Driving Miss Daisy

by Alfred Uhry

  BOOLIE: Mighty nice of you.

  HOKE: Well, we all doin’ what we can. Keep them ashes off my ’polstry.

  Light out on them and up on Daisy’s driveway. Daisy, wearing traveling clothes and a hat, enters lugging a big heavy suitcase. She looks around anxiously, checks her watch and exits again. In a moment she returns with a full dress bag and a picnic basket. She sets them by the suitcase, looks around, becoming more agitated, and exits again. Now she returns with a large elaborately wrapped package. Hoke enters, carrying a small suitcase.

  DAISY: It’s three after seven.

  HOKE: Yassum. You say we leavin’ at fifteen to eight.

  DAISY: At the latest, I said.

  HOKE: Now what bizness you got draggin’ disheah out de house by yo’seff?

  DAISY: Who was here to help me?

  HOKE: Miz Daisy, it doan’ take mo’n five minutes to load up de trunk. You fixin’ to break both yo’ arms and yo’ legs too fo’ we even get outta Atlanta. You takin’ on too much.

  DAISY: I hate doing things at the last minute.

  HOKE: What you talkin’ ’bout? You ready to go fo’ the las’ week and half! (He picks up the present)

  DAISY: Don’t touch that.

  HOKE: Ain’ it wrap pretty. Dat Mist’ Walter’s present?

  DAISY: Yes. It’s fragile. I’ll hold it on the seat with me.

  Boolie enters carrying his briefcase and a small wrapped package.

  Well, you nearly missed us!

  BOOLIE: I thought you were leaving at quarter of.

  HOKE: She takin’ on.

  DAISY: Be still.

  BOOLIE: Florine sent this for Uncle Walter. (Daisy recoils from it) Well, it’s not a snake, Mama. I think it’s notepaper.

  DAISY: How appropriate. Uncle Walter can’t see!

  BOOLIE: Maybe it’s soap.

  DAISY: How nice that you show such an interest in your uncle’s ninetieth birthday.

  BOOLIE: Don’t start up, Mama. I cannot go to Mobile with you. I have to go to New York tonight for the convention. You know that.

  DAISY: The convention starts Monday. And I know what else I know.

  BOOLIE: Just leave Florine out of it. She wrote away for those tickets eight months ago.

  DAISY: I’m sure My Fair Lady is more important than your own flesh and blood.

  BOOLIE: Mama!

  DAISY: Those Christians will be mighty impressed!

  BOOLIE: I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.

  Daisy has climbed into the car. Boolie draws Hoke aside.

  I’ve got to talk to Hoke.

  DAISY: They expect us for a late supper in Mobile.

  BOOLIE: You’ll be there.

  DAISY: I know they’ll fix crab. All that trouble!

  BOOLIE (To Hoke): I don’t know how you’re going to stand all day in the car.

  HOKE: She doan’ mean nothin’. She jes’ worked up.

  BOOLIE: Here’s fifty dollars in case you run into trouble. Don’t show it to Mama. You’ve got your map?

  HOKE: She got it in wid her. Study every inch of the way.

  BOOLIE: I’ll be at the Ambassador Hotel in New York. On Park Avenue.

  DAISY: It’s seven sixteen.

  BOOLIE: You should have a job on the radio announcing the time.

  DAISY: I want to miss rush hour.

  BOOLIE: Congratulate Uncle Walter for me. And kiss everybody in Mobile.

  DAISY (To Hoke): Did you have the air condition checked? I told you to have the air condition checked!

  HOKE: Yassum. I got the air condition checked but I doan’ know what for. You doan’ never ’low me to turn it on.

  DAISY: Hush up.

  BOOLIE: Good-bye! Good luck! (Light out on the car) Good God!

  Light out on Boolie and back up on the car. It’s lunchtime. Daisy and Hoke are both eating. Hoke eats while he drives.

  HOKE: Idella stuff eggs good.

  DAISY: You stuff yourself good. I’m going to save the rest of this for later.

  HOKE: Yassum.

  DAISY: I was thinking about the first time I ever went to Mobile. It was Walter’s wedding, 1888.

  HOKE: 1888! You weren’t nothin’ but a little child.

  DAISY: I was twelve. We went on the train. And I was so excited. I’d never been on a train, I’d never been in a wedding party and I’d never seen the ocean. Papa said it was the Gulf of Mexico and not the ocean, but it was all the same to me. I remember we were at a picnic somewhere—somebody must have taken us all bathing—and I asked Papa if it was all right to dip my hand in the water. He laughed because I was so timid. And then I tasted the salt water on my fingers. Isn’t it silly to remember that?

