SCENE TWO
Time: Friday night. A few weeks later.
At rise: Packing crates mark the intention of the family to move. BENEATHA and GEORGE come in, presumably from an evening out again.
GEORGE O.K. … O.K., whatever you say … (They both sit on the couch. He tries to kiss her. She moves away) Look, we’ve had a nice evening; let’s not spoil it, huh? …
(He again turns her head and tries to nuzzle in and she turns away from him, not with distaste but with momentary lack of interest; in a mood to pursue what they were talking about)
BENEATHA I’m trying to talk to you.
GEORGE We always talk.
BENEATHA Yes—and I love to talk.
GEORGE (Exasperated; rising) I know it and I don’t mind it sometimes … I want you to cut it out, see—The moody stuff, I mean. I don’t like it.
You’re a nice-looking girl … all over. That’s all you need, honey, forget the atmosphere. Guys aren’t going to go for the atmosphere— they’re going to go for what they see. Be glad for that. Drop the Garbo routine. It doesn’t go with you. As for myself, I want a nice— (Groping)—simple (Thoughtfully)—sophisticated girl … not a poet— O.K.?
(He starts to kiss her, she rebuffs him again and he jumps up)
BENEATHA Why are you angry, George?
GEORGE Because this is stupid! I don’t go out with you to discuss the nature of “quiet desperation” or to hear all about your thoughts— because the world will go on thinking what it thinks regardless— BENEATHA Then why read books? Why go to school?
GEORGE (With artificial patience, counting on his fingers) It’s simple. You read books—to learn facts—to get grades—to pass the course—to get a degree. That’s all—it has nothing to do with thoughts.
(A long pause)
BENEATHA I see. (He starts to sit) Good night, George.
(GEORGE looks at her a little oddly, and starts to exit. He meets MAMA
coming in)
GEORGE Oh—hello, Mrs. Younger.
MAMA Hello, George, how you feeling?
GEORGE Fine—fine, how are you?
MAMA Oh, a little tired. You know them steps can get you after a day’s
work. You all have a nice time tonight?
GEORGE Yes—a fine time. A fine time.
MAMA Well, good night.
GEORGE Good night. (He exits. MAMA closes the door behind her) Hello,
honey. What you sitting like that for?
BENEATHA I’m just sitting.
MAMA Didn’t you have a nice time?
BENEATHA No.
MAMA No? What’s the matter?
BENEATHA Mama, George is a fool—honest. (She rises)
MAMA (Hustling around unloading the packages she has entered with. She
stops) Is he, baby?
BENEATHA Yes.
(BENEATHA makes up TRAVIS’ bed as she talks)
MAMA You sure?
BENEATHA Yes.
MAMA Well—I guess you better not waste your time with no fools.
(BENEATHA looks up at her mother, watching her put groceries in the
refrigerator. Finally she gathers up her things and starts into the
bedroom. At the door she stops and looks back at her mother)
BENEATHA Mama—
MAMA Yes, baby—
BENEATHA Thank you.
MAMA For what?
BENEATHA For understanding me this time.
(She exits quickly and the mother stands, smiling a little, looking at
the place where BENEATHA just stood. RUTH enters)
RUTH Now don’t you fool with any of this stuff, Lena—
MAMA Oh, I just thought I’d sort a few things out. Is Brother here?
RUTH Yes.
MAMA (With concern) Is he—
RUTH (Reading her eyes) Yes.
(MAMA is silent and someone knocks on the door. MAMA and RUTH
exchange weary and knowing glances and RUTH opens it to admit the * neighbor, MRS. JOHNSON,who is a rather squeaky wide-eyed lady of no
particular age, with a newspaper under her arm)
MAMA (Changing her expression to acute delight and a ringing cheerful
greeting) Oh—hello there, Johnson.
JOHNSON (This is a woman who decided long ago to be enthusiastic about
EVERYTHING in life and she is inclined to wave her wrist vigorously at the height of her exclamatory comments) Hello there, yourself! H’you
this evening, Ruth?
RUTH (Not much of a deceptive type) Fine, Mis’ Johnson, h’you?
JOHNSON Fine. (Reaching out quickly, playfully, and patting RUTH’S stomach)
Ain’t you starting to poke out none yet! (She mugs with delight at the overfamiliar remark and her eyes dart around looking at the crates and packing preparation; MAMA’S face is a cold sheet of endurance) Oh, ain’t
we getting ready ’round here, though! Yessir! Lookathere! I’m
telling you the Youngers is really getting ready to “move on up a
little higher!”—Bless God!
MAMA (A little drily, doubting the total sincerity of the Blesser) Bless God.
JOHNSON He’s good, ain’t He?
MAMA Oh yes, He’s good.
JOHNSON I mean sometimes He works in mysterious ways … but He
works, don’t He!
MAMA (The same) Yes, he does.
JOHNSON I’m just soooooo happy for y’all. And this here child—(About
RUTH) looks like she could just pop open with happiness, don’t she.
Where’s all the rest of the family?
MAMA Bennie’s gone to bed—
JOHNSON Ain’t no … (The implication is pregnancy) sickness done hit you
—I hope … ?
MAMA No—she just tired. She was out this evening.
JOHNSON (All is a coo, an emphatic coo) Aw—ain’t that lovely. She still
going out with the little Murchison boy?
MAMA (Drily) Ummmm huh.
JOHNSON That’s lovely. You sure got lovely children, Younger. Me and
Isaiah talks all the time ’bout what fine children you was blessed
with. We sure do.
MAMA Ruth, give Mis’ Johnson a piece of sweet potato pie and some
milk.
JOHNSON Oh honey, I can’t stay hardly a minute—I just dropped in to see
if there was anything I could do. (Accepting the food easily) I guess
y’all seen the news what’s all over the colored paper this week …
MAMA No—didn’t get mine yet this week.
JOHNSON (Lifting her head and blinking with the spirit of catastrophe) You
mean you ain’t read ’bout them colored people that was bombed out
their place out there?
(RUTH straightens with concern and takes the paper and reads it. JOHNSON notices her and feeds commentary)
JOHNSON Ain’t it something how bad these here white folks is getting here in Chicago! Lord, getting so you think you right down in Mississippi! (With a tremendous and rather insincere sense of melodrama) ’Course I thinks it’s wonderful how our folks keeps on pushing out. You hear some of these Negroes ’round here talking ’bout how they don’t go where they ain’t wanted and all that—but not me, honey! (This is a lie) Wilhemenia Othella Johnson goes anywhere, any time she feels like it! (With head movement for emphasis) Yes I do! Why if we left it up to these here crackers, the poor niggers wouldn’t have nothing—(She clasps her hand over her mouth) Oh, I always forgets you don’t ’low that word in your house.
MAMA (Quietly, looking at her) No—I don’t ’low it.
JOHNSON (Vigorously again) Me neither! I was just telling Isaiah yesterday when he come using it in front of me—I said, “Isaiah, it’s just like
Mis’ Younger says all the time—”
MAMA Don’t you want some more pie?
JOHNSON No—no thank you; this was lovely. I got to get on over home and have my midnight coffee. I hear some people say it don’t let them sleep but I finds I can’t close my eyes right lessen I done had that laaaast cup of coffee … (She waits. A beat. Undaunted) My Goodnight coffee, I calls it!
MAMA (With much eye-rolling and communication between herself and RUTH) Ruth, why don’t you give Mis’ Johnson some coffee.
(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