MEMPHIS: That’s the damnedest thing I ever heard of.

HOLLOWAY: Don’t take my word for it. Go on up there and see for yourself. Go knock on the door. You don’t have to be scared.

MEMPHIS: I ain’t scared. What I got to be scared of? I just don’t believe all that stuff.

HOLLOWAY: Ask West when you see him. Ask anybody that’s been up there.

STERLING: You can ask me when I come back. Eighteen thirty-nine Wylie? In the back?

HOLLOWAY: Knock on the red door. Just say you come to see Aunt Ester. She’ll straighten you out.

STERLING: Say, Risa, cook me up some chicken. I’ll be back. I wanna eat what you been eating. See if I can get nice and healthy too.
(STERLING exits.)

MEMPHIS: That boy ain’t got good sense.
(The lights go down on the scene.)

SCENE 2

(The lights come up on the restaurant. WOLF is looking out the window of the door. MEMPHIS is at the end of the counter. RISA is in the back. “229” is written on the board.)

WOLF: Here he come now. Lutz coming down the street. Hambone standing there.
(MEMPHIS comes around the corner of the counter and walks to the door and looks out.)

MEMPHIS: What’s Holloway doing?

WOLF: He watching him. He just standing there. He wanna hear what they say. Look at him . . .  look at him. Look at Hambone.

RISA (entering from the back): What you all looking at?

WOLF: We watching Hambone. We want to see what he say to Lutz. Holloway went over there to stand on the corner. Hambone talking to Lutz now.

MEMPHIS: That’s the damnedest thing I ever seen.
(He walks back around the counter.)
Risa, you been here for a half an hour and ain’t got the coffee on. What you doing back there? Get them grits cooked up. I told you put the bread in the refrigerator . . .  keep it fresh.

WOLF: Lutz going in his store. He turned his back to him and opening up his store. Holloway still standing there.

(Turning from the window.)
Lutz ought to go on and give him a ham.

MEMPHIS: Lutz ain’t gonna give him no ham . . .  cause he don’t feel he owe him. I wouldn’t give him one either.

WOLF: After all this time it don’t make no difference. He ought to go on and give him a ham. What difference do it make? It ain’t like he ain’t got none. Got a whole store full of hams.

MEMPHIS: What’d you do with that flour? Ain’t even got the oven turned on. How you gonna cook biscuits without turning on the oven? Where the flour? I brought ten pound of flour in here yesterday.

RISA: It’s in the back.