SHERI REYNOLDS  |  Orabelle’s Wheelbarrow

Act One

(ORABELLE enters, pushing a wheelbarrow, humming to herself. She wears a motley assortment of clothes, mismatched patterns, colorful shoes. Offstage, a car-engine revs loudly.)

ORABELLE
Hey, slow that truck down! The road’s washed out around that curve.

(Offstage, brakes screech. A small roll of chicken-wire is thrown onto the stage, as if it bounced out the back of a truck.)

Can’t say I didn’t warn you.

(Orabelle picks up the chicken-wire, puts it in her wheelbarrow.)

And the moral of the story is: drive like hell, and you’ll get there faster!

(She laughs, holds the wire up to the audience, looks at them through it.)

Or maybe there ain’t no moral. Maybe I just needed a piece of chicken-wire today and didn’t know it.

(She flexes the wire, holds it open.)

Piece of chicken-wire like this, flimsy as it is, separates you from me. Wind can blow right through it, but there’s still no mistaking what’s on one side and what’s on the other.

(Orabelle places the wire around her wheelbarrow.)

RUBIE (offstage, calling out)
Granny? Hey, Granny!

(RUBIE enters.)

There you are! I told you to wait for me.

(Orabelle tosses the chicken-wire into her wheelbarrow.)

ORABELLE
I’m perfectly capable of taking my evening stroll without a chaperone.

RUBIE
You told me this morning you were coming with me to Leona’s! Don’t you remember? We missed her mama’s funeral. I thought you wanted to pay your respects.

ORABELLE
Far as I’m concerned, paying respects is something you do when people are alive.

(Rubie takes her arm.)

RUBIE
Just walk with me, Granny. Where else you gotta be?

(On the other side of the stage, LEONA sits in a rocking chair and studies a piece of paper. Rubie and Orabelle slowly move towards her.)

ORABELLE
It’ll be easier for Leona now that her mama’s passed. I heard at the Senior Center that Sadie’s mind was shot. Last time she went to the doctor, she wore Little Pug’s underdrawers, poor old thing!

RUBIE
I wonder if Leona’ll stay in that house with Little Pug and Gwendolyn now that her mama’s gone.

ORABELLE
Hard to say. But it’s good you going to see her, Sugar. I’m sure she could use a friend.

RUBIE
I don’t know if Leona considers me a friend anymore. I’ve only seen her a time or two since I moved back home, and then it seemed like she barely tolerated my company. I think she still holds a grudge that I left town in the first place.

ORABELLE
You got deployed. That’s the most acceptable kind of leaving.

RUBIE
There she sits. I expected she’d be on the porch on a night like this.

(Orabelle stops. Rubie turns back to her.)

You coming?

ORABELLE
Reckon I’ll visit with the squirrels a little. Catch up on what’s happening with the crickets. You go ahead and talk with your friend.

RUBIE
Suit yourself. Hey, Leona!

(Leona stashes the paper in her pocket and rises.)

LEONA (flatly)
Well, look what the cat dragged in.

(They greet one another, then settle in rocking chairs. LIGHTS SHIFT to Orabelle, who pokes at something in her wheelbarrow.)

ORABELLE
Hey, You! Yeah, you! Sit up and look around. You been sleeping all day.

(She motions out to the audience.)

You see all these fields? I spent my whole life in these fields, marching up and down the rows gathering tobacco.

(She points towards Leona and Rubie.)

You see that house? I worked there fifty years! I was in that house the night that gal’s mama was born. Then when Gwendolyn and Little Pug come along years later, I was the one who cut the cords and burned the bloody rags.

(She laughs and points in the other direction.)

See that barn, yonder? Them two girls were digging doodlebugs together ‘neath that barn shed ‘fore either one of ‘em could walk. What? You don’t know what a doodlebug is? Hop out here and I’ll show you how to dig a doodlebug.

(Orabelle offers her hand to the invisible thing in the wheelbarrow, then stoops and begins doodling on the ground. LIGHTS SHIFT to Leona and Rubie.)

LEONA
So . . . we’re broke—and I didn’t even know it.

RUBIE
How could you not know it? Didn’t you look at the bank statements?

LEONA
Never seen a one. Mama always handled the bills and kept the family files. When her mind started to go, Gwendolyn helped out some—

RUBIE
Lord, I can’t believe you’d trust Gwendolyn with it.

LEONA
I had to. She’s my aunt.

(Rubie makes a face.)

I didn’t trust her exactly. Just didn’t realize how bad Mama’s mind had got. I had so much on my plate—

ORABELLE (singing loudly)
Doodlebug doodlebug go so fast. Doodlebug doodlebug, run outta gas!

(Leona stands, peers out into the night.)

LEONA
What’s that?

RUBIE
Just Granny.

LEONA
I didn’t know Miss Orabelle was with you! We should invite her up on the porch.

RUBIE
Nah, she’s all right. You were telling me about your financial—

LEONA
Ruin!

(Pause.)

I knew we hadn’t farmed the land in a real long time, but I didn’t know the leases had all run out. And nobody’d renewed ‘em. Don’t know why I didn’t notice.

RUBIE
When I first moved back in with Granny, I saw that the fields weren’t planted. But I didn’t think much of it. So many farmers have moved on to other things—

LEONA
Then today, this come.

(She pulls the bill out of her pocket, shows Rubie.)

RUBIE
If dying gets any more expensive, we gonna have to live forever.

LEONA
We’re already in collections for some other debts. If we declare bankruptcy, they’ll take the house and farm both. Then I reckon I’ll be stuck in a homeless shelter with Gwendolyn and Little Pug. Can you imagine?

(Rubie shakes her head. Across the stage, Orabelle suddenly jumps up.)

ORABELLE (shouting)
Hey! Where you going?

(Orabelle runs to the wheelbarrow, peers inside it.)

Rubie, that little sucker’s run off again. I gotta find him.

(Leona looks puzzled.)

RUBIE
It’s okay, Granny. He’s hiding over here in these azaleas. He’s just teasing with you.

(Orabelle picks up a stick and goes to the bushes and whacks at them again and again. Leona gets up from her chair and hides behind it.)

ORABELLE
You get back in that wheelbarrow. Go on, now. Get! It’s too late for games this time of night.

(She heads back to the wheelbarrow, escorting an imaginary thing.)

LEONA
What does she see?

RUBIE
Just some promises.

(Pause.)

Granny keeps other people’s broken promises.

(They go over to the wheelbarrow and look inside.)

ORABELLE
He weren’t too hard to round up. He knows how to listen. He ain’t a bad feller.
(She pulls moss out of her wheelbarrow and acts like she’s rumpling someone’s hair, caressing the moss.)

LEONA (to Rubie)
Does she have Oldtimer’s Disease, too?

RUBIE
I don’t think so.

ORABELLE (noticing Leona)
Well, hey there, Honey-girl. I’m sure sorry about your mama.

(Orabelle takes Leona’s hand and holds it.)

LEONA (cautiously)
Good to see you again, Miss Orabelle.

ORABELLE
I know you gonna miss her. Your mama had a heart of gold. You ready to get her promise?

(Orabelle digs around in the wheelbarrow.)

LEONA
You got something of my mama’s? In there?

ORABELLE
Oh, yes. She left a promise with me—years and years ago. I got it right in here with the others, if I can just find it. Guess it’s part of your inheritance, ain’t it?

