Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Preface to the Play

Mill Hand’s Lunch Bucket (Pittsburgh Memories)

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THE AUGUST WILSON CENTURY CYCLE

JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE
1911

August Wilson
FOREWORD BY ROMULUS LINNEY

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CHARACTERS
SETH HOLLY, owner of the boardinghouse.|
BERTHA HOLLY, his wife.
BYNUM WALKER, a rootworker.
RUTHERFORD SELIG, a peddler.
JEREMY FURLOW, a resident.
HERALD LOOMIS, a resident.
ZONIA LOOMIS, his daughter.
MATTIE CAMPBELL, a resident.
REUBEN MERCER, boy who lives next door.
MOLLY CUNNINGHAM, a resident.
MARTHA LOOMIS PENTECOST, Herald Loomis’s wife.

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SETTING
August 1911. A boardinghouse in Pittsburgh. At right is a kitchen. Two doors open off the kitchen. One leads to the outhouse and Seth’s workshop. The other to Seth’s and Bertha’s bed-room. At left is a parlor. The front door opens into the parlor, which gives access to the stairs leading to the upstairs rooms.

There is a small outside playing area.

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THE PLAY

It is August in Pittsburgh, 1911. The sun falls out of heaven like a stone. The fires of the steel mill rage with a combined sense of industry and progress. Barges loaded with coal and iron ore trudge up the river to the mill towns that dot the Monongahela and return with fresh, hard, gleaming steel. The city flexes its muscles. Men throw countless bridges across the rivers, lay roads and carve tunnels through the hills sprouting with houses.

From the deep and the near South the sons and daughters of newly freed African slaves wander into the city. Isolated, cut off from memory, having forgotten the names of the gods and only guessing at their faces, they arrive dazed and stunned, their heart kicking in their chest with a song worth singing.
They arrive carrying Bibles and guitars, their pockets lined with dust and fresh hope, marked men and women seeking to scrape from the narrow, crooked cobbles and the fiery blasts of the coke furnace a way of bludgeoning and shaping the malleable parts of themselves into a new identity as free men of definite and sincere worth.

Foreigners in a strange land, they carry as part and parcel of their baggage a long line of separation and dispersement which informs their sensibilities and marks their conduct as they search for ways to reconnect, to reassemble, to give clear and luminous meaning to the song which is both a wail and a whelp of joy.

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Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

Act One
SCENE 1

The lights come up on the kitchen. Bertha busies herself with breakfast preparations. Seth stands looking out the window at Bynum in the yard. Seth is in his early fifties. Born of Northern free parents, a skilled craftsman and owner of the boardinghouse, he has a stability that none of the other characters have Bertha is five years his junior. Married for over iwenty-five years, she has learned how to negotiate around Seth’s apparent orneriness.

SETH (At the window, laughing): If that ain’t the damndest thing I seen. Look here, Bertha.

BERTHA: I done seen Bynum out there with them pigeons before.

SETH: Naw . .. naw … look at this. That pigeon flopped out of Bynums hand and he about to have a fit (Bertha crosses over to the window.) He down there on his hands and knees behind that bush looking all over for that pigeon and it on the other side of the yard. See it over there?

BERTHA: Come on and get your breakfast and leave that man alone.

SETH: Look at him … he still looking. He ain’t seen it yet. All that old mumbo jumbo nonsense. I don’t know why I put up with it.

BERTHA: You don’t say nothing when he bless the house.

SETH: I just go along with that ’cause of you. You around here sprinkling salt all over the place … got pennies lined up across the threshold . .. all that heebie-jebie stuff. I just put up with that ’cause of you. I don’t pay that kind of stuff no mind. And you going down there to the church and wanna come come home and sprinkle salt all over the place.

BERTHA: It don’t hurt none. I can’t say if it help … but it don’t hurt none.

SETH: Look at him. He done found that pigeon and now he’s talking to it.

BERTHA: These biscuits be ready in a minute.

SETH: He done drew a big circle with that stick and now he’s dancing around. I know he’d better not … (Bolts from the window and rushes to the back door) Hey, Bynum! Don’t be hopping around stepping in my vegetables. Hey, Bynum .. Watch where you stepping!

BERTHA: Seth, leave that man alone.

