Blues for Mister Charlie (8 page)

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

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

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

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

JO
: You going to be home for supper?

LYLE
: Yeah, sugar. Come on, Parnell.

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

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

JO
: So long.

LYLE
: Didn’t you ever get like that? Sure, you must have got like that sometimes—just restless! You got everything you need and you can’t complain about nothing—and yet, look like, you just can’t be satisfied. Didn’t you ever get like that? I swear, men is mighty strange! I’m kind of restless now.

PARNELL
: What’s the matter with you? You worried about the trial?

LYLE
: No, I ain’t worried about the trial. I ain’t even mad at you, Parnell. Some folks think I should be, but I ain’t mad at you. They don’t know you like I know you. I ain’t fooled by all your wild ideas. We both white and we both from around here, and we been buddies all our lives. That’s all that counts. I know you ain’t going to let nothing happen to me.

PARNELL
: That’s good to hear.

LYLE
: After all the trouble started in this town—but before that crazy boy got himself killed, soon after he got here and started raising all that hell—I started thinking about her, about Willa Mae, more and more and more. She was too young for him. Old Bill, he was sixty if he was a day, he wasn’t doing her no good. Yet and still, the first time I took Willa Mae, I had to fight her. I swear I did. Maybe she was
frightened. But I never had to fight her again. No. It was good, boy, let me tell you, and she liked it as much as me. Hey! You still with me?

PARNELL
: I’m still with you. Go on.

LYLE
: What’s the last thing I said?

PARNELL
: That she liked it as much as you—which I find hard to believe.

LYLE
: Ha-ha! I’m telling you. I never had it for nobody bad as I had it for her.

PARNELL
: When did Old Bill find out?

LYLE
: Old Bill? He wouldn’t never have thought nothing if people hadn’t started poisoning his mind. People started talking just because my Daddy wasn’t well and she was up at the house so much because somebody had to look after him. First they said she was carrying on with
him.
Hell, my Daddy would sure have been willing, but he was far from able. He was really wore out by that time and he just wanted rest. Then people started to saying that it was me.

PARNELL
: Old Bill ever talk to you about it?

LYLE
: How was he going to talk to me about it? Hell, we was right good friends. Many’s the time I helped Old Bill out when his cash was low. I used to load Willa Mae up with things from the kitchen just to make sure they didn’t go hungry.

PARNELL
: Old Bill never mentioned it to you? Never? He never gave you any reason to think he knew about it?

LYLE
: Well, I don’t know what was going on in his
mind
, Parnell. You can’t never see what’s in anybody else’s
mind
—you know that. He didn’t
act
no different. Hell, like I say, she was young enough to be his granddaughter damn near, so I figured he thought it might be a pretty good arrangement—me doing
his
work, ha-ha! because
he
damn sure couldn’t do it no more, and helping him to stay alive.

PARNELL
: Then why was he so mad at you the last time you saw him?

LYLE
: Like I said, he accused me of cheating him. And I ain’t never cheated a black man in my life. I hate to say it, because we’ve always been good friends, but sometimes I think it might have been Joel—Papa D.—who told him that. Old Bill wasn’t too good at figuring.

PARNELL
: Why would Papa D. tell him a thing like that?

LYLE
: I think he might have been a little jealous.

PARNELL
: Jealous? You mean, of you and Willa Mae?

LYLE
: Yeah. He ain’t really an old man, you know. But I’m sure he didn’t mean—for things to turn out like they did.
(A pause)
I can still see him—the way he looked when he come into this store.

PARNELL
: The way
who
looked when he came into this store?

LYLE
: Why—Old Bill. He looked crazy. Like he wanted to kill me. He
did
want to kill me. Crazy nigger.

PARNELL
: I thought you meant the other one. But the other one didn’t die in the store.

LYLE
: Old Bill didn’t die in the store. He died over yonder, in the road.

PARNELL
: I thought you were talking about Richard Henry.

LYLE
: That crazy boy. Yeah, he come in here. I don’t know what was the matter with him, he hadn’t seen me but one time in his life before. And I treated him like—like I would have treated
any
man.

PARNELL
: I heard about it. It was in Papa D.’s joint. He was surrounded by niggers—or
you
were—

LYLE
: He was dancing with one of them crazy young ones—the real pretty nigger girl—what’s her name?

PARNELL
: Juanita.

LYLE
: That’s the one.
(Juke box music, soft. Voices. Laughter)
Yeah. He looked at me like he wanted to kill me. And he insulted my wife. And I hadn’t never done him no harm.
(As above, a little stronger)
But I been thinking about it. And you know what I think? Hey! You gone to sleep?

PARNELL
: No. I’m thinking.

LYLE
: What you thinking about?

PARNELL
: Us. You and me.

LYLE
: And what do you think about us—you and me? What’s the point of thinking about us, anyway? We’ve been buddies all our lives—we can’t stop being buddies now.

PARNELL
: That’s right, buddy. What were you about to say?

LYLE
: Oh. I think a lot of the niggers in this town, especially the young ones, is turned bad. And I believe they was egging him on.

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

PARNELL
: Let
me.

