(Lights come up and we see that Eugene is sitting in a private cell.)

ALMA: I look back–I always look back because now it’s so clear. I look back and see me and the rest of us girls. Some of us light, bright damn near white, as they used to say. Others of us darker, brown, black–all of us walking to various rhythms. I remember a girl I met in college at a club for black women. I looked into the eyes of this girl. Her gray eyes. My brown eyes. I looked into her eyes and said, “What are YOU doing here? This club is for BLACK women.” She exploded/cried/told me she was as black as I was. I destroyed her rhythm/I burned down her walk. (Beat) I think of the darker girls–girls like my roommate who wore their darkness with pride and how she, my roommate, and other dark girls painted their full mouths the colors of light and dark fruit. They painted their full mouths lushly, sensuously–color rippling from their full mouths. I laughed at the dark girls who wore bright colors and hated the light girls no matter how nice. I am my mother’s daughter after all. I had no walk/voice of my own. (Beat) Two months after the night of the murder Eugene was sentenced to twenty-five years to life. (Pause) Two months after the night of the murder, I knew Eugene’s baby was in me. I just knew. I went to Odelia’s. She was passed out from gin. I closed her bedroom door and I pushed furniture back and forth. I just started pushing furniture back and forth. I felt a pain in my groin–almost overwhelming. Later that night in the bathtub, I saw the fetus–the fetus came out in the bath. I could not risk having a child–ugly like me–I could not risk being left to dog pant. I sometimes dream of the fetus. I dream of Gene holding this fetus he knew nothing about. I dream of this dead baby (catches herself)–fetus–in a bathtub and Gene holding it. I dream of him holding this dead fetus in his cell. (Beat) I live in New York. My feet hit the pavement. As I hit the pavement, I no longer hear any great rhythm/I was a child/it was twenty years ago/everyone’s feet hit the pavement. I do not care about summer or fall. It is merely an adjustment/a change of clothing. I am Odelia’s daughter. Listen to my voice/watch me walk.