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Authors: Alfred Uhry

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BOOLIE: Long time.
HOKE: Well, Mist’ Werthan, you try bein’ me and looking for work. They hirin’ young if they hirin’ colored, an’ they ain’ even hirin’ much young, seems like.
(Boolie is involved with his paperwork)
Mist’ Werthan? Y’ll people Jewish, ain’ you?
BOOLIE: Yes we are. Why do you ask?
HOKE: I’d druther drive for Jews. People always talkin’’bout they stingy and they cheap, but doan’ say none of that roun’ me.
BOOLIE: Good to know you feel that way. Now, tell me where you worked before.
HOKE: Yassuh. That what I’m gettin’ at. One time I workin’ for this woman over near Little Five Points. What was that woman’s name? I forget. Anyway, she president of the Ladies Auxiliary over yonder to the Ponce De Leon Baptist Church and seem like she always bringing up God and Jesus and do unto others. You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout?
BOOLIE: I’m not sure. Go on.
HOKE: Well, one day, Mist’ Werthan, one day that woman say to me, she say “Hoke, come on back in the back wid me. I got something for you.” And we go on back yonder and, Lawd have mercy, she have all these old shirts and collars be on the bed, yellow, you know, and nasty like they been stuck off in a chifferobe and forgot about. Thass right. And she say “Ain’ they nice? They b’long to my daddy befo’ he pass and we fixin’ to sell ’em to you for twenty-five cent apiece.”
BOOLIE: What was her name?
HOKE: Thass what I’m thinkin’. What
was
that woman’s name? Anyway, as I was goin’ on to say, any fool see the whole bunch of them collars and shirts together ain’ worth a nickel! Them’s the people das callin’ Jews cheap! So I say “Yassum, I think about it” and I get me another job fas’ as I can.
BOOLIE: Where was that?
HOKE: Mist’ Harold Stone, Jewish gentleman jes’ like you. Judge, live over yonder on Lullwater Road.
BOOLIE: I knew Judge Stone.
HOKE: You doan’ say! He done give me this suit when he finish wid it. An’ this necktie too.
BOOLIE: You drove for Judge Stone?
HOKE: Seven years to the day nearabout. An’ I be there still if he din’ die, and Miz Stone decide to close up the house and move to her people in Savannah. And she say “Come on down to Savannah wid me, Hoke.” ‘Cause my wife dead by then and I say “No thank you.” I didn’t want to leave my grandbabies and I doan’ get along with that Geechee trash they got down there.
BOOLIE: Judge Stone was a friend of my father’s.
HOKE: You doan’ mean! Oscar say you need a driver for yo’ family. What I be doin’? Runnin’ yo’ children to school and yo’ wife to the beauty parlor and like dat?
BOOLIE: I don’t have any children. But tell me—
HOKE: Thass a shame! My daughter bes’ thing ever happen to me. But you young yet. I wouldn’t worry none.
BOOLIE: I won’t. Thank you. Did you have a job after Judge Stone?
HOKE: I drove a milk truck for the Avondale Dairy through the whole war—the one jes’ was.
BOOLIE: Hoke, what I’m looking for is somebody to drive my mother around.
HOKE: Excuse me for askin’, but how come she ain’ hire fo’ herseff?
BOOLIE: Well, it’s a delicate situation.
HOKE: Mmmm-hmm. She done gone roun’ the bend a little? That’ll happen when they get on.
BOOLIE: Oh no. Nothing like that. She’s all there. Too much there is the problem. It just isn’t safe for her to drive anymore. She knows it, but she won’t admit it. I’ll be frank with you. I’m a little desperate.
HOKE: I know what you mean ‘bout dat. Once I was outta work my wife said to me “Oooooh, Hoke, you ain’ gon get now nother job.” And I say “What you talkin’ ’bout, woman?” And the very next week I go to work for that woman in Little Five Points. Cahill! Miz Frances Cahill. And then I go to Judge Stone and they the reason I happy to hear you Jews.
BOOLIE: Hoke, I want you to understand, my mother is a little high-strung. She doesn’t want anybody driving her. But the fact is you’d be working for me. She can say anything she likes but she can’t fire you. You understand?
HOKE: Sho I do. Don’t worry none about it. I hold on no matter what way she run me. When I nothin’ but a little boy down there on the farm above Macon, I use to wrastle hogs to the ground at killin’ time, and ain’ no hog get away from me yet.
BOOLIE: How does twenty dollars a week sound?
HOKE: Soun’ like you got yo’ mama a chauffeur.
Lights fade on them and come up on Daisy, who enters her living room with the morning paper. She reads with interest. Hoke enters the living room. He carries a chauffeur’s cap instead of his hat. Daisy’s concentration on the paper becomes fierce when she senses Hoke’s presence.
 