  HOKE: No sillier than most of what folks remember. You talkin’ ’bout first time. I tell you ’bout the first time I ever leave the state of Georgia?

  DAISY: When was that?

  HOKE: ’Bout twenty-five minutes back.

  DAISY: Go on!

  HOKE: Thass right. First time. My daughter, she married to Pullman porter on the N.C. & St. L., you know, and she all time goin’—Detroit, New York, St. Louis—talkin’ ‘bout snow up aroun’ her waist and ridin’ in de subway car and I say, “Well, that very nice Tommie Lee, but I jes’ doan’ feel the need.” So dis it, Miz Daisy, and I got to tell you, Alabama ain’ lookin’ like much so far.

  DAISY: It’s nicer the other side of Montgomery.

  HOKE: If you say so. Pass me up one of them peaches, please ma’am.

  She looks out the window. Suddenly she starts,

  DAISY: Oh my God!

  HOKE: What happen?

  DAISY: That sign said Phenix City—thirty miles. We’re not supposed to go to Phenix City. We’re going the wrong way. Oh my God!

  HOKE: Maybe you done read it wrong.

  DAISY: I didn’t. Stop the car! Stop the car! (Very agitated, she wrestles with the map on her lap) Here! Here! You took the wrong turn at Opelika!

  HOKE: You took it with me. And you readin’ the map.

  DAISY: I was getting the lunch. Go on back! Oh my God!

  HOKE: It ain’t been thirty minutes since we turn.

  DAISY: I’m such a fool! I didn’t have any business coming in the car by myself with just you. Boolie made me! I should have come on the train. I’d be safe there. I just should have come on the train.

  HOKE: Yassum. You should have.

  Lights dim to suggest passage of time and come right back up again. It is night now. Daisy and Hoke are somewhat slumped on the seats, Hoke driving wearily.

  DAISY: They fixed crab for me. Minnie always fixes crab. They go to so much trouble! It’s all ruined by now! Oh Lord!

  HOKE: We got to pull over, Miz Daisy.

  DAISY: Is something wrong with the car?

  HOKE: Nome. I got to bixcused.

  DAISY: What?

  HOKE: I got to make water.

  DAISY: You should have thought of that back at the Standard Oil Station.

  HOKE: Colored cain’ use the toilet at no Standard Oil. . . . You know dat.

  DAISY: Well there’s no time to stop. We’ll be in Mobile soon. You can wait.

  HOKE: Yassum. (He drives a minute then stops the car) Nome.

  DAISY: I told you to wait!

  HOKE: Yassum. I hear you. How you think I feel havin’ to ax you when can I make my water like I some damn dog?

  DAISY: Why, Hoke! I’d be ashamed!

  HOKE: I ain’t no dog and I ain’ no chile and I ain’ jes’ a back of the neck you look at while you goin’ wherever you want to go. I a man nearly seventy-two years old and I know when my bladder full and I gettin’ out dis car and goin’ off down de road like I got to do. And I’m takin’ de car key dis time. And that’s de end of it.

  He leaves the car, slamming his door, and exits. Daisy sits very still in the back seat. It’s a dark country night. Crickets chirp, a dog barks.

  DAISY (Angry): Hoke! (She waits. No sound. Then, less angry) Hoke! (Silence. Darkness. Country sounds. Now
she is frightened) Hoke?

  No answer. Light fades on her slowly and comes up on Boolie, in his office. He speaks into his phone in answer to an intercom buzz.

  BOOLIE: Well, hell yes! Send him right on in here!

  Hoke enters.

  Isn’t it your day off? To what do I owe this honor?

  HOKE: We got to talk.

  BOOLIE: What is it?

  HOKE: It Mist’ Sinclair Harris.

  BOOLIE: My cousin Sinclair?

  HOKE: His wife.

  BOOLIE: Jeanette?

  HOKE: The one talk funny.

  BOOLIE: She’s from Canton, Ohio.

  HOKE: Yassuh. She tryin’ to hire me.

  BOOLIE: What?

  HOKE: She phone when she know Miz Daisy be out and she say “How are they treating you, Hoke?” You know how she soun’ like her nose stuff up. And I say “Fine” and she say “Well, if you looking for a change you know where to call.”

