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22 settle this later on, Adele... ADELE We settle it now. You got six days left, so you gotta do something, and quick, I got a man coming here tomorrow to change the locks on the door. So for the little time you have left, you'll have to come by me to enter this house. THEO Who gives you the right to do that? ADELE Me, Adele Eloise Parker, black, over twenty-one, and the only working person in this house! (Pause.) I am not going to let the three of you drive me into the grave the way you did Mama. And if you really want to know how I feel about that, I'll tell you: Mama killed herself because there was no kind of order in this house. There was nothing but her old-fashion love for a bum like you, Theo - and this one... (Points to BOBBY) - who's got nothing better to do with his time but to shop-lift every time he walks into a department store. And you, Daddy, you and those fanciful stories you're always ready to tell, and all the talk of the good old days when you were the big vaudeville star, of hitting the numbers, big. How? How, Daddy? The money you spent on the numbers you got from Mama... In a way, you let Mama make a bum out of you - you let her kill herself! MR. PARKER That's a terrible thing to say, Adele, and I'm not going to let you put that off on me! ADELE But the fact remains that in the seven years you've been in this barbershop you haven't earned enough money to buy two hot dogs! Most of your time is spent playing checkers with that damn Mr. Jenkins. THEO (Breaks in.) Why don't you get married or something! WE don't need you - Pop is here, it's HIS HOUSE! ADELE You're lucky I don't get married and - THEO Nobody wants you, baby! ADELE (THEO's remark stops her for a moment. She resettles herself.) All right, you just let someone ask me, and I'll leave you with Pop, to stave with Pop. Or, there's another way: why don't the three of you just leave right now and try making it on your own? Why don't we try that! MR. PARKER What about my shop? ADELE Since I'm the one that has to pay the extra forty dollars a month for you to keep this place, there's going to be no more shop. It was a bad investment and the whole of Harlem knows it! MR. PARKER (Grabbing her by the arm, in desperation) I'm fifty-four years old ADELE (Pulling away.) Don't touch me! MR. PARKER You go ahead and do what you want, but I'm not leaving this shop! (Crosses away from her.) ADELE Can't you understand, Father! I can't go on forever supporting three grown men! That ain't right! (Long pause.) MR. PARKER (Shaken by her remarks.) No, it's not right - it's not right at all. ADELE - It's going to be you or me.
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