(Leona looks stricken. Orabelle stirs around. Things clatter.)

LEONA (to Rubie)
Is she crazy? You don’t see anything in there, do you? Just some flowers and tomatoes?

RUBIE
It’s too soon, Granny. You need to keep that promise a little bit longer.

ORABELLE
Oh—all right then.

(She starts pushing her wheelbarrow away. Rubie follows.)

LEONA (to Rubie)
Wait. Where does she get those . . . promises?

(Rubie and Orabelle both stop.)

RUBIE
They just find Granny. She don’t go looking for them.

LEONA
Miss Orabelle, do you remember much about my mama—when she was a girl? Before I was born?

ORABELLE
Oh yes, honey, and I was honored to keep the promise she made to your daddy, cause I know how much it meant to her.

LEONA
My Daddy? I didn’t—I don’t—

RUBIE
Now, Granny, hang on—

LEONA
Mama made a promise to my daddy?

RUBIE
I’m sorry, Leona. It’s late. We probably oughta—

(Leona fans her face with both hands. Orabelle turns her wheelbarrow around and heads back.)

LEONA
Lord, my head’s a’spinnin’ in a thousand ways—

ORABELLE
Grief’ll do that to you. But you needn’t worry ‘bout that promise. I been keeping it safe for a long time. It’s in good hands.

LEONA
Tell me more?

ORABELLE
Ain’t a whole lot more to tell. It’s just an ordinary old broke promise. Your mama promised your daddy her heart. Then she took it back. I got a hundred others just like it in this wheelbarrow. Sometimes on a hot night like this one, I throw ‘em a pool-party.

(Orabelle looks off towards the porch, puts her hand on her hip, stomps her foot.)

Looka there! He took off again. He’s yonder under the doorsteps.

RUBIE
It’s all right, Granny. He knows the way home. We need to let Leona rest.

LEONA
But wait—

ORABELLE
I reckon so, but I can’t hardly sleep unless all my promises are accounted for.

LEONA
Do you know if—

RUBIE
We gotta run, Leona. Granny’s tired, and I’m tired—And your mama’s promise is probably tired, too. I think we all need some sleep!

(They begin to leave.)

ORABELLE
Honey, if you see that promise, tell him to hurry on home. Supposed to rain before day.

RUBIE
We’ll talk soon, Leona.

(They exit. Leona stands there perplexed.)

LEONA
Well, I swear! You’re both crazy, both of you! Weren’t nothing in that wheelbarrow!

(Pause.)

You shouldn’t talk about my Mama, not when she’s just—gone!

(Leona hears something, stops, listens. She goes towards the doorsteps, peeks down.)

Is somebody there?

(She looks around nervously.)

Who’s there? Little Pug, is that you?

(Leona listens, looks over her shoulder, then hurries offstage as PROMISE #1 creeps out of the dark. He wears a mask made of moss. The promises should all wear masks made from things in Orabelle’s wheelbarrow: sticks, leaves, pinestraw.)

PROMISE #1 (hollering after her)
Wait! Don’t be afraid. I know how you feel cause I lost somebody I love not too long ago.

(Pause.)

And just before she died, I broke a promise.

(He shrugs, turns and addresses audience.)

We were married forty years, me and my wife. Loved to go fishing together. She was every bit as at home on the river as she was on land. She could maneuver our little boat into places only the trout knew about! Every Saturday we were out there. Sometimes after church on Sundays, too.

When she was near eat-up with the cancer, she still wanted to be out on the river. Didn’t have the strength by then to walk very far, but I’d carry her and put her in the boat. We’d float around and listen to the mudfish jump. One day she said, “Promise me that no matter how bad it gets, you won’t put me in a home.” And I told her I wasn’t about to put her in a home! I told her I could take care of her myself.

But taking care of her wasn’t the problem. The problem was watching her suffer. The family helped out, but Lord, it was a slow dying. Towards the end, everybody told me to put her in a nursing home. She was on morphine by then, in and out of consciousness, so I did it, but I made sure she was in a room with a window that opened. I promised her I’d take her on the water again soon as it warmed up. But she didn’t last that long.

Whenever I go fishing now, I drive all the way to the ocean.

(LIGHTS DIM. From offstage, Leona shines a flashlight out at Promise #1.)

LEONA
I don’t know who’s out there, but you better get away from here! This is private property.

(Promise #1 exits. Leona enters with flashlight.)

It’s gonna rain. Get on home . . . whoever you are.

(Leona drags rocking chairs offstage as LIGHTS SHIFT to GWENDOLYN. Dressed in a black tutu and pillbox hat, she runs around as if she’s chasing chickens. Squawks can be heard, and LITTLE PUG takes off after Gwendolyn, throwing feathers. Gwendolyn flicks her wrist in circles, like she’s wringing a chicken’s neck. Little Pug runs behind her, picking up feathers and throwing them again, frenzied.)

GWENDOLYN
I swear! Seems like a chicken’s neck gets longer and longer as you wring it.

(Leona enters.)

LEONA
These are Mama’s chickens, Gwendolyn. Quit killing ‘em.

GWENDOLYN
I’m gonna have me a chicken bog tonight.

LEONA
You don’t need but one hen for a chicken bog. You’ve already killed a dozen.

GWENDOLYN (lassoing)
Sometimes it seems like the head’s pulling outta the body, and sometimes it seems like the body’s flying away from the head. Ain’t that funny?

(Pause.)

That one over there—run her towards me.

(Little Pug makes a move like he’s running a chicken. Gwendolyn grabs it.)

LEONA
How many chickens you planning on killing?

GWENDOLYN
I’m gonna kill ‘em all. I hate a chicken.

(She spins and tosses a chicken to the ground.)

Ain’t it pathetic—how they flap their wings a time or two before they give up?

LEONA
You can’t kill ‘em all. Mama’ll turn over in her grave.

GWENDOLYN
Might turn over, but she can’t get out. I’m in charge now, and I hate a chicken.

(She turns to Little Pug.)

Run me that one over there.

(Little Pug races around, wild-eyed.)

LEONA
Please quit it, Gwen.

GWENDOLYN (mocking)
Please quit it, Gwen.

(She drops the hen and wipes her face.)

Chickens are stupid and ugly and shit-up the yard. I’m done with ‘em, Leona. We’ll kill ‘em off, and then Little Pug can keep that damned dog of his in the coop.

LITTLE PUG
Naw, now, Gwendolyn. Boy-Dog’s just a baby. He’s gotta sleep with me.

GWENDOLYN
You heard what I said.

LEONA
How can you do this so soon after Mama’s passing—and knowing how much she loved ‘em?

(Leona chokes. Little Pug crouches where he’s standing and begins to cry onto his knees.)

GWENDOLYN
Well, look at me, Leona. I’m still grieving her, too. I’m still in my funeral clothes. You been wearing your ordinary wardrobe for a week already! You know I loved your mama.

LITTLE PUG (child-like)
Me, too. I’m gonna miss her the most.

LEONA
I don’t know how we’ll survive without her.

(Gwendolyn goes to Leona and hugs her, with a chicken still in her clutches.)

GWENDOLYN
We’ll get by—or else we’ll die in a pile.

LEONA
Can’t we keep some of the chickens, just to remember her by?

(Gwendolyn considers this.)

GWENDOLYN
We got plenty of other things to remember her by.

(Pause.)

No, we don’t need these chickens. Your mama was a fool to love chickens in the first place. She was my sister, and I’ll always love her, but she was a fool just the same.