SETH (Coming back into the house): I don’t care how much he be dancing around… Just don’t be stepping in my vegetables. Man got my garden all messed up now … planting them weeds out there . .. burying them pigeons and whatnot.

BERTHA: Bynum don’t bother nobody. He ain’t even thinking about your vegetables.

SETH: I know he ain’t! That’s why he out there stepping on them.

BERTHA: What Mr. Johnson say down there?

SETH: I told him if I had the tools I could go out here and find me four or five fellows and open up my own shop instead of working for Mr. Olowski. Get me four or five fellows and teach them how to make pots and pans. One man making ten pots is five men making fifty. He told me hed think about it.

BERTHA: Well, maybe he’ll come to see it your way.

SETH: He wanted me to sign over the house to him. You know what I thought of that idea.

BERTHA: He’ll come to see you’re right.

SETH: I’m going up and talk to Sam Green. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. I’m going up and talk to him. See if he got more sense than Mr. Johnson. I can’t get nowhere working for Mr. Olowski and selling Selig five or six pots on the side. I’m going up and see Sam Green. See if he loan me the money.
(Crosses back to the window) Now he got that cup. He done killed that pigeon and now he’s putting its blood in that little cup. I believe he drink that blood.

BERTHA: Seth Holly, what is wrong with you this morning? Come on and get your breakfast so you can go to bed. You know Bynum don’t be drinking no pigeon blood.

SETH: I don’t know what he do.

BERTHA: Well, watch him, then. Hé’s gonna dig a little hole and bury that pigeon. Then he’s gonna pray over that blood . .. pour it on top … mark out his circle and come on into the house.

SETH: That’s what he doing . .. he pouring that blood on top.

BERTHA: When they gonna put you back working daytime? Told me two months ago he was gonna put you back working daytime.

SETH: That’s what Mr. Olowski told me. I got to wait till he say when. He tell me what to do. I don’t tell him. Drive me crazy to speculate on the man’s wishes when he don’t know what he want to do himself.

BERTHA: Well, I wish he go ahead and put you back working daytime. This working all hours of the night don’t make no sense.

SETH: It don’t make no sense for that boy to run out of here and get drunk so they lock him up either.

BERTHA: Who? Who they got locked up for being drunk?

SETH: That boy that’s staying upstairs . . . Jeremy. I stopped down there on Logan Street on my way home from work and one of the fellows told me about it. Say he seen it when they arrested him.

BERTHA: I was wondering why I ain’t seen him this morning.

SETH: You know I don’t put up with that. I told him when he came. . .

(Bynum enters from the yard carrying some plants. He is a short, round man in his early sixties. A conjure man, or rootworker, he gives the impression of always being in control of everything. Nothing ever bothers him. He seems to be lost in a world of his own making and to swallow any adversity or interference with his grand design.)

What you doing bringing them weeds in my house? Out there stepping on my vegetables and now wanna carry them weeds in my house.

BYNUM: Morning, Seth. Morning, Sister Bertha.

SETH: Messing up my garden growing them things out there. I ought to go out there and pull up all them weeds.

BERTHA: Some gal was by here to see you this morning, Bynum. You was out there in the yard . .. I told her to come back later.

BYNUM (To Seth): You look sick. What’s the matter, you ain’t eating right?

SETH: What if I was sick? You ain’t getting near me with none of that stuff.

(Bertha sets a plate of biscuits on the table.)

BYNUM: My … my … Bertha, your biscuits getting fatter and fatter. (Takes a biscuit and begins to eat) Where Jeremy? I don’t see him around this morning. He usually be around riffing and raffing on Saturday morning.

SETH: I know where he at. I know just where he at. They got him down there in the jail. Getting drunk and acting a fool. He down there where he belong with all that foolishness.

BYNUM: Mr. Piney’s boys got him, huh? They ain’t gonna do nothing but hold on to him for a little while. He’s gonna be back here hungrier than a mule directly.

SETH: I don’t go for all that carrying on and such. This is a respectable house. I don’t have no drunkards or fools around here.

BYNUM: That boy got a lot of country in him. He ain’t been up here but two weeks. Its gonna take a while before he can work that country out of him.

