Fences
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
| August Wilson |
-41 -
(ROSE has been standing behind the screen door for much of the scene. She enters as CORY exists.)
ROSE Why don't you let the boy go ahead and play football, Troy? Ain’t no harm in that. He's just trying to be like you with the sports.
TROY I don't want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get. You the only decent thing that ever happened to
me. I wish him that. But I don’t wish him a thing else from my life. I decided seventeen years ago that boy wasn't getting involved in no sports. Not
after what they did to me in the sports.
ROSE Troy, why don't you admit you admit you was too old to play in the major leagues? For once . . . why don't you admit that?
TROY What do you mean too old? Don't come telling me I was too old. I just wasn't the right color. Hell, I'm fifty-three years old and can do better
than Selkirk's .269 right now!
ROSE How's was you gonna play ball when you were over forty? Sometimes I can’t get no sense out of you.
TROY I got good sense, woman. I got sense enough not to let my boy get hurt over playing no sports. You been mothering that boy too much.
Worried about if people like him.
ROSE Everything that boy do ... he do for you. He wants you to say "Good job, son." That’s all.
TROY Rose, I ain't got time for that. He’s alive. He's healthy. He's got to make his own way. I made mine. Ain't nobody gonna hold his hand when
he get out there in that world.
- 42 -
ROSE Times have changed from when you was young, Troy. People change. The world's changing around you and you can't even see it.
TROY
(Slow, methodical.) Woman ... I do the best I can do. I come in here every Friday. I carry a sack of potatoes and a bucket of lard. You all line up at
the door with your hands out. I give you the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain't got no tears. I done spent them. We go
upstairs in that room at night . . . and I fall down on you and try to blast a hole into forever. I get up Monday morning . . . find my lunch on the table. I
go out. Make my way. Find my strength to carry me through to the next Friday.
(Pause.) That's all I got, Rose. That's all I got to give. I can't give nothing else.
(TROY exits Into the house. The lights go down to black.)
- 43 -
Act 1 , Scene 4
Act One Scene Four
It is Friday. Two weeks later. CORY starts out of the house with his football equipment. The phone rings.
CORY
(Calling.) I got it!
(He answers the phone and stands in the screen door talking.) Hello? Hey, Jesse. Naw ... I was just getting ready to leave now.
ROSE
(Calling.) Cory!
CORY I told you, man, them spikes is all tore up. You can use them if you want, but they ain’t no good. Earl got some spikes.
ROSE
(Calling.) Cory!
CORY
( Calling to ROSE.) Mam? I'm talking to Jesse.
( Into phone.) When she say that?
(Pause.) Aw, you lying, man. I'm gonna tell her you said that.
ROSE
(Calling.) Cory, don't you go nowhere!
CORY I got to go to the game, Ma!
(Into the phone.)
- 44 ..
Yeah, hey, look, I'll talk to you later. Yeah, I'll meet you over Earl's house. Later. Bye, Ma.
(CORY exits the house and starts out the yard.)
ROSE Cory, where you going off to? You got that stuff all pulled out and thrown all over your room.
CORY
(In the yard.) I was looking for my spikes. Jesse wanted to borrow my spikes.
ROSE Get up there and get that cleaned up before your daddy get back in here.
CORY I got to go to the game! I'll clean it up when I get back.
(CORY exits.)
ROSE That's all he need to do is see that room all messed up.
(ROSE exits into the house. TROY and BONO enter the yard. TROY is dressed in clothes other than his work clothes.)
BONO He told him the same thing he told you. Take it to the union.
TROY Brownie ain't got that much sense. Man wasn't thinking about nothing. He wait until I confront them on it . . . then he wanna come crying
seniority.
(Calls.) Hey, Rose!
BONO I wish I could have seen Mr. Rand's face when he told you.
TROY He couldn't get it out of his mouth! Liked to bit his tongue! When they called me down there to the Commissioner's
- 45 -
office ... he thought they was gonna fire me. Like everybody else.
BONO I didn't think they was gonna fire you. I thought they was gonna put you on the warning paper.
TROY Hey, Rose!
(To BONO.) Yeah, Mr. Rand like to bit his tongue.
( TROY breaks the seal on the bottle, takes a drink, and hands it to BONO.)
BONO I see you run right down to Taylors' and told that Alberta gal.
TROY
{Calling.) Hey Rose!
{To BONO.) I told everybody. Hey, Rose! I went down there to cash my check.
