(There is a knock at the door. BOY WILLIE goes to answer it. LYMON enters carrying a coil of rope.)

BOY WILLIE: Where you been? I been waiting on you and you run off somewhere.

LYMON: I ran into Grace. I stopped and bought her drink. She say she gonna go to the picture show with me.

BOY WILLIE: I ain’t thinking about no Grace nothing.

LYMON: Hi, Berniece.

BOY WILLIE: Give me that rope and get up on this side of the piano.

DOAKER: Boy Willie, don’t start nothing now. Leave the piano alone.

BOY WILLIE: Get that board there, Lymon. Stay out of this, Doaker.

(BERNIECE exits up the stairs.)

DOAKER: You just can’t take the piano. How you gonna take the piano? Berniece ain’t said nothing about selling that piano.

BOY WILLIE: She ain’t got to say nothing. Come on, Lymon. We got to lift one end at a time up on the board. You got to watch so that the board don’t slide up under there.

LYMON: What we gonna do with the rope?

BOY WILLIE: Let me worry about the rope. You just get up on this side over here with me.

(BERNIECE enters from the stairs. She has her hand in her pocket where she has Crawley’s gun.)

AVERY: Boy Willie . . . Berniece . . . why don’t you all sit down and talk this out now?

BERNIECE: Ain’t nothing to talk out.

BOY WILLIE: I’m through talking to Berniece. You can talk to Berniece till you get blue in the face, and it don’t make no difference. Get up on that side, Lymon. Throw that rope around there and tie it to the leg.

LYMON: Wait a minute . . . wait a minute, Boy Willie. Berniece got to say. Hey, Berniece . . . did you tell Boy Willie he could take this piano?

BERNIECE: Boy Willie ain’t taking nothing out of my house but himself. Now you let him go ahead and try.

BOY WILLIE: Come on, Lymon, get up on this side with me.

(LYMON stands undecided.)

Come on, nigger! What you standing there for?

LYMON: Maybe Berniece is right, Boy Willie. Maybe you shouldn’t sell it.

AVERY: You all ought to sit down and talk it out. See if you can come to an agreement.

DOAKER: That’s what I been trying to tell them. Seem like one of them ought to respect the other one’s wishes.

BERNIECE: I wish Boy Willie would go on and leave my house. That’s what I wish. Now, he can respect that. Cause he’s leaving here one way or another.

BOY WILLIE: What you mean one way or another? What’s that supposed to mean? I ain’t scared of no gun.

DOAKER: Come on, Berniece, leave him alone with that.

BOY WILLIE: I don’t care what Berniece say. I’m selling my half. I can’t help it if her half got to go along with it. It ain’t like I’m trying to cheat her out of her half. Come on, Lymon.