SETH: These niggers coming up here with that old backward country style of living. It’s hard enough now without all that ignorant kind of acting. Ever since slavery got over with there ain’t been nothing but foolish-acting niggers. Word get out they need men to work in the mill and put in these roads. . . and niggers drop everything and head North looking for freedom. They don’t know the white fellows looking too. White fellows coming from all over the world. White fellow come over and in six months got more than what I got. But these niggers keep on coming. Walking . . . riding . . . carrying their Bibles. That boy done carried a guitar all the way from North Carolina. What he gonna find out? What he gonna do with that guitar? This the city.

(There is a knock on the door.)

Niggers coming up here from the backwoods . . . coming up here from the country carrying Bibles and guitars looking for freedom. They got a rude awakening.

(Seth goes to answer the door. Rutherford Selig enters. About Seth’s age, he is a thin white man with greasy hair. A peddler, he supplies Seth with the raw materials to make pots and pans which he then peddles door to door in the mill towns along the river. He keeps a list of his customers as they move about and is known in the various communities as the People Finder. He carries squares of sheet metal under his arm.)

Ho! Forgot you was coming today. Come on in.

BYNUM: If it ain’t Kusherford Selig. . . the People Finder himself.

SELIG: What say there, Bynum?

BYNUM: I say about my shiny man. You got to tell me something. I done give you my dollar. . . I’m looking to get a report.

SELIG: I got eight here, Seth.

SETH (Taking the sheet metal): What is this? What you giving me here? What I’m gonna do with this?

SELIG: I need some dustpans. Everybody asking me about dustpans.

SETH: Gonna cost you fifteen cents apiece. And ten cents to put a handle on them.

SELIG: I’ll give you twenty cents apiece with the handles.

SETH: All right. But I ain’t gonna give you but fifteen cents for the sheet metal.

SELIG: It’s twenty-five cents apiece for the metal. That’s what we agreed on.

SETH: This low-grade sheet metal. They ain’t worth but a dime. I’m doing you a favor giving you fifteen cents. You know this metal ain’t worth no twenty-five cents. Don’t come talking that twenty-five cent stuff to me over no low-grade sheet metal.

SELIG: All right, fifteen cents apiece. Just make me some dustpans out of them.

(Seth exits with the sheet metal out the back door.)

BERTHA: Sit on down there, Selig. Get you a cup of coffee and a biscuit.

BYNUM: Where you coming from this time?

SELIG: I been upriver. All along the Monongahela. Past Rankin and all up around Little Washington.

BYNUM: Did you find anybody?

SELIG: I found Sadie Jackson up in Braddock. Her mother’s staying down there in Scotchbottom say she hadn’t heard from her and she didn’t know where she was at. I found her up in Braddock on Enoch Street. She bought a frying pan from me.

BYNUM: You around here finding everybody how come you ain’t found my shiny man?

SELIG: The only shiny man I saw was the Nigras working on the road gang with the sweat glistening on them.

BYNUM: Naw, you’d be able to tell this fellow. He shine like new money.

SELIG: Well, I done told you I can’t find nobody without a name.

BERTHA: Here go one of these hot biscuits, Selig.

BYNUM: This fellow don’t have no name. I call him Tohn ’cause it was up around Johnstown where I seen him. I ain’t even so sure he’s one special fellow. That shine could pass on to anybody. He could be anybody shining.

SELIG: Well, what’s he look like besides being shiny? There’s lots of shiny Nigras.

BYNUM: He’s just a man I seen out on the road. He ain’t had no special look. Just a man walking toward me on the road. He come up and asked me which way the road went. I told him everything I knew about the road, where it went and all, and he asked me did I have anything to eat ’cause he was hungry. Say he ain’t had nothing to eat in three days. Well, I never be out there on the road without a piece of dried meat. Or an orange or an apple. So I give this fellow an orange. He take and eat that orange and told me to come and go along the road a little ways with him, that he had something he wanted to show me. He had a look about him made me wanna go with him, see what he gonna show me. We walked on a bit and it’s getting kind of far from where I met him when it come up on me all of a sudden, we wasn’t going the way he had come from, we was going back my way. Since he said he ain’t knew nothing about the road, I asked him about this. He say he had a voice inside him telling him which way to go and if I come and go along with him he was gonna show me the Secret of Life. Quite naturally I followed him. A fellow that’s gonna show you the Secret of Life ain’t to be taken lightly. We get near this bend in the road.

(Seth enters with an assortment of pots.)

SETH: I got six here, Selig.

