BERNIECE: Don’t you wake that child up!

BOY WILLIE: You going up there . . . wake her up and tell her her uncle’s here. I ain’t seen her in three years. Wake her up and send her down here. She can go back to bed.

BERNIECE: I ain’t waking that child up . . . and don’t you be making all that noise. You and Lymon need to sell them watermelons and go on back.

(BERNIECE exits up the stairs.)

BOY WILLIE: I see Berniece still try to be stuck up.

DOAKER: Berniece alright. She don’t want you making all that noise. Maretha up there sleep. Let her sleep until she get up. She can see you then.

BOY WILLIE: I ain’t thinking about Berniece. You hear from Wining Boy? You know Cleotha died?

DOAKER: Yeah, I heard that. He come by here about a year ago. Had a whole sack of money. He stayed here about two weeks. Ain’t offered nothing. Berniece asked him for three dollars to buy some food and he got mad and left.

LYMON: Who’s Wining Boy?

BOY WILLIE: That’s my uncle. That’s Doaker’s brother. You heard me talk about Wining Boy. He play piano. He done made some records and everything. He still doing that, Doaker?

DOAKER: He made one or two records a long time ago. That’s the only ones I ever known him to make. If you let him tell it he a big recording star.

BOY WILLIE: He stopped down home about two years ago. That’s what I hear. I don’t know. Me and Lymon was up on Parchman Farm doing them three years.

DOAKER: He don’t never stay in one place. Now, he been here about eight months ago. Back in the winter. Now, you subject not to see him for another two years. It’s liable to be that long before he stop by.

BOY WILLIE: If he had a whole sack of money you liable never to see him. You ain’t gonna see him until he get broke. Just as soon as that sack of money is gone you look up and he be on your doorstep.

LYMON: (Noticing the piano.) Is that the piano?

BOY WILLIE: Yeah . . . look here, Lymon. See how it got all those carvings on it. See, that’s what I was talking about. See how it’s carved up real nice and polished and everything? You never find you another piano like that.

LYMON: Yeah, that look real nice.

BOY WILLIE: I told you. See how it’s polished? My mama used to polish it every day. See all them pictures carved on it? That’s what I was talking about. You can get a nice price for that piano.

LYMON: That’s all Boy Willie talked about the whole trip up here. I got tired of hearing him talk about the piano.

BOY WILLIE: All you want to talk about is women. You ought to hear this nigger, Doaker. Talking about all the women he gonna get when he get up here. He ain’t had none down there but he gonna get a hundred when he get up here.