A Raisin in the Sun (16 page)

(
The door slams and she returns to just sitting again
.
RUTH
comes quickly out of
MAMA’S
room
)

RUTH
Who was that?

BENEATHA
Your husband.

RUTH
Where did he go?

BENEATHA
Who knows—maybe he has an appointment at U.S. Steel.

RUTH
(
Anxiously, with frightened eyes
) You didn’t say nothing bad to him, did you?

BENEATHA
Bad? Say anything bad to him? No—I told him he was a sweet boy and full of dreams and everything is strictly peachy keen, as the ofay kids say!

(
MAMA
enters from her bedroom. She is lost, vague, trying to catch hold, to make some sense of
her former command of the world, but it still eludes her. A sense of waste overwhelms her gait; a measure of apology rides on her shoulders. She goes to her plant, which has remained on the table, looks at it, picks it up and takes it to the windowsill and sits it outside, and she stands and looks at it a long moment. Then she closes the window, straightens her body with effort and turns around to her children
)

MAMA
Well—ain’t it a mess in here, though? (
A false cheerfulness, a beginning of something
) I guess we all better stop moping around and get some work done. All this unpacking and everything we got to do. (
RUTH
raises her head slowly in response to the sense of the line; and
BENEATHA
in similar manner turns very slowly to look at her mother
) One of you all better call the moving people and tell ’em not to come.

RUTH
Tell ’em not to come?

MAMA
Of course, baby. Ain’t no need in ’em coming all the way here and having to go back. They charges for that too. (
She sits down, fingers to her brow, thinking
) Lord, ever since I was a little girl, I always remembers people saying, “Lena—Lena Eggleston, you aims too high all the time. You needs to slow down and see life a little more like it is. Just slow down some.” That’s what they always used to say down home—“Lord, that Lena Eggleston is a high-minded thing. She’ll get her due one day!”

RUTH
No, Lena …

MAMA
Me and Big Walter just didn’t never learn right.

RUTH
Lena, no! We gotta go. Bennie—tell her … (
She rises and crosses to
BENEATHA
with her arms outstretched
,
BENEATHA
doesn’t respond
) Tell her we
can still move … the notes ain’t but a hundred and twenty-five a month. We got four grown people in this house—we can work …

MAMA
(
To herself
) Just aimed too high all the time—

RUTH
(
Turning and going to
MAMA
fast—the words pouring out with urgency and desperation
) Lena—I’ll work … I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago … I’ll strap my baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets in America if I have to—but we got to MOVE! We got to get OUT OF HERE!!

(
MAMA
reaches out absently and pats
RUTH’S
hand
)

MAMA
No—I sees things differently now. Been thinking ’bout some of the things we could do to fix this place up some. I seen a secondhand bureau over on Maxwell Street just the other day that could fit right there. (
She points to where the new furniture might go
.
RUTH
wanders away from her
) Would need some new handles on it and then a little varnish and it look like something brand-new. And—we can put up them new curtains in the kitchen … Why this place be looking fine. Cheer us all up so that we forget trouble ever come … (
To
RUTH
) And you could get some nice screens to put up in your room ’round the baby’s bassinet … (
She looks at both of them, pleadingly
) Sometimes you just got to know when to give up some things … and hold on to what you got.…

(
WALTER
enters from the outside, looking spent and leaning against the door, his coat hanging from him
)

MAMA
Where you been, son?

WALTER
(
Breathing hard
) Made a call.

MAMA
To who, son?

WALTER
To The Man. (
He heads for his room
)

MAMA
What man, baby?

WALTER
(
Stops in the door
) The Man, Mama. Don’t you know who The Man is?

RUTH
Walter Lee?

WALTER
The Man
. Like the guys in the streets say—The Man. Captain Boss—Mistuh Charley … Old Cap’n Please Mr. Bossman …

BENEATHA
(
Suddenly
) Lindner!

WALTER
That’s right! That’s good. I told him to come right over.

BENEATHA
(
Fiercely, understanding
) For what? What do you want to see him for!

WALTER
(
Looking at his sister
) We going to do business with him.

MAMA
What you talking ’bout, son?

WALTER
Talking ’bout life, Mama. You all always telling me to see life like it is. Well—I laid in there on my back today … and I figured it out. Life just like it is. Who gets and who don’t get. (
He sits down with his coat on and laughs
) Mama, you know it’s all divided up. Life is. Sure enough. Between the takers and the “tooken.” (
He laughs) I’
ve figured it out finally. (
He looks around at them
) Yeah. Some of us always getting “tooken.” (
He laughs
) People like Willy Harris, they don’t never get “tooken.” And you know why the rest of us do? ’Cause we all mixed up. Mixed up bad. We get to looking ’round for the right and the wrong; and we worry about it and cry about it and stay up nights
trying to figure out ’bout the wrong and the right of things all the time … And all the time, man, them takers is out there operating, just taking and taking. Willy Harris? Shoot—Willy Harris don’t even count. He don’t even count in the big scheme of things. But I’ll say one thing for old Willy Harris … he’s taught me something. He’s taught me to keep my eye on what counts in this world.
Yeah—(Shouting out a little
) Thanks, Willy!

RUTH
What did you call that man for, Walter Lee?