LITTLE PUG
Naw, now, Gwen. Sadie weren’t no fool. She was the smartest of the bunch.

(Little Pug sucks on the back of his hand.)

LEONA (distraught)
Don’t you talk about my mama that way! And don’t you kill another bird!

GWENDOLYN
I’ll talk about her however I want, and you can’t do nothing about it, can you?

(Little Pug runs off stage.)

It ain’t no surprise, you know, that Sadie loved birds. Her brain was about the same size, Leona, and I doubt yours is much bigger. I loved Sadie, but she was a lot like a chicken. ‘Specially like that red one over yonder with her back tail-feathers all snatched out. Kept teasing with the roosters, you know? That’s how you come along.

LEONA
Don’t say that.

GWENDOLYN
But Sadie didn’t mean no more to the roosters than that old red hen does. Just something to hop on and flap about.

LEONA
That’s not true. What happened to my daddy?

GWENDOLYN (immediately angry)
You ain’t got no daddy. You ain’t never had no daddy.

LEONA
Yes, I did. Miss Orabelle told me.

GWENDOLYN
When’d you talk to Orabelle? I thought she was dead.

LEONA (quieter)
I saw her yesterday. Why didn’t anybody ever tell me about my daddy!

GWENDOLYN
You gone believe an old nigger woman over me?

(She grabs another chicken.)

LEONA
Please, quit it.

(Gwendolyn wrings its neck, throws the bird at Leona, takes off running down another one.)

LEONA
Stop killing ‘em . . . or I’m gonna leave here and not never come back.

GWENDOLYN
Oh, no you won’t. Just cause Sadie’s dead don’t mean you can run off.

(Pause.)

Besides that, wouldn’t nobody else have you. We’re family. We’re blood. That’s all in the world you can depend on.

(Leona slumps down. Gwendolyn wipes her face and hollers out.)

Little Pug! Little Pug?

(Little Pug peeks out, clearly scared.)

LITTLE PUG
You need something, Gwendolyn?

GWENDOLYN (calmer)
Roll out Sadie’s wheelchair for me. She sure don’t need it no more, and my back’s sore from all this stooping.

(Gwendolyn takes Leona’s arm and yanks her up. She shows no signs of a weak back.)

I need you to scald these birds and pluck ‘em. Then Little Pug can help you clean ‘em, and we can freeze what we don’t need.

(Little Pug rolls out the wheelchair, parks it directly behind Gwendolyn. She drops into it and sighs.)

I’m gonna go watch my soap opera, cause my legs have done give out on me.

(Little Pug pushes her away. Leona begins cleaning the mess on the stage.)

GWENDOLYN (calling back)
You ain’t going nowhere, Leona. You hear me?

(Gwendolyn and Little Pug exit. Leona picks up feathers.)

LEONA (child-like)
You can’t tell me what to do! You’re not my Mama. I don’t have to listen to you!

(Little Pug returns with a battered hand-held vacuum and helps Leona clean up the feathers.

LIGHTS SHIFT to Orabelle who enters with a bushel basket of butterbeans. Rubie brings in a rocking chair and a pan. Orabelle scoops beans into her pan, sits, and begins shelling. Rubie pulls up a second rocker, also takes a pan of beans and begins shelling. Leona comes over with a fly swatter. Throughout the scene, she kills flies.)

LEONA
You sure you don’t want me to help you finish shelling?

ORABELLE
Oh, no, honey. I wanna hear this story! I had no idea they kept your daddy such a secret.

RUBIE
We’re almost done anyway. Just work on these blasted flies.

(Leona swats.)

LEONA
Well—for a while I figured he died in the war.

ORABELLE
Lots of people were dying in the war at that time. Makes sense you’d think that.

LEONA
I went looking in Mama’s jewelry box to see if she had his war-pins there. When I didn’t find any purple hearts, I told myself she kept his commendations in a private place.

ORABELLE
Did you ever ask her outright?

LEONA
One time at school, we had to draw our family tree, and I asked her then. I’d already done half my tree, but it looked lopsided, like the ones cut off by the electric company so the branches don’t touch the wires. So I asked Mama to help me fill out the other side.

RUBIE
What’d she do?

LEONA
Didn’t say a word. Gwendolyn said, “I told you this day would come,” and then Mama ran off and locked herself in the bathroom.

(Pause.)

Then at one point, I decided my daddy’d been a sea captain who’d gone down with his ship.

RUBIE
You wrote an essay about it. I remember.

ORABELLE
Well, I swannee—

LEONA
And I read it to the whole school at assembly on career day!

(Leona smacks a fly.)

When Mama found out, she gave me a whipping I’ll never forget. And she told me not to never mention my father again. So I shut up about it.

ORABELLE
And you kept all that confusion inside you, bless your heart.

LEONA
That’s why it surprised me so much the other day when you mentioned Mama’s broken promise, Miss Orabelle.

ORABELLE
I reckon it did.

(Pause.)

You know, your mama was supposed to marry your daddy, but that just didn’t work out. Your mama took care of the younger children, almost like they were her own. Little Pug was always sickly and never did walk right after he got over the polio. And Gwendolyn was prone to fits—screaming and kicking and biting and crying! Gwendolyn was mad at the world. When your mama got engaged, Gwendolyn said if Sadie left, she’d holler and never shut up. So Sadie stayed right there.

LEONA
That’s so sad.

ORABELLE
It’s sad, all right, but Sadie shoulda left.

LEONA
Sounds to me like she couldn’t leave!

ORABELLE
It woulda been hard, but you reckon her life coulda got any harder than the one she lived?

(Orabelle looks into Leona’s eyes.)

How are you getting along with Gwendolyn and Little Pug these days?

LEONA (unconvincing)
We’re all right. I’m just trying to be agreeable, for the time being, til I can figure out what to do next. It’s best not to get Gwendolyn riled up.

RUBIE
That’s for sure.

(Orabelle pushes away her beans and gets up.)

ORABELLE
You’re living out the consequence of your mama’s broken promise. But now, your heart’s the one hurting. You ready to get it, Sweetie? My wheelbarrow’s right outside.

LEONA
I’m not sure. Is it big?

ORABELLE
Huge.

(Leona looks surprised.)

Weighs a ton. You might need to come back one day with a trailer. Them promises, they get heavier and heavier, unless the one who breaks ‘em finds some way through the guilt.

(Orabelle gets her wheelbarrow from just offstage.)

LEONA
How do you push ‘em around in that wheelbarrow, then?

ORABELLE
They ain’t too heavy to me, cause they ain’t no relation. I reckon all my old promises gone and jumped in somebody else’s wheelbarrow.

LEONA
You got lots of promises you’re keeping?

ORABELLE
All shapes and sizes, from all over this county! Come look.

(They cross to the wheelbarrow. Orabelle reaches in and pulls out a leaf.)

ORABELLE
Now this one here, this is a child’s promise. Buy me a stereo and I’ll never cuss again.

LEONA (gullible)
I don’t see nothing but a leaf.

ORABELLE
Open your mind, child!

(Orabelle puts the leaf back in the wheelbarrow and pulls out a stick.)

And this one here, this is “I’ll guard it with my life.” This promise was made by a man from over the swamp who was looking after his friend’s chainsaw. He let somebody else borry it, and it broke all to pieces.

LEONA
That promise—it looks a lot like a twig.