SELIG: Wait a minute, Seth. Bynum’s telling me about the secret of life. Go ahead, Bynum. I wanna hear this.

(Seth sets the pots down and exits out the back.)

BYNUM: We get near this bend in the road and he told me to hold out my hands. Then he rubbed them together with his and I looked down and see they got blood on them. Told me to take and rub it all over me. . . say that was a way of cleaning myself. Then we went around the bend in that road. Got around that bend and it seem like all of a sudden we ain’t in the same place. Turn around that bend and everything look like it was twice as big as it was. The trees and everything bigger than life! Sparrows big as eagles! I turned around to look at this fellow and he had this light coming out of him. I had to cover up my eyes to keep from being blinded. He shining like new money with that light. He shined until all the light seemed like it seeped out of him and then he was gone and I was by myself in this strange place where everything was bigger than life.

I wandered around there looking for that road, trying to find my way back from this big place . .. and I looked over and seen my daddy standing there. He was the same size he always was, except for his hands and his mouth. He had a great big old mouth that look like it took up his whole face and his hands were as big as hams. Look like they was too big to carry around. My daddy called me to him. Said he had been thinking about me and it grieved him to see me in the world carrying other people’s songs and not having one of my own. Told me he was gonna show me how to find my song. Then he carried me further into this big place until we come to this ocean. Then he showed me something I ain’t yot words to tell you. But if you stand to witness it, you done seen something there. I stayed in that place a while and my daddy taught me the meaning of this thing that I had seen and showed me how to find my song. I asked him about the shiny man and he told me he was the One Who Goes Before and Shows the Way. Said there was lots of shiny men and if I ever saw one again before I died then I would know that my song had been accepted and worked its full power in the world and I could lay down and die a happy man. A man who done left his mark on life. On the way people cling to each other out of the truth they find in themselves. Then he showed me how to get back to the road. I came out to where everything was its own size and I had my song. I had the Binding Song. I choose that song because that’s what I seen most when I was traveling. . . people walking away and leaving one another. So I takes the power of my song and binds them together.

(Seth enters from the yard carrying cabbages and tomatoes.)
Been binding people ever since. That’s why they call me Bynum. Just like glue I sticks people together.

SETH: Maybe they ain’t supposed to be stuck sometimes. You ever think of that?

BYNUM: Oh, I don’t do it lightly. It cost me a piece of myself every time I do. I’m a Binder of What Clings. You got to find out if they cling first. You can’t bind what don’t cling.

SELIG: Well, how is that the Secret of Life? I thought you said he was gonna show you the secret of life. That’s what I’m waiting to find out.

BYNUM: Oh, he showed me all right. But you still got to figure it out. Can’t nobody figure it out for you. You got to come to it on your own. That’s why I’m looking for the shiny man.SELIG: Well, I’ll keep my eye out for him. What you got there, Seth?

SETH: Here go some cabbage and tomatoes. I got some green beans coming in real nice. I’m gonna take and start me a grapevine out there next year. Butera says he gonna give me a piece of his vine and I’m gonna start that out there.

SELIG: How many of them pots you got?

SETH: I got six. That’s six dollars minus eight on top of fifteen for the sheet metal come to a dollar twenty out the six dollars leave me four dollars and eighty cents.

SELIG (Counting out the money): There’s four dollars. . . and. . . eighty cents.
SETH: How many of them dustpans you want?

SELIG: As many as you can make out them sheets.

SETH: You can use that many? I get to cutting on them sheets figuring how to make them dustpans. . . ain’t no telling how many I’m liable to come up with.

SELIG: I can use them and you can make me some more next time.

SETH: All right, I’m gonna hold you to that, now.

SELIG: Thanks for the biscuit, Bertha.

BERTHA: You know you welcome anytime, Selig.

SETH: Which way you heading?

SELIG: Going down to Wheeling. All through West Virginia there. I’ll be back Saturday. They putting in new roads down that way. Makes traveling easier.

SETH: That’s what I hear. All up around here too. Got a fellow staying here working on that road by the Brady Street Bridge.

SELIG: Yeah, it’s gonna make traveling real nice. Thanks for the cabbage, Seth. I’ll see you on Saturday.

(Selig exits.)

SETH (To Bynum): Why you wanna start all that nonsense talk with that man? All that shiny man nonsense.

