Trouble
I found it. On the street. It was just lying there.
Bully
You stole it.
Trouble
Did not!
Hester
Dont lie to me.
Trouble
I found it. I did. It was just lying on the street. I was minding my own business.
Hester
That why the cops was chasing you?
Trouble
Snitch!
Bully
Jailbait!
Bully hits Trouble hard.
They fight. Pandemonium.
Hester
Suppertime!
Order is restored.
Hester slips the club into the belt of her dress; it hangs there like a sword.
She wears it like this for most of the play.
Her children sit in a row holding their bowls.
She ladles out the soup.
Hester
Todays soup the day, ladies and gents, is a very special blend of herbs and spices. The broth is chef Mommies worldwide famous “whathaveyou” stock. Theres carrots in there. Theres meat. Theres oranges. Theres pie.
Trouble
What kinda pie?
Hester
What kind you like?
Trouble
Apple.
Hester
Theres apple pie.
Jabber
Pumpkin.
Bully
And cherry!
Hester
Theres pumpkin and cherry too. And steak. And mash potatoes for Beauty. And milk for Baby.
Beauty
And diamonds.
Jabber
You cant eat diamonds.
Hester
So when you find one in yr soup whatll you do?
Beauty
Put it on my finger.
They slurp down their soup quickly.
As soon as she fills their bowls, theyre empty again.
The kids eat. Hester doesnt.
Jabber
You aint hungry?
Hester
I’ll eat later.
Jabber
You always eating later.
Hester
You did a good job with the wall, Jabber. Whatd that word say anyway?
Jabber
—Nothing.
The soup pot is empty.
Hester
Jabber/Bully/Trouble/Beauty/Baby
(Rest)
Hester
Bedtime.
Bully
Can we have a story?
(Rest)
Hester
All right.
(Rest)
There were once these five brothers and they were all big and strong and handsome and didnt have a care in the world. One was known for his brains so they called him Smarts and one was known for his muscles, so they called him Toughguy, the third one was a rascal so they called him Wild, the fourth one was as goodlooking as all get out and they called him Looker and the fifth was the youngest and they called him Honeychild cause he was as young as he was sweet. And they was always together these five brothers. Everywhere they went they always went together. No matter what they was always together cause they was best friends and wasnt nothing could divide them. And there was this Princess. And she lived in a castle and she was lonesome. She was lonesome and looking for love but she couldnt leave her castle so she couldnt look very far so every day she would stick her head out her window and sing to the sun and every night she would stick her head out and sing to the moon and the stars: “Where are you?” And one day the five brothers heard her and came calling and she looked upon them and she said: “There are five of you, and each one is wonderful and special in his own way. But the law of my country doesnt allow a princess to have more than one husband.” And that was such bad news and they were all so in love that they all cried. Until the Princess had an idea. She was after all the Princess, so she changed the law of the land and married them all.
(Rest)
And with Bro Smarts she had a baby named Jabber. And with Bro Toughguy she had Bully. With Bro Wild came Trouble. With Bro Looker she had Beauty. With Bro Honeychild came Baby. And they was all happy.
Jabber
Until the bad news came.
Hester
No bad news came.
Jabber
Theres always bad news.
Hester
Bedtime.
Beauty
Where did the daddys go?
Hester
They went to bed.
Trouble
They ran off.
Jabber
The war came and the brothers went off to fight and they all died.
Beauty
They all died?
Jabber
And they fell into the ground and the dirt covered up they heads.
Hester
Its bedtime. Now!
Beauty
Im scared.
Trouble
I aint scared. Jabber, you a spook.
Bully
Yr the spook.
Trouble
Yr a bastard.
Bully
Yr a bastard.
Hester
Yr all bastards!
The children burst into tears.
Hester
Cmmeer. Cmmeer. Mama loves you. Shes just tired is all. Lemmie hug you.
They nestle around her and she hugs them.
Hester
My 5 treasures. My 5 joys.
Hester
Jabber/Bully/Trouble/Beauty/Baby
Hester
Hester
Lets hit the sack! And leave yr shoes for polish and yr shirts and blouses for press. You dont wanna look like you dont got nobody.
They take off their shoes and tops and go inside leaving Hester outside alone.
Hester
Hester
Hester
(Rest)
Hester examines the empty soup pot, shines the kids shoes, “presses” their clothes.
A wave of pain shoots through her.
Hester
You didnt eat, Hester. And the pain in yr gut comes from having nothing in it.
(Rest)
Kids ate good though. Ate their soup all up. They wont starve.