ORABELLE
Don’t let that fool you. Things aren’t always what they seem.

RUBIE
Granny straightened me out a while back, Leona. Taught me to see beyond the obvious. You hang around her long enough and you’ll start doing it, too.

(Pause.)

But you know what bothers me? Some of these promises don’t sound serious enough for people to suffer the guilt all their lives. A girl who said she wouldn’t cuss and then did? How bad is that?

(Leona shakes her head.)

ORABELLE
Ain’t up to us to judge the weight of another’s promise.

(Orabelle reaches back into the wheelbarrow and pulls out a dried flower)

This one is “I’ll love you till I die.” That’s a serious turn-of-phrase, cause you just never know what love will do. But I tell you what—people say it all the time. “I’ll love you till I die!” Then some bigger love comes along and swallows up the littler love, and they can’t do nothing about it. If you ask me, we’d all be better off saying “I’ll love you long as I can.” ‘Course, that kinda love don’t make people feel too secure.

(Leona backs away from the wheelbarrow. She looks woozy.)

LEONA
Oh, Lordgod . . .

RUBIE
You all right?

LEONA
I just about saw that one. I just about saw it!

ORABELLE
That’s how it works. You start to see ‘em when they hit home. Did you tell somebody you’d love ‘em till you died and then quit loving ‘em?

LEONA
No, ma’am! I certainly did not! I just got dizzy cause I thought for a second I saw that promise!

ORABELLE
Well, don’t act so surprised, Darling. Did you think I was making this up?

(Pause.)

Maybe you saw it cause it’s a kindred promise—like your mama’s.

LEONA
It’s getting late. I should go. I told Little Pug I’d take him to the flea market.

ORABELLE
The flea market ain’t even open today, child.

(Pause.)

Maybe you saw that promise cause you so much like your mama, confusing love with responsibility just like she did.

LEONA
Really, I gotta go. I can take Little Pug to the dumpsters behind the dime store. You know how he loves to look for vacuum cleaner parts.

(Orabelle scowls.)

RUBIE
Let her go, Granny.

ORABELLE
She can go if she wants to, but there ain’t no need to make up stories about flea markets and dumpsters! I don’t think she likes my promises, Rubie.

LEONA
I do like your promises. But they make me kind of—sad.

ORABELLE
Sad? They shouldn’t make you sad. They should make you proud to be an American!

(Rubie rolls her eyes.)

Here in America, we’re free to break our promises! Sometimes it’s a real good thing!

(She digs around in her wheelbarrow.)

Who’ll explain it to her? Where’s the teacher? I know the teacher can make her understand!

(PROMISE #2 enters, looking uncomfortable.)

Go ahead. Tell ‘em what you did!

PROMISE #2
Well, my first year teaching, I had a third-grade class at Sunnybrook Elementary. Most of the students came from loving homes, but there was one girl who was a raggedy mess. Nobody combed her hair, and her clothes were stained and dirty. I never met her parents. I think they were on drugs. They never came to the PTA.

So one day when she had the croop and I had to keep her in at recess, I asked her to help me clean out the coat closet. There was a sweater in there with little bluebells embroidered all around the collar. I’d made it myself, but the arms shrunk up when I washed it. So I gave it to her and told her it was left over from the year before. She nearly coughed herself to death trying to thank me, and when I asked her how she got so sick, she said it was a secret.

I told her I could keep a secret. And she said, “Promise?” and I crossed my heart without even thinking about it. . . . Then she said that she’d sassed at her father, and he’d locked her out of the house in just her pajamas. She’d spent the night beneath the trailer, curled up on some blankets with the dog! I had to call social services, of course. They put her in foster care, and she didn’t come back to my class after that.

I went to visit her once, and she was wearing my sweater. She had her knees pulled up, and the sweater stretched over them. She wouldn’t talk to me at all. But those bluebells I’d embroidered around the collar, they just gaped at me—Seems like they accused me of unthinkable things.

ORABELLE
Oh, honey. You did the best you knew.

(She offers the promise her arm, and they begin their exit with the wheelbarrow.)

You did the best you knew!

(Rubie and Leona begin clearing the stage.)

LEONA
I always thought of broken promises as clear-cut. Like a man leaves his wife for another woman.

RUBIE
Yeah, but it’s not always that simple. Sometimes you think you’re doing right, when maybe you’re not—

(Rubie gets the pans and baskets of butterbeans and exits.)

LEONA
Like when you left here and broke your promise to open a flower shop with me? Rubie? Are you trying to apologize for that?

(LIGHTS SHIFT to Little Pug who examines a vacuum cleaner. He pushes it around, then turns it upside down and runs his hand over the rollers. Leona approaches.)

LEONA
Whatcha doing?

LITTLE PUG
Hey-oh there! Got me some work. Jack Flanagan dropped off his vacuum. Ain’t sucking right.

LEONA
What’s wrong with it?

LITTLE PUG
There’s a lot can go wrong with a vacuum. This one here is from his mobile home dealership. They vacuum every mobile home on the lot twice a week. So it might be plum wore out. Or it might have something to do with this little blue cord that’s all knotted up around the roller.

(Little Pug hands Leona the end of the blue cord and she tugs it.)

LEONA
Where’s Gwendolyn?

LITTLE PUG
Jack Flanagan’s pushing her around in the wheelchair.

LEONA
How come?

LITTLE PUG
Got no idea. Maybe they’re a’courtin’.

(The blue cord gives a bit and Leona stumbles. Little Pug giggles. Leona coils up the cord and begins pulling again.)

LEONA
Jack’s a married man.

LITTLE PUG
Well, I know that, but every time one of his commercials comes on the television, Gwendolyn cries and says she was supposed to be his wife. You never know. Jack Flanagan could be stepping out.

LEONA
Little Pug, do you remember Mama ever having a boyfriend?

LITTLE PUG
Yep.

LEONA
Did he come around a lot?

LITTLE PUG
All the time. Went hunting with Pop on Saturdays, too.

LEONA
Why didn’t you ever tell me?

LITTLE PUG
You never asked.

LEONA
Did he—love Mama?

LITTLE PUG
I don’t know if he loved her, but he bought her a blue French hen out of a catalogue. Come in a wooden crate and had the funniest looking beak you ever seen.

LEONA
You reckon he was my daddy?

LITTLE PUG
The blue hen? Nah.

LEONA
I mean the boyfriend.

LITTLE PUG
Could be.

(The blue cord finally comes free. Leona balls it up while Pug spins the roller on the vacuum.)

LEONA
How come they didn’t get married?

LITTLE PUG
Cause she didn’t need a husband.

(Laughter is heard from offstage.)

She had us.

(JACK FLANAGAN pushes Gwendolyn in from the side. He spins her in the wheelchair, zig zags her around.)

GWENDOLYN
Oh, me. Oh, Jack. You just tickle the stuffing out of me.

JACK FLANAGAN
Well, honey, it tickles me to tickle you! Now if you need me to drive you to the chiropractor again, all you have to do is call. You got my beeper number?

GWENDOLYN
It’s right here.

(She pats her bra.)

I always keep your card where I can reach it.

(Gwendolyn and Jack both notice Leona.)

JACK FLANAGAN
Hey there, Dollbaby. How you getting along?

LEONA (suspiciously)
All right.

GWENDOLYN
Jack, you want some cake? Leona can get you a piece.

