JONNIE MAE: He just pierced his ear. Like some little girl. Like one of them perverts.

JIMMY: Mamma, it’s really not that big a deal. Boys pierce their ears nowadays all the time. It’s not thought of as—

LESTER: It reminds me of—

REBECCA: Hush, Lester.

JONNIE MAE: No big deal? Don’t you see? Zeke, you got to put a stop to this now. Who knows what them boys will have this fool doing next. Having him out stealing. Wind up in jail. Dead. And them sitting back laughing at him.

RUTHESTER: Mamma, you should sit down now and eat. We can talk about this later. You don’t want your food to get cold.

(JONNIE MAE mumbles to herself and sits.)

ZEKE: Take that thing out of your ear, boy. I ain’t gone stand for it.

HORACE: But Granddaddy, I just got it put in. I can’t just take it out.

ZEKE: I said take it out. Now.

HORACE: I can’t.

ZEKE: Boy, don’t you back-sass me—

HORACE: But—

ZEKE: Out.

JIMMY: Uncle Zeke, I think what he means is that he’ll have to wait a bit before he can take it out. The lobe has to heal.

ZEKE (to JIMMY): You may think this is funny, Jimmy, but I don’t. (To HORACE:) It’s coming out. And those friends of yours. This group. No more. You understand me? You’re to leave them alone and they’re to leave you be.

HORACE: But—

ZEKE: Now eat. We’ll take this up later.

JONNIE MAE: That’s the way it’s got to be.

REBECCA: But Horace, you have to admit you do spend too much time with those boys.

JONNIE MAE: Any time is too much time. He don’t understand. He just don’t understand.

HORACE (testily): Understand what? Try me!

(JONNIE MAE is taken aback at being questioned, and everyone looks at HORACE in disbelief.)

RUTHESTER: Horace!

HORACE: But they’re my friends.

JONNIE MAE: Friends? Friends! My God, the day that one of my own people would defend a white man at my table!

HORACE: But they’re different. They aren’t from around here. They—

RACHEL: They’re white, ain’t they?

HORACE: Yeah, but—

REBECCA: You black, ain’t you?

HORACE: But they don’t—

RUTHESTER: He’s just foolish. He just don’t understand.

HORACE: They—

REBECCA: After all the white man’s done to us, you gone take up behind him and do everything he tells you to do. Boy, I thought—

HORACE (angrily): You all don’t understand! You’re all bigots! You don’t know them! You—

(JONNIE MAE raises her hand in a sharp motion and HORACE instantly, instinctively, stops.)