MEMPHIS: I ain’t done nothing but ask her to get up and make me some bread. And she got up and walked out the door. I know she don’t expect me to make it myself. Got up and walked out the door! I went down there and saw her. Asked her what the matter was. She told me she was tired. Now, how you gonna get more tired than I am? I’m the one going out there wrestling with the world. She ain’t got to do nothing but stay home and take care of the house. She got it nice. Talking about she tired. She wasn’t too tired to make them four babies.

(HOLLOWAY enters. HOLLOWAY is a man who all his life has voiced his outrage at injustice with little effect. His belief in the supernatural has enabled him to accept his inability to effect change and continue to pursue life with zest and vigor.)

HOLLOWAY: Hey, Wolf.

WOLF: What’s happening, Holloway?

HOLLOWAY: The people lined up all the way up there past Webster to see Prophet Samuel. They was lined up there before the doors open. West ain’t had a chance to open his door good before they was all tramping through there. They got a line all the way up past Webster. They done had two fellows get in a fight about gypping the line.

WOLF: Where?

HOLLOWAY: Just now as I was coming down. Man tried to slide in there beside somebody he knew and got in a fight about it.

WOLF: I knew it was gonna be crowded. I didn’t know they would be lined up.

HOLLOWAY: Lined clear up to Webster. It take you an hour to get in there to see him.

WOLF: They say how he died?

MEMPHIS: Ask Risa. She should know. She running up there giving the man her money.

HOLLOWAY: They say he had a stroke.

MEMPHIS: I believe one of them old sandal-foot woman poisoned him. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. Got all them women walking around his house together . . .  I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if one of them didn’t get jealous and poison him.

HOLLOWAY: They over there now greeting the people and falling all over the place. All seven or eight of them. West can’t wait to bury that nigger. One of them wanted to charge the people to see him, but West wouldn’t have that over there. You think I’m lying, don’t you? They had a little basket they put over there right by the casket. They was charging people a dollar to see him before West put a stop to it.

MEMPHIS: When they gonna bury him?

WOLF: Tuesday. They say they gonna bury him Tuesday.

HOLLOWAY: They gonna try and bury him Tuesday. West ain’t gonna bury him until the people got a chance to see him.