A Raisin in the Sun (4 page)

(
He hands the boy the coin, but his eyes are directed to his wife’s
,
TRAVIS
takes the money happily
)

TRAVIS
Thanks, Daddy.

(
He starts out
.
RUTH
watches both of them with murder in her eyes
.
WALTER
stands and stares back at her with defiance, and suddenly reaches into his pocket again on an afterthought
)

WALTER
(
Without even looking at his son, still staring hard at his wife
) In fact, here’s another fifty cents … Buy yourself some fruit today—or take a taxicab to school or something!

TRAVIS
Whoopee—

(
He leaps up and clasps his father around the middle with his legs, and they face each other in mutual appreciation; slowly
WALTER LEE
peeks around the boy to catch the violent rays from his wife’s eyes and draws his head back as if shot
)

WALTER
You better get down now—and get to school, man.

TRAVIS
(
At the door
) O.K. Good-bye.

(
He exits
)

WALTER
(
After him, pointing with pride
) That’s
my
boy. (
She looks at him in disgust and turns back to her work
) You know what I was thinking ’bout in the bathroom this morning?

RUTH
No.

WALTER
How come you always try to be so pleasant!

RUTH
What is there to be pleasant ’bout!

WALTER
You want to know what I was thinking ’bout in the bathroom or not!

RUTH
I know what you thinking ’bout.

WALTER
(
Ignoring her
) ’Bout what me and Willy Harris was talking about last night.

RUTH
(
Immediately—a refrain
) Willy Harris is a good-for-nothing loudmouth.

WALTER
Anybody who talks to me has got to be a good-for-nothing loudmouth, ain’t he? And what you know about who is just a good-for-nothing loudmouth? Charlie Atkins was just a “good-for-nothing loudmouth” too, wasn’t he! When he wanted me to go in the dry-cleaning business with him. And now—he’s grossing a hundred thousand a year. A hundred thousand dollars a year! You still call
him a
loudmouth!

RUTH
(
Bitterly
) Oh, Walter Lee …

(
She folds her head on her arms over the table
)

WALTER
(
Rising and coming to her and standing over her
) You tired, ain’t you? Tired of everything. Me, the boy, the way we live—this beat-up hole—everything. Ain’t you? (
She doesn’t look up, doesn’t answer
) So tired—moaning and groaning all the time, but you wouldn’t do nothing to help, would you? You couldn’t be on my side that long for nothing, could you?

RUTH
Walter, please leave me alone.

WALTER
A man needs for a woman to back him up …

RUTH
Walter—

WALTER
Mama would listen to you. You know she listen to you more than she do me and Bennie. She think more of you. All you have to do is just sit down with her when you drinking your coffee one morning and talking ’bout things like you do and—(
He sits down beside
her and demonstrates graphically what he thinks her methods and tone should be
)—you just sip your coffee, see, and say easy like that you been thinking ’bout that deal Walter Lee is so interested in, ’bout the store and all, and sip some more coffee, like what you saying ain’t really that important to you— And the next thing you know, she be listening good and asking you questions and when I come home—I can tell her the details. This ain’t no fly-by-night proposition, baby. I mean we figured it out, me and Willy and Bobo.

RUTH
(
With a frown
) Bobo?

WALTER
Yeah. You see, this little liquor store we got in mind cost seventy-five thousand and we figured the initial investment on the place be ’bout thirty thousand, see. That be ten thousand each. Course, there’s a couple of hundred you got to pay so’s you don’t spend your life just waiting for them clowns to let your license get approved—

RUTH
You mean graft?

WALTER
(
Frowning impatiently
) Don’t call it that. See there, that just goes to show you what women understand about the world. Baby, don’t
nothing
happen for you in this world ’less you pay
somebody
off!

RUTH
Walter, leave me alone! (
She raises her head and stares at him vigorously—then says, more quietly) Eat
your eggs, they gonna be cold.

WALTER
(
Straightening up from her and looking off
) That’s it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. (
Sadly, but gaining in power
) Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. (
Passionately now
) Man say: I got to change my life, I’m choking to death, baby! And
his woman say—(
In utter anguish as he brings his fists down on his thighs
)—Your eggs is getting cold!

RUTH
(
Softly
) Walter, that ain’t none of our money.

WALTER
(
Not listening at all or even looking at her
) This morning, I was lookin’ in the mirror and thinking about it … I’m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room—(
Very, very quietly
)—and all I got to give him is stories about how rich white people live …

RUTH
Eat your eggs, Walter.

WALTER
(
Slams the table and jumps up
)—DAMN MY EGGS—DAMN ALL THE EGGS THAT EVER WAS!

RUTH
Then go to work.

WALTER
(
Looking up at her
) See—I’m trying to talk to you ’bout myself—(
Shaking his head with the repetition
)—and all you can say is eat them eggs and go to work.

RUTH
(
Wearily
) Honey, you never say nothing new. I listen to you every day, every night and every morning, and you never say nothing new. (
Shrugging
) So you would rather
be
Mr. Arnold than be his chauffeur. So—I would
rather
be living in Buckingham Palace.

WALTER
That is just what is wrong with the colored woman in this world … Don’t understand about building their men up and making ’em feel like they somebody. Like they can do something.

RUTH
(
Drily, but to hurt
) There
are
colored men who do things.

WALTER
No thanks to the colored woman.

RUTH
Well, being a colored woman, I guess I can’t help myself none.

(
She rises and gets the ironing board and sets it
up and attacks a huge pile of rough-dried clothes, sprinkling them in preparation for the ironing and then rolling them into tight fat balls
)

WALTER
(
Mumbling
) We one group of men tied to a race of women with small minds!

