what he gonna do with five watermelons? He can't eat them all. I sold him the five and asked him did he want to buy five more. LYMON: I ain't never seen nobody snat ch a dollar fast as Boy Willie. BOY WILLIE: One lady asked me say, "Is they sweet?" I told her say, "Lady, where we grow these watermelons we put sugar in the ground." You kno w, she believed me. Talking about she had never hear d of that before. Lymon was laughing his head off. I told her, "Oh, yeah, we put the sugar right in the ground with the seed." She say, "Well, give me another one." The m white folks is something else . . . ain't they, Lymon? 60 • THE PIANO LESSON LYMON: Soon as you holler wate rmelons they come right out their door. Then they go and get their neighbors. Look like they having a contest to see who can buy the most. WINING BOY: I got something for Lymon. (WINING BOY goes to get his suit. BOY WILLIE and LYMON continue to count their mon ey.) BOY WILLIE: I know you got more than that. You ain't sold all them watermelons for that little bit of money. I'm still looking. That ain't all you got either. Where's all them quarters? BOY WILLIE: You let me worr y about the quarters. Just put the money on the table. LYMON: (Entering with his suit.) Look here, Lymon . . . see this? Look at his eyes getting big. He ain't never seen a suit like this. This is one hundred percent silk. Go ahead . . . put it on. See if it fit you. (LYMON tries the suit coat on.) Look at that. Feel it. That's one hundred percent genuine silk. I got that in Chicago. You can't get clothes like that nowhere but New York and Chicago. You can't get clothes like that in Pittsburgh. These folk s in Pittsburgh ain't never seen clothes like that. LYMON: This is nice, feel real nice and smooth. WINING BOY: That's a fifty-five -dollar suit. That's the kind of suit the bigshots wear. You need a pisto l and a pocketful of money to wear that suit. I'll let you have it for three dollars. The women will fall out their windows they see you in a suit like that. Give me three dollars and go on and wear it down the street and get you a woman. BOY WILLIE: That looks nice. Lymon. Put the pants on. Let me see it with the pants. (LYMON begins to try on the pants.) WINING BOY: ACT TWO, Scene 1 • 61 WINING BOY: Look at that . . . see how it fits you? Give me three dollars and go on and take it. Look at that, Doaker . . . don't he look nice? DOAKER: Yeah . . . that's a nice suit. WINING BOY: Got a shirt to go with it. Cost you an extra dollar. Four dollars you got the whole deal . LYMON: How this look, Boy Willie? BOY WILLIE: That look nice . . . if you like that kind of thing. I don't like them dress-up kind of clothes. If you like it, look real nice. WINING BOY: That's the kind of suit you need for up here in the North. LYMON: Four dollars for everything? The suit and the shirt? WINING BOY: That's cheap. I should be char ging you twenty dollars. I give you a break cause you a homeboy. That's the only way I let you have it for four dolla rs. LYMON: (Going into his pocket.) Okay . . . here go the four dollars. WINING BOY: You got some shoes? What size you wear? LYMON: Size nine. WINING BOY: That's what size I got! Size nine. I let you have them for three dollars. LYMON: Where they at? Let me see them . WINING BOY: They real nice shoes, too. Got a nice tip to them. Got pointy toe just like you want. (WINING BOY goes to get his shoes.) LYMON: Come on, Boy Willie, let's go out tonig ht. I wanna see what it looks like up here. Maybe we go to a picture show. Hey, Doaker, they got picture show s up here? DOAKER: The Rhumba Theater. Right dow n there on Fullerton Street. Can't miss it. Got the spea kers outside on 62 THE PIANO LESSON the sidewalk. You can hear it a block away. Boy Willie know where it's at. (DOAKER exits into his room.) ACT TWO, Scene 1 • 63 WINING BOY: His daddy was the same way. I used to run fit up in there? LYMON: If we stack them watermelons you can sit it up in the front there. around with him. I know his mama too. Two strokes back and I would have been his daddy! His dadd y's dead now . . . but I got the nigger out of jail one time. They was fixing to name him Daniel and walk him through the Lion's Den. He got in a tussle with one of them white fellOws and the sheriff lit on him like whit e on rice. That's how the whole thing come about betw een me and Lymon's mama. She knew me and his daddy used to run together and he got in jail and she went down there and took the sheriff a hundred dollars. Don't get me to lying about where she got it from. I don't know. The sheriff BOY WILLIE: I'm gonna call that man tomorrow. WINING BOY: (Returns with his shoes.) Told her, say, "That ain't gonna do him no good. You got to put another hundred on top of that." She come up LYMON: Let's go to the picture show, Boy Willie. Let's go find some women. BOY WILLIE: Hey, Lymon, how many of them watermelons would you say we got left? We got just unde r a half a load . . . right? LYMON: About that much. Mayb e a little more. BOY WILLIE: You think that piano will Here you go . . . size nine. Put them on. Cost you three dollars. That's a Florsheim shoe. That's the kind Staggerlee wore . LYMON: (Trying on the shoes.) You sure these size nine? WINING BOY: You can look at my feet and