JO
: My, it’s hot! Wish we’d gone for a ride or something. Declare to goodness, we ain’t got no reason to be sitting around this store. Ain’t nobody coming in here—not to
buy
anything, anyway.

PARNELL
: I’ll buy some bubble gum.

JO
: You know you don’t chew bubble gum.

PARNELL
: Well, then, I’ll buy some cigarettes.

JO
: Two cartons, or three? It’s all right, Parnell, the Britten family’s going to make it somehow.

LYLE
: Couple of niggers coming down the road. Maybe they’ll drop in for a Coke.

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

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

LYLE
(Off)
: Be seeing you!

RICHARD
: Hey, you want a Coke? I’m thirsty.

LORENZO
: Let’s go on a little further.

RICHARD
: Man, we been walking for
days
, my mouth is as dry as that damn dusty road. Come on, have a Coke with me, won’t take but a minute.

LORENZO
: We don’t trade in there. Come on—

RICHARD
: Oh! Is this the place? Hell, I’d like to get another look at the peckerwood, ain’t going to give him but a dime. I want to get his face fixed in my
mind
, so there won’t be no time wasted when the time comes, you dig?
(Enters the store)
Hey, Mrs. Ofay Ednolbay Ydalay! you got any Coca Cola for sale?

JO
: What?

RICHARD
: Coke! Me and my man been toting barges and lifting bales, that’s right, we been slaving, and we need a little cool. Liquid. Refreshment. Yeah, and you can take that hammer, too.

JO
: Boy, what do you want?

RICHARD
: A Coca Cola, ma’am. Please ma’am.

JO
: They right in the box there.

RICHARD
: Thank you kindly.
(Takes two Cokes, opens them)
Oh, this is fine,
fine.
Did you put them in this box with your own little dainty dish-pan hands? Sure makes them taste
sweet.

JO
: Are you talking to me?

RICHARD
: No ma’am, just feel like talking to myself from time to time, makes the time pass faster.
(At screen door)
Hey, Lorenz, I got you a Coke.

LORENZO
: I don’t want it. Come on out of there.

JO
: That will be twenty cents.

RICHARD
:
Twenty
cents? All right. Don’t you know how to say please? All the women I know say please—of course, they ain’t as pretty as you. I ain’t got twenty cents, ma’am. All I got is—twenty dollars!

JO
: You ain’t got nothing smaller?

RICHARD
: No ma’am. You see, I don’t never carry on me more cash than I can afford to
lose.

JO
: Lyle!
(Lyle enters, carrying the hammer)
You got any change?

LYLE
: Change for a twenty? No, you know I ain’t got it.

RICHARD
: You all got this big, fine store and all—and you ain’t got change for
twenty
dollars?

LYLE
: It’s early in the day, boy.

RICHARD
: It ain’t that early. I thought white folks was rich at
every
hour of the day.

LYLE
: Now, if you looking for trouble, you just might get it. That boy outside—ain’t he got twenty cents?

RICHARD
: That boy outside is about twenty-four years old, and he ain’t got twenty cents. Ain’t no need to ask him.

LYLE
(At the door)
: Boy! You got twenty cents?

LORENZO
: Come on out of there, Richard! I’m tired of hanging around here!

LYLE
: Boy, didn’t you hear what I asked you?

LORENZO
: Mister Britten, I ain’t
in
the store, and I ain’t
bought
nothing in the store, and so I ain’t
got
to tell you whether or not I got twenty cents!

RICHARD
: Maybe your wife could run home and get some change. You
got
some change at home, I know. Don’t you?

LYLE
: I don’t stand for nobody to talk about my wife.

RICHARD
: I only said you was a lucky man to have so fine a
wife.
I said maybe she could run
home
and look and see if there was any change—in the
home.

LYLE
: I seen you before some place. You that crazy nigger. You ain’t from around here.

RICHARD
: You
know
you seen me. And you remember where. And when. I was born right here, in this town. I’m Reverend Meridian Henry’s son.

LYLE
: You say that like you thought your Daddy’s name was some kind of protection. He ain’t no protection against
me
—him, nor that boy outside, neither.

RICHARD
: I don’t need no protection, do I? Not in my own home town, in the good old USA. I just dropped by to sip on a Coke in a simple country store—and come to find out the joker ain’t got enough bread to change twenty dollars. Stud ain’t got
nothing
—you people been spoofing the public, man.

LYLE
: You put them Cokes down and get out of here.

RICHARD
: I ain’t finished yet. And I ain’t changed my bill yet.

LYLE
: Well, I ain’t going to change that bill, and you ain’t going to finish them Cokes. You get your black ass out of here—go on! If you got any sense, you’ll get your black ass out of this town.

RICHARD
: You don’t own this town, you white mother-fucker. You don’t
even
own twenty dollars. Don’t you raise that hammer. I’ll take it and beat your skull to jelly.

JO
: Lyle! Don’t you fight that boy! He’s crazy! I’m going to call the Sheriff!
(Starts toward the back, returns to counter)
The baby! Lyle! Watch out for the baby!

RICHARD
: A baby, huh? How many times did you have to try for it, you no-good, ball-less peckerwood? I’m surprised you could even get it up—look at the way you sweating now.