WALTER: Mama, where have you been?

MAMA: My them steps is longer than they used to be. Whew! (She sits down and ignores him) How you feeling this evening, Ruth?

(RUTH shrugs, disturbed at having been interrupted and watching her husband knowingly)

WALTER: Mama, where have you been all day?

MAMA: (Still ignoring him and leaning on the table and changing to more comfortable shoes) Where’s Travis?

RUTH: I let him go out earlier and he ain’t come back yet. Boy, is he going to get it!

WALTER: Mama!

MAMA: ((As if she has heard him for the first time) Yes, son?

WALTER: Where id you go this afternoon?

MAMA: I went downtown to tend to some business that I had to tend to.

WALTER: What kind of business?

MAMA: You know better than to question me like a child, Brother.

WALTER: (Rising and bending over the table) Where were you, Mama? (Bringing his firsts down and shouting) Mama, you didn’t go do something with that insurance money, something crazy?

(The front door opens slowly, interrupting him, and TRAVIS peeks his head in, less than hopefully)

TRAVIS: (To his mother) Mama, I

RUTH: “Mama I” nothing! You’re going to get it, boy! Get on in that bedroom and get yourself ready!

TRAVIS: But I

MAMA: Why don’t you all never let the child explain hisself.

RUTH: Keep out of it now, Lena.

(MAMA clamps her lips together, and RUTH advances toward her son menacingly)

RUTH: A thousand times I have told you not to go off like that.

MAMA: (Holding out her arms to her grandson) Well at least let me tell him something. I want him to be the first one to hear…Come here, Travis. (The boy obeys, gladly) Travis (She takes him by the shoulder and looks into his face) you know that money we got in the mail this morning?

Travis: Yes’m

MAMA: Well what you think your grandmama gone and done with that money?

TRAVIS: I don’t know, Grandmama.

MAMA: (Putting her finger on his nose for emphasis) She went out and she bought you a house! (The explosion comes from WALTER at the end of the revelation and he jumps and turns away from all of them in a  fury. MAMA continues, to TRAVIS) You glad about the house? It’s going to be yours when you get to be a man.

TRAVIS: Yeah I always wanted to live in a house.

MAMA: All right, gimme some sugar then (TRAVIS puts his arms around her neck as she watches her son over the boy’s shoulder. Then, to TRAVIS, after the embrace) Now when you say your prayers tonight, you thank God and your grandfather ’cause it was him who give you the house in his way.

RUTH: (Taking the boy – from MAMA and pushing him toward the bedroom) Now you get out of here and get ready for your beating.

TRAVIS: Aw, Mama

RUTH: Get on in there (Closing the door behind him and turning radiantly to her mother-in-law) So you went and did it!

MAMA: (Quietly, looking at her son with pain) Yes, I did.

RUTH: (Raising both arms classically) PRAISE GOD! (Looks at WALTER a moment, who says nothing. She crosses rapidly to her husband) Please, honey let me be glad…you be glad too. (She has laid her hands on his shoulders, but he shakes himself free of her roughly, without turning to face her) Oh, Walter…a home…a home. (She comes back to MAMA) Well where is it? How big is it? How much it going to cost?

MAMA: Well

RUTH: When we moving?

MAMA: (Smiling at her) First of the month.

RUTH: (Throwing back her head with jubilance) Praise God!

MAMA: (Tentatively, still looking at her son’s back turned against her and RUTH) It’s it’s a nice house too.. (She cannot help speaking directly to him. An imploring quality in her voice, her manner, makes her almost like a girl now) Three bedrooms nice big one for you and Ruth…Me and Beneatha still have to share our room, but Travis have one of his own and (With difficulty) I figure if the new baby is a boy, we could get one of them double-decker outfits…And there’s a yard with a little patch of dirt where I could maybe get to grow me a few flowers…And a nice big basement…

RUTH: Walter honey, be glad

MAMA: (Still to his back, fingering things on the table) ‘Course I don’t want to make it sound fancier than it is…It’s just a plain little old house but it’s made good and solid and it will be ours. Walter Lee it makes a difference in a man when he can walk on floors that belong to him…

RUTH: Where is it?

MAMA: (Frightened at this telling) Well well it’s out there in Clybourne Park

(RUTH’s radiance jades abruptly, and WALTER finally turns slowly to face his mother with incredulity and hostility)

RUTH: Where?

MAMA: (Matter-of-factly) Four o six Clybourne Street, Clybourne Park

RUTH: Clybourne Park? Mama, there ain’t no colored people living in Clybourne Park.

MAMA: (Almost idiotically) Well, I guess there’s going to be some now.

WALTER: (Bitterly) So that’s the peace and comfort you went out and bought for us today!

MAMA: (Raising her eyes to meet his finally) Son I just tried to find the nicest place for the least amount of money for my family.

RUTH: (Trying to recover from the shock) Well well ‘course I ain’t one never been ‘fraid of no crackers, mind you but well, wasn’t there no other houses nowhere?

MAMA: Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses. I did the best I could.

RUTH: (Struck senseless with the new, in its various degrees of goodness and trouble, she sits a moment, her first propping her chin in thought, and then she starts to rise, bringing her firsts down with vigor, the radiance spreading from cheek to cheek again) Well well! All I can say is if this is my time in life MY TIME to say good-bye (And she builds with momentum as she starts to circle the room with an exuberant, almost tearfully happy release) to these Goddamned cracking walls! (She wipes at an imaginary army of marching roaches) and this cramped little closet which ain’t now or never was no kitchen!…then I say it loud and good, HALLELUJAH! AND GOOD-BYE MISERY…I DON’T NEVER WANT TO SEE YOUR UGLY FACE AGAIN! (She laughs joyously, having practically destroyed the apartment, and flings her arms up and lets them come down happily, slowly, reflectively, over her abdomen, aware for the first time perhaps that the life therein pulses with happiness and not despair) Lena?

MAMA: (Moved, watching her happiness) Yes, honey?

RUTH: (Looking off) Is there is there a whole lot of sunlight?

MAMA: (Understanding) Yes, child, there’s a whole lot of sunlight.

(Long pause)

RUTH: (Collecting herself and going to the door of the room TRAVIS is in) Well I guess I better see ’bout Travis. (To MAMA) Lord, I sure don’t feel like whipping nobody today! (She exits)

MAMA: (The mother and son are left alone now and the mother waits a long time, considering deeply, before she speaks) Son you you understand what I done, don’t you? (WALTER is silent and sullen) I I just seen my family falling apart today…just falling to pieces in front of my eyes…We couldn’t of gone on like we was today. We was going backwards ‘stead of forwards talking ’bout killing babies and wishing each other was dead…When it gets like that in life you just got to do something different, push on out and do something bigger…(she waits) I wish you say something, son…I wish you’d say how deep inside you you think I done the right thing.

WALTER: (Crossing slowly to his bedroom door and finally turning there and speaking measuredly) What you need me to say you done right for? You the head of this family. You run our lives like you want to. It was your money and you did what you wanted with it. So what you need for me to say it was all right for? (Bitterly, to hurt her as deeply as he knows possible) So you butchered up a dream of mine you who always talking ’bout your children’s dreams…

MAMA: Walter Lee

(He just closes the door behind him. MAMA sits alone, thinking heavily)

Curtain

 

(Pages 81-87)

~Lorraine Hansberry