The Stonemason Read online

  MAVEN Sounds a little neat to me.

  BEN I don't have a theory about it. I think most people feel that books are dangerous and they're probably right.

  MAVEN I'll bear that in mind.

  BEN (Smiling) I don't think it's a problem for you. You've got a pretty good anchoring in reality anyway. One downstairs and one in here.

  He puts his hand on her stomach.

  MAVEN You've got a pretty romantic notion about motherhood too.

  BEN I hope so.

  MAVEN You're a fairly strange person. I knew that when I married you. Have you become more strange or were you hiding the worst from me?

  BEN I don't hide anything from you.

  She puts the last of the dishes in the drainer and wipes her hands on a towel.

  MAVEN I've got to get ready.

  BEN Is Melissa awake?

  Maven puts her arm around Ben and kisses him.

  MAVEN Yes. She's playing. Playing, Ben.

  BEN (Smiling) I know how to play.

  MAVEN How many blocks did you lay yesterday on your father's new job?

  BEN It's my new job too.

  MAVEN How many.

  BEN Why?

  MAVEN I heard you put on quite a performance.

  BEN I was just working.

  MAVEN You had a gallery all afternoon.

  BEN Well, people don't have much to do.

  MAVEN How many.

  BEN Seven hundred and something.

  MAVEN Seven hundred and what.

  BEN Seven hundred and eighty two.

  She shakes her head.

  BEN Do you want to know what that comes to in dollars?

  MAVEN That's not why I asked, Ben.

  BEN I know. It's mindless work. It's as easy to do fast as it is slow.

  MAVEN That's not just working fast.

  BEN Well. It makes it more interesting.

  MAVEN Then you go out to the farm and work till eight. That's a thirteen hour day. Besides stonework that you and Papaw do on the side.

  BEN I don't know any other way to do it.

  MAVEN How soon are you leaving?

  BEN Just a few minutes.

  She kisses him again.

  MAVEN Bye.

  BEN I'll see you tonight.

  MAVEN Look after him, Ben.

  BEN You know I look after him.

  MAVEN I know. Look after him anyway.

  Maven exits.

  SCENE II

  The kitchen, evening. It is dark out. The supper dishes are still on the table and Mama and Carlotta are sitting at the table and MELISSA is in a high chair. Carlotta is smoking a cigarette. Ben is standing in the kitchen dressed in a sportcoat and tie and he has his coat over his arm. Sound of steps on the basement stairs. Maven enters. She is dressed for the evening and has on her coat.

  MAMA Be slick out there, Benny. You be careful.

  Maven comes to the table and kisses Mama on the cheek.

  MAVEN Night Mama. Thank you.

  She kisses Melissa.

  MAVEN Night Punkin.

  Ben is putting on his coat. Maven buttons her coat up.

  BEN You ready?

  MAMA What time you all be back?

  BEN About daylight.

  MAMA (Laughing) Yeah, daylight.

  MAVEN We'll be back about eleven or eleven thirty.

  She takes Ben's arm and they go out. Mama gets up and begins to clear away the dishes. Outside the truck doors slam and the motor starts and the truck pulls away. The lights sweep past the kitchen window. Carlotta stubs out her cigarette. Mama screws up her nose.

  MAMA Shoo, girl. I don't see how you can puff on them nasty things. I'd about as soon commit fornication.

  CARLOTTA So would I.

  Mama has started away from the table and she turns and gives Carlotta a vicious look. Carlotta holds her hands palm up.

  CARLOTTA It's a joke, Mama. A joke.

  MAMA Joke? Mmph. Ain't nothin to be jokin about.

  CARLOTTA Well you're the one that said it, Mama.

  MAMA Well it wasn't said for no joke.

  She goes on to the sink. Carlotta shakes her head, smiling. Mama returns and makes a fuss over Melissa.

  CARLOTTA You've got her spoiled completely rotten.

  MAMA Good thing they somebody here to spoil her.

  CARLOTTA You think Maven ought to be here more?

  MAMA She come to me fore she will to her own mama.

  CARLOTTA Well it's just temporary.