BYNUM: You know it ain’t no nonsense. Bertha know it aint no nonsense. I don’t know if Selig know or not.

BERTHA: Seth, when you get to making them dustpans make me a coffeepot.

SETH: What’s the matter with your coffee? Ain’t nothing wrong with your coffee. Don’t she make some good coffee, Bynum?

BYNUM: I ain’t worried about the coffee. I know she makes some good biscuits.

SETH: I ain’t studying no coffeepot, woman. You heard me tell the man I was gonna cut as many dustpans as them sheets will make … and all of a sudden you want a coffeepot.
BERTHA: Man, hush up and go on and make me that coffeepot.

(Jeremy enters through the front door. About twenty-five, he gives the impression that he has the world in his hand, that he can meet life’s challenges head on. He smiles a lot. He is a proficient guitar player, though his spirit has yet to be molded into song.)

BYNUM: I hear Mr. Piney’s boys had you.

JEREMY: Fined me two dollars for nothing! Ain’t done nothing.

SETH: I told you when you come on here everybody know my house. Know these is respectable quarters. I don’t put up with no foolishness. Everybody know Seth Holly keep a good house. Was my daddy’s house. This house been a decent house for a long time.

JEREMY: I ain’t done nothing. Mr. Seth. I stopped by the Workmen’s Club and got me a bottle. Me and Roper Lee from Alabama. Had us a half pint. We was fixing to cur that half in two wher they came up on us. Asked us if we was working. We told them we was putting in the road over yonder and that it was our payday. They snatched hold of us to get that two dollars. Me and Roper Lee ain’t even had a chance to take a drink when they grabbed us.

SETH: I don’t go for all that kind of carrying on.

BERTHA: Leave the boy alone, Seth. You know the police do that. Figure there’s too many people out on the street they take some of them off. You know that.

SETH: I ain’t gonna have folks talking.

BERTHA: Aint nobody talking nothing, That’s all in your head. You want some grits and biscuits. Jeremy

JEREMY: Thank you, Miss Bertha. They didn’t give us a thing to eat last night. I’ll take one of them big bowls if you don’t mind.

(There is a knock at the door. Seth goes to answer it. Enter Herald Loomis and his eleven-year-old daughter, Zonia. Herald Loomis is thirty-two years old. He is at times possessed. A man driven not by the hellhounds that seemingly bay at his heels, but by his search for a world that speaks to something about himself. He is unable to harmonize the forces that swirl around him, and seeks to re-create the world into one that contains his image. He wears a hat and a long wool coat.)
LOOMIS: Me and my daughter looking for a place to stay, mister. You got a sign say you got rooms.

(Seth stares at Loomis, sizing him up.)

Mister, if you ain’t got no rooms we can go somewhere else.

SETH: How long you plan on staying?

LOOMIS: Don’t know. Two weeks or more maybe.

SETH: It’s two dollars a week for the room. We serve meals twice a day. It’s two dollars for room and board. Pay up in advance.

(Loomis reaches into his pocket.)

It’s a dollar extra for the girl.

LOOMIS: The girl sleep in the same room.

SETH: Well, do she eat off the same plate? We serve meals twice a day. That’s a dollar extra for food.

LOOMIS: Ain’t got no extra dollar. I was planning on asking your missus if she could help out with the cooking and cleaning and whatnot.SETH: Her helping out don’t put no food on the table. I need that dollar to buy some food.

LOOMIS: I’ll give you fifty cents extra. She don’t eat much.

SETH: Okay. . . but fifty cents don’t buy but half a portion.

BERTHA: Seth, she can help me out. Let her help me out. I can use some help.

SETH: Well, that’s two dollars for the week. Pay up in advance. Saturday to Saturday. You wanna stay on then it’s two more come Saturday.

(Loomis pays Seth the money.)

BERTHA: My name’s Bertha. This my husband, Seth. You got Bynum and Jeremy over there.

LOOMIS: Ain’t nobody else live here?

BERTHA: They the only ones live here now. People come and go. They the only ones here now. You want a cup of coffee and a biscuit?

LOOMIS: We done ate this morning.

BYNUM: Where you coming from, Mister. . . I didn’t get your name.

LOOMIS: Name’s Herald Loomis. This my daughter, Zonia.

BINUM: Where you coming from?

LOOMIS: Come from all over. Whicheverway the road take us that’s the way we go.

