A Raisin in the Sun (12 page)

(
RUTH
gives
MAMA
an unpleasant look for her kindness
)

JOHNSON
(
Accepting the coffee
) Where’s Brother tonight?

MAMA
He’s lying down.

JOHNSON
Mmmmmm, he sure gets his beauty rest, don’t he? Good-looking man. Sure is a good-looking man! (
Reaching out to pat
RUTH’S
stomach again
) I guess that’s how come we keep on having babies around here. (
She winks at
MAMA
) One thing ’bout Brother, he always know how to have a
good
time. And soooooo ambitious! I bet it was his idea y’all moving out to
Clybourne Park. Lord—I bet this time next month y’all’s names will have been in the papers plenty—(
Holding up her hands to mark off each word of the headline she can see in front of her
) “NEGROES INVADE CLYBOURNE PARK—BOMBED!”

MAMA
(
She and
RUTH
look at the woman in amazement
) We ain’t exactly moving out there to get bombed.

JOHNSON
Oh, honey—you know I’m praying to God every day that don’t nothing like that happen! But you have to think of life like it is—and these here Chicago peckerwoods is some baaaad peckerwoods.

MAMA
(
Wearily
) We done thought about all that Mis’ Johnson.

(
BENEATHA
comes out of the bedroom in her robe and passes through to the bathroom
.
MRS
.
JOHNSON
turns
)

JOHNSON
Hello there, Bennie!

BENEATHA
(
Crisply
) Hello, Mrs. Johnson.

JOHNSON
How is school?

BENEATHA
(
Crisply
) Fine, thank you. (
She goes out.
)

JOHNSON
(
Insulted
) Getting so she don’t have much to say to nobody.

MAMA
The child was on her way to the bathroom.

JOHNSON
I know—but sometimes she act like ain’t got time to pass the time of day with nobody ain’t been to college. Oh—I ain’t criticizing her none. It’s just—you know how some of our young people gets when they get a little education. (
MAMA
and
RUTH
say nothing, just look at her
) Yes—well. Well, I guess I better get on home. (
Unmoving
) ’Course I can understand how she must be proud and everything—being the only one in the family to make something of herself. I know just
being a chauffeur ain’t never satisfied Brother none. He shouldn’t feel like that, though. Ain’t nothing wrong with being a chauffeur.

MAMA
There’s plenty wrong with it.

JOHNSON
What?

MAMA
Plenty. My husband always said being any kind of a servant wasn’t a fit thing for a man to have to be. He always said a man’s hands was made to make things, or to turn the earth with—not to drive nobody’s car for ’em—or—(
She looks at her own hands
) carry they slop jars. And my boy is just like him—he wasn’t meant to wait on nobody.

JOHNSON
(
Rising, somewhat offended
) Mmmmmmmmm. The Youngers is too much for me! (
She looks around
) You sure one proud-acting bunch of colored folks. Well—I always thinks like Booker T. Washington said that time—“Education has spoiled many a good plow hand”—

MAMA
Is that what old Booker T. said?

JOHNSON
He sure did.

MAMA
Well, it sounds just like him. The fool.

JOHNSON
(
Indignantly
) Well—he was one of our great men.

MAMA
Who said so?

JOHNSON
(
Nonplussed
) You know, me and you ain’t never agreed about some things, Lena Younger. I guess I better be going—

RUTH
(
Quickly
) Good night.

JOHNSON
Good night. Oh—(
Thrusting it at her
) You can keep the paper! (
With a trill
) ’Night.

MAMA
Good night, Mis’ Johnson.

(
MRS. JOHNSON
exits
)

RUTH
If ignorance was gold …

MAMA
Shush. Don’t talk about folks behind their backs.

RUTH
You do.

MAMA
I’m old and corrupted. (
BENEATHA
enters
) You was rude to Mis’ Johnson, Beneatha, and I don’t like it at all.

BENEATHA
(
At her door
) Mama, if there are two things we, as a people, have got to overcome, one is the Ku Klux Klan—and the other is Mrs. Johnson. (
She exits
)

MAMA
Smart aleck.

(
The phone rings
)

RUTH
I’ll get it.

MAMA
Lord, ain’t this a popular place tonight.

RUTH
(
At the phone
) Hello—Just a minute. (
Goes to door
) Walter, it’s Mrs. Arnold. (
Waits. Goes back to the phone. Tense
) Hello. Yes, this is his wife speaking … He’s lying down now. Yes … well, he’ll be in tomorrow. He’s been very sick. Yes—I know we should have called, but we were so sure he’d be able to come in today. Yes—yes, I’m very sorry. Yes … Thank you very much. (
She hangs up
.
WALTER
is standing in the doorway of the bedroom behind her
) That was Mrs. Arnold.

WALTER
(
Indifferently
) Was it?

RUTH
She said if you don’t come in tomorrow that they are getting a new man …

WALTER
Ain’t that sad—ain’t that crying sad.

RUTH
She said Mr. Arnold has had to take a cab for three days … Walter, you ain’t been to work for three days! (
This is a revelation to her
) Where you been, Walter Lee Younger? (
WALTER
looks at her and starts to laugh
) You’re going to lose your job.

WALTER
That’s right … (
He turns on the radio
)

RUTH
Oh, Walter, and with your mother working like a dog every day—

(
A steamy, deep blues pours into the room
)

WALTER
That’s sad too— Everything is sad.

MAMA
What you been doing for these three days, son?