(Leona scowls)

JACK FLANAGAN
Nah, I gotta get back to work. We got a shipment of brand new double-wides coming, and I gotta make space on the lot. Got some of the prettiest double-wides you ever seen—just loaded, some of ‘em with jacuzzi tubs.

GWENDOLYN
Oh, I love a jacuzzi tub.

(Leona rolls her eyes)

JACK FLANAGAN
One day when you’re out and about, stop by the lot and have Cynthia page me. I’ll give you a private tour.

(Jack winks.)

GWENDOLYN
Sounds fabulous.

JACK FLANAGAN
You think about my proposition now, Gwendolyn, and we’ll talk.

(Jack kisses Gwendolyn on the cheek.)

Thank you for checking that vacuum for me, Pug. I’ll stop back by in a day or two.

LITTLE PUG
Yep. all right.

(Jack exits. Little Pug removes the vacuum cleaner hose, peers inside it.)

LEONA
What kind of proposition is he talking about?

GWENDOLYN
A lady don’t have to share her private business.

LEONA
Come on. Tell us.

GWENDOLYN
Not about to!

LITTLE PUG
Did he put the moves on you, Gwen?

GWENDOLYN (laughing/snorting)
Ah, Pug. You know better than that. Jack Flanagan’s a gentleman from the get-go.

LITTLE PUG (mischieviously)
You reckon a gentleman gets hair-balls?

(Gwendolyn puts both hands over her mouth.)

GWENDOLYN
You bring out the devil in me, Little Pug. Let’s see what kinda clogs he’s got!

(She claps her hands, then addresses Leona.)

Get us a fresh Ziplock. I’d get one myself, but my legs are so weak.

LITTLE PUG
And bring back our prize-winners so we can compare ‘em!

(Leona hesitates. She’s about to say something, but doesn’t. She exits. Little Pug reaches into the hose, then gets a stick and pokes it in.)

GWENDOLYN
Be careful now. Don’t break it.

(Little Pug performs delicate surgery, his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth as he works. Leona returns, gives the bags to Gwendolyn.)

GWENDOLYN
Which ones did you bring?

(She reads like a first grader, broken.)

Clog from Buster Peavey’s Hoovervac, 1994. Lily Gresham’s cat-hair wedge, 2001.

LITTLE PUG
I just about got it.

(Leona holds open a bag, her face turned away. Little Pug pulls out the thick, matted clog and drops it in.)

GWENDOLYN
Woo-wee. It’s a beauty. Hand it here.

(She admires the hairball.)

That Jack Flanagan—his wife’s not much of a housekeeper, is she? You know, if it hadn’t been for you, Little Pug, I’d have married Jack Flanagan. But I couldn’t leave you. I knew my priorities.

LITTLE PUG
You ain’t never took care of me, Gwendolyn. And Jack Flanagan ain’t never had no use for you.

(Leona hands the bag to Gwendolyn and dusts her hands.)

GWENDOLYN
I’ll have you know Jack Flanagan was my first date. He took me to the Park ‘n Blow and ordered us a vanilla milkshake with two straws.

LITTLE PUG
That’s a flat-out lie. You ain’t never been on a date in your life.

GWENDOLYN
Shut up, Little Pug!

(Little Pug begins sucking the back of his hand. Leona helps him put the vacuum back together.)

GWENDOLYN
One time when we was teenagers, me and Jack played Mary and Joseph in the Christmas Pageant. Did you know that, Leona?

(Leona shakes her head.)

LITTLE PUG
You a’lyin again, Gwendolyn.

GWENDOLYN (through gritted teeth)
You startin to aggravate me. I’m warning you.

LITTLE PUG
Jack Flanagan didn’t like you. He made fun of you like everybody else.

(Gwendolyn jumps out of the wheelchair as if she’s going to attack Little Pug. Leona gets between them, holds up the front-plate of the vacuum like a shield.)

GWENDOLYN
I’m gonna beat him till he bleeds. I’m gonna kill him.

(Gwendolyn opens up the ziplock and dumps the hairball on the floor. Then she jumps on it and flattens it. Little Pug inhales rapidly.)

That’s what I think of your hairballs. You hear me? You ain’t nothing but a hairball yourself. A pathetic little wedge of trash!

(Little Pug takes his vacuum and darts off stage. Gwendolyn studies the mashed hairball.)

GWENDOLYN
Well looka there!

(Gwendolyn gets down on her knees, begins looking through the mess.)

LEONA
What is it?

GWENDOLYN
I don’t know. A little pink sparkly thing. Must be one of Jack’s granddaughter’s play-things. But it’d make a pretty ring, wouldn’t it?

(She holds it up for Leona to see. Then she licks the sparkly thing and sticks it to her finger. Leona winces. Gwendolyn walks back over to the wheelchair and sits down.)

I now pronounce you Man and Wife.

(She laughs and holds her finger out for Leona to admire.)

That’s how it should’ve been, Leona. That’s how it should’ve been.

(Gwendolyn show off her fake engagement ring to imaginary admirers as Leona pushes her offstage. Little Pug comes out and vacuums up the dirt. LIGHTS SHIFT to Orabelle and Rubie who set up a card table and some chairs. Leona joins them and they sit at the table playing Rummy.)

ORABELLE
Rummy on the board!

(She picks up the cards and makes a play.)

If I had a dollar for every time you threw out a card that plays, I’d be a rich woman. What’s got you so distracted, Leona?

LEONA
Yesterday we got seven calls from bill collectors! I keep telling Gwendolyn not to answer the phone, but she likes to talk to ‘em. ‘Course she denies that we owe ‘em any money.

(Leona shakes her head.)

I don’t know what to do with Gwendolyn. I’ve tried to stand up to her. Then I’ve tried to be nice to her. But nothing works. And she won’t even admit that we’re broke. I need to get a job.

ORABELLE
Maybe you could apply at that garden center over in Conway.

LEONA
It wouldn’t pay enough to help.

RUBIE
Might help a little.

(She draws.)

LEONA
If it wasn’t for somebody’s broken promise, I might be a wealthy flower shop owner right this minute.

RUBIE
I know you not gonna blame it on me that you don’t have a job!

LEONA
You were supposed to open a flower shop with me! Then you up and left on graduation night, hopped a Greyhound to Lord-knows where—

(Rubie discards.)

RUBIE
To bootcamp—And it wasn’t graduation night, either. It was two weeks after.

(to Orabelle)

You see! I told you she was still mad about that.

ORABELLE
Ah, Rubie, she reeled you right in! And you let her. You gotta do a better job of listening to what’s behind the words. Otherwise, you’ll always be a sucker.

(Leona and Rubie both look surprised. Leona draws, then discards quickly. Orabelle addresses her.)

And you gotta quit feeling so sorry for yourself.

LEONA
It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life.

RUBIE
It was a game, Leona. Just like this. I was eight years old when I told you I’d open a flower shop with you.

LEONA
It was more than a game to me. Remember those hollyberry wreaths we made? All the arrangements of daisies in Co-cola bottles?

(Orabelle draws, studies her card.)

You never even apologized.

RUBIE
There’s nothing to apologize for!

ORABELLE
Y’all quit acting like children.

(Orabelle lays out her cards.)

I’m out. I’m the Rummy-Queen again!

(to Leona)

If you need a job so bad, you oughta think about driving a school bus. I hear they’re hiring for the fall.

LEONA (pouty)
I could do that, I reckon—

(She gathers the cards, starts shuffling them.)

