Cover

About the Author

A PLUME BOOK

TWO TRAINS RUNNING

AUGUST WILSON is one of America’s leading playwrights, whose work has been acclaimed as among the finest of the American theater. His first play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best new play. His second play, Fences, won numerous awards, including the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. His third play, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, also was best play of the year by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. The Piano Lesson (1990) won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. August Wilson passed away in 2005.

Praise for TWO TRAINS RUNNING

Praise for Two Trains Running

WINNER OF THE NEW YORK DRAMA CRITICS’ CIRCLE BEST PLAY AWARD

“THE OUTSTANDING AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT OF THE PAST DECADE . . .  his language is golden: rich in humor and poetry and redolent of a colorful vernacular.”

—Wall Street Journal

“Has an unassailable authenticity . . .  [Wilson] has packed a lot of life and a lot of humor into Memphis Lee’s Restaurant. . . . By the end, a small world has been utterly transformed.”

—Variety

“These characters are fully imagined—they live . . .  reeling out stories about their past, their angers, their dreams.”

—Washington Post

“Wilson’s most adventurous and honest attempt to reveal the intimate nature of history . . .  glorious storytelling . . .  touching and often funny . . .  a penetrating revelation of a world hidden from view.”

—Frank Rich, New York Times

Dedication

This one’s for Judy

If the train don’t hurry
there’s gonna be some walking done.

Traditional

Two Trains Running opened on March 27, 1990, at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, Lloyd Richards, Artistic Director, Benjamin Mordecai, Managing Director, with the following cast:

Director: Lloyd Richards

Set Design: Tony Fanning

Costume Design: Chrisi Karvonides

Lighting Design: Geoff Korf

Sound Design: Ann Johnson

Stage Manager: Liz Dreyer

Production Dramaturg: Lisa A. Wilde

Casting: Meg Simon

Two Trains Running opened on April 13, 1992, at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in New York City, with the following cast:

Director: Lloyd Richards

Set Design: Tony Fanning

Costume Design: Chrisi Karvonides

Light Design: Geoff Korf

Production Stage Manager: Karen Carpenter

Stage Manager: Fred Seagraves

Executive Producer: Benjamin Mordecai

Casting: Meg Simon

The Setting

It is Pittsburgh, 1969. The action of the play takes place in a restaurant across the street from West’s Funeral Home and Lutz’s Meat Market. It is a small restaurant with four stools, a counter, and three booths lined against one wall. The menu is printed on a blackboard behind the counter.

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

(The lights come up on the restaurant. The menu reads “Beans w/corn muffins 65 cents

Chicken w/2 sides $2.45

Meatloaf w/2 sides $2.35

Sides—Collard greens

Mashed potatoes

Green beans

Macaroni & cheese

Potato salad”

The winning number combination of the previous day, 651, is also written on the menu board. WOLF is in the telephone booth. He comes out, shuffles some papers, and starts to his seat at the counter when the phone rings. He answers it just as MEMPHIS enters from the back carrying a newspaper. MEMPHIS is a self-made man whose values of hard work, diligence, persistence, and honesty have been consistently challenged by the circumstances of his life. His greatest asset is his impeccable logic. WOLF, on the phone, writes something down.)

WOLF: Wolf. . . . Eight sixty-four. Boxed for a dollar . . .  Yeah, I got that.

MEMPHIS: Hey, Wolf, I told you about that. You can’t be tying up my phone with them numbers.

WOLF: Seven thirty-one straight . . .  for a dollar. Okay.

(He hangs up and exits the phone booth. He is a man who enjoys his notoriety and popularity as the community’s numbers runner. While he manages to keep money in his pocket and a decent pair of shoes on his feet, his inability to find secure female companionship is the single failure that marks his life.

MEMPHIS: I told you about tying up my phone with them numbers. I don’t want that in here.

WOLF: Who’s trying to call you? Risa will tell you . . .  ain’t nobody trying to call you.

MEMPHIS: My lawyer might be trying to call me.

WOLF: That’s what happened to Harvey before he got them ten years. He sitting around waiting for his lawyer to call him. If I was him I would have been in Cleveland or Detroit. Naw, he wanna sit around and wait on his lawyer to call him.

MEMPHIS: This a civil lawyer. There’s more than one kind of lawyer. But you don’t know nothing about that.

WOLF: I know there’s different kinds of lawyers. The NAACP got all kinds of lawyers. It don’t do nobody no good.
(He calls out.)
Hey, Risa, give me some sugar.

MEMPHIS: That’s the second time this week that six fifty-one hit. I don’t know the last time I can recall a number coming twice in the same week. That was L.D.’s number. If he was still living he’d be in big money.