  BOOLIE: I’ll be damned!

  HOKE: I thought you want to know ’bout it.

  BOOLIE: I’ll be goddamned!

  HOKE: Ain’t she a mess? (A beat) She say name yo’ sal’ry.

  BOOLIE: I see. And did you?

  HOKE: Did I what?

  BOOLIE: Name your salary?

  HOKE: Now what you think I am? I ain’ studyin’ workin’ for no trashy somethin’ like her.

  BOOLIE: But she got you to thinking, didn’t she?

  HOKE: You might could say dat.

  BOOLIE: Name your salary?

  HOKE: Dat what she say.

  BOOLIE: Well, how does sixty-five dollars a week sound?

  HOKE: Sounds pretty good. Seventy-five sounds better.

  BOOLIE: So it does. Beginning this week.

  HOKE: Das mighty nice of you Mist’ Werthan. I ’preciate it. Mist’ Werthan, you ever had people fightin’ over you?

  BOOLIE: No.

  HOKE: Well, I tell you. It feel good.

  Light out on them. We hear a phone ringing. Light up on Daisy’s house. It’s a dark, winter morning and there is no light on in the house. Daisy enters, wearing her coat over her bathrobe and carrying a lit candle in a candlestick. She is up in her eighties now and walks more carefully, but she is by no means decrepit.

  DAISY: Hello?

  Light up on Boolie at home, also dressed warmly.

  BOOLIE: Mama, thank goodness! I was afraid your phone would be out.

  DAISY: No, but I don’t have any power.

  BOOLIE: Nobody does. That’s why I called.

  DAISY: I found some candles. It reminds me of gaslight back on Forsyth Street. Seems like we had ice storms all the time back then.

  BOOLIE: I can’t come after you because my driveway is a sheet of ice. I’m sure yours is too.

  DAISY: I’m all right, Boolie.

  BOOLIE: I imagine they’re working on the lines now. I’ll go listen to my car radio and call you back. Don’t go anywhere.

  DAISY: Really? I thought I’d take a jog around the neighborhood.

  BOOLIE: You’re a doodle, Mama.

  DAISY: Love to Florine.

  BOOLIE: Uh-huh.

  Light out on Boolie. Daisy talks to herself.

  DAISY: Well, I guess that’s the biggest lie I’ll tell today.

  She tries to read by the candlelight without much success. She hears the door to outside open and close and then footsteps. She stands alarmed.

  Who is it?

  Hoke enters carrying a paper bag and wearing an overcoat and galoshes.

  HOKE: Mornin’ Miz Daisy.

  DAISY: Hoke. What in the world?

  HOKE: I learn to drive on ice when I deliver milk for Avondale Dairy. Ain’ much to it. I slip around a little comin’ down Briarcliff, but nothin’ happen. Other folks bangin’ into each other like they in the funny papers, though. Oh, I stop at the 7—11. I figure yo’ stove out and Lawd knows you got to have yo’ coffee in the mornin’.

  DAISY (Touched): How sweet of you, Hoke.

  He sips his own coffee.

  HOKE: We ain’ had good coffee roun’ heah since Idella pass.

  DAISY: You’re right. I can fix her biscuits and you can fry her chicken, but nobody can make Idella’s coffee. I wonder how she did it.

  HOKE: I doan’ nome. Every time the Hit Parade come on TV, it put me in mind of Idella.

  DAISY: Yes.

  HOKE: Sittin’ up in de chair, her daughter say, spry as de flowers in springtime, watchin’ the Hit Parade like she done ev’ry Sad’dy the Lawd sent and then, durin’ the Lucky Strike Extra all of sudden, she belch and she gone.

  DAISY: Idella was lucky.

  HOKE: Yassum. I ’spec she was. (He starts to exit)

  DAISY: Where are you going?

  HOKE: Put deseheah things up. Take off my overshoes.

  DAISY: I didn’t think you’d come today.

  HOKE: What you mean? It ain’ my day off, is it?

  DAISY: Well, I don’t know what you can do around here except keep me company.

  HOKE: I see can I light us a fire.

  DAISY: Eat anything you want out of the icebox. It’s all going to spoil anyway.

  HOKE: Yassum.

  DAISY: And wipe up what you tracked onto my kitchen floor.

  HOKE: Now Miz Daisy, what you think I am? A mess? (This is an old routine between them and not without affection)

  DAISY: Yes. That’s exactly what I think you are.

