Mule Bone Read online

  (Enter TEETS and BOOTSIE left, clean and primped in voile dresses just alike. They speak diffidently and enter store. The men admire them casually.)

  LIGE: Them girls done turned out to be right good-looking.

  WALTER: Teets ain’t as pretty now as she was a few years back. She used to be fat as a butter ball wid legs just like two whiskey-kegs. She’s too skinny since she got her growth.

  CODY: Ain’t none of ’em pretty as dat Miss Daisy. God! She’s pretty as a speckled pup.

  LIGE: But she was sho nuff ugly when she was little…little ole hard black knot. She sho has changed since she been away up North. If she ain’t pretty now, there ain’t a hound dog in Georgy.

  (Re-enter SENATOR BAILEY and stops on the steps. He addresses JOE CLARKE.)

  SENATOR: Mist’ Clarke….

  HAMBO: (To SENATOR) Ain’t you got no manners? We all didn’t sleep wid you last night.

  SENATOR: (Embarrassed) Good evening, everybody.

  ALL THE MEN: Good evening, son, boy, Senator, etc.

  SENATOR: Mist’ Clarke, mama said is Daisy been here dis evenin’?

  JOE CLARKE: Ain’t laid my eyes on her. Ain’t she working over in Maitland?

  SENATOR: Yessuh…but she’s off today and mama sent her down here to get de groceries.

  JOE CLARKE: Well, tell yo’ ma I ain’t seen her.

  SENATOR: Well, she say to tell you when she come, to tell her ma say she better git hime and dat quick.

  JOE CLARKE: I will. (Exit BOY right.)

  LIGE: Bet she’s off somewhere wid Dave or Jim.

  WALTER: I don’t bet it…I know it. She’s got them two in de go-long.

  (Re-enter TEETS and BOOTSIE from store. TEETS has a letter and BOOTSIE two or three small parcels. The men look up with interest as they come out on the porch.)

  WALTER: (Winking) Whut’s dat you got, Teets…letter from Dave?

  TEETS: (Flouncing) Naw indeed! It’s a letter from my B-I-T-sweetie! (Rolls her eyes and hips.)

  WALTER: (Winking) Well, ain’t Dave yo’ B-I-T-sweetie? I thought y’all was ’bout to git married. Everywhere I looked dis summer ’twas you and Dave, Bootsie and Jim. I thought all of y’all would’ve done jumped over de broomstick by now.

  TEETS: (Flourishing letter) Don’t tell it to me…tell it to the ever-loving Mr. Albert Johnson way over in Apopka.

  BOOTSIE: (Rolling her eyes) Oh, tell ’em ’bout the ever-loving Mr. Jimmy Cox from Altamont. Oh, I can’t stand to see my baby lose.

  HAMBO: It’s lucky y’all girls done got some more fellers, cause look like Daisy done treed both Jim and Dave at once, or they done treed her one.

  TEETS: Let her have ’em…nobody don’t keer. They don’t handle de “In God we trust” lak my Johnson. He’s head bellman at de hotel.

  BOOTSIE: Mr. Cox get money’s grandma and old grandpa change. (The girls exit huffily.)

  LINDSAY: (To HAMBO, pseudo-seriously) You oughtn’t tease dem gals lak dat.

  HAMBO: Oh, I laks to see gals all mad. But dem boys is crazy sho nuff. Before Daisy come back here they both had a good-looking gal a piece. Now they ’bout to fall out and fight over half a gal a piece. Neither one won’t give over and let de other one have her.

  LIGE: And she ain’t thinking too much ’bout no one man. (Looks off left.) Here she come now. God! She got a mean walk on her!

  WALTER: Yeah, man. She handles a lot of traffic! Oh, mama, throw it in de river…papa’ll come git it!

  LINDSAY: AW, shut up, you married men!

  LIGE: Man don’t go blind cause he gits married, do he? (Enter DAISY hurriedly. Stops at step a moment. She is dressed in sheer organdie, white shoes and stockings.)

  DAISY: Good evening, everybody. (Walks up on the porch.)

  ALL THE MEN: (Very pleasantly) Good evening, Miss Daisy.

  DAISY: (To CLARKE) Mama sent me after some meal and flour and some bacon and sausage oil.

  CLARKE: Senator been here long time ago hunting you.

  DAISY: (Frightened) Did he? Oo…Mist’ Clarke, hurry up and fix it for me. (She starts on in the store.)

  LINDSAY: (Giving her his seat) You better wait here, Daisy. ( WALTER kicks LIGE to call his attention to LINDSAY’s attitude) It’s powerful hot in dat store. Lemme run fetch ’em out to you.