(Rest)
None of these shoes shine. Never did no matter how hard you spit on em, Hester. You get a leg up the first thing you do is get shoes. New shoes for yr 5 treasures. You got yrself a good pair of shoes already.
From underneath a pile of junk she takes a shoebox.
Inside is a pair of white pumps.
She looks them over then puts them away.
Hester
Dont know where yr going but yll look good when you get there.
[Hester takes out a small tape player.
Pops in a tape.
She takes a piece of chalk from her pocket and, on the freshly scrubbed wall, practices her letters:
she writes the letter A over and over and over.
The cassette tape plays as she writes.
On tape:
Reverend D.
If you cant always do right then you got to admit that some times, some times my friends you are going to do wrong and you are going to have to live with that. Somehow work that into the fabric of your life. Because there aint a soul out there that is spot free. There aint a soul out there that has walked but hasnt stumbled. Aint a single solitary soul out there that has said “hello” and not “goodbye,” has said “yes” to the lord and “yes” to the devil too, has drunk water and drunk wine, loved and hated, experienced the good side of the tracks and the bad. That is what they call “Livin,” friends. L-I-V-I-N, friends. Life on earth is full of confusion. Life on earth is full of misunderstandings, reprimandings, and we focus on the trouble, friends, when it is the solution to those troubles we oughta be looking at. “I have fallen and I cant get up!” How many times have you heard that, friends? The fellow on the stre
et with his whisky breath and his outstretched hand, the banker scraping the money off the top, the runaway child turned criminal all cry out “I have fallen, and I cant get up!” “I have fallen, and I cant get up!” “I have fallen—”
Hester hears someone coming and turns the tape off.] She goes back to polishing the shoes.
Amiga Gringa comes in.
Amiga Gringa
Look at old Mother Hubbard or whatever.
Hester
Keep quiet. Theyre sleeping.
Amiga Gringa
The old woman and the shoe. Thats who you are.
Hester
I get my leg up thats what Im getting. New shoes for my treasures.
Amiga Gringa
Thatll be some leg up.
Hester
You got my money?
Amiga Gringa
Is that a way to greet a friend? “You got my money?” What world is this?
Hester
You got my money, Amiga?
Amiga Gringa
I got news for you, Hester. News thats better than gold. But first—heads up.
The Doctor comes in.
He wears a sandwich board and carries all his office paraphernalia on his back.
Doctor
Hester! Yr due for a checkup.
Hester
My guts been hurting me.
Doctor
Im on my way home just now. Catch up with me tomorrow. We’ll have a look at it then.
He goes on his way.
Amiga Gringa
Doc! I am in pain like you would not believe. My hips, Doc. When I move them—blinding flashes of light and then—down I go, flat on my back, like Im dead, Doc.
Doctor
I gave you something for that yesterday.
Doctor
Amiga Gringa
He slips Amiga a few pills.
He goes on his way.
Amiga Gringa
Hes a saint.
Hester
Sometimes.
Amiga Gringa
Want some?
Hester
I want my money.
Amiga Gringa
Patience, girl. All good things are on their way. Do you know what the word is?
Hester
What word?
Amiga Gringa
Word is that yr first love is back in town, doing well and looking for you.
Hester
Chilli? Jabbers daddy? Looking for me?
Amiga Gringa
Thats the word.
Hester
Hester
Hester
Bullshit. Gimmie my money, Miga. I promised the kids cake and ice cream. How much you get?
Amiga Gringa
First, an explanation of the economic environment.
Hester
Just gimmie my money—
Amiga Gringa
The Stock Market, The Bond Market, Wall Street, Grain Futures, Bulls and Bears and Pork Bellies. They all impact the price a woman such as myself can get for a piece of “found” jewelry.
Hester
That werent jewelry I gived you that was a watch. A Mans watch. Name brand. And it was working.
Amiga Gringa
Do you know what the Dow did today, Hester? The Dow was up twelve points. And that prize fighter, the one everyone is talking about, the one with the pretty wife and the heavyweight crown, he rang the opening bell. She wore a dress cut down to here. And the Dow shot up 43 points in the first minutes of trading, Hester. Up like a rocket. And men glanced up at the faces of clocks on the walls of their offices and women around the country glanced into the faces of their children and time passed. [And someone looks at their watch because its lunchtime, Hester. And theyre having—lunch. And they wish it would last forever. Cause when they get back to their office where they—work, when they get back the Dow has plummeted. And theres a lot of racing around and time is brief and something must be done before the closing bell. Phone calls are made, marriages dissolve, promises lost in the shuffle, Hester, and all this time your Amiga Gringa is going from fence to fence trying to get the best price on this piece of “found” jewelry. Numbers racing on lightboards, Hester, telling those that are in the know, the value of who knows what. One man, broken down in tears in the middle of the avenue, “Oh my mutual funds” he was saying.] The market was hot, and me, a suspicious looking mother, very much like yrself, with no real address and no valid forms of identification, walking the streets with a hot watch.