 
Mornin’, Miz Daisy.
DAISY: Good morning.
HOKE: Right cool in the night, wadn’t it?
DAISY: I wouldn’t know. I was asleep.
HOKE: Yassum. What yo’ plans today?
DAISY: That’s my business.
HOKE: You right about dat. Idella say we runnin’ outta coffee and Dutch Cleanser.
DAISY: We?
HOKE: She say we low on silver polish too.
DAISY: Thank you. I will go to the Piggly Wiggly on the trolley this afternoon.
HOKE: Now, Miz Daisy, how come you doan’ let me carry you?
DAISY: No, thank you.
HOKE: Ain’t that what Mist’ Werthan hire me for?
DAISY: That’s his problem.
HOKE: All right den. I find something to do. I tend yo’ zinnias.
DAISY: Leave my flower bed alone.
HOKE: Yassum. You got a nice place back beyond the garage ain’ doin’ nothin’ but sittin’ there. I could put you in some butter beans and some tomatoes and even some Irish potatoes could we get some ones with good eyes.
DAISY: If I want a vegetable garden, I’ll plant it for myself.
HOKE: Well, I go out and set in the kitchen then, like I been doin’ all week.
DAISY: Don’t talk to Idella. She has work to do.
HOKE: Nome. I jes’ sit there till five o’clock.
DAISY: That’s your affair.
HOKE: Seem a shame, do. That fine Oldsmobile settin’ out there in the garage. Ain’t move a inch from when Mist’ Werthan rode it over here from Mitchell Motors. Only got nineteen miles on it. Seem like that insurance company give you a whole new car for nothin’.
DAISY: That’s your opinion.
HOKE: Yassum. And my other opinion is a fine rich Jewish lady like you doan’ b’long draggin’ up the steps of no bus, luggin’ no grocery-store bags. I come along and carry them fo’ you.
DAISY: I don’t need you. I don’t want you. And I don’t like you saying I’m rich.
HOKE: I won’ say it then.
DAISY: Is that what you and Idella talk about in the kitchen? Oh, I hate this! I hate being discussed behind my back in my own house! I was born on Forsyth Street and, believe you me, I knew the value of a penny. My brother Manny brought home a white cat one day and Papa said we couldn’t keep it because we couldn’t afford to feed it. My sisters saved up money so I could go to school and be a teacher. We didn’t have anything!
HOKE: Yassum, but look like you doin’ all right now.
DAISY: And I’ve ridden the trolley with groceries plenty of times!
HOKE: Yassum, but I feel bad takin’ Mist’ Werthan’s money for doin’ nothin’. You understand?
DAISY: How much does he pay you?
HOKE: That between me and him, Miz Daisy.
DAISY: Anything over seven dollars a week is robbery. Highway robbery!
HOKE: Specially when I doan’ do nothin’ but set on a stool in the kitchen all day long. Tell you what, while you goin’ on the trolley to the Piggly Wiggly, I hose down yo’ front steps.
Daisy is putting on her hat.
 
DAISY: All right.
HOKE: All right I hose yo’ steps?
DAISY: All right the Piggly Wiggly. And then home.
Nowhere else.
 