see we wear the same size. Man, you put on that suit and them shoes and you got something there. You ready for what ever's out there. But is they ready for you? With them shoes on you be the King of the Walk. Have everybody stop to look at your shoes. Wishing they had a pair. I'll give you a break. Go on and take them for two dollars. (LYMON pays WINING BOY two dollars.) LYMON: Come on, Boy Willie . . . let's go find some women. I'm gonna go upstairs and get ready. I'll be ready to go in a minute. Ain't you gonna get dress ed? BOY WILLIE: l'm gonna wear what I got on. I ain't dressing up for these city niggers. (LYMON exits up the stairs.) That's all Lymon think about is women. looked at that hundred dollars and turned his nose up there and got me where I was playing at this saloo n... said she had all but fifty dollars and asked me if I could help. Now the way I figured it . . . without that fifty dollars the sheriff was gonna turn him over to Parchman. The sheriff turn him over to Parchman it be three years before anybody see him again. Now I'm gonn a say it right . . . I will give anybody fifty dollars to keep them out of jail for three years. I give her the fifty dollars and she told me to come over to the house. I ain't asked her. I figure if she was nice enough to invite me I ough t to go. I ain't had to say a word. She invited me over just as nice. Say, "Why don't you come over to the house?" She ain't had to say nothing else. Them words rolled off her tongue just as nice. I went on down there and sat abou t three hours. Started to leave and changed my mind. She grabbed hold to me and say, "Baby, it's all night long. " That was one of the shortest nights I have ever spent on this earth! I could have used another eight hours. Lym on's daddy didn't even say nothing to me when he got out. He just 64 • THE PIANO LESSON ACT TWO, Scene 2 • 65 looked at me funny. He had a good notion something had happened between me an' her. L. D. Jackson. That was one bad-luck nigger. Got killed at some dance. Fellow walked in and shot him thinking he was somebody else. (DOAKER enters from his room.) Hey, Doaker, you remember L. D. Jackson? DOAKER: That's Lymon's daddy. That was one bad-luck nigger. BOY WILLIE: Look like you ready to railroad some. DOAKER: Yeah, I got to make that run. (LYMON enters from the stairs. He is dressed in his new suit and shoes, to which he has added a cheap straw hat.) LYMON: How I look? WINING BOY: You look like a million dollars. Don't he look good, Doaker? Come on, let's play some cards. You wanna play some cards? BOY WILLIE: We ain't gonna play no cards with you. Me and Lymon gonna find some women. Hey, Lymon, don't play no cards with Wining Boy. He'll take all your money. WINING BOY: (To LYMON.) You got a magic suit there. You can get you a woman easy with that suit . . . but you got to know the magic words. You know the magic words to get you a woman? LYMON: I just talk to them to see if I like them and they like me. WINING BOY: You just walk right up to them and say, "If you got the harbor I got the ship." If that don't work ask them if you can put them in your pocket. The first thing they gonna say is, "It's too small." That's when you look them dead in the eye and say, "Baby, ain't nothing small about me." If that don't work then you move on to another one. Am I telling him right, Doaker? That man don't need you to tell him nothing about no women. These women these days ain't gonna fall for that kind of stuff. You got to buy them a present. That's what they looking for these days. BOY WILLIE: Come on, I'm ready. You ready, Lymon? Come on, let's go find some women. WINING BOY: Here, let me walk out with you. I wanna see the women fall out their window when they see Lymon. (They all exit and the lights go down on the scene.) DOAKER: SCENE 2 (The lights come up on the kitchen. It is late evening of the same day. BERNIECE has set a tub for her bath in the kitchen. She is heating up water on the stove. There is a knock at the door.) Who is it? AVERY: It's me, Avery. (BERNIECE opens the door and lets him in.) BERNIECE: Avery, come on in. I was just fixing to take my bath AVERY: Where Boy Willie? I see that truck out there almost empty. They done sold almost all them watermelons. BERNIECE: They was gone when I come home. I don't know where they went off to. Boy Willie around here about to drive me crazy. AVERY: They sell them watermelons . . . he'll be gone soon. BERNIECE: What Mr. Cohen say about letting you have the place? BERNIECE: 66 • THE PIANO LESSON He say he'll let me have it for thirty dollars a month. I talked him out of thirty-five and he say he'll let me have it for thirty. BERNIECE: That's a nice spot next to Benny Diamond's AVERY: store. Berniece . . . I be at home and I get to thinking you up here an' I'm down there. I get to thinking how that look to have a preacher that ain't married. It makes for a better congregation if the preacher was settled down and married. BERNIECE: Avery . . . not now. I was fixing to take my bath. AVERY: You know how I feel about you, Berniece. Now . . . I done got the place from Mr. Cohen. I get the money from the bank and I can fix it up real nice. They give me a ten cents a hour raise down there on the job . . . now Berniece, I ...