JEREMY: If you looking for a job, I’m working putting in that road down there by the bridge. They can’t get enough mens. Always looking to take somebody on.

LOOMIS: I’m looking for a woman named Martha Loomis. That’s my wife. Got married legal with the papers and all.

SETH: I don’t know nobody named Loomis. I know some Marthas but I don’t know no Loomis.

BYNUM: You got to see Rutherford Selig if you wanna find somebody. Seligs the People Finder. Rutherford Selig’s a first-class People Finder.

JEREMY: What she look like? Maybe I seen her.

LOOMIS: She a brownskin woman. Got long pretty hair. About five feet from the ground.

JEREMY: I don’t know. I might have seen her.\

BYNUM: You got to see Rutherford Selig. You give him one dollar to get her name on his list … and after she get her name on his list Rutherford Selig will go right on out there and find her. I got him looking for somebody for me.

LOOMIS: You say he find people. How you find him?

BYNUM: You just missed him. He’s gone downriver now. You got to wait till Saturday. He’s gone downriver with his pots and pans. He come to see Seth on Saturdays. You got to wait till then.

SETH: Come on, I’ll show you to your room.

(Seth, Loomis and Zonia exit up the stairs.)

JEREMY: Miss Bertha, I’ll take that biscuit you was gonna give that fellow, if you don’t mind. Say, Mr. Bynum, they got somebody like that around here sure enough? Somebody that find people?

BYNUM: Rutherford Selig. He go around selling pots and pans and every house he come to he write down the name and address of whoever lives there. So if you looking for some-body, quite naturally you go and see him. . . ’cause he’s the only one who know where everybody live at.

JEREMY: I ought to have him look for this old gal I used to know. It be nice to see her again.
BERTHA (Giving Jeremy a biscuit): Jeremy, today’s the day for you to pull them sheets off the bed and set them outside your door. I’ll set you out some clean ones.
BYNUM: Mr. Pirey’s boys done ruined your good time last night, Jeremy. . . what you planning for tonight?
JEREMY: They got me scared to go out, Mr. Bynum. They might grab me again.
BYNUM: You ought to take your guitar and go down to Seefus. Seefus got a gambling place down there on Wylie Avenue. You ought to take your guitar and go down there. They got guitar contest down there.
JEREMY: I don’t play no contest, Mr. Bynum. Had one of them white fellows cure me of that. I ain’t been nowhere near a contest since.

BYNUM: White fellow beat you playing guitar?

JEREMY: Naw, he ain’t beat me. I was sitting at home just fixing to sit down and eat when somebody come up to my house and got me. Told me there’s a white fellow say he was gonna give a prize to the best guitar player he could find. I take up my guitar and go down there and somebody had gone up and got Bobo Smith and brought him down there. Him and another fellow called Hooter. Old Hooter couldn’t play no guitar, he do more hollering than playing, but Bobo could go at it a while.
This fellow standing there say he the one that was gonna give the prize and me and Bobo started playing for him. Bobo play something and then I’d try to play something better than what he played. Old Hootet, he just holler and bang at the guitar. Man was the worst guitar player I ever seen. So ine and Bobo played and after a while I seen where he was getting the attention of this white fellow. He’d play something and while he was playing it he be slapping on the side of the guitar, and that made it sound like he was playing more than he was. So I started doing it too. White fellow ain’t knew no differ-ence. He ain’t knew as much about guitar playing as Hooter did. After we play a while, the white fellow called us to him and said he couldn’t make up his mind, say all three of us was the best guitar player and wed have to split the prize between us. Then he give us twenty-five cents. That’s eight cents apiece and a penny on the side. That cured me of playing contest to this day.

BYNUM: Seefus ain’t like that. Seefus give a whole dollar and a drink of whiskey.

JEREMY: What night they be down there?

BYNUM: Be down there every night. Music don’t know no certain night.

BERTHA: You go down to Seefus with them people and you liable to end up in a raid and go to jail sure enough. I don’t know why Bynum tell you that.

BYNUM: That’s where the music at. That’s where the people at. The people down there making music and enjoying themselves. Some things is worth taking the chance going to jail about.

BERTHA: Jeremy ain’t got no business going down there.

JEREMY: They got some women down there, Mr. Bynum?