  MAMA Honey life's just temporary. Besides she got two more long years in that school. And then what she goin to do? I heard of Negro lawyers and I heard of women lawyers but I sure ain't never heard of no Negro woman lawyer. Not in Louisville Kentucky I ain't.

  CARLOTTA Times change, Mama.

  MAMA Amen, sister, Amen. You said a mouthful when you said that. (She sits heavily at the table). Ain't her nor Ben neither one in this house no longer'n what it takes to sleep and eat breakfast. Tell me about spoilin this child and her not much better than a orphan?

  CARLOTTA Well Mama, I'd be ashamed.

  MAMA Well it's the truth. What's the truth, you might as well tell it.

  CARLOTTA Well I'd be afraid to start back to school. You'd be bad mouthing me too.

  MAMA Ain't nobody bad mouthin nobody. She's a sweet girl. Couldn't ask for no better hardly. She just got a lot of high tone ideas, that's all. Life'll smack a few of em out of her fore it gets done with her. Besides, Benny's the one ought to be the lawyer. He'd be a dandy too. Smart as he is.

  CARLOTTA Well I declare, Mama. I don't believe I'm hearing this. You're jealous of her on Ben's part.

  MAMA Ain't done no such a thing. Just statin the facts, that's all.

  CARLOTTA Well in any case she's here more than Ben, that's for sure.

  MAMA She supposed to be.

  CARLOTTA If you count the work he contracts with Papaw and the work he does out at his farm he's working three jobs. I don't see how she got pregnant the first time let alone twice.

  MAMA Girl you got a mouth on you, you know that?

  CARLOTTA There's nothing wrong with saying that.

  MAMA Hmph.

  CARLOTTA You think men are born with rights that women don't have. That they can come and go like migratory birds and it's perfectly natural. . .

  MAMA It is natural. Tryin to change nature. Women has babies. You cain't get around that. That's the plan the good Lord laid down and you won't change it. You can make up you own plan if you want to, and you can read it in ruin.

  CARLOTTA Well, it wasn't the good Lord's plan that I ever heard of for men to be gone all hours of the day and night.

  MAMA You watch yourself girl. You hear? You just watch yourself.

  CARLOTTA That's what it's about.

  MAMA I ain't goin to tell you again.

  CARLOTTA I'll tell you what you told me. The truth's the truth.

  Mama gets up from the table and busies herself at the sideboard.

  CARLOTTA You're right. It's none of my business.

  Mama has come back to the table and is picking up Melissa.

  MAMA Honey, you ready to put on your jammies? You ready to go nigh—night?

  SCENE III

  The kitchen, Sunday morning. The family are coming in from outside, returning from church. They disperse through the kitchen and exit, steps on the stairs both up and down, leaving Papaw and Ben in the kitchen. Ben is putting the kettle on. Papaw has taken off his overcoat and hat and laid the coat across the back of a kitchen chair. He has on an old fashioned dark suit, white shirt with tie, high top black kid dress shoes. He sits at the kitchen table and puts his hat on the table. Ben is fixing tea.

  BEN Papaw, what did you think of the new minister?

  PAPAW Well I liked him just fine. Liked him just fine. I didn't catch his name

  BEN Erickson. His name is Erickson.

  PAPAW Erickson. I worked one time for a man named Erickson. He sure wasn't no minister.

  BEN (Smiling) I thought
you might think he was a bit young for the job.

  PAPAW Well he is young. But he seemed to have good sense. Bein old don't shelter people from ignorance. Ought to, but it don't.

  Ben pours the cups and brings them to the table.

  PAPAW Thank you Benny. Thank you. A lot of the old time preachers used to preach all kinds of foolishness. Or it was to my ears. I heard any number of times how when colored folks got to heaven they'd be white. Well that don't make no more sense than a goose wearin gaiters. God didn't make the colored man colored just to see how he'd look. There ain't nothin triflin about God. He made everbody the color He wanted em to be and He meant for em to stay that way. And if that suits Him it’s got to suit me too, else I's just a damn fool.

  BEN Did you always feel that way?

  PAPAW I think so. I know some coloreds don't, but I always did. It was the way I was raised.

  BEN Do you think it was easier growing up black back then?

