That’s all I’m trying to do with that piano. Trying to put my mark on the road. Like my daddy done. My heart say for me to sell that piano and get me some land so I can make a life for myself to live in my own way. Other than that I ain’t thinking about nothing Berniece got to say.

(There is a knock at the door. BOY WILLIE crosses to it and yanks it open thinking it is LYMON. AVERY enters. He carries a Bible.)

BOY WILLIE: Where you been, nigger? Aw . . . I thought you was Lymon. Hey, Berniece, look who’s here.

BERNIECE: Come on in, Avery. Don’t you pay Boy Willie no mind.

BOY WILLIE: Hey . . . Hey, Avery . . . tell me this . . . can you get to heaven with half the Bible?

BERNIECE: Boy Willie . . . I done told you to leave me alone.

BOY WILLIE: I just ask the man a question. He can answer. He don’t need you to speak for him. Avery . . . if you only believe on half the Bible and don’t want to accept the other half . . . you think God let you in heaven? Or do you got to have the whole Bible? Tell Berniece . . . if you only believe in part of it . . . when you see God he gonna ask you why you ain’t believed in the other part . . . then he gonna send you straight to Hell.

AVERY: You got to be born again. Jesus say unless a man be born again he cannot come unto the Father and who so ever heareth my words and believeth them not shall be cast into a fiery pit.

BOY WILLIE: That’s what I was trying to tell Berniece. You got to believe in it all. You can’t go at nothing halfway. She think she going to heaven with half the Bible.

(To BERNIECE.)

You hear that . . . Jesus say you got to believe in it all.

BERNIECE: You keep messing with me.

BOY WILLIE: I ain’t thinking about you.

DOAKER: Come on in, Avery, and have a seat. Don’t pay neither one of them no mind. They been arguing all day.

BERNIECE: Come on in, Avery.

AVERY: How’s everybody in here?

BERNIECE: Here, set this comb back over there on that stove.

(To AVERY.)

Don’t pay Boy Willie no mind. He been around here bothering me since I come home from work.

BOY WILLIE: Boy Willie ain’t bothering you. Boy Willie ain’t bothering nobody. I’m just waiting on Lymon to get back. I ain’t thinking about you. You heard the man say I was right and you still don’t want to believe it. You just wanna go and make up anythin’. Well there’s Avery . . . there’s the preacher . . . go on and ask him.

AVERY: Berniece believe in the Bible. She been baptized.