ROSE
{Entering from the house.) Hush all that hollering, man! I know you out here. What they say down there at the Commissioner's office?
TROY You supposed to come when I call you, woman. Bono'll tell you that.
{To BONO.) Don't Lucille come when you call her?
ROSE Man, hush your mouth. I ain’t no dog . . . talk about "come when you call me."
TROY
(Puts his arm around ROSE.) You hear this, Bono? I had me an old dog used to get uppity like that. You say, "C'mere, Blue!" . . . and he just lay there
and look at you. End up getting a stick and chasing him away trying to make him come.
ROSE I ain’t studying you and your dog. I remember you used to sing that old song.
- 46 -
TROY
(He sings.) Hear it ring! Hear it ring! I had a dog his name was Blue.
ROSE Don't nobody wanna hear you sing that old song.
TROY
(Sings.) You know Blue was mighty true.
ROSE Used to have Cory running around here singing that song.
BONO Hell, I remember that song myself.
TROY
(Sings.) You know Blue was a good old dog. Blue treed a possum in a hollow log. That was my daddy's song. My daddy made up that song.
ROSE I don't care who made it up. Don't nobody wanna hear you sing it.
TROY
(Makes a song like calling a dog.) Come here, woman.
ROSE You come in here carrying on, I reckon they ain’t fired you. What they say down there at the Commissioner's office?
TROY Look here, Rose ... Mr. Rand called me into his office today when I got back from talking to them people down there ... it come from up top
. . . he called me in and told me they was making me a driver.
ROSE Troy, you kidding!
TROY No I ain't. Ask Bono.
ROSE Well, that's great, Troy. Now you don't have to hassle them people no more.
(LYONS enters from the street.)
- 47 -
TROY Aw hell, I wasn't looking to see you today. I thought you was in jail. Got it all over the front page of the Courier about them raiding Sefus'
place . . . where you be hanging out with all them thugs.
LYONS Hey, Pop . . . that ain't got nothing to do with me. I don't go down there gambling. I go down there to sit in with the band. I ain't got nothing
to do with the gambling part. They got some good music down there.
TROY They got some rogues ... is what they got.
LYONS How you been, Mr. Bono? Hi, Rose.
BONO I see where you playing down at the Crawford Grill tonight.
ROSE How come you ain't brought Bonnie like I told you. You should have brought Bonnie with you, she ain't been over in a month of Sundays.
LYONS I was just in the neighborhood . . . thought I'd stop by.
TROY Here he come . . .
BONO Your daddy got a promotion on the rubbish. He's gonna be the first colored driver. Ain't got to do nothing but sit up there and read the paper
like them white fellows.
LYONS Hey, Pop ... if you knew how to read you'd be alright.
BONO Naw . . . naw . . . you mean if the nigger knew how to drive he’d be all right. Been fighting with them people about driving and ain't even got a
license. Mr. Rand know you ain’t got no driver's license?
TROY Driving ain't nothing. All you do is point the truck where you want it to go. Driving ain’t nothing.
- 48 -
BONO Do Mr. Rand know you ain't got no driver's license? That's what I'm talking about. I ain't asked if driving was easy. I asked if Mr. Rand know
you ain't got no driver's license.
TROY He ain't got to know. The man ain't got to know my business. Time he find out, I have two or three driver's licenses.
LYONS
(Going into his pocket.) Say, look here, Pop . . .
TROY I knew it was coming. Didn't I tell you, Bono? I know what kind of "Look here, Pop" that was. The nigger fixing to ask me for some money. It's
Friday night. It's my payday. All them rogues down there on the avenue ... the ones that ain't in jail . . . and Lyons is hopping in his shoes to get
down there with them
LYONS See, Pop ... if you give somebody else a chance to talk sometime, you'd see that I was fixing to pay you back your ten dollars like I told
you. Here ... I told you I'd pay you when Bonnie got paid.
TROY Naw . . . you go ahead and keep that ten dollars. Put it in the bank. The next time you feel like you wanna come by here and ask me for
something . . . you go on down there and get that.
LYONS Here’s your ten dollars, Pop. I told you I don't want you to give me nothing. I just wanted to borrow ten dollars.
TROY Naw . . . you go on and keep that for the next time you want to ask me.
LYONS Come on, Pop . . . here go your ten dollars.
ROSE Why don't you go on and let the boy pay you back, Troy?
| Kỳ Trước | Kỳ Sau |
Ý Kiến Bạn Ðọc