AVERY: Well, it seems to me somebody ought to be able to talk to Boy Willie.

BERNIECE: You can’t talk to Boy Willie. He been that way all his life. Mama Ola had her hands full trying to talk to him. He don’t listen to nobody. He just like my daddy. He get his mind fixed on something and can’t nobody turn him from it.

AVERY: You ought to start a choir at the church. Maybe if he seen you was doing something with it—if you told him you was gonna put it in my church—maybe he’d see it different. You ought to put it down in the church and start a choir. The Bible say “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” Maybe if Boy Willie see you was doing something with it he’d see it different.

BERNIECE: I done told you I don’t play on that piano. Ain’t no need in you to keep talking this choir stuff. When my mama died I shut the top on that piano and I ain’t never opened it since. I was only playing it for her. When my daddy died seem like all her life went into that piano. She used to have me playing on it . . . had Miss Eula come in and teach me . . . say when I played it she could hear my daddy talking to her. I used to think them pictures came alive and walked through the house. Sometime late at night I could hear my mama talking to them. I said that wasn’t gonna happen to me. I don’t play that piano cause I don’t want to wake them spirits. They never be walking around in this house.

AVERY: You got to put all that behind you, Berniece.

BERNIECE: I got Maretha playing on it. She don’t know nothing about it. Let her go on and be a schoolteacher or something. She don’t have to carry all of that with her. She got a chance I didn’t have. I ain’t gonna burden her with that piano.

AVERY: You got to put all of that behind you, Berniece. That’s the same thing like Crawley. Everybody got stones in their passway. You got to step over them or walk around them. You picking them up and carrying them with you. All you got to do is set them down by the side of the road. You ain’t got to carry them with you. You can walk over there right now and play that piano. You can walk over there right now and God will walk over there with you. Right now you can set that sack of stones down by the side of the road and walk away from it. You don’t have to carry it with you. You can do it right now.

(AVERY crosses over to the piano and raises the lid.)

Come on, Berniece . . . set it down and walk away from it. Come on, play “Old Ship of Zion.” Walk over here and claim it as an instrument of the Lord. You can walk over here right now and make it into a celebration.