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64 In fact, did you ever love her! No!!! MR. PARKER That's a lie! ADELE I hope that one day you'll be able to do one good thing to drive that doubt out of my mind. But this is not it! You've let this hoodlum sell you his twisted ideas of making a short cut through life. But let me tell you something - this bastard is going to ruin you! THEO (Into her face.) Start packing, baby! ADELE (Strikes him across the face.) Don't you talk to me like that! (He raises his hand to strike her back.) MR. PARKER Drop your hand, boy! (THEO does not respond.) I said, drop your goddamn hand! THEO She hit me! MR. PARKER I don't care if she had broken your jaw. If you ever draw your hand back to hit this girl again - as long as you live! You better not be in my hand reach when you do, 'cause I'll split you back in two! (To ADELE.) We're going into business, Adele. I have come to that and I have come into it on my own. I am going to stop worrying once and for all whether I live naked in the cold or whether I die like an animal, unless I can live the best way I know how to. I am getting old and I oughta have some fun. I'm going to get me some money and I'm going to spend it! I'm going to get drunk! I'm going to dance some more! I'm getting old! I'm going to fall in love one more time before I die! So get to that, girl, and if it's too much for you to bear, I won't hold it against you if you walked away from here this very minute- ADELE (Opens the door to the back room to show him the birth- day surprise she has from him.) Happy Birthday! 65 MR. PARKER (Goes into the room and stands over table where where birthday cake is.) I guess I fooled all of you. Today is not my birthday. It never was. (Moves up the stairs.) ADELE It's not going to work! You're going to cut your throat- you hear me! You're going to rip yourself into little pieces! (turns to THEO.) It's not going to be the way you want it—— because I know Mr. Blue Haven, and he is not a person to put your trust in. (THEO turns his back in her, heads for the shop door.)...I am talking to you! THEO (Stops and turns.) Why don't you leave us alone. You're the one who said we had to go out and do something. Well, we did, but we're doing it our way. Me and Bobby, we're men—— if we lived the way you wanted us to, we wouldn't have nothing but big fat veins popping out of our heads. ADELE I'll see what kind of men you are every time a cop walks through that door, every time a stranger steps into this back room and you can't be too sure about him, and the day they drag your own father off and throw him into a jail cell. THEO But tell me, what else is there left for us to do. You tell me and I'll do it. You show me where I can go spin the world around before it gets too late for somebody like Mama living fifty years just to die on 126th Street! You tell me of a place where there are no old crippled vaudeville men! ADELE There is no such place. (Pause.) But you don't get so hung up about it you have to plunge a knife into your own body. You don't bury yourself here