WOLF: They had that six ninety-four come twice about a year ago. Milt hit for five dollars both times. Got mad cause he didn’t have twenty dollars on it.
(He calls.)
Let me get some sugar, Risa.
(RISA enters from the back. RISA is a young woman who, in an attempt to define herself in terms other than her genitalia, has scarred her legs with a razor.)

MEMPHIS: I remember that. I had six ninety-six. I switched off to six ninety-two and it come back six ninety-four. I remember that. You talk about Milt being mad.

RISA: I don’t know why people waste their money playing numbers. Time you hit you just getting back what you put in.

WOLF: It’s the same thing as putting money in the bank. This way you might take out more than you put in . . .  but Mellon ain’t gonna let you do that. The numbers give you an opportunity. If it wasn’t for the numbers all these niggers would be poor.

MEMPHIS: It wasn’t till I hit the numbers eight or nine years ago that I got to the point where I could change my clothes every day. See, most of these niggers around here can’t do that. The only way they can do that is to hit the numbers or get lucky in a crap game. The ones that working . . .  the only way they can do anything is to wait on their income tax return. Half the time the government cheat them out of that.

WOLF: You hear from your old lady, Memphis?

MEMPHIS: Don’t bring up that woman to me. I ain’t heard from her. I know where she at. She up her sister’s house. She been up there them two months since she left. Twenty-two years. I give her everything I had for twenty-two years. Naw . . .  naw . . .  I give her everything I had when I met her . . .  then I give her everything I could get hold of for the next twenty-two years. And then when she was leaving . . .  she wouldn’t even shake my hand.

WOLF: I know how that go. That’s why I don’t mess with these women but so far.

MEMPHIS: I ain’t never left nobody in bad manners. I’m standing there trying to say, “May God bless you everywhere you go” . . .  and she wouldn’t even shake my hand.

RISA: Maybe she didn’t like the way you was treating her.

MEMPHIS: I treat that woman like she was a queen. Treat her like she made out of gold. Try to give her everything she want. She say “Baby, I want a car,” she got a Cadillac. She want a TV . . .  she got a color TV. It might take me a little while. Her wants might be too big for my pocket but I work it out and come up with something. I was working on the dishwasher when she walked out. I would have got her that but the plumbing got to be right. I’m talking to John D. about him fixing up the plumbing . . .  and she got up and walked out the door. You talking about she tired of the way I treated her. I treated that woman like she was the Queen of Sheba.

RISA: Maybe she don’t see it like that. She had to leave for something.

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.

WOLF: They say he got hundred-dollar bills in the casket with him.

HOLLOWAY: He got hundred-dollar bills . . .  got diamonds on all his fingers. They got it roped off. You can’t get within ten feet of the casket. He got gold and jewels and everything in there with him.

WOLF: What . . .  they supposed to bury him with all that money?

MEMPHIS: West ain’t gonna bury that man with that money. West ain’t no fool. You think he gonna put money and diamonds and all that gold in the ground? Half the time he don’t even put the casket. Half the time he dump the body out and bring the casket back to sell it again. Bury somebody else in it.

RISA: West don’t be doing that. That’s against the law.

HOLLOWAY: West done buried four or five niggers in the same suit. How you think he got all that money?

WOLF: Who would you say had the most money—West or Prophet Samuel?

HOLLOWAY: Everybody know West got money. He get more business. More people dying than getting saved.

WOLF: Prophet Samuel got a lot of money. He right up there with West. He be cheating and fooling the people all these years.

RISA: He ain’t done nothing but tell the truth. Most times people don’t want to hear the truth. But Prophet Samuel say the truth ain’t nothing to be afraid of. He say if you afraid of the truth to get back in the shadows cause you never will see the light.

WOLF: I ain’t said all that. I just said he right up there with West when it comes to money. All them jewels and things he had. That big old white Cadillac. Seven or eight women. He was living a nice life.

MEMPHIS: He ain’t got nothing now. He ain’t got as much as you got. And I don’t believe he had as much money as West. West got money he ain’t even counted.

WOLF: How much money would you say he got?

HOLLOWAY: West got a million dollars. Got it two or three times.

