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30 THEO Who the hell is Adele? You're my father, you're the man of the house. MR. PARKER True, and that's what I intend to be, but until I get a job, I'm gon' play it cool. THEO You're going to let her push you out into the streets to hustle up a job. You're an old man. You ain't used to working, it might kill you. MR. PARKER Yeah, but what kind of leg do I have to stand on if she puts me out in the street? THEO She's bluffing! MR. PARKER A buddy of mine who was in this same kind of fix told me exactly what you just said. Well, the last time I saw him, he was standing on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 125th Street at four o'clock in the morning, twenty-degree weather, in nothing but his drawers, mumbling to himself, "I could've sworn she was bluffing!" THEO Hey, Pop! Let me put to you this way: if none of us come up with anything in that two-week deadline she gave us - none of us, you hear me? MR. PARKER I hear you and that's just about all. THEO Don't you get the point? That's three of us - you, me, and Bobby. What she gon' do? Throw the three of us out in the street? I tell you, she ain't gon' do that! MR. PARKER If you want to take that chance, that's your business, but don't try to make me take it with you. Anyway, it ain't right that she has to work for three grown men. I just ain't right. 31 THEO Mama did it for you. MR. PARKER (Sharply) That was different. She was my wife. She knew things about me you will never know. We oughtn' talk about her at all. THEO I'm sorry, Pop, but ever since Mama's funeral I've been thinking. Mama was the hardest-working person I ever knew, and it killed her! Is that what I'm supposed to do? No, that's not it, I know it's not. You know what I've been doing? I've been talking to some people, to a very important person right here in Harlem, and I told him about this big idea of mine- MR. PARKER You're loaded with ideas, boy-bad ideas! (Puts broom away.) THEO WHY DON'T YOU LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY! MR. PARKER Listen to you for what? Another con game you got up your sleeve because your sister's got fed up with you lying around this house all day while she's knocking herself out. You're pulling the same damn thing on me you did with those ugly paintings of yours a few minutes ago. THEO Okay, I can't paint. So I was jiving, but now I got something I really want to do——something I got to do! MR. PARKER If you're making a point, Theo, you've gotta be smarter than you're doing to get it through to me. THEO (Goes to back room, opens refrigerator, and take out brown-paper bag, then comes back into the shop.) Pop, I got something here to show how smart I really am. (Lifts an old jug out of the bag.) Check this out, Pop! Check it out!
