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14 MR. JENKINS (closing his eyes.) You never learn. (Reaches into can and pulls out a checker.) It’s red. MR. PARKER All right, I get the black. (Sits at the table and rushes to set up his men.) Get your men down, Jenkins! MR. JENKINS (Sits.) Aw man, take it easy, the checkers ain’t gon’ run away! (Setting his men up.) If you could play the game. I wouldn’t it-but you can’t play! ——Your move. MR. PARKER I’ll start here—— I just don’t want Adele to catch us here playing checkers. She gave me and the boys a notice last week that we had to get jobs or get out of the house. MR. JENKINS Don’t you think it’s about time you got a job? In the five years I’ve been knowing you, I can count the heads of hair you done cut in this shop on one hand. MR. PARKER This shop is gon’ work yet; I know it can just give me one more year and you’ll see...Going out to get a job ain’t gon’ solve nothing-all it’s gon’ do is create a lot of bad feelings with everybody. I can’t work! I don't know how to!(Moves checker.) MR. JENKINS I bet if all your children were living far from you like mine, you'd know how to. That's one thing I don't understand about you, Parker. How long do you expect your daughter to go on supporting you and those two boys? MR. PARKER I don't expect that! I just want some time until I can straighten things out. My dear Doris understood that. She understood me like a book. (Makes another move.) MR. JENKINS You mean to tell me your wife enjoyed working for you? 15 MR. PARKER Of course she didn't, but she never worried me. You been married, Jenkins: you know what happens to a man when a woman worries him all the time, and that's what Adele been doing, worrying my head off! (Makes another move.) MR. JENKINS Whatcha gon' do about it? MR. PARKER I'm gon' get tough, evil and bad. That the only sign a woman gets from a man. (Makes a move.) (THEOPOLIS PARKER enters briskly from street. He is in his twenties, of medium height, and has a lean solid physique. His younger brother BOBBY follows, carrying a huge paper bag whose contents are heavy and fragile.) THEO That's the way I like to hear you talk, Pop but she's gon' be walking through that door soon, and I wants see how tough you gon' be. MR. PARKER Leave me alone, boy. THEO Pop, we got six more days, you got to do something! MR. PARKER I'll do it when the time comes. THEO Pop, the time is now ((now is in italics)) MR. PARKER And right now I am playing a game of checkers with Mr. Jenkins, so leave me alone! THEO All right——don't say I didn't warn you when she locks us out of the house! (THEO and BOBBY rush through the back room. BOBBY places the brown bag into an old refrigerator as they dart