  LIGE: (to LINDSAY) Run! Joe Lindsay, you ain’t been able to run since de big bell rung. Look at dat gray beard.

  LINDSAY: Thank God, I ain’t gray all over. I’m just as good a man right now as any of you young ’uns. (He hurries on into the store.)

  WALTER: Daisy, where’s yo’ two body guards? It don’t look natural to see you thout nary one of ’em.

  DAISY: (Archly) I ain’t got no body guards. I don’t know what you talkin’ about.

  LIGE: Aw, don’ try to come dat over us, Daisy. You know who we talkin’ ’bout all right…but if you want me to come out flat footed…where’s Jim and Dave?

  DAISY: Ain’t they playin’ somewhere for de white folks?

  LIGE: (To WALTER) Will you listen at dis gal, Walter? (To DAISY) When I ain’t been long seen you and Dave going down to de Lake.

  DAISY: (Frightened) Don’t y’all run tell mama where I been.

  WALTER: Well, you tell us which one you laks de best and we’ll wipe our mouf (Gesture) and say nothin’. Dem boys been de best of friends all they life, till both of ’em took after you…then good-bye, Katy bar de door!

  DAISY: (Affected innocence) Ain’t they still playin’ and dancin’ together?

  LIGE: Yeah, but that’s ’bout all they do ’gree on these days. That’s de way it is wid men, young and old….I don’t keer how long they been friends and how thick they been…a woman kin come between ’em. David and Jonather never would have been friends so long if Jonather had of been any great hand wid de wimmen. You ain’t never seen no two roosters that likes one another.

  DAISY: I ain’t tried to break ’em up.

  WALTER: Course you ain’t. You don’t have to. All two boys need to do is go git stuck on de same girl and they done broke up…right now! Wimmen is something can’t be divided equal.

  (Re-enter JOE LINDSAY and CLARKE with the groceries. DAISY jumps up and grabs the packages.)

  LIGE: (To DAISY) Want some of us…me…to go long and tote yo’ things for you?

  DAISY: (Nervously) Naw, mama is riding her high horse today. Long as I been gone it wouldn’t do for me to come walking up wid nobody. (She exits hurriedly right.)

  (All the men watch her out of sight in silence.)

  CLARKE: (Sighing) I God, know whut Daisy puts me in de mind of?

  HAMBO: NO, what? (They all lean together.)

  CLARKE: I God, a great big mango…a sweet smell, you know, with a strong flavor, but not something you could mash up like a strawberry. Something with a body to it.

  (General laughter, but not obscene.)

  HAMBO: (Admiringly) Joe Clarke! I didn’t know you had it in you! (MRS. CLARKE enters from store door and they all straighten up guiltily)

  CLARKE: (Angrily to his wife) Now whut do you want? I God, the minute I set down, here you come….

  MRS. CLARKE: Somebody want a stamp, Jody. You know you don’t ’low me to bove wid de post office. (HE rises sullenly and goes inside the store.)

  BRAZZLE: Say, Hambo, I didn’t see you at our Sunday School picnic.

  HAMBO: (Slicing some plug-cut tobacco) Nope, wan’t there dis time.

  WALTER: Looka here, Hambo. Y’all Baptist carry dis close-communion business too far. If a person ain’t half drownded in de lake and half et up by alligators, y’all think he ain’t baptized, so you can’t take communion wid him. Now I reckon you can’t even drink lemonade and eat chicken perlow wid us.

  HAMBO: My Lord, boy, youse just full of words. Now, in de first place, if this year’s picnic was lak de one y’all had last year…you ain’t had no lemonade for us Baptists to turn down. You
had a big ole barrel of rain water wid about a pound of sugar in it and one lemon cut up over de top of it.

  LIGE: Man, you sho kin mold ’em!

  WALTER: Well, I went to de Baptist picnic wid my mouf all set to eat chicken, when lo and behold y’all had chitlings! Do Jesus!

  LINDSAY: Hold on there a minute. There was plenty chicken at dat picnic, which I do know is right.

  WALTER: Only chicken I seen was a half a chicken yo’ pastor musta tried to swaller whole cause he was choked stiff as a board when I come long…wid de whole deacon’s board beating him in de back, trying to knock it out his throat.

  LIGE: Say, dat puts me in de mind of a Baptist brother that was crazy ’bout de preachers and de preacher was crazy ’bout feeding his face. So his son got tired of trying to beat dese stump-knockers to de grub on the table, so one day he throwed out some slams ’bout dese preachers. Dat made his old man mad, so he tole his son to git out. He boy ast him, “Where must I go, papa?” He says, “Go on to hell I reckon….I don’t keer where you go.”

