[5 of 5] Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Act Two, Scenes 4 & 5, by August Wilson

Author: August Wilson

Wilson, August. "Act Two, Scenes 4 & 5," Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Signet, 1988.

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

SCENE 4

It is early the next morning. The lights come up on Zonia and Reuben in the yard.

REUBEN: Something spookly going on around here. Last night Mr. Bynum was out in the yard singing and talking to the wind . . . and the wind it just be talking back to him. Did you hear it?

ZONIA: I heard it. I was scared to get up and look. I thought it was a storm.

REUBEN: That wasn’t no storm. That was Mr. Bynum. First he say something . . and the wind it say back to him.

ZONIA: I heard it. Was you scared? I was scared.

REUBEN: And then this morning . . . I seen Miss Mabel!

ZONIA: Who Miss Mabel?

REUBEN: Mr. Seth’s mother. He got her picture hanging up in the house. She been dead.

ZONIA: How you seen her if she been dead?

REUBEN: Zonia . . . if I tell you something you promise you won’t tell anybody?

ZONIA: I promise.

REUBEN: It was early this morning . . . I went out to the coop to feed the pigeons. I was down on the ground like this to open up the door to the coop . . . when all of a sudden I seen some feets in front of me. I looked up . . . and there was Miss Mabel standing there.

ZONIA: Reuben, you better stop telling that! You ain’t seen nobody!

REUBEN: Naw, it’s the truth. I swear! I seen her just like I see you. Look … you can see where she hit me with her cane.

ZONIA: Hit you? What she hit you for?

REUBEN: She says, “Didn’t you promise Eugene something?” Then she hit me with her cane. She say, “Let them pigeons go.” Then she hit me again. That’s what made thern marks.

ZONIA: Jeez man . . get away from me. You done see a haunt!

REUBEN: Shhhh. You promised, Zonia!

ZONIA: You sure it wasn’t Miss Bertha come over there and hit you with her hoe?

REUBEN: It wasn’t no Miss Bertha. I told you it was Miss Mabel. She was standing right there by the coop. She had this light coming out of her and then she just melted away.

ZONIA: What she had on?

REUBEN: A white dress. Ain’t even had no shoes or nothing. Just had on that white dress and them big hands . . . and that cane she hit me with.

ZONIA: How you reckon she knew about the pigeons? You reckon Eugene told her?

REUBEN: I don’t know. I sure ain’t asked her none. She say Eugene was waiting on them pigeons. Say he couldn’t go back home till I let them go. I couldn’t get the door to the coop open fast enough.

ZONIA: Maybe she an angel? From the way you say she look with that white dress. Maybe she an angel.

REUBEN: Mean as she was . . . how she gonna be an angel? She used to chase us out her yard and frown up and look evil all the time.

ZONIA: That don’t mean she can’t be no angel ’cause of how she looked and ’cause she wouldn’t let no kids play in her yard. It go by if you got any spots on your heart and if you pray and go to church.

REUBEN: What about she hit me with her cane? An angel wouldn’t hit me with her cane.

ZONIA: I don’t know. She might. I still say she was an angel.

REUBEN: You reckon Eugene the one who sent old Miss Mabel?

ZONIA: Why he send her? Why he don’t come himself?

REUBEN: Figured if he send her maybe that’ll make me listen. ‘Cause she old.

ZONIA: What you think it feel like?

REUBEN: What?

ZONIA: Being dead.

REUBEN: Like being sleep only you don’t know nothing and can’t move no more.

ZONIA: If Miss Mabel can come back . . . then maybe Eugene can come back too.

REUBEN: We can go down to the hideout like we used to! He could come back every day! It be just like he ain’t dead.

ZONIA: Maybe that ain’t right for him to come back. Feel kinda funny to be playing games with a haunt.

REUBEN: Yeah. . . what if everybody came back? What if Miss Mabel came back just like she ain’t dead? Where you and your daddy gonna sleep then?

ZONIA: Maybe they go back at night and don’t need no place to sleep.

REUBEN: It still don’t seem right. I’m sure gonna miss Eugene. He’s the bestest friend anybody ever had.

ZONIA: My daddy say if you miss somebody too much it can kill you. Say he missed me till it liked to killed him.

REUBEN: What if your mama’s already dead and all the time you looking for het?

ZONIA: Naw, she ain’t dead. My daddy say he can smell her.

REUBEN: You can’t smell nobody that ain’t here. Maybe he smelling old Miss Bertha. Maybe Miss Bertha your mama?

ZONIA: Naw, she ain’t. My mamma got long pretty hair and she five feet from the ground!

REUBEN: Your daddy say when you leaving?

(Zonia doesn’t respond.)

Maybe you gonna stay in Mr. Seth’s house and don’t go looking for your mama no more.