  PAPAW Many ways it was. Course in many ways it was easier don't matter what color you was. We lived out at the farm and we didn't have a whole lot of experience of the world. Our families, Telfair families, colored and white, we'd been together over a hundred year and we didn't encounter all that much meanness. They was good people and so was we. The first time I ever understood that the white man I was six year old and they was a circus show come to Louisville and Harris, he's the oldest, he made it up for all of us to go and he got extra work for everbody and we saved them pennies, saved them pennies. I think it costed a dime to get in but we raised it. And he carried us all over there, him and Aaron and Charles and me and sister Emmanuelle she come too. We got over there and Harris had heard about the monkeys and he wanted to see em awful bad and we tried to locate where they was at and after awhile he went up to this white man was sellin lemonade, soda pop, ever what it was, and he asked him, said Mister, can you tell us where the monkey cage is at? Well, course it is funny now. The man he looked down at all us little colored children and we was all barefooted and as raggedy as a stump full of grandaddies and he said: If you couldn't find your way back, what did you leave for?

  Ben laughs. Papaw smiles.

  PAPAW We didn't know nothin about the world. Didn't know nothin. We was babes in the woods. (he stirs his tea). I went to work when I was twelve and it wasn't long fore I learned that a lot of what the good book said was ever bit as true as it was claimed. Stone ain't so heavy as the wrath of a fool and I worked for white men and I was subjugated to that wrath many a time and I become very dissatisfied about my lot in this world. The peculiar thing was that the very thing that brought me to that pass was what led me out of it and since that time I've come to see that more often than not that's how the Lord works.

  He sips his tea. They sit.

  BEN What was it? That brought you to that pass and led you out of it.

  PAPAW Just the work. Just the trade. That was all they was to it. All they ever was to it. I've wondered all my life what people outside of the trade do. I wonder it yet.

  He sips his tea.

  PAPAW I made it a study to put up with foolishness and not to be made party to it. I liked the work from the first time I ever turned to it and I was determined that they wasn't goin to run me off no matter how crazy they got and they didn't. You had black and white masons work side by side on them big jobs but you was never paid the same and you was never acknowledged the same. But I knowed Uncle Selman could lay stone to beat any man on that job didn't make no difference what color he was and anybody that didn't know it was just too ignorant to count. So I seen that he was acknowledged if he was colored and that made me think again. I seen they was some things that folks couldn't lie about. The facts was too plain. And what a man was worth at his work was one of them things. It was just knowed to everbody from the lowest to the highest and they wasn't no several opinions about it. When I seen that I seen the way my path had to go if I was ever to become the type of man I had it in my heart to be. I was twelve year old and I never looked back. Never looked back.

  BEN What about when Uncle Selman was killed. Did that change your feelings?

  PAPAW No. It didn't. I was older then and I seen it for what it was. A man that's killed by a fool that ain't never had the first thought in his head it ain't no different from if a rock fell on him. It's just a sad thing to happen and they ain't no help for it.

  BEN You weren't set crazy over it?

  PAPAW Pret near. But they wasn't no point in me goin crazy. That man was not a mason. He was in charge of settin timbers and he picked Selman out because he was a small man and Selman was a big one. It was just a dispute that they wasn't no sense to it. Cept I knowed Selman was not disputatious and you couldn't get him to argue didn't make no difference how wrong you was and I reckon that made that white man crazier than what he already was. It was a dispute over a water bucket and that's about as sorry as you can get, I reckon. Ever crew had they own buckets and they was marked and had stripes on em for to mark the white ones from the colored's. I don't know what the particulars was but it was over them buckets and I know Uncle Selman was in the right for he never would allow no misrepresentation of nothin. You couldn't put a gun to his head and get him to lie and I don't care what kind of lie it was. He always said they was not no such a thing as a small lie. And that white man was all lie. And he killed him. He killed Uncle Selman with a timber maul, hit him blind side with it and laid him out graveyard dead. They come and got me. Oh I was a heart broke boy. A heart broke boy. We picked him up out of the dirt and carried him out under a shade tree and he was bloody as a hog and I just set there under that tree with him and I cried like a baby. I ain't ashamed to tell it.

  They sit quietly. Papaw is moved even now.

  BEN What did they do with the white man?

