Enter Edison, about the same age as K.B., with a bit more of a something to prove. He walks with one hand behind his back.
K.B. And Edison tap. Then enter Jerome, right behind K.B.. Again, same age. Jerome’s long top seems to exemplify him as slim. He is quiet and charming.
K.B.: Why not my boy Edison for Pres? (To Edison.) You like to be poor?
Edison: Hell no.
K.B.: Or Jerome - JEROME.
Edison: He right here, dawg.
K.B.: President, and Vice.
Jerome: Imagine that shit? Dag. (Jerome stares out at the moon. He takes a 9-by-11 from Ruth.) I got my inaugural speech right here. Yeah, for my first act of duty I (looking at the paper)…is dat Charlie Thurston?
K.B.: I knew that shit!
Jerome: Thurston got, like, seven middle names and, like, two of them’s Presidents.
K.B.: That’s all it takes huh?
Edison: I don’t have no seven middle names.
K.B.: “Jackson” a president, still Jesse ain’t gonna win.
Ruth: Why’s that?
K.B.: (Re: the picture) Says right here.
Ruth: He black?
K.B.: Naw, ain’t black like us. (Sucks his teeth) I wouldn’t truss him to make a choice on my behalf.
Ruth: Jesse born right here.
K.B.: Has he ever applied for a job like us? Do you put friends from Cabrini as yo’ references?
Ruth: So you prefer to have nothing - same wolf represent and keep living this shh-?
K.B.: I know white people basically don’t care about us. Still I rather have that then a black man pretend to care and get more white votes. I don’t want no pretend representative - you believe he gonna stop what happen to Edison two days ago?
Edison: (Guessing) Comin’…home…
K.B. Shakes his head.
Oh, oh! -
K.B.: Didn’t the elevator all fuck-up your grocery bag?
Edison: Yeah - (K.B. Gives him a look: “Begin again.”) That was lass week. It never works right - the doors close too soon.Milk exploded, and eff shit all over and all of it got fucked. Wet bread, meat - shit!
Ruth: That’s what I’m saying -
Edison: (Over “I’m saying”) You ain’t said essactly that.
K.B.: Do you know what it is? Is that I don’t wanna think about this shit. No one wants to repair elevators - I wanna be a millionaire. So either you like the life you got or you get out and get rich. But you don’t change what makes us who we are. Thass who we are!
Ruth sucks her teeth at this argument.
Edison: You imagine him onna stage, there he is, and he goes: (in a stern voice of his grandfather) “Vote son cuz I say vote!”
K.B.: (In his grandfather’s posture) “You don’t like to vote? You do it cuz I say you like it.”
K.B. Spins around to make sure no one else saw that.
Ruth: I only truss about half the shit you say, K.B.
K.B.: I ain’t sayin’ the Rev’s not good - you know what I’m sayin’? This is simple logic: if a black man gets ahead and he truly got our mentality, he ain’t obliged to give back. (Then, relaxing his tongue.) It’s like when my boy at Footlocker he help me with a pair, sometimes he says: “Don’t even mention shh- man.”
Jerome: Use that as a slogan.
Ruth: (To all) How can I truss this crook to tell me about who’s a liar and how it has to be?
K.B.: I’m no crook.
Ruth: Since when’s a street corner philosopher ever been the truth?
K.B.: This is truth: Giving back ain’t always necessary. So Jesse ain’t no guarantee while a white “reaching out” at leas’ gotta respect us before disrespectin’ us.
Ruth: Would you call him -
K.B.: Who?
Ruth: Yo’ hookup at Footlocker, would you call him benevolent? 38
K.B.: Say what?
Ruth: Benevolent.
K.B.: I know what it is.
Ruth: - Spell it for me.
Edison: This ain’t no spell bee!
Ruth: I jus’ want to make sure of the man here. (Enter Nietta, she says her ups to Jerome, Edison. Edison has begun to play with the radio.) I want a man who can spell-out good the street.
A large static crack - K.B., Jerome, Calvin rail; Calvin rotates the dial to land on Dinah Washington, then Bessie Smith.
Jerome: (Re: the chances of hitting two blues songs) Dag.
Ruth looks at her paper, she is about to make a serious note. Then it lands on a R’n’B station playing Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues.”
Ruth: Oh shhh - (stopping herself).
They all listen for a few seconds. All arguments emulsify.
K.B.: (to Calvin) Where you at tomorrow, son?
Winner, Hart House One-Act Playwriting Contest