ZONIA: He say we got to leave on Saturday.

REUBEN: Dag! You just only been here for a little while. Don’t seem like nothing ever stay the same.

ZONIA: He say he got to find her. Find him a place in the world.

REUBEN: He could find him a place in Mr. Seth’s house.

ZONIA: It don’t look like we never gonna find her.

REUBEN: Maybe he find her by Saturday then you don’t have to go.

ZONIA: I don’t know.

REUBEN: You look like a spider!

ZONIA: I ain’t no spider!

REUBEN: Got them long skinny arms and legs. You look like one of them Black Widows.

ZONIA: I ain’t no Black Window nothing! My name is ‘Zonia!

REUBEN: That’s what I’m gonna call you … Spider.

ZONIA: You can call me that, but I don’t have to answer.

REUBEN: You know what? I think maybe I be your husband when I grow up.

ZONIA: How you know?

REUBEN: I ask my grandpap how you know and he say when the moon falls into a girl’s eyes that how you know.

ZONIA: Did it fall into my eyes?

REUBEN: Not that I can tell. Maybe I ain’t old enough. Maybe you ain’t old enough.

ZONIA: So there! I don’t know why you telling me that lie!

REUBEN: That don’t mean nothing ’cause I can’t see it. I know it’s there. Just the way you look at me sometimes look like the moon might have been in your eyes.

ZONIA: That don’t mean nothing if you can’t see it. You supposed to see it.

REUBEN: Shucks, I see it good enough for me. You ever let anybody kiss you?

ZONIA: Just my daddy. He kiss me on the cheek.

REUBEN: It’s better on the lips. Can I kiss you on the lips?

ZONIA: I don’t know. You ever kiss anybody before?

REUBEN: I had a cousin let me kiss her on the lips one time.

Can I kiss you?

ZONIA: Okay.

(Reuben kisses her and lays his head against her chest.)

What you doing?

REUBEN: Listening. Your heart singing!

ZONIA: It is not.

REUBEN: Just beating like a drum. Let’s kiss again.

(They kiss again.)

Now you mine, Spider. You my girl, okay?

ZONIA: Okay.

REUBEN: When I get grown, I come looking for you.

ZONIA: Okay.

(The lights fade to black.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

SCENE 5

The lights come up on the kitchen. It is Saturday. Bynum, Loomis and Zonia sit at the table. Bertha prepares breakfast. Zonia has on a white dress.

BYNUM: With all this rain we been having he might have ran into some washed-out roads. If that wagon got stuck in the mud he’s liable to be still upriver somewhere. If he’s upriver then he ain’t coming until tomorrow.

LOOMIS: Today’s Saturday. He say he be here on Saturday.

BERTHA: ‘Zonia, you gonna eat your breakfast this morning.

ZONIA: Yes, ma’am.

BERTHA: I don’t know how you expect to get any bigger if you don’t eat. I ain’t never seen a child that didn’t eat. You about as skinny as a bean pole. (Pause) Mr. Loomis, there’s a place down on Wylie. Zeke Mayweather got a house down there. You ought to see if he got any rooms.

(Loomis doesn’t respond.)

Well, you’re welcome to some breakfast before you move on.

(Mattie enters from the stairs.)

MATTIE: Good morning.

BERTHA: Morning, Mattie. Sit on down there and get you some breakfast.

BYNUM: Well, Mattie Campbell, you been sleeping with that up under your pillow like I told you?

BERTHA: Bynum, I done told you to leave that gal alone with all that stuff. You around here meddling in other peoples lives. She don’t want to hear all that. You ain’t doing nothing but confusing her with that stuff.

MATTIE (To Loomis): You all fixing to move on?

LOOMIS: Today’s Saturday. I’m paid up till Saturday.

MATTIE: Where you going to?

LOOMIS: Gonna find my wife.

MATTIE: You going off to another city?

LOOMIS: We gonna see where the road take us. Ain’t no telling where we wind up.

WATTIE: Eleven years is a long time. Your wife … she might have taken up with someone else. People do that when they get lost from each other.

LOOMIS: Zonia. Come on, we gonna find your mama.

(Loomis and Zonia cross to the door.)

MATTIE (To Zonia): Zonia, Mattie got a ribbon here match your dress. Want Mattie to fix your hair with her ribbon?

(Zonia nods. Mattie ties the ribbon in her hair.)

There . . . it got a color just like your dress. (To Loomis) I hope you find her. I hope you be happy.

LOOMIS: A man looking for a woman be lucky to find you. You a good woman, Mattie. Keep a good heart.

(Loomis and Zonia exit.)

