The Stonemason (5 page)

B
EN
Seven hundred and eighty two.

She shakes her head.

B
EN
Do you want to know what that comes to in dollars?

M
AVEN
That's not why I asked, Ben.

B
EN
I know. It's mindless work. It's as easy to do fast as it is slow.

M
AVEN
That's not just working fast.

B
EN
Well. It makes it more interesting.

M
AVEN
Then you go out to the farm and work till eight. That's a thirteen hour day. Besides stonework that you and Papaw do on the side.

B
EN
I don't know any other way to do it.

M
AVEN
How soon are you leaving?

B
EN
Just a few minutes.

She kisses him again.

M
AVEN
Bye.

B
EN
I'll see you tonight.

M
AVEN
Look after him, Ben.

B
EN
You know I look after him.

M
AVEN
I know. Look after him anyway.

Maven exits.

SCENE II

The kitchen, evening. It is dark out. The supper dishes are still on the table and Mama and Carlotta are sitting at the table and
MELISSA
is in a high chair. Carlotta is smoking a cigarette. Ben is standing in the kitchen dressed in a sportcoat and tie and he has his coat over his arm. Sound of steps on the basement stairs. Maven enters. She is dressed for the evening and has on her coat.

M
AMA
Be slick out there, Benny. You be careful.

Maven comes to the table and kisses Mama on the cheek.

M
AVEN
Night Mama. Thank you.

She kisses Melissa.

M
AVEN
Night Punkin.

Ben is putting on his coat. Maven buttons her coat up.

B
EN
You ready?

M
AMA
What time you all be back?

B
EN
About daylight.

M
AMA
(
Laughing
) Yeah, daylight.

M
AVEN
We'll be back about eleven or eleven thirty.

She takes Ben's arm and they go out. Mama gets up and begins to clear away the dishes. Outside the truck doors slam and the motor starts and the truck pulls away. The lights sweep past the kitchen window. Carlotta stubs out her cigarette. Mama screws up her nose.

M
AMA
Shoo, girl. I don't see how you can puff on them nasty things. I'd about as soon commit fornication.

C
ARLOTTA
So would I.

Mama has started away from the table and she turns and gives Carlotta a vicious look. Carlotta holds her hands palm up.

C
ARLOTTA
It's a joke, Mama. A joke.

M
AMA
Joke? Mmph. Ain't nothin to be jokin about.

C
ARLOTTA
Well you're the one that said it, Mama.

M
AMA
Well it wasn't said for no joke.

She goes on to the sink. Carlotta shakes her head, smiling. Mama returns and makes a fuss over Melissa.

C
ARLOTTA
You've got her spoiled completely rotten.

M
AMA
Good thing they somebody here to spoil her.

C
ARLOTTA
You think Maven ought to be here more?

M
AMA
She come to me fore she will to her own mama.

C
ARLOTTA
Well it's just temporary.

M
AMA
Honey life's just temporary. Besides she got two more long years in that school. And then what she goin to do? I heard of Negro lawyers and I heard of women lawyers but I sure ain't never heard of no Negro woman lawyer. Not in Louisville Kentucky I ain't.

C
ARLOTTA
Times change, Mama.

M
AMA
Amen, sister, Amen. You said a mouthful when you said that. (
She sits heavily at the table
). Ain't her nor Ben neither one in this house no longer'n what it takes to sleep and eat breakfast. Tell me about spoilin this child and her not much better than a orphan?

C
ARLOTTA
Well Mama, I'd be ashamed.

M
AMA
Well it's the truth. What's the truth, you might as well tell it.

C
ARLOTTA
Well I'd be afraid to start back to school. You'd be bad mouthing me too.

M
AMA
Ain't nobody bad mouthin nobody. She's a sweet girl. Couldn't ask for no better hardly. She just got a lot of high tone ideas, that's all. Life'll smack a few of em out of her fore it gets done with her. Besides, Benny's the one ought to be the lawyer. He'd be a dandy too. Smart as he is.

C
ARLOTTA
Well I declare, Mama. I don't believe I'm hearing this. You're jealous of her on Ben's part.

M
AMA
Ain't done no such a thing. Just statin the facts, that's all.

C
ARLOTTA
Well in any case she's here more than Ben, that's for sure.

M
AMA
She supposed to be.

C
ARLOTTA
If you count the work he contracts with Papaw and the work he does out at his farm he's working three jobs. I don't see how she got pregnant the first time let alone twice.

M
AMA
Girl you got a mouth on you, you know that?

C
ARLOTTA
There's nothing wrong with saying that.

M
AMA
Hmph.

C
ARLOTTA
You think men are born with rights that women don't have. That they can come and go like migratory birds and it's perfectly natural. . .

M
AMA
It is natural. Tryin to change nature. Women has babies. You cain't get around that. That's the plan the good Lord laid down and you won't change it. You can make up you own plan if you want to, and you can read it in ruin.