WALTER
Mama—you don’t know all the things a man what got leisure can find to do in this city … What’s this—Friday night? Well—Wednesday I borrowed Willy Harris’ car and I went for a drive … just me and myself and I drove and drove … Way out … way past South Chicago, and I parked the car and I sat and looked at the steel mills all day long. I just sat in the car and looked at them big black chimneys for hours. Then I drove back and I went to the Green Hat. (
Pause
) And Thursday—Thursday I borrowed the car again and I got in it and I pointed it the other way and I drove the other way—for hours—way, way up to Wisconsin, and I looked at the farms. I just drove and looked at the farms. Then I drove back and I went to the Green Hat. (
Pause
) And today—today I didn’t get the car. Today I just walked. All over the Southside. And I looked at the Negroes and they looked at me and finally I just sat down on the curb at Thirty-ninth and South Parkway and I just sat there and watched the Negroes go by. And then I went to the Green Hat. You all sad? You all depressed? And you know where I am going right now—

(
RUTH
goes out quietly
)

MAMA
Oh, Big Walter, is this the harvest of our days?

WALTER
You know what I like about the Green Hat? I like this little cat they got there who blows a sax … He blows. He talks to me. He ain’t but ’bout five feet tall and he’s got a conked head and his eyes is always closed and he’s all music—

MAMA
(
Rising and getting some papers out of her handbag
) Walter—

WALTER
And there’s this other guy who plays the piano … and they got a sound. I mean they can work on some music … They got the best little combo in the world in the Green Hat … You can just sit there and drink and listen to them three men play and you realize that don’t nothing matter worth a damn, but just being there—

MAMA
I’ve helped do it to you, haven’t I, son? Walter I been wrong.

WALTER
Naw—you ain’t never been wrong about nothing, Mama.

MAMA
Listen to me, now. I say I been wrong, son. That I been doing to you what the rest of the world been doing to you. (
She turns off the radio
) Walter—(
She stops and he looks up slowly at her and she meets his eyes pleadingly
) What you ain’t never understood is that I ain’t got nothing, don’t own nothing, ain’t never really wanted nothing that wasn’t for you. There ain’t nothing as precious to me … There ain’t nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else—if it means—if it means it’s going to destroy my boy. (
She takes an envelope out of her handbag and puts it in front of him and he watches her without speaking or moving) I
paid the man thirty-five hundred dollars down on the house. That leaves sixty-five hundred dollars. Monday morning
I want you to take this money and take three thousand dollars and put it in a savings account for Beneatha’s medical schooling. The rest you put in a checking account—with your name on it. And from now on any penny that come out of it or that go in it is for you to look after. For you to decide. (
She drops her hands a little helplessly
) It ain’t much, but it’s all I got in the world and I’m putting it in your hands. I’m telling you to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be.

WALTER
(
Stares at the money
) You trust me like that, Mama?

MAMA
I ain’t never stop trusting you. Like I ain’t never stop loving you.

(
She goes out, and
WALTER
sits looking at the money on the table. Finally, in a decisive gesture, he gets up, and, in mingled joy and desperation, picks up the money. At the same moment
,
TRAVIS
enters for bed
)

TRAVIS
What’s the matter, Daddy? You drunk?

WALTER
(
Sweetly, more sweetly than we have ever known him
) No, Daddy ain’t drunk. Daddy ain’t going to never be drunk again.…

TRAVIS
Well, good night, Daddy.

(
The
FATHER
has come from behind the couch and leans over, embracing his son
)

WALTER
Son, I feel like talking to you tonight.

TRAVIS
About what?

WALTER
Oh, about a lot of things. About you and what kind of man you going to be when you grow up. … Son—son, what do you want to be when you grow up?

TRAVIS
A bus driver.

WALTER
(
Laughing a little
) A what? Man, that ain’t nothing to want to be!

TRAVIS
Why not?

WALTER
’Cause, man—it ain’t big enough—you know what I mean.

TRAVIS
I don’t know then. I can’t make up my mind. Sometimes Mama asks me that too. And sometimes when I tell her I just want to be like you—she says she don’t want me to be like that and sometimes she says she does.…

WALTER
(
Gathering him up in his arms
) You know what, Travis? In seven years you going to be seventeen years old. And things is going to be very different with us in seven years, Travis. … One day when you are seventeen I’ll come home—home from my office downtown somewhere—

TRAVIS
You don’t work in no office, Daddy.

WALTER
No—but after tonight. After what your daddy gonna do tonight, there’s going to be offices—a whole lot of offices.…

TRAVIS
What you gonna do tonight, Daddy?

WALTER
You wouldn’t understand yet, son, but your daddy’s gonna make a transaction … a business transaction that’s going to change our lives. … That’s how come one day when you ’bout seventeen years old I’ll come home and I’ll be pretty tired, you know what I mean, after a day of conferences and secretaries getting things wrong the way they do … ’cause an executive’s life is hell, man—(
The more he talks the farther away he gets
) And I’ll pull the car up on the driveway … just a plain black Chrysler, I think, with white
walls—no—black tires. More elegant. Rich people don’t have to be flashy … though I’ll have to get something a little sportier for Ruth—maybe a Cadillac convertible to do her shopping in. … And I’ll come up the steps to the house and the gardener will be clipping away at the hedges and he’ll say, “Good evening, Mr. Younger.” And I’ll say, “Hello, Jefferson, how are you this evening?” And I’ll go inside and Ruth will come downstairs and meet me at the door and we’ll kiss each other and she’ll take my arm and we’ll go up to your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogues of all the great schools in America around you. … All the great schools in the world! And—and I’ll say, all right son—it’s your seventeenth birthday, what is it you’ve decided? … Just tell me where you want to go to school and you’ll
go
. Just tell me, what it is you want to be—and you’ll
be
it. … Whatever you want to be—Yessir! (
He holds his arms open for
TRAVIS
) Y
OU
just name it, son … (
TRAVIS
leaps into them
) and I hand you the world!