RUBIE
I could see you being a bus driver. You remember that day on the bus?

(Leona smiles, lays the cards back down.)

We had this substitute bus driver one time who wanted to segregate the bus, Granny. She had better sense than to try to divide it front and back, but she wanted to sit the white children on one side and the black children on the other.

LEONA
But Rubie’d already sat down with me. The driver told her to move, said the bus weren’t rolling until Rubie was on the other side.

ORABELLE
Seems like I do remember—

RUBIE
When I didn’t get up, she came huffing down that aisle like an old bull, and said, “Move over, chocolate-chip!”

LEONA
And Rubie said, “You can’t make me move! There’s laws against that now.”

RUBIE
And then I said, “I’m sitting with Leona. She’s my cousin.”

LEONA
I hate to admit it, but when you said you were my cousin, I felt the tater-tots I’d had for lunch rise up sour in my throat!

RUBIE
What else could you have felt? Look where we grew up. But you didn’t deny it or try to push me off the seat.

LEONA
I wouldn’t have never pushed you off the seat.

ORABELLE
Family ain’t just about blood. Family ain’t really about blood at all.

LEONA
That’s not what Gwendolyn says!

ORABELLE
You believe everything Gwendolyn says? You give her too much power, Leona. You a grown woman. Time you started acting like it.

(Leona nods, goes over and hugs Orabelle. LIGHTS DIM. They begin to exit, taking chairs with them. Orabelle cackles.)

ORABELLE (exiting)
I’ll whip you again!

(In dim-light, Gwendolyn enters, pushes her wheelchair to the table, then sets up a free-standing TV and a rug to make a family-room. She takes her seat in the wheelchair. LIGHTS COME UP on Leona standing by a table and arranging rollers by size. She combs Gwendolyn’s hair.)

GWENDOLYN
Owie!

LEONA
Sorry. I’ll go easier.

GWENDOLYN
You must think my head’s made of leather. I don’t see why I couldn’t just go to the beauty parlor. They don’t yank my head around like you do.

LEONA
We’re broke, Gwendolyn. The beauty parlor charges fifty dollars to do it, and I’m free.

GWENDOLYN
You exaggerate everything. We ain’t broke. I got a whole checkbook full of checks in there.

(She laughs.)

LEONA
I’m gonna give you the beauty shop experience right here. Fix you up so pretty!

GWENDOLYN
If it looks good, I might go to church tomorrow. Maybe Jack Flanagan’ll be there. You reckon they got a wheelchair ramp at the church?

LEONA
You know, I been studying the family files.

GWENDOLYN
I know you have, and I don’t like it a bit. You used to have more respect! You got no business looking at the files til me and Pug’s both dead, and that’s a long way off, Missy! Owie!

LEONA
We’re low on money, Gwendolyn. We need to sell some of this land.

GWENDOLYN
You don’t need to worry about that.

LEONA
I’m gonna get a job, too. I been looking in the papers.

GWENDOLYN
You got a job already. You gotta take care of us. You gave us your word, Leona.

LEONA
You’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.

GWENDOLYN
What if something happened? I can’t get around, with these poor old twisted vertebrae. What if Little Pug’s dog dropped his mess in the floor and I drove my wheelchair through it. Who’d clean it up?

LEONA
The car insurance comes due next month. Only thing I can figure is that we can turn off the air conditioner. We might save enough on electric to cover the insurance.

GWENDOLYN
We ain’t turning off the AC, I’ll tell you that right now. You know what I hate the most? Hot toothpaste. I’d rather not brush my teeth at all than use hot toothpaste.

LEONA
We can put the toothpaste in the fridgedaire.

GWENDOLYN
My disability comes every month—and Little Pug’s disability.

LEONA
It’s not enough.

GWENDOLYN
You can fill out some new forms, and they’ll send us more money. Now that my legs don’t work, I oughta get more disability.

LEONA
It don’t work like that—

GWENDOLYN
I’ll figure it out. I got some ideas.

LEONA
Just listen to me. Tilt your chin down.

(She begins to roll the back of Gwendolyn’s head.)

We’ve got a total of fifty-eight acres right now.

GWENDOLYN
Sixty.

LEONA
No, I just looked at the files. This farm’s got forty-eight, and then the Junior Baskins farm’s got another ten.

(Gwendolyn undoes a roller.)

GWENDOLYN
You gotta redo this one. It’s pulling.

(Leona rolls it again.)

And check your math. The Junior Baskins farm’s got twelve acres.

LEONA
Granny sold two acres to Miss Orabelle back in ‘79, remember?

GWENDOLYN
That ought not count. Probably weren’t even legal.

(Leona jerks Gwendolyn’s head.)

Owie!

LEONA
It was perfectly legal.

GWENDOLYN
I bet you when she died and crossed the River Jordan, Jesus Christ himself was waiting to give her forty lashes for selling land to a nigger. You ‘member how mad he got when the Philistines gambled in his temple that time?

(Leona jerks her head again)

Owie!

LEONA
I’d hoped you’d changed your attitude by now.

GWENDOLYN
Ain’t nothing wrong with my attitude.

LEONA
Tilt your head down.

(Leona begins applying the permanent solution.)

I was thinking we might sell the ten acres on the Junior Baskins farm, and that’d give us money to get back on our feet. We could get three-thousand an acre. I’ve been looking in the newspapers at the real estate section.

GWENDOLYN
I’m gonna take that newspaper away from you. Hand me that rag.

(Leona passes a rag to Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn mops her face and neck.)

LEONA
The land does nobody no good just sitting there.

GWENDOLYN
Our family has always owned this land. We ain’t selling it.

LEONA
Well I hope these growed-up fields can comfort you when they cut off our lights and you can’t watch your soap operas.

GWENDOLYN
You’re just trying to terrorize me to get your way. They won’t cut off our lights, cause our family has a name. They know who we are.

LEONA
They don’t care who we are.

GWENDOLYN
Blasphemy!

(Leona tucks cotton around Gwendolyn’s hair line.)

LEONA
How ‘bout if we sold part of the Junior Baskins farm? Just a couple of acres.

GWENDOLYN
I told you no!

LEONA
I already got a buyer, Gwen, preapproved for financing. And if we sell some land, there might even be enough money for us to go on vacation.

(Little Pug runs in.)

LITTLE PUG
Disneyworld. Disneyworld. I want to stay in a motel with Daffy the Duck.

GWENDOLYN (considering)
I ain’t never stayed in a motel. Always wanted to.

LITTLE PUG
Come here, Boy-dog!

(He slaps at his thigh.)

LEONA
We could just sell a little bit—and none of the land we live on. So you wouldn’t really even know the difference.

GWENDOLYN
I reckon we don’t need all this land. The Junior Baskins is red-clay anyway. Who’d buy it?

LEONA
Rubie Drake.

GWENDOLYN
Rubie Drake? Are you shitting me, Leona? You pulling my leg? Didn’t you just hear me say what I thought of selling land to niggers? And to a lady faggot nigger at that!

LITTLE PUG
At Disneyworld, you get to shake the hands of the greatest cartoon characters ever walked the face of this earth. And that’s where Cinderella lives, Gwendolyn, in a castle in the clouds. And all them firecrackers going off every night in the sky!

GWENDOLYN
You expect me to sell land to a nigger woman who wears a uniform? I know you’ve lost your mind.

(Leona wraps Gwendolyn’s head in a plastic bag and pins it up.)