C
ARLOTTA
Well, it wasn't the good Lord's plan that I ever heard of for men to be gone all hours of the day and night.

M
AMA
You watch yourself girl. You hear? You just watch yourself.

C
ARLOTTA
That's what it's about.

M
AMA
I ain't goin to tell you again.

C
ARLOTTA
I'll tell you what you told me. The truth's the truth.

Mama gets up from the table and busies herself at the sideboard.

C
ARLOTTA
You're right. It's none of my business.

Mama has come back to the table and is picking up Melissa.

M
AMA
Honey, you ready to put on your jammies? You ready to go nigh—night?

SCENE III

The kitchen, Sunday morning. The family are coming in from outside, returning from church. They disperse through the kitchen and exit, steps on the stairs both up and down, leaving Papaw and Ben in the kitchen. Ben is putting the kettle on. Papaw has taken off his overcoat and hat and laid the coat across the back of a kitchen chair. He has on an old fashioned dark suit, white shirt with tie, high top black kid dress shoes. He sits at the kitchen table and puts his hat on the table. Ben is fixing tea.

B
EN
Papaw, what did you think of the new minister?

P
APAW
Well I liked him just fine. Liked him just fine. I didn't catch his name

B
EN
Erickson. His name is Erickson.

P
APAW
Erickson. I worked one time for a man named Erickson. He sure wasn't no minister.

B
EN
(
Smiling
) I thought you might think he was a bit young for the job.

P
APAW
Well he is young. But he seemed to have good sense. Bein old don't shelter people from ignorance. Ought to, but it don't.

Ben pours the cups and brings them to the table.

P
APAW
Thank you Benny. Thank you. A lot of the old time preachers used to preach all kinds of foolishness. Or it was to my ears. I heard any number of times how when colored folks got to heaven they'd be white. Well that don't make no more sense than a goose wearin gaiters. God didn't make the colored man colored just to see how he'd look. There ain't nothin triflin about God. He made everbody the color He wanted em to be and He meant for em to stay that way. And if that suits Him it’s got to suit me too, else I's just a damn fool.

B
EN
Did you always feel that way?

P
APAW
I think so. I know some coloreds don't, but I always did. It was the way I was raised.

B
EN
Do you think it was easier growing up black back then?

P
APAW
Many ways it was. Course in many ways it was easier don't matter what color you was. We lived out at the farm and we didn't have a whole lot of experience of the world. Our families, Telfair families, colored and white, we'd been together over a hundred year and we didn't encounter all that much meanness. They was good people and so was we. The first time I ever understood that the white man I was six year old and they was a circus show come to Louisville and Harris, he's the oldest, he made it up for all of us to go and he got extra work for everbody and we saved them pennies, saved them pennies. I think it costed a dime to get in but we raised it. And he carried us all over there, him and Aaron and Charles and me and sister Emmanuelle she come too. We got over there and Harris had heard about the monkeys and he wanted to see em awful bad and we tried to locate where they was at and after awhile he went up to this white man was sellin lemonade, soda pop, ever what it was, and he asked him, said Mister, can you tell us where the monkey cage is at? Well, course it is funny now. The man he looked down at all us little colored children and we was all barefooted and as raggedy as a stump full of grandaddies and he said: If you couldn't find your way back, what did you leave for?

Ben laughs. Papaw smiles.

P
APAW
We didn't know nothin about the world. Didn't know nothin. We was babes in the woods. (
he stirs his tea
). I went to work when I was twelve and it wasn't long fore I learned that a lot of what the good book said was ever bit as true as it was claimed. Stone ain't so heavy as the wrath of a fool and I worked for white men and I was subjugated to that wrath many a time and I become very dissatisfied about my lot in this world. The peculiar thing was that the very thing that brought me to that pass was what led me out of it and since that time I've come to see that more often than not that's how the Lord works.

He sips his tea. They sit.

B
EN
What was it? That brought you to that pass and led you out of it.

P
APAW
Just the work. Just the trade. That was all they was to it. All they ever was to it. I've wondered all my life what people outside of the trade do. I wonder it yet.

He sips his tea.

P
APAW
I made it a study to put up with foolishness and not to be made party to it. I liked the work from the first time I ever turned to it and I was determined that they wasn't goin to run me off no matter how crazy they got and they didn't. You had black and white masons work side by side on them big jobs but you was never paid the same and you was never acknowledged the same. But I knowed Uncle Selman could lay stone to beat any man on that job didn't make no difference what color he was and anybody that didn't know it was just too ignorant to count. So I seen that he was acknowledged if he was colored and that made me think again. I seen they was some things that folks couldn't lie about. The facts was too plain. And what a man was worth at his work was one of them things. It was just knowed to everbody from the lowest to the highest and they wasn't no several opinions about it. When I seen that I seen the way my path had to go if I was ever to become the type of man I had it in my heart to be. I was twelve year old and I never looked back. Never looked back.