  HOKE: All right, then. All right.

  He exits. She sits contented in her chair. The phone rings.

  DAISY: Hello?

  Light on Boolie.

  BOOLIE: It’ll all be melted by this afternoon. They said so on the radio. I’ll be out after you as soon as I can get down the driveway.

  DAISY: Stay where you are, Boolie. Hoke is here with me.

  BOOLIE: How in the hell did he manage that?

  DAISY: He’s very handy. I’m fine. I don’t need a thing in the world.

  BOOLIE: Hello? Have I got the right number? I never heard you say loving things about Hoke before.

  DAISY: I didn’t say I love him. I said he was handy.

  BOOLIE: Uh-huh.

  DAISY: Honestly, Boolie. Are you trying to irritate me in the middle of an ice storm?

  She hangs up the phone. Light out on her. Boolie stands a moment in wonder. Light out on him. In the dark we hear the sounds of horns blaring. A serious traffic jam. When the lights come up, Daisy is in the car, wearing a hat. She is anxious, twisting in her seat, looking out the window. Hoke enters.

  Well what is it? You took so long!

  HOKE: Couldn’t help it. Big mess up yonder.

  DAISY: What’s the matter? I might as well not go to temple at all now!

  HOKE: You cain’ go to temple today, Miz Daisy.

  DAISY: Why not? What in the world is the matter with you?

  HOKE: Somebody done bomb the temple.

  DAISY: What? Bomb the temple!

  HOKE: Yassum. Dat why we stuck here so long.

  DAISY: I don’t believe it.

  HOKE: That what the policeman tell me up yonder. Say it happen about a half hour ago.

  DAISY: Oh no. Oh my God! Well, was anybody there? Were people hurt?

  HOKE: Din’ say.

  DAISY: Who would do that?

  HOKE: You know as good as me. Always be the same ones.

  DAISY: Well, it’s a mistake. I’m sure they meant to bomb one of the conservative synagogues or the orthodox one. The temple is reform. Everybody knows that.

  HOKE: It doan’ matter to them people. A Jew is a Jew to them folks. Jes’ like light or dark we all the same nigger.

  DAISY: I can’t believe it!

  HOKE: I know jes’ how you feel, Miz Daisy. Back down there above Macon on the farm—I ’bout ten or ’leven years old and one day my frien’ Porter, his daddy hangin’ from a tree. And the day befo’, he laughin’ and pitchin’ horseshoes wid us. Talkin’ ‘bout Porter and me gon have strong good right arms like him and den he hangin’ up yo
nder wid his hands tie behind his back an’ the flies all over him. And I seed it with my own eyes and I throw up right where I standin’. You go on and cry.

  DAISY: I’m not crying.

  HOKE: Yassum.

  DAISY: The idea! Why did you tell me that?

  HOKE: I doan’ know. Seem like disheah mess put me in mind of it.

  DAISY: Ridiculous! The temple has nothing to do with that!

  HOKE: So you say.

  DAISY: We don’t even know what happened. How do you know that policeman was telling the truth?

  HOKE: Now why would that policeman go and lie ’bout a thing like that?

  DAISY: You never get things right anyway.

  HOKE: Miz Daisy, somebody done bomb that place and you know it too.

  DAISY: Go on. Just go on now. I don’t want to hear any more about it.

  HOKE: I see if I can get us outta here and take you home. You feel better at home.

  DAISY: I don’t feel bad.

  HOKE: You de boss.

  DAISY: Stop talking to me!

  Lights fade on them. We hear the sound of applause. Boolie enters in a fine three-piece suit, holding a large silver bowl. He is very distinguished, in his late fifties.

  BOOLIE: Thank you, Red. And thank you all. I am deeply grateful to be chosen man of the year by the Atlanta Business Council, an honor I’ve seen bestowed on some mighty fine fellas and which I certainly never expected to come to me. I’m afraid the loss here, (He touches his hair) and the gain here, (He touches his belly) have given me an air of competence I don’t possess. But I’ll tell you, I sure wish my father and my grandfather could see this. Seventy-two years ago they opened a little hole-in-the-wall shop on Whitehall Street with one printing press. They managed to grow with Atlanta and to this day, the Werthan Company believes we want what Atlanta wants. This award proves we must be right. Thank you. (Applause) One more thing. If the Jackets whup the Dawgs up in Athens Saturday afternoon, I’ll be a completely happy man.