MEMPHIS: And don’t know how to spend it. Man living up over top of the funeral home—you’d think he’d have enough sense to buy him a house somewhere. He own every other building around here. Them that Hartzberger don’t own. I got lucky and got hold to this piece of building and West got mad. I got it right out from under his nose and he ain’t never forget that. All that property he own and had the nerve to get mad when I bought this. What make it so bad is he could have had it. He was talking to L.D. about buying the building from him. L.D. had his stroke and West figured he’d wait until he died and get it cheaper. I went over to the hospital to see him and we made the deal right there in the hospital about a week before he died. I got it for fifty-five hundred dollars. This is when I was walking around with four or five hundred dollars in my pocket every day. Used to carry a pistol and everything. Had me a .44. Had me one of them big .44s. Used to scare me to look at it. I give L.D. the fifty-five hundred in cash. I didn’t find out till after he died that he owed twelve hundred dollars in back taxes . . .  but I didn’t care. I had seen a way for me to take off my pistol. I got my deed and went right home . . .  took off my pistol and hung it up in the closet. West got mad when he found out L.D. sold me the building. He been trying to buy it from me ever since. He walked in the next day and offered me eight thousand dollars for it. That was a good price. But see . . .  he didn’t know it had come to mean more to me than that. I had found a way to live the rest of my life.

WOLF: When they gonna tear it down?

HOLLOWAY: You know how the city is. They been gonna tear this whole block down for the last twenty years.

MEMPHIS: They told me to be downtown Tuesday. They liable to wait another twenty years before they tear it down, but I’m supposed to be down there Tuesday and find out how much they gonna give me.

WOLF: What you gonna do when they tear it down?

MEMPHIS: Ain’t nothing to do. Unless I do like West and go into the undertaking business. I can’t go out there in Squirrel Hill and open up a restaurant. Ain’t nothing gonna be left around here. Supermarket gone. Two drugstores. The five and ten. Doctor done moved out. Dentist done moved out. Shoe store gone. Ain’t nothing gonna be left but these niggers killing one another. That don’t never go out of style. West gonna get richer and everybody else gonna get poorer. At one time you couldn’t get a seat in here. Had the jukebox working and everything. Time somebody get up somebody sit down before they could get out the door. People coming from everywhere. Everybody got to eat and everybody got to sleep. Some people don’t have stoves. Some people don’t have nobody to cook for them. Men whose wives done died and left them. Cook for them thirty years and lay down and die. Who’s gonna cook for them now? Somebody got to do it. I order four cases of chicken on Friday and Sunday it’s gone. Fry it up. Make a stew. Boil it. Add some dumplings. You couldn’t charge more than a dollar. But then you didn’t have to. It didn’t cost you but a quarter. People used to come from all over. The man used to come twice a week to collect the jukebox. He making more money than I am. He pay seventy-five cents for the record and he make two hundred dollars off it. If it’s a big hit he’s liable to make four hundred. The record will take all the quarters you can give it. It don’t never wear out. The chicken be gone by Sunday. It ain’t nothing like that now. I’m lucky if I go through a case a chicken a week. That’s alright. I’ll take that. I ain’t greedy. But if they wanna tear it down they gonna have to meet my price.

WOLF: They ought to give you a good price. That’s what I hear . . .  when the city buy something they give you a good price.

MEMPHIS: They give white folks a good price. Most time that be who they buying it from. Well, they gonna give me just like they give them. I bought it eight years ago for fifty-five hundred dollars and I ain’t taking a penny less than twenty-five thousand.

WOLF: You ought to be able to get that.

MEMPHIS: Let me get a dollar on that seven sixty-four. If that come out that’ll hold me till the city do their paperwork. If that come out I might buy me a new pair of shoes. I ain’t going to be like West. West been wearing the same pair of shoes for three years. Got the heels all run over and everything. He do keep them shined. I’ll say that for him. I ain’t never seen him without his shoes shined.

WOLF: I ain’t never seen him without them gloves. He wear them gloves everywhere. I believe he wear them to bed. I hear tell he got a wooden hand.

HOLLOWAY: West ain’t got no wooden hand. He be touching them dead people . . .  I’d wear gloves too.

WOLF: He can take them off and wash his hands. He don’t be touching them all the time. I ain’t never seen him without them gloves. I ain’t never seen him in nothing but black. Everything he wear is black. Black hat. Black suit. Black shoes. Black tie. The only thing he wear is that white shirt. Everything else is black.

HOLLOWAY: That’s what he supposed to wear. All undertakers wear black. What it look like if he showed up to bury somebody in a red suit? They supposed to wear black.

WOLF: He do make them bodies look good. Make them look natural.

MEMPHIS: People kill me with that. How somebody dead gonna look natural?

WOLF: That’s what the people say. Say they look better than when they was living. That’s why the people like West.

HOLLOWAY: The people like West cause he get the cars there on time. He say he be there to pick you up at one o’clock . . .  that’s what time he come. He be real nice and polite—it’s “No sir” and “Yes ma’am.” “Watch your step.” “Can I get you some water?” The people like that. You even act like you want to faint and West will be right there at your elbow.

MEMPHIS: He do all that after he got the money.

HOLLOWAY: Quite naturally he gonna get the money first.

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