  So de boy left and was gone seven years. He come back one cold, windy night and rapped on de door. “Who dat?” de old man ast him. “It’s me, Jack.” De old man opened de door, so glad to see his son agin, and tole Jack to come in. He did and looked all round de place. Seven or eight preachers was sitting round de fire eatin’ and drinkin’.

  “Where you been all dis time, Jack?” de old man ast him.

  “I been to hell,” Jack tole him.

  “Tell us how it is down there, Jack.”

  “Well,” he says, “It’s just like it is here…you cain’t git to de fire for de preachers.”

  HAMBO: Boy, you kin lie just like de cross-ties from Jacksonville to Key West. De presidin’ elder must come round on his circuit teaching y’all how to tell ’em, cause you couldn’t lie dat good just natural.

  WALTER: Can’t nobody beat Baptist folks lying…and I ain’t never found out how come you think youse so important.

  LINDSAY: Ain’t we got de finest and de biggest church? Macedonia Baptist will hold more folks than any two buildings in town.

  LIGE: Thass right, y’all got a heap more church than you got members to go in it.

  HAMBO: Thass all right…y’all ain’t got neither de church nor de members. Everything that’s had in this town got to be held in our church. (Re-enter JOE CLARKE.)

  CLARKE: What you-all talkin’?

  HAMBO: Come on out, Tush Hawg, lemme beat you some checkers. I’m tired of fending and proving wid dese boys ain’t got no hair on they chest yet.

  CLARKE: I God, you mean you gointer get beat. You can’t handle me….I’m a tush hawg.

  HAMBO: Well, I’m going to draw dem tushes right now. (To two small boys using checker board on edge of porch.) Here you chilluns, let de Mayor and me have that board. Go on out an’ play an’ give us grown folks a little peace. (The children go down stage and call out:)

  SMALL BOY: Hey, Senator. Hey, Marthy. Come on let’s play chick-me, chick-me, cranie-crow.

  CHILD’S VOICE: (Off stage) All right! Come on, Jessie! (Enter several children, led by SENATOR, and a game begins in front of the store as JOE CLARKE and HAMBO play checkers.)

  JOE CLARKE: I God! Hambo, you can’t play no checkers.

  HAMBO: (As they seat themselves at the checker board) Aw, man, if you wasn’t de Mayor I’d beat you all de time.

  (The children get louder and louder, drowning out the men’s voices.)

  SMALL GIRL: I’m gointer be de hen.

  BOY: And I’m gointer be de hawk. Lemme git maself a stick to mark wid.

  (The boy who is the hawk squats center stage with a short twig in his hand. The largest girl lines up the other children behind her.)

  GIRL: (Mother Hen) (Looking back over her flock) Y’all ketch holt of one ’nother’s clothes so de hawk can’t git yuz. (They do.) You all straight now?

  CHILDREN: Yeah. (The march around the hawk commences.)

  HEN AND CHICKS: Chick mah chick mah craney crow Went to de well to wash ma toe When I come back ma chick was gone What time, ole witch?

  HAWK: (Making a tally on the ground) One!

  HEN AND CHICKS: (Repeat song and march.)

  HAWK: (Scoring again) Two! (Can be repeated any number of times.)

  HAWK: Four. (He rises and imitates a hawk flying and trying to catch a chicken. Calling in a high voice:) Chickee.

  HEN: (Flapping wings to protect her young) My chickens sleep.

  HAWK: Chickee. (During all this the hawk is feinting and darting in his efforts to catch a chicken, and the chickens are dancing defensively, the hen trying to protect them.)

  HEN: My chicken’s sleep.

  HAWK: I shall have a chick.

  HEN: YOU shan’t have a chick.

  HAWK: I’m goin’ home. (Flies off)

  HEN: Dere’s de road.

  HAWK: My pot’s a boilin’.

  HEN: Let it boil.

  HAWK: My guts a growlin’.

  HEN: Let ’em growl.

  HAWK: I must have a chick.

  HEN: YOU shan’t have n’airn.

  HAWK: My mama’s sick.

  HEN: Let her die.

  HAWK: Chickie!

  HEN: My chicken’s sleep. (HAWK darts quickly around the hen and grabs a chicken and leads him off and places the captive on his knees at the store porch. After a brief bit of dancing he catches another, then a third, etc.)

  HAMBO: (At the checker board, his voice rising above the noise of the playing children, slapping his sides jubilantly) Ha! Ha! I got you now. Go ahead on and move, Joe Clarke…jus’ go ahead on and move.

  LOUNGERS: (Standing around two checker players) Ol’ Deacon’s got you now.

  ANOTHER VOICE: Don’t see how he can beat the Mayor like that.

