SCENE 3

(The lights come up on RISA and HOLLOWAY. WOLF sits at the table doing his bookkeeping. RISA is sweeping. It is later the same day.)

HOLLOWAY: He was staying up there on Herron Avenue. They found him up there today. His landlady found him. He just laid down across the bed with his clothes on and died. Say he died real peaceful. West went down to the morgue to get him . . .  he got some kind of contract with the welfare and they called him up. Hambone ain’t had no people. Most anybody know about him is he come from Alabama. Don’t nobody even know his right name.

RISA: That’s a shame. Lutz gonna rot in hell.

WOLF: Lutz ain’t thinking about no hell. All he thinking about is his ham.

HOLLOWAY: I went up there and told him about it cause he asked me to let him know what I found out. He didn’t say nothing. He just looked at me.
(RISA accidentally sweeps WOLF’s feet.)

WOLF: Don’t sweep me with that broom, girl. Ain’t your mama never taught you nothing?

RISA: Well, move your feet out the way then.

WOLF: You sweep me with that broom and I’ll end up in jail.

HOLLOWAY: That’s what’s wrong with half these niggers now. They don’t know what causes their trouble. They around here breaking mirrors, opening umbrellas in the house, and everything else.

WOLF: Come on, Risa!

RISA: Move your feet then, Wolf! You be gone to jail twice you don’t move your feet.
(She sweeps him again.)

WOLF: Hey, Risa. Come on, now!
(He gets up and gathers his papers.)
A man can’t get no peace around here. If you see Sterling, tell him I’m looking for him. Tell him to wait here, I’ll be back.
(WOLF exits.)

HOLLOWAY: A man was driving a truck . . .  hauling a whole truck full of mirrors . . .  lost the brakes and ran into a telephone pole. He wasn’t hurt or nothing. He looked back there and saw all them mirrors broke . . .  he was staring at two hundred years of bad luck. They had to carry him away in a straitjacket.
(WEST enters.)
Hey, West . . .  I see you finally got Prophet Samuel buried.

WEST: Yeah . . .  I got him in the ground and turned around and went down there and got Hambone. It don’t never stop. Time you bury one nigger you got to go get another. Man had so many scars on his body . . .  I ain’t never seen nothing like that. All on his back, his chest . . .  his legs. I’m gonna lay him out tomorrow and bury him on Saturday.

RISA: You ought to lay him out in a nice casket. I hate to see people laid out in them welfare caskets.