WALTER
Called him to tell him to come on over to the show. Gonna put on a show for the man. Just what he wants to see. You see, Mama, the man came here today and he told us that them people out there where you want us to move—well they so upset they willing to pay us
not
to move! (
He laughs again
) And—and oh, Mama you would of been proud of the way me and Ruth and Bennie acted. We told him to get out … Lord have mercy! We told the man to get out! Oh, we was some proud folks this afternoon, yeah. (
He lights a cigarette
) We were still full of that old-time stuff …

RUTH
(
Coming toward him slowly
) You talking ’bout taking them people’s money to keep us from moving in that house?

WALTER
I ain’t just talking ’bout it, baby—I’m telling you that’s what’s going to happen!

BENEATHA
Oh, God! Where is the bottom! Where is the real honest-to-God bottom so he can’t go any farther!

WALTER
See—that’s the old stuff. You and that boy that was here today. You all want everybody to carry a flag and a spear and sing some marching songs, huh? You wanna spend your life looking into things and trying to find the right and the wrong part, huh? Yeah. You know what’s going to happen to that boy someday
—he’ll find himself sitting in a dungeon, locked in forever—and the takers will have the key! Forget it, baby! There ain’t no causes—there ain’t nothing but taking in this world, and he who takes most is smartest—and it don’t make a damn bit of difference
how
.

MAMA
You making something inside me cry, son. Some awful pain inside me.

WALTER
Don’t cry, Mama. Understand. That white man is going to walk in that door able to write checks for more money than we ever had. It’s important to him and I’m going to help him … I’m going to put on the show, Mama.

MAMA
Son—I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers—but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay ’em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor. (
Raising her eyes and looking at him
) We ain’t never been that—dead inside.

BENEATHA
Well—we are dead now. All the talk about dreams and sunlight that goes on in this house. It’s all dead now.

WALTER
What’s the matter with you all! I didn’t make this world! It was give to me this way! Hell, yes, I want me some yachts someday! Yes, I want to hang some real pearls ’round my wife’s neck. Ain’t she supposed to wear no pearls? Somebody tell me—tell me, who decides which women is suppose to wear pearls in this world. I tell you I am a
man
—and I think my wife should wear some pearls in this world!

(
This last line hangs a good while and
WALTER
begins to move about the room. The word “Man” has penetrated his consciousness; he mumbles it to himself repeatedly between strange agitated pauses as he moves about
)

MAMA
Baby, how you going to feel on the inside?

WALTER
Fine! … Going to feel fine … a man …

MAMA
You won’t have nothing left then, Walter Lee.

WALTER
(
Coming to her
) I’m going to feel fine, Mama. I’m going to look that son-of-a-bitch in the eyes and say—(
He falters
)—and say, “All right, Mr. Lindner—(
He falters even more
)—that’s
your
neighborhood out there! You got the right to keep it like you want! You got the right to have it like you want! Just write the check and—the house is yours.” And—and I am going to say—(
His voice almost breaks
) “And you—you people just put the money in my hand and you won’t have to live next to this bunch of stinking niggers! …” (
He straightens up and moves away from his mother, walking around the room
) And maybe—maybe I’ll just get down on my black knees … (
He does so;
RUTH
and
BENNIE
and
MAMA
watch him in frozen horror
) “Captain, Mistuh, Bossman—(
Groveling and grinning and wringing his hands in profoundly anguished imitation of the slowwitted movie stereotype
) A-hee-hee-hee! Oh, yassuh boss! Yasssssuh! Great white—(
Voice breaking, he forces himself to go on
)—Father, just gi’ ussen de money, fo’ God’s sake, and we’s—we’s ain’t gwine come out deh and dirty up yo’ white folks neighborhood …” (
He breaks down completely
) And I’ll feel fine! Fine! FINE! (
He gets up and goes into the bedroom
)

BENEATHA
That is not a man. That is nothing but a toothless rat.

MAMA
Yes—death done come in this here house. (
She is nodding, slowly, reflectively
) Done come walking in my house on the lips of my children. You what supposed to be my beginning again. You—what supposed to be my harvest. (
To
BENEATHA
) Y
OU
—you mourning your brother?

BENEATHA
He’s no brother of mine.

MAMA
What you say?

BENEATHA
I said that that individual in that room is no brother of mine.

MAMA
That’s what I thought you said. You feeling like you better than he is today? (
BENEATHA
does not answer
) Yes? What you tell him a minute ago? That he wasn’t a man? Yes? You give him up for me? You done wrote his epitaph too—like the rest of the world? Well, who give you the privilege?

BENEATHA
Be on my side for once! You saw what he just did, Mama! You saw him—down on his knees. Wasn’t it you who taught me to despise any man who would do that? Do what he’s going to do?

MAMA
Yes—I taught you that. Me and your daddy. But I thought I taught you something else too … I thought I taught you to love him.

BENEATHA
Love him? There is nothing left to love.

MAMA
There is
always
something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing. (
Looking at her
) Have you cried for that boy today? I don’t mean for yourself and for the family ’cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain’t through learning—because that ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in hisself ’cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.

(
TRAVIS
bursts into the room at the end of the speech, leaving the door open
)

TRAVIS
Grandmama—the moving men are downstairs! The truck just pulled up.

MAMA
(
Turning and looking at him
) Are they, baby? They downstairs?

(
She sighs and sits
.
LINDNER
appears in the doorway. He peers in and knocks lightly, to gain attention, and comes in. All turn to look at him
)