STERLING: The police was down there taking people’s pictures.

WOLF: I seen that. Wasn’t that something? They don’t go out there where the white folks at and take their pictures.

STERLING: I smiled when they took mine.

WOLF: I was standing down there watching that drugstore. It’s still smoking from the fire last night. They ain’t put it out yet. They must have had every fire truck in the world down there. Did you all see that? It wasn’t nothing but a little old drugstore. Had ten, eleven fire trucks and near about a hundred police. Say it started in the back by the alley. A couple of people seen some of them black power niggers around there.

HOLLOWAY: That ain’t nothing but talk. Everybody know the man burned down his own store so he could get the insurance. That’s the only way he get anything out of it. If he pack up and leave he don’t get nothing. This way he get paid for everything . . .  all his stock . . .  his building . . .  everything. That’s the best way to sell a business don’t nobody want to buy. Sell it to the insurance company. All them niggers standing down there watching the fire . . .  they don’t know . . .  but somebody’s going to jail. The police got to snatch one of them. That way the insurance company pay quicker. Meyer’s gonna walk away with two hundred thousand dollars and somebody going to jail for three years. See if I ain’t right. You watch over the next two or three days and see if they don’t arrest somebody as he walking by there. Meyer’s gonna be down there in Florida playing golf and laying on the beach . . .  and the fire inspector’s gonna be right there with him. That’s the way it works in America.

WOLF: You right about that. It’s hard to live in America. Did you all hear where Petey Brown killed his old lady last night? Caught her in the Ellis Hotel with his best friend. Killed him too. That’s why I don’t have no one woman. When I die every woman in Pittsburgh gonna cry. They ain’t gonna know what to do with themselves. My woman come and told me she had another man. I told her say, “Alright, baby, but he can’t hear and he can’t see. He can’t see like I do. You got to be able to pull a whole lot of boxcars to keep up with me.” I’m like Prophet Samuel . . .  if a man can get him seven women . . .  if he can find seven women want to be with him . . .  let him have them seven and one or two more. Seven women wanna lay down with him must see something they like. Hell, it’s hard to get one, let alone seven. It’s hard to get one you can trust that far. See, when you lay down with her, you trusting her with your life. You lay down you got to close your eyes. It wouldn’t be nothing for somebody to walk up and slit your throat. That’s why you lock the door at night. You lock the door and it be just you and her. That’s a whole lot of trust there. If I had that I wouldn’t give it up for nothing. Other than that when I die every woman in Pittsburgh gonna cry.
(WEST enters.)