BERTHA: I been watching that man for two weeks . . . and that’s the closest I come to seeing him act civilized. I don’t know what’s between you all, Mattie . . . but the only thing that man needs is somebody to make him laugh. That’s all you need in the world is love and laughter. That’s all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.

(Bertha moves about the kitchen as though blessing it and chasing away the huge sadness that seems to envelop it. It is a dance and demonstration of her own magic, her own remedy that is centuries Old and to which she is connected by the muscles of her heart and the blood’s memory.)

You hear me, Mattie? I’m talking about laughing. The kind of laugh that comes from way deep inside. To just stand and laugh and let life flow right through you. Just laugh to let yourself know you’re alive.

(She begins to laugh. It is a near-hysterical laughter that is a celebration of life, both its pain and its blessing. Mattie and Bynum join in the laughter. Seth enters from the front door.)

SETH: Well, I see you all having fun. (Begins to laugh with them) That Loomis fellow standing up there on the corner watching the house. He standing right up there on Manila Street.

BERTHA: Don’t you get started on him. The man done left out of here and that’s the last I wanna hear of it. You about to drive me crazy with that man.

SETH: I just say he standing up there on the corner. Acting sneaky like he always do. He can stand up there all he want. As long as he don’t come back in here.

(There is a knock on the door. Seth goes to answer it. Martha Loomis [Pentecost] enters. She is a young woman about twenty-eight. She is dressed as befitting a member of an Evangelist church. Rutherford Selig follows.)

Look here, Bertha. It’s Martha Pentecost. Come on in, Martha. Who that with you? Oh . .. that’s Selig. Come on in, Selig.

BERTHA: Come on in, Martha. It’s sure good to see you.

BYNUM: Rutherford Selig, you a sure enough first-class People Finder!

SELIG: She was right out there in Rankin. You take that first righthand road . . . right there at that church on Wooster Street. I started to go right past and something told me to stop at the church and see if they needed any dustpans.

SETH: Don’t she look good, Bertha.

BERTHA: Look all nice and healthy.

MARTHA: Mr. Bynum. . . Selig told me my little girl was here.

SETH: There’s some fellow around here say he your husband. Say his name is Loomis. Say you his wife.

MARTHA: Is my little girl with him?

SETH: Yeah, he got a little girl with him. I wasn’t gonna tell him where you was. Not the way this fellow look. So he got Selig to find you.

MARTHA: Where they at? They upstairs?

SETH: He was standing right up there on Manila Street. I had to ask him to leave ’cause of how he was carrying on. He come in here one night–

(The door opens and Looms and Zonia enter. Martha and Loomis stare at each other.)

LOOMIS: Hello, Martha.

MARTHA: Herald . . . Zonia?

LOOMIS: You ain’t waited for me, Martha. I got out the place looking to see your face. Seven years I waited to see your face.

MARTHA: Herald, I been looking for you. I wasn’t but two months behind you when you went to my mama’s and got Zonia. I been looking for you ever since.

LOOMIS: Toe Turner let me loose and I felt all turned around inside. I just wanted to see your face to know that the world was still there. Make sure everything still in its place so I could reconnect myself together. I got there and you was gone, Martha.

MARTHA: Herald. . .

LOOMIS: Left my little girl motherless in the world.

MARTHA: I didn’t leave her motherless, Herald. Reverend Tolliver wanted to move the church up North cause of all the trouble the colored folks was having down there. Nobody knew what was gonna happen traveling them roads. We didn’t even know if we was gonna make it up here or not. I left her with my mama so she be safe. That was better than dragging her out on the road having to duck and hide from people. Wasn’t no telling what was gonna happen to us. I didn’t leave her motherless in the world. I been looking for you.

LOOMIS: I come up on Henry Thompson’s place after seven years of living in hell, and all I’m looking to do is see your face.

MARTHA: Herald, I didn’t know if you was ever coming back. They told me Joe Turner had you and my whole world split half in two. My whole life shattered. It was like I had poured it in a cracked jar and it all leaked out the bottom. When it go like that there ain’t nothing you can do put it back together. You talking about Henry Thompson’s place like I’m still gonna be working the land by myself. How I’m gonna do that? You wasn’t gone but two months and Henry Thompson kicked me off his land and I ain’t had no place to go but to my mama’s. I stayed and waited there for five years before I woke up one morning and decided that you was dead. Even if you weren’t, you was dead to me. I wasn’t gonna carry you with me no more. So I killed you in my heart. I buried you. I mourned you. And then I picked up what was left and went on to make life without you. I was a young woman with life at my beckon. I couldn’t drag you behind me like a sack of cotton.

LOOMIS: I just been waiting to look on your face to say my good-bye. That good-bye got so big at times, seem like it was gonna swallow me up. Like Jonah in the whale’s belly I sat up in that good-bye for three years. That good-bye kept me out on the road searching. Not looking on women in their houses. It kept me bound up to the road. All the time that good-bye swelling up in my chest till I’m about to bust. Now that I see your face I can say my goodbye and make my own world.