(Rest)
Here.
She gives Hester $.
Hester
Wheres the rest?
Amiga Gringa
Thats it.
Hester
5 bucks?
Amiga Gringa
It wasnt a good day. Some days are good some days are bad. I kept a buck for myself.
Hester
You stole from me.
Amiga Gringa
Dont be silly. We’re friends, Hester.
Hester
I shoulda sold it myself.
Amiga Gringa
But you had the baby to watch.
Hester
And no ones gonna give money to me with me carrying Baby around. Still I coulda got more than 5.
Amiga Gringa
Go nextime yrself then. The dangers I incur, working with you. You oughta send yr kids away. Like me. I got 3 kids. All under the age of 3. And do you see me looking all baggy eyed, up all night shining little shoes and flattening little shirts and going without food? Theres plenty of places that you can send them. Homes. Theres plenty of peoples, rich ones especially, that cant have kids. The rich spend days looking through the newspaper for ads where they can buy one. Or they go to the bastard homes and pick one out. Youd have some freedom. Youd have a chance at life. Like me.
Hester
My kids is mine. I get rid of em what do I got? Nothing.
I got nothing now, but if I lose them I got less than nothing.
Amiga Gringa
Suit yrself. You wouldnt have to send them all away, just one or two or three.
Hester
All I need is a leg up. I get my leg up I’ll be ok.
Bully comes outside and stands there watching them. She wears pink, one-piece, flame-retardant pajamas.
Hester
What.
Bully
My hands stuck.
Hester
Why you sleep with yr hands in fists?
Amiga Gringa
Yr an angry girl, arentcha, Bully.
Bully
Idunno. This ones stuck too.
Hester
Maybe yll grow up to be a boxer, huh? We can watch you ringside, huh? Wide World of Sports.
Amiga Gringa
Presenting in this corner weighing 82 pounds the challenger: Bully!
Bully
Ima good girl.
Hester
Course you are. There. You shouldnt sleep with yr hands balled up. The good fairies come by in the night with treats for little girls and they put them in yr hands. How you gonna get any treats if yr hands are all balled up?
Bully
Jabber is bad and Trouble is bad and Beauty is bad and Baby is bad but I’m good. Bullys a good girl.
Hester
Go on back to bed now.
Bully
Miga. Smell.
Amiga Gringa
You got bad breath.
Bully
I forgot to brush my teeth.
Hester
Go head.
Bully squats off in the “bathroom” and rubs her teeth with her finger.
Amiga Gringa
Babys daddy, that Reverend, he ever give you money?
Hester
No.
Amiga Gringa
Hes a gold mine. I seen the collection plate going around.
Its a full plate.
Hester
I aint seen him since before Baby was born.
Ami
ga Gringa
Thats two years.
Hester
He didnt want nothing to do with me. His heart went hard.
Amiga Gringa
My second kids daddy had a hard heart at first. But time mushed him up. Remember when he comed around crying about his lineage and asking whered the baby go? And I’d already gived it up.
Hester
Reverend D., his heart is real hard. Like a rock.
Amiga Gringa
Worth a try all the same.
Hester
Yeah.
(Rest)
Who told you Chilli was looking for me?
Amiga Gringa
Word on the street, thats all.
Trouble, dressed in superhero pajamas, comes in.
He holds a box of matches. He lights one.
Hester
What the hell you doing?
Trouble
Sleepwalking.
Hester
You sleepwalk yrself back over here and gimmie them matches or Ima kill you.
Trouble gives her the matches.
Bully has finished with her teeth.
Bully
You wanna smell?
Hester
Thats ok.
Bully
Dont you wanna smell?
Hester leans in and Bully opens her mouth.
Bully
I only did one side cause I only ate with one side today.
Hester
Go on to bed.
Bully passes Trouble and hits him hard.
Trouble
Aaaaah!
Bully
Yr a bad person!
Bully hits him again.
Trouble
Aaaaaaaaah!
Hester
Who made you policewoman?
Trouble
Ima blow you sky high one day you bully bitch!
Bully goes to hit him again.
Hester
Trouble I thought you said you was sleep. Go inside and lie down and shut up or you wont see tomorrow.
The Red Letter Plays Page 2