HOKE: Yassum.
DAISY: Wait. You don’t know how to run the Oldsmobile!
HOKE: Miz Daisy, a gearshift like a third arm to me. Anyway, thissun automatic. Any fool can run it.
DAISY: Any fool but me, apparently.
HOKE: Ain’t no need to be so hard on yo’seff now. You cain’ drive but you probably do alotta things I cain’ do.
DAISY: The idea!
HOKE: It all work out.
DAISY (
Calling offstage
): I’m gone to the market, Idella.
HOKE (
Also calling
): And I right behind her!
Hoke puts on his cap and helps Daisy into the car. He sits at the wheel and backs the car down the driveway. Daisy, in the rear, is in full bristle.
 
 
I love a new car smell. Doan’ you?
 
Daisy slides over to the other side of the seat.
DAISY: I’m nobody’s fool, Hoke.
HOKE: Nome.
DAISY: I can see the speedometer as well as you can.
HOKE: I see dat.
DAISY: My husband taught me how to run a car.
HOKE: Yassum.
DAISY: I still remember everything he said. So don’t you even think for a second that you can—wait! You’re
speeding! I see it!
HOKE: We ain’t goin’ but nineteen miles an hour.
DAISY: I like to go under the speed limit.
HOKE: Speed limit thirty-five here.
DAISY: The slower you go, the more you save on gas. My husband told me that.
HOKE: We barely movin’. Might as well walk to the Piggly Wiggly.
DAISY: Is this your car?
HOKE: Nome.
DAISY: Do you pay for the gas?
HOKE: Nome.
DAISY: All right then. My fine son may think I’m losing my abilities, but I am still in control of what goes on in my car. Where are you going?
HOKE: To the grocery store.
DAISY: Then why didn’t you turn on Highland Avenue?
HOKE: Piggly Wiggly ain’ on Highland Avenue. It on Euclid, down there near—
DAISY: I know where it is and I want to go to it the way I always go. On Highland Avenue.
HOKE: That three blocks out of the way, Miz Daisy.
DAISY: Go back! Go back this minute!
HOKE: We in the wrong lane! I cain’ jes’—
DAISY: Go back I said! If you don’t, I’ll get out of this car and walk!
HOKE: We movin’! You cain’ open the do’!
DAISY: This is wrong! Where are you taking me?
HOKE: The sto’.
DAISY: This is wrong. You have to go back to Highland Avenue!
HOKE: Mmmm-hmmmm.
DAISY: I’ve been driving to the Piggly Wiggly since the day they put it up and opened it for business. This isn’t the way! Go back! Go back this minute!
HOKE: Yonder the Piggly Wiggly.
DAISY: Get ready to turn now.
HOKE: Yassum.
DAISY: Look out! There’s a little boy behind that shopping cart!
HOKE: I see dat.
DAISY: Pull in next to the blue car.
HOKE: We closer to the do’ right here.
DAISY: Next to the blue car! I don’t park in the sun! It fades the upholstery.
HOKE: Yassum.
He pulls in, and gets out as Daisy springs out of the back seat.
 
DAISY: Wait a minute. Give me the car keys.
HOKE: Yassum.
DAISY: Stay right here by the car. And you don’t have to tell everybody my business.
HOKE: Nome. Doan’ forget the Dutch Cleanser now.
Daisy fixes him with a look meant to kill and exits. Hoke waits by the car for a minute, then hurries to the phone booth at the corner.
 
 
Hello? Miz McClatchey? Hoke Coleburn here. Can I speak to him? (
Pause
) Mornin’ sir, Mist’ Werthan. Guess where I’m at? I’m at dishere phone booth on Euclid Avenue right next to the Piggly Wiggly. I jes’ drove yo’ mama to the market. (
Pause
) She flap around some on the way. But she all right. She in the store. Uh-oh. Miz Daisy look out the store window and doan’ see me, she liable to throw a fit right there by the checkout. (
Pause
) Yassuh, only took six days. Same time it take the Lawd to make the worl’.
 
Lights out on Hoke. We hear a choir singing.
BOOK: Alfred Uhry - Driving Miss Daisy
10.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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