  ANOTHER VOICE: Got him in the Louisville loop. (These remarks are drowned by the laughter of the playing children directly in front of the porch. MAYOR JOE CLARKE disturbed in his concentration on the checkers and peeved at being beaten suddenly turns toward the children, throwing up his hands.)

  CLARKE: Get on ’way from here, you limbs of Satan, making all that racket so a man can’t hear his ears. Go on, go on! (THE MAYOR looks about excitedly for the town marshall. Seeing him playing cards on the other side of porch, he bellows:) Lum Boger, whyn’t you git these kids away from here! What kind of a marshall is you? All this passle of young’uns around here under grown people’s feet, creatin’ disorder in front of my store. (LUM BOGER puts his cards down lazily, comes down stage and scatters the children away. One saucy little girl refuses to move.)

  LUM BOGER: Why’nt you go on away from here, Matilda? Didn’t you hear me tell you-all to move?

  LITTLE MATILDA: (Defiantly) I ain’t goin’ nowhere. You ain’t none of my mama. (Jerking herself free from him as LUM touches her.) My mama in the store and she told me to wait out here. So take that, ol’ Lum.

  LUM BOGER: You impudent little huzzy, you! You must smell yourself…youse so fresh.

  MATILDA: The wind musta changed and you smell your own top lip.

  LUM BOGER: Don’t make me have to grab you and take you down a buttonhole lower.

  MATILDA: (Switching her little head) Go ahead on and grab me. You sho can’t kill me, and if you kill me, you sho can’t eat me. (She marchès into the store.)

  SENATOR: (Derisively from behind stump) Ol’ dumb Lum! Hey! Hey! (LITTLE BOY at edge of stage thumbs his nose at the marshall.) (LUM lumbers after the small boy. Both exit.)

  HAMBO: (To CLARKE who has been thinking all this while what move to make) You ain’t got but one move…go ahead on and make it. What’s de matter, Mayor?

  CLARKE: (Moving his checker) Aw, here.

  HAMBO: (Triumphant) Now! Look at him, boys. I’m gonna laugh in notes. (Laughing to the scale and jumping a checker each time) Do, sol, fa, me, lo…one! (Jumping another checker) La, sol, fa, me, do…two! (An
other jump.) Do, sol, re, me, lo…three! (Jumping a third.) Lo, sol, fa, me, re…four! (The crowd begins to roar with laughter. LUM BOGER returns, looking on. Children come drifting back again playing chick-me-chick-me-cranie crow.)

  VOICE: Oh, ha! Done got the ol’ tush hog.

  ANOTHER VOICE: Thought you couldn’t be beat, Brother Mayor?

  CLARKE: (Peeved, gets up and goes into the store mumbling) Oh, I coulda beat you if I didn’t have this store on my mind. Saturday afternoon and I got work to do. Lum, ain’t I told you to keep them kids from playin’ right in front of this store? (LUM makes a pass at the nearest half grown boy. The kids dart around him teasingly.)

  ANOTHER VOICE: Eh, heh…Hambo done run him in his store…done run the ol’ coon in his hole.

  ANOTHER VOICE: That ain’t good politics, Hambo, beatin’ the Mayor.

  ANOTHER VOICE: Well, Hambo, you done got to be so hard at checkers, come on let’s see what you can do with de cards. Lum Boger there got his hands full nursin’ the chilluns.

  ANOTHER VOICE: (At the table) We ain’t playin’ for money, nohow, Deacon. We just playin’ a little Florida Flip.

  HAMBO: Ya all can’t play no Florida Flip. When I was a sinner there wasn’t a man in this state could beat me playin’ that game. But I’m a deacon in Macedonia Baptist now and I don’t bother with the cards no more.

  VOICE AT CARD TABLE: All right, then, come on here Tony (To man with basket on steps.) let me catch your jack.

  TAYLOR: (Looking toward door) I don’t reckon I got time. I guess my wife gonna get through buying out that store some time or other and want to go home.

  OLD MAN: (On opposite side of porch from card game) I bet my wife would know better than expect me to sit around and wait for her with a basket. Whyn’t you tell her to tote it on home herself?

  TAYLOR: (Sighing and shaking his head) Eh, Lawd!

  VOICE AT CARD TABLE: Look like we can’t get nobody to come into this game. Seem like everybody’s scared a us. Come on back here, Lum, and take your hand. (LUM makes a final futile gesture at the children.)

  LUM: Ain’t I tole you little haitians to stay away from here?

  (CHILDREN scatter teasingly only to return to their play in front of the store later on. LUM comes up on the porch and re-joins the card game. Just as he gets seated, MRS. CLARKE comes to the door of the store and calls him.)