I can’t even take you seriously anymore. It’s a good thing me and Pug are still alive to keep you in line, ain’t it Pug?

(Leona pushes Gwendolyn to the living area, facing the TV. Little Pug sits down on the rug, begins playing tug-of-war with a dog toy.)

LEONA
Just think about it.

GWENDOLYN
You beat all I’ve ever seen, do you know that? I don’t know whether to slap you or to laugh in your face. Turn it to channel four.

LITTLE PUG
And Boy-Dog can stay at the Disneyworld Pet-Motel and play with Goofy and Bambi and the little skunk. Ain’t there a little skunk?

GWENDOLYN
If we go on vacation, we’ll have to leave your dog in the chicken-coop, Pug.

LITTLE PUG
Nah, now, Gwendolyn. Boy-Dog wants to ride on an airplane, too. Can we ride on an airplane, Leona?

LEONA
We might can, if we go ahead and sell the land.

LITTLE PUG (to Boy-Dog)
You can play with the little skunk.

GWENDOLYN
You can tell Rubie Drake to look elsewhere for land. She can buy land from somebody else, but she ain’t buying it from me.

(Leona crosses back to table and begins to clean up the permanent stuff and fold up rags. Gwendolyn addresses Little Pug.)

You keep that dog away from me, you hear?

LITTLE PUG
He ain’t bothering you!

GWENDOLYN (hollering back)
My head’s a’burning.

LEONA
Do you act like this at the beauty parlor? Just hang on.

GWENDOLYN
I can’t stand it! Wash this mess outta my hair.

(Leona checks her watch.)

LEONA
You don’t have but a few more minutes.

GWENDOLYN (shouting)
Get that dog away from me, damnit!

LITTLE PUG
He ain’t hurting nothing.

(A dog cries out. Leona runs to them.)

LEONA
What’d you do?

(Little Pug is on hands and knees, looking behind the TV.)

LITTLE PUG
She kicked his guts out. Why’d you kick his guts out, Gwendolyn?

GWENDOLYN
The little bastard deserved it. He was eating my Isotoner.

LITTLE PUG
Come here, Boy-Dog. Come here, little buddy.

GWENDOLYN
He bit me!

LEONA
He’s just teething.

GWENDOLYN
Don’t you mock me! If you’d felt them little needle teeth, you’d a’kicked him too.

LITTLE PUG
He’s hurt.

GWENDOLYN
He ain’t hurt. His pride might be hurt, but I ain’t hurt him.

(Leona goes over and examines the dog.)

He’s sleeping outside from now on. You hear me? Get him out of this house right this second!

LEONA
I’m not putting up with this anymore! It’s Little Pug’s house too, and he can keep his dog wherever he wants.

GWENDOLYN
Little Pug will do what I say. And so will you. You used to have more respect, before you started hanging out with the niggers. If I could make these legs walk, I’d kick you, Leona. I’d stomp you right through the floor.

LEONA
That’s some back problem you got. Them legs won’t work for you to walk to the kitchen, but when the dog plays with your bedroom-shoe, they’re strong enough to kick him across the room.

(Gwendolyn jumps up from her wheelchair. She and Leona stand face to face.)

You better be careful. Cause I’ll leave that permanent in til you don’t have a hair left in your head.

(Gwendolyn reaches up and touches the plastic on her head. Then she begins crying loudly.)

LITTLE PUG
I’ll take him out. Gwendolyn, do you hear me? I’ll take him out right now.

GWENDOLYN (shouting)
Get him out! I can’t stand that dog. I don’t never want to see him again.

(Leona wipes the spit off her face.)

LITTLE PUG
Don’t be upset, Gwendolyn. I’m gonna take him out right now.

LEONA (to Little Pug)
This ain’t about your dog, Pug. It’s about selling the land to Rubie.

GWENDOLYN (roaring)
I ain’t selling no land to Rubie and I don’t never want to hear another word about it.

LEONA
Quit that hollering!

GWENDOLYN
Don’t tell me what to do, you ugly little bastard.

(Gwendolyn puts her hands over her ears and begins to yell.)

LITTLE PUG
You don’t have to never see him again, Gwendolyn, I promise.

(Leona shoves Gwendolyn down into the wheelchair. Gwendolyn is surprised and stops screaming. Everything is silent except for a buzzer. Gwendolyn reaches up and touches the plastic bag on her head.)

GWENDOLYN (whimpering, child-like)
My hair. You gonna ruin my hair.

LITTLE PUG
Boy-Dog can sleep outside from now on.

LEONA (to Little Pug)
Run get her a nerve pill. They’re in the bathroom cabinet.

(Little Pug exits, grabbing the table as he goes. Leona pushes Gwendolyn’s wheelchair away.)

GWENDOLYN
You gonna burn my hair up.

LEONA
It’s all right. Let’s wash it out.

(They exit. LIGHTS SHIFT to Orabelle who is holding up things from her wheelbarrow and tending them. Leona enters, and Orabelle shows her several things—a rock, a bug, a shell.)

LEONA
No offense, Miss Orabelle, but this is depressing. Why do I have to keep hearing about all these promises? Is this supposed to make me feel better or worse? I can’t tell.

ORABELLE
There’s no desired outcome, Sugar. They’re just here to keep you company.

LEONA
But why?

ORABELLE
You mean you’re not ready to break your promise yet? I thought you’d come to leave it.

LEONA
I just came to see Rubie and tell her that Gwendolyn won’t sell her the land. I’m gonna have to think of some other way to keep us out of bankruptcy.

ORABELLE
Well, never mind then.

LEONA
Don’t look at me like that, Miss Orabelle. I haven’t broken any promise! When I agree to something, that means something to me. Back when I was in high school, I volunteered to be a bell-ringer for the Salvation Army at Christmas-time, and I’ve done it every year since. I don’t even know whether the Salvation Army is a good cause or not. I ring that bell anyway, because I said I would!

ORABELLE
Well, that’s pure silly, Leona. Sometimes promises have to be broke. Sometimes there’s a good reason.

LEONA (flustered)
You’re just saying that to defend Rubie—cause she broke her promise to me to stay here and help me open that flower shop!

(Orabelle shakes her head, fiddles with promises.)

She probably broke a promise to you, too, didn’t she? When she went away and left here, traveled all over the place for all them years and left you by yourself? You’re probably mad at her too.

ORABELLE
Now don’t go confusing your anger with mine! If Rubie’d stayed here, she would’ve been hell to live with, cause she wanted to roam. You can’t expect somebody to do for you before you let them do for their-ownself.

LEONA
They expected it of me! Mama and Gwendolyn and Little Pug—the whole lot of ‘em.

ORABELLE
Don’t fall back in that sad-sack rut, Leona! Promises change. They grow into new promises—or what do you call it? They evolve. You gotta be respectful, give’em room to develop. You ever seen a woman with her titties squished into a too-little bra? They just pop out around the edges. Can’t force ‘em into something that use to fit. I believe in bra-burning. Always have.

LEONA
You make it sound like breaking promises is a good thing.

ORABELLE
Ain’t no good or bad to it. And once you break a promise, it don’t just go away. You gotta live with a broken promise as surely as you live with one you keep.

(She points out into the audience.)

Look ayonder! That’s a new promise coming now.

(Leona peers out.)

LEONA
Where?

ORABELLE
Right there! See it? Oh, that one’s coming hard and fast.