(
His sister
BENEATHA
enters. She is about twenty, as slim and intense as her brother. She is not as pretty as her sister-in-law, but her lean, almost intellectual face has a handsomeness of its own. She wears a bright-red flannel nightie, and her thick hair stands wildly about her head. Her speech is a mixture of many things; it is different from the rest of the family’s insofar as education has permeated her sense of English—and perhaps the Midwest rather than the South has finally—at last—won out in her inflection; but not altogether, because over all of it is a soft slurring and transformed use of vowels which is the decided influence of the Southside. She passes through the room without looking at either
RUTH
or
WALTER
and goes to the outside door and looks, a little blindly, out to the bathroom. She sees that it has been lost to the Johnsons. She closes the door with a sleepy vengeance and crosses to the table and sits down a little defeated
)

BENEATHA
I am going to start timing those people.

WALTER
You should get up earlier.

BENEATHA
(
Her face in her hands. She is still fighting the urge to go back to bed
) Really—would you suggest dawn? Where’s the paper?

WALTER
(
Pushing the paper across the table to her as he studies her almost clinically, as though he has never seen her before
) You a horrible-looking chick at this hour.

BENEATHA
(
Drily
) Good morning, everybody.

WALTER
(
Senselessly
) How is school coming?

BENEATHA
(
In the same spirit
) Lovely. Lovely. And you know, biology is the greatest. (
Looking up at him
) I dissected something that looked just like you yesterday.

WALTER
I just wondered if you’ve made up your mind and everything.

BENEATHA
(
Gaining in sharpness and impatience
) And what did I answer yesterday morning—and the day before that?

RUTH
(
From the ironing board, like someone disinterested and old
) Don’t be so nasty, Bennie.

BENEATHA
(
Still to her brother
) And the day before that and the day before that!

WALTER
(
Defensively
) I’m interested in you. Something wrong with that? Ain’t many girls who decide—

WALTER
and
BENEATHA
(
In unison
) —“to be a doctor.”

(
Silence
)

WALTER
Have we figured out yet just exactly how much medical school is going to cost?

RUTH
Walter Lee, why don’t you leave that girl alone and get out of here to work?

BENEATHA
(
Exits to the bathroom and bangs on the door
) Come on out of there, please!

(
She comes back into the room
)

WALTER
(
Looking at his sister intently
) You know the check is coming tomorrow.

BENEATHA
(
Turning on him with a sharpness all her own
) That money belongs to Mama, Walter, and it’s for her to decide how she wants to use it. I don’t care if she
wants to buy a house or a rocket ship or just nail it up somewhere and look at it. It’s hers. Not ours—
hers
.

WALTER
(
Bitterly
) Now ain’t that fine! You just got your mother’s interest at heart, ain’t you, girl? You such a nice girl—but if Mama got that money she can always take a few thousand and help you through school too—can’t she?

BENEATHA
I have never asked anyone around here to do anything for me!

WALTER
No! And the line between asking and just accepting when the time comes is big and wide—ain’t it!

BENEATHA
(
With fury
) What do you want from me, Brother—that I quit school or just drop dead, which!

WALTER
I don’t want nothing but for you to stop acting holy ’round here. Me and Ruth done made some sacrifices for you—why can’t you do something for the family?

RUTH
Walter, don’t be dragging me in it.

WALTER
You are in it— Don’t you get up and go work in somebody’s kitchen for the last three years to help put clothes on her back?

RUTH
Oh, Walter—that’s not fair …

WALTER
It ain’t that nobody expects you to get on your knees and say thank you, Brother; thank you, Ruth; thank you, Mama—and thank you, Travis, for wearing the same pair of shoes for two semesters—

BENEATHA
(
Dropping to her knees
) Well—I
do
—all right?—thank everybody! And forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all! (
Pursuing him on her knees across the floor
) FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME!

RUTH
Please stop it! Your mama’ll hear you.

WALTER
Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ’bout messing ’round with sick people—then go be a nurse like other women—or just get married and be quiet …

BENEATHA
Well—you finally got it said … It took you three years but you finally got it said. Walter, give up; leave me alone—it’s Mama’s money.

WALTER
He was my father, too!

BENEATHA
So what? He was mine, too—and Travis’ grandfather—but the insurance money belongs to Mama. Picking on me is not going to make her give it to you to invest in any liquor stores—(
Underbreath, dropping into a chair
)—and I for one say, God bless Mama for that!

WALTER
(
To
RUTH
) See—did you hear? Did you hear!

RUTH
Honey, please go to work.

WALTER
Nobody in this house is ever going to understand me.

BENEATHA
Because you’re a nut.

WALTER
Who’s a nut?

BENEATHA
You—you are a nut. Thee is mad, boy.

WALTER
(
Looking at his wife and his sister from the door, very sadly
) The world’s most backward race of people, and that’s a fact.

BENEATHA
(
Turning slowly in her chair
) And then there are all those prophets who would lead us out of the wilderness—(
WALTER
slams out of the house
)—into the swamps!

RUTH
Bennie, why you always gotta be pickin’ on your
brother? Can’t you be a little sweeter sometimes? (
Door opens
,
WALTER
walks in. He fumbles with his cap, starts to speak, clears throat, looks everywhere but at
RUTH
.
Finally:
)

WALTER
(
To
RUTH
) I need some money for carfare.

RUTH
(
Looks at him, then warms; teasing, but tenderly
) Fifty cents? (
She goes to her bag and gets money
) Here—take a taxi!