(Loomis takes Zonia’s hand and presents her to Martha.)

Martha . . . here go your daughter. I tried to take care of her. See that she had something to eat. See that she was out of the elements. Whatever I know I tried to teach her. Now she need to learn from her mother whatever you got to teach her. That way she won’t be no one-sided person.

(Loomis stoops to Zonia.)

Zonia, you go live with your mama. She a good woman. You go on with her and listen to her good. You my daughter and I love you like a daughter. I hope to see you again in the world somewhere. I’ll never forget you.

ZONIA (Throws her arms around Loomis in a panic): I won’t get no bigger! My bones won’t get no bigger! They won’t! I promise! ‘Iake me with you till we keep searching and never, finding. I won’t get no bigger! I promise!

LOOMIS: Go on and do what I told you now.

MARTHA (Goes to Zonia and comforts her): Its all right, baby. Mama’s here. Mama’s here. Don’t worry. Don’t cry. (Turns to Bynum) Mr. Bynum, I don’t know how to thank you. God bless you.

LOOMIS: It was you! All the time it was you that bind me up! You bound me to the road!

BYNUM: I ain’t bind you, Herald Loomis. You can’t bind what don’t cling.

LOOMIS: Everywhere I go people wanna bind me up. Joe Turner wanna bind me up! Reverend Tolliver wanna bind me up. You wanna bind me up. Everybody wanna bind me up. Well, Joe Turner’s come and gone and Herald Loomis ain’t for no binding. I ain’t gonna let nobody bind me up!

(Loomis pulls out a knife.)

BYNUM: It wasn’t you, Herald Loomis. I ain’t bound you. I bound the little girl to her mother. That’s who I bound. You binding yourself. You bound onto your song. All you got to do is stand up and sing it, Herald Loomis. It’s right there kicking at your throat. All you got to do is sing it. Then you be free.

MARTHA: Herald . . . look at yourself! Standing there with a knife in your hand. You done gone over to the devil. Came on . . . put down the knife. You got to look to Jesus. Even Wif you done fell away from the church you can be saved again. The Bible say, “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still water. He restoreth my soul. He leads me in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the shadow of death–“

LOOMIS: That’s just where I be walking!

MARTHA: “I shall fear no evil. For Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”

LOOMIS: You can’t tell me nothing about no valleys. I done been all across the valleys and the hills and the mountains and the oceans.

MARTHA: “Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies.”

LOOMIS: And all I seen was a bunch of niggers dazed out of their woolly heads. And Mr. Jesus Christ standing there in the middle of them, grinning.

MARTHA: “Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.”

LOOMIS: He grin that big old grin . . . and niggers wallowing at his feet.

MARTHA: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

LOOMIS: Great big old white man . . . your Mr. Jesus Christ. Standing there with a whip in one hand and tote board in another, and them niggers swimming in a sea of cotton. And he counting. He tallying up the cotton. “Well, Jeremiah . . . what’s the matter, you ain’t picked but two hundred pounds of cotton today? Got to put you on half rations.” And Jeremiah go back and lay up there on his half rations and talk about what a nice man Mr. Jesus Christ is cause he give him salvation after he die. Something wrong here. Something don’t fit right!

MARTHA: You got to open up your heart and have faith, Herald. This world is just a trial for the next. Jesus offers you salvation.

LOOMIS: I been wading in the water. I been walking all over the tiver Jordan. But what it get me, huh? I done been baptized with blood of the lamb and the fire of the Holy Ghost. But what I got, huh? I got salvation? My enemies all around me picking the flesh from my bones. I’m choking on my own blood and all you got to give me is salvation?

MARTHA: You got to be clean, Herald. You got to be washed with the blood of the lamb.

LOOMIS: Blood make you clean? You clean with blood?

MARTHA: Jesus bled for you. He’s the Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world.

LOOMIS: I don’t need nobody to bleed for me! I can bleed for myself.

MARTHA: You got to be something, Herald. You just can’t be alive. Life don’t mean nothing unless it got a meaning.

LOOMIS: What kind of meaning you got? What kind of clean you got, woman? You want blood? Blood make you clean? You clean with blood?

(Loomis slashes himself across the chest. He rubs the blood over his face and comes to a realization.)

I’m standing! I’m standing. My legs stood up! I’m standing now!

(Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions.)

Good-bye, Martha.

(Loomis turns and exits, the knife still in his hands: Mattie looks about the room and rushes out after him.)

BYNUM: Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money!

(The lights fade to black.)

END OF PLAY

DMU Timestamp: September 29, 2023 15:01