  PAPAW He left this country and he stayed gone a long time. They was fixin to law him and he just left out. The boss of that job was goin to testify against him and he told that boss man, said: You take a nigger's part against a white man's? That's what he said. And Uncle Selman laid out dead. Said: You take a nigger's part against a white man's? and that boss man—his name was Johnson—he never even answered him.

  BEN But he came back?

  PAPAW Yes. He come back.

  BEN And what happened then?

  PAPAW Nothin. He stayed gone I guess it was six or seven year and then he come back and there was nothin ever done about it. I lawed him myself and it costed me a right smart but it was too late to bring him to justice.

  They sit. Papaw stirs and rises and takes his cup and his hat and coat.

  PAPAW I guess I better change out of these clothes.

  He goes to the sink.

  BEN What was the man's name?

  PAPAW That killed Uncle Selman?

  BEN Yes.

  PAPAW Well. That's been a long time ago, Benny. Been a long time ago.

  BEN But you remember his name.

  Papaw puts his cup in the sink and turns.

  PAPAW Oh yes. He has children livin in this town. Children and grandchildren. Great grandchildren.

  BEN What was his name?

  PAPAW Well. I guess I'd rather not to say it.

  He goes to his room door and exits.

  SCENE IV

  The kitchen, night. The supper dishes are washed and in the drain board. Ben is asleep at the kitchen table with his head cradled in his arms. There are steps on the basement stairs and Maven enters in her bathrobe. She goes to Ben and strokes the back of his head. He sits up and looks at her.

  MAVEN Baby why don't you take your shower.

  BEN He hasn't come in has he?

  MAVEN No.

  BEN What time is it?

  MAVEN Quarter of eleven.

  Ben leans back and looks up at the ceiling.

  MAVEN Why don't you take your shower.

  BEN I'm going to kill him.

  MAVEN (Smiling) Come on.

  Ben rises and gets his coat from the chair.

  BEN I'll be back in a l
ittle bit.

  MAVEN Oh Ben.

  BEN I'll be back in a little bit.

  SCENE V

  A dimly lit door stage right. Ben knocks at the door and turns and looks out at the street. He turns and knocks at the door again. The door opens and MRS RAYMOND—a middleaged woman in a chenille robe with her hair up in a plastic cap—opens the door and looks out.

  BEN Mrs Raymond I hate to bother you so late but I wonder if Emmett knows anything about Soldier. He hasn't been home since last night.

  Mrs Raymond looks down and shakes her head.

  BEN Is he still up?

  MRS RAYMOND (Turning toward inside of house) Emmett, you see Soldier today?

  EMMETT (Offstage) I don't know nothin bout Soldier.

  MRS RAYMOND Say he don't know nothin bout him.

  BEN Was he in school Friday?

  MRS RAYMOND (To Emmett) Soldier in school Friday?

  EMMETT I ain't seen him.

  MRS RAYMOND Say he ain't seen him.

  BEN What about Jeffrey. Was Jeffrey in school?

  MRS RAYMOND (To Emmett) Jeffrey in school on Friday?

  They wait. Emmett doesn't answer.

  MRS RAYMOND (To Emmett) JEFFREY IN SCHOOL ON FRIDAY?

  EMMETT I don't know nothin bout Soldier and I don't know nothin bout Jeffrey.

  MRS RAYMOND Say he don't know nothin bout neither one of em.

  Ben looks offstage right. He looks at Mrs Raymond.

  BEN Well. Thank you Mrs Raymond.

  MRS RAYMOND Well.

  She shuts the door.

  SCENE VI

  The kitchen, morning. Mama is fixing breakfast and Carlotta is setting the table. Big Ben is on the telephone. He is dressed in overalls and a work shirt with long underwear showing at his collar and cuffs. There is a knocking at the door, OSREAU is peering in through the glass.

  BIG BEN (On telephone) You tell him call Topcat or one of them Williams boys. Well you call him then. Tell him he don't want his job we got people standin in line.

  Big Ben holds the receiver to one side and turns to the table.

  BIG BEN Sister let Osreau in there. Cain't you see him standin yonder? (Into telephone) And bring your hundred foot tape.

  Carlotta goes past Big Ben to the door.