POLICE OFFICER [offstage]: Okay. What’s goin’ on?

BELLA: Officer? Officer! It was all a mistake, everything is all right here.

CORNELIUS [offstage]: Yais, I’ll tell you the problem! We’d just got back from a fam’ly fun’ral in Memphis when we discover the other one, Charlie, had brought a pregnant lunatic here in our absence, that’s the—

[Charlie charges out. The following dialogue takes place outside]

CHARLIE [offstage]: Wait a minute! That ain’t the problem a-tall, I’ll tell you the problem! This sick, crazy ole—

CORNELIUS [offstage]: You goddam whelp with your whore. Intends to marry a pregnant demented prostitute. In the—

CHARLIE [offstage]: He’s talkin’ about my fiansay who was respectably employed at—

POLICE OFFICER [offstage]: Awright, all in the car, can’t wake up the whole neighborhood.

EMERSON [offstage]: Officer, I am Mr. Emerson Sykes, President of the Night-a-Glory Motel Chain on the coast. This is Cornelius Mc-Corkle, once candidate for Mayor.

POLICE OFFICER [offstage]: Yeh, yeh, get your names at the station.

EMERSON [offstage]: Officer, Captain James would not want Mr. McCorkle involved in a scandal so—

CORNELIUS [offstage]: Be Goddam if I get in a police car with a Jesus-freak of a whore!

CHARLIE [offstage]: SAID THAT TOO OFTEN!

[There is the sound of a blow, followed by Cornelius’ yell of pain]

EMERSON [offstage]: Why’d you do that, boy?

CORNELIUS [offstage]: Broke my dentures!

POLICE OFFICER [offstage]: Into the car, I said!

CORNELIUS [offstage]: NAWWWWWWWWW!

EMERSON [offstage]: Easy, Corney, just goin’ to the Moose Lodge!

STACEY: Keep praying! Pray! Jesussss!

[The offstage sounds subside with the departing squad car. During entire rhubarb on the sidewalk Bella has executed a slow, bemused and tottering return to sofa, eyes on the unfinished omelet.]

BELLA: CHIPS? SO HAPPY THAT YOU—COME—HOME. SON? SON? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR SO LONG? WHAT? STAWM IS SO LOUD CAN’T HEAR YOU! CHIPS? CHIPS? LOOK IN THE ICE-BOX, HONEY, YOU MUST BE HUNGRY. I COULD EAT SOMETHING, TOO. [Pause. She has a slow realization. Shuts her eyes tight.] Oh . . . no! No . . . [She rises slowly and maneuvers passage to the phone.] Jessie Sykes, please. Jessie, Jessie, Emerson Sykes wife . . . [Pause.] Jessie, is that you, Jessie? Chips is back from—Jessie? Terrible stawm blown the door open and everybody’s gone out. —What? Oh, good. God love you, Jessie, yes, do. . . . come over?

[The phone drops from her hand. Slowly, slowly she totters back to the sofa, takes letter out of her purse, and resumes admiration of the remnant of omelet. Jessie appears at the door, a lanky woman of sixty, hair in metal curlers, wearing a flannel wrapper, and fluffy flip-flops on feet.]

JESSIE: Bella?

BELLA: Chips!

JESSIE: Bella? —Jessie! —Now, Bella, it’s all right. Emerson has persuaded the officer to dismiss all charges. Can you hear me, Bella?

BELLA: STAWM! AWFUL!