(Orabelle takes Leona’s arm, prepares to run.)

Back up, Honey. That one’s gonna have a hard landing.

(LIGHTS SHIFT to Jack Flanagan and Gwendolyn. Jack wears a top-hat and tuxedo jacket. He tips his hat at Gwendolyn, bows.

On the other side of the stage, in the darkness, there’s a loud crash, like something heavy hitting the wheelbarrow, and a groan.

Jack and Gwendolyn both look in the direction of the wheelbarrow, shrug at each other, and then a waltz begins. Jack dances Gwendolyn around in her wheelchair, spinning her, moving her across the stage. Gwendolyn laughs, sighs. When the music ends, Jack faces Gwendolyn, bows again, and pulls papers from his pocket, which Gwendolyn signs on several pages. She holds her copies of the papers to her chest as Jack walks away. He has his copies rolled into a scroll, and he holds them up and shakes them victoriously. On the way offstage, he tosses his top-hat to the ground. Orabelle picks it up.

LIGHTS SHIFT to PROMISE #3, who stands behind Orabelle’s wheelbarrow.)

PROMISE #3
Never, never, never again! I swore I’d never let it happen again! I was done pretending to be somebody I wasn’t. I was done with painting my fingernails to look more ladylike, done with highlighting my hair. Done with bringing home my gay friends to stand in as my boyfriend so Mother could dream about my wedding. I was done with listening to my little cousins calling each other queers, and watching Papa do his droopy-arm pansy walk. I was done with church, where every description of Hell included murderers and homosexuals. Cause I’m not a murderer, do you get it? I’m not into bestiality or incest or porn or devil worship, and I’ve got better things to do than convert you or your children. Is that clear?

(Leona nods)

ORABELLE
Preach it, sister.

PROMISE #3
The deception is eating me alive. My mother would rather I married a hateful man than live with a loving woman. Can you believe that? Cause if it looks right, it IS right to her.

ORABELLE
But it ain’t right to you.

PROMISE #3
No ma’am.

ORABELLE
It’s a shame.

LEONA
Excuse me? Did you break some kind of promise?

PROMISE #3 (crumpling)
I lost my nerve.

(Pause.)

My nephew was playing the violin in church, and he asked me to come hear him. I couldn’t very well leave when the music was over, with my whole family sitting there, so I stayed through the sermon. As an illustration of the scriptures, the preacher told a story about how his son had been given a birthday present—a shirt made by some famous designer. The son really liked the shirt, but the preacher made him take it back to the store and exchange it because the designer’s a fag, and Christians don’t support that lifestyle or wear the clothes made my people who do.

You gotta understand, the gay-bashing wasn’t even the topic of the sermon. It was incidental—just an illustration of some bigger point. And I sat there with my family, sweaty and cold at the same time, and I didn’t say a thing. I didn’t stand up. I didn’t speak up. I didn’t even leave. I sat right there and watched that preacher and listened to my mother say, “Amen.”

(Promise #3 and Orabelle exit as LIGHTS SHIFT to Gwendolyn, who is now waltzing with her copies of the papers Jack gave her. She is no longer in her wheelchair, and she’s doing some impressive dance moves. Leona crosses over to her, and Gwendolyn grabs her arm and tries to dance, but Leona just stands still.)

GWENDOLYN
We going to Disneyworld after all. I’m sorry I called you a ugly little bastard. You ain’t really all that ugly. I was just mad.

LEONA
What’s that?

GWENDOLYN
The contract. I already signed it. I already got the check!

LEONA
What are you talking about?

GWENDOLYN
I sold the property to Jack, and we’re rich! I signed my name and Little Pug signed his name and Jack signed his name and the notary public put a stamp on it. Jack’s taking it to the courthouse now.

LEONA
Show me the contract.

GWENDOLYN
You can look at it later. You gotta take me to the bank to put the check in.

LEONA
Hand it here!

(Gwendolyn gives it to her and Leona begins to read.)

GWENDOLYN
See, you think you’re the only one who knows how to do business, but I know how to do business too. And you weren’t gonna get but thirty-thousand. I got eighty!

(Little Pug enters looking dejected, sucking on the back of his hand.)

LEONA (to Pug)
Did you sign your name?

LITTLE PUG
Yep.

GWENDOLYN (to Pug)
Did you do what I told you to?

LITTLE PUG
No, not yet. But—

GWENDOLYN
Go do it. And hurry up. We gotta get to the bank, and after that, we’re going to the travel agent. Do we have a travel agent?

LITTLE PUG
I can’t do it, Gwendolyn.

(Leona holds up the papers.)

LEONA
Little Pug, do you know what this means?

LITTLE PUG
Yep.

(He pulls his cap down hard over his eyes.)

GWENDOLYN
You wanna go to Disneyworld, don’t you?

LITTLE PUG
I reckon.

GWENDOLYN
Then go do it! And don’t come back in here again til you do!

(Little Pug exits. Leona sits down and continues to flip through the papers. She looks faint.)

LEONA
How did Jack Flanagan get this together so fast?

GWENDOLYN
He’s been wanting to buy the property for ages. That day he took me to the chiropractor we talked about it. I told him I wasn’t ready to sell, but he was welcome to draw up the paperwork and make me an offer. He got somebody to come out and take pictures. A survey, I believe they call it. Didn’t you see all the little orange flags?

LEONA
Rubie was gonna pay us thirty-thousand for the Junior Baskins Farm. That’s just ten acres. You sold Jack all the land—every bit of it—for eighty.

(Leona continues to read.)

GWENDOLYN
Eighty thousand dollars is a lot of money!

LEONA
Gwendolyn, you sold him the house! And all the out-buildings.

GWENDOLYN
Yeah, but flip on over—see there? He’s giving us a double-wide trailer with one of them jacuzzi baths for my back! Brand new. I’ve been living in this old drafty farm-house my whole life, and now I’m gonna have a double-wide that nobody’s ever lived in before.

LEONA
Where you gonna put that trailer?

GWENDOLYN
In the backyard, I reckon. Jack’ll move into this house, and then we’ll have his little grandchildren playing in the yard. It’ll be nice. We can have Thanksgiving together. Maybe his wife’ll throw a blood-clot. I hear her cholesterol’s out the roof.

LEONA
Jack’ll put the trailer somewhere else.

GWENDOLYN
No he won’t. We got lifetime rights to stay on the land. You think I’m a fool? I wouldn’t have signed his papers if he could get rid of me!

LEONA
This is bad, Gwendolyn. We gotta call a lawyer, get it annulled or something.

GWENDOLYN
We ain’t gotta do nothing! And don’t tell me it’s bad. How bad can it be when I got a check right here for eighty thousand dollars? You just jealous cause you didn’t make the deal yourself. You’re like a little girl sometimes, ain’t you? Scared to death. We’ll take care of you, Leona. Don’t worry. We’ll make sure it’s a three-bedroom trailer.

(Offstage there’s a gunshot. Then a short pause and another gunshot. Leona jumps up.)

LEONA
Where’s Little Pug?

(Another offstage gunshot.)

GWENDOLYN
I’m allergic to that dog. That’s what’s been wrong with my legs. Finally figured it out.

(Little Pug enters, head down, dragging a shotgun.)

LEONA
What have you done?

LITTLE PUG
Two times I missed. But then I didn’t.

(LIGHTS OUT.)  

Act II

   Contributor’s notes
   Act Two

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