BYNUM: Oh, they got women down there, sure. They got women everywhere. Women be where the men is so they can find each other.

JEREMY: Some of them old gals come out there where we be putting in that road. Hanging around there trying to snatch somebody.

BYNUM: How come some of them ain’t snatched hold of you?

JEREMY: I don’t want them kind. Them desperate kind. Ain’t nothing worse than a desperate woman. Tell them you gonna leave them and they get to crying and carrying on. That just make you want to get away quicker. They get to cutting up your clothes and things trying to keep you staying. Desperate women ain’t nothing but trouble for a man.

(Seth enters from the stairs.)

SETH: Something ain’t setting right with that fellow.

BERTHA: What’s wrong with him? What he say?

SETH: I take him up there and try to talk to him and he ain’t for no talking. Say he been traveling . . . coming over from Ohio. Say he a deacon in the church. Say he looking for Martha Pentecost. Talking about that’s his wife.

BERTHA: How you know it’s the same Martha? Could be talking about anybody. Lots of people named Martha.

SETH: You see that little girl? I didn’t hook it up till he said it, but that little girl look just like her. Ask Bynum. (To Bynum) Bynum. Don’t that little girl look just like Martha Pentecost?

BERTHA: I still say he could be talking about anybody.

SETH: The way he described her wasn’t no doubt about who he was talking about. Described her right down to her toes.

BERTHA: What did you tell him?

SETH: I ain’t told him nothing. The way that fellow look I wasn’t gonna tell him nothing. I don’t know what he looking for her for.

BERTHA: What else he have to say?

SETH: I told you he wasn’t for no talking. I told him where the outhouse was and to keep that gal off the front porch and out of my garden. He asked if you’d mind setting a hot tub for the gal and that was about the gist of it.

BERTHA: Well, I wouldn’t let it worry me if I was you. Come on get your sleep.

BYNUM: He says he looking for Martha and he a deacon in the church.

SETH: That’s what he say. Do he look like a deacon to you?

BERTHA: He might be, you don’t know. Bynum ain’t got no special say on whether he a deacon or not.

SETH: Well, if he the deacon I’d sure like to see the preacher.

BERTHA: Come on get your sleep. Jeremy, don’t forget to set them sheets outside the door like I told you.

(Bertha exits into the bedroom.)

SETH: Something ain’t setting right with that fellow, Bynum.
He’s one of them mean-looking niggers look like he done killed somebody gambling over a quarter.

BYNUM: He ain’t no gambler. Gamblers wear nice shoes. This fellow got on clodhoppers. He been out there walking up and down them roads.

(Zonia enters from the stairs and looks around.)

You looking for the back door, sugar? There it is. You can go out there and play. It’s all right.

SETH (Showing her the door): You can go out there and play. Just don’t get in my garden. And don’t go messing around in my workshed.

(Seth exits into the bedroom. There is a knock on the door.)

JEREMY: Somebody at the door.

(Jeremy goes to answer the door. Enter Mattie Campbell. She is a young woman of twenty-six whose attractiveness is hidden under the weight and concerns of a dissatisfied life. She is a woman in an honest search for love and companionship. She has suffered many defeats in her search, and though not always uncompromising, still believes in the possibility of love.)

MATTIE: I’m looking for a man named Bynum. Lady told me to come back later.

JEREMY: Sure, he here. Mr. Bynum, somebody here to see you.

BYNUM: Come to see me, huh?

MATTIE: Are you the man they call Bynum? The man folks say can fix things?

BYNUM: Depend on what need fixing. I can’t make no promises. But I got a powerful song in some matters.

MATTIE: Can you fix it so iny man come back to me?

BYNUM: Come on in. . . have a sit down.

MATTIE: You got to help me. I don’t know what else to do.BYNUM: Depend on how all the circumstances of the thing come together. How all the pieces fit.

MATTIE: I done everything I knowed how to do. You got to make him come back to me.

BYNUM: It ain’t nothing to make somebody come back. I can fix it so he can’t stand to be away from you. I got my roots and powders, I can fix it so wherever he’s at this thing will come up on him and he won’t be able to sleep for seeing your face. Won’t be able to eat for thinking of you.

MATTIE: That’s what I want. Make him come back.

BYNUM: The roots is a powerful thing. I can fix it so one day he’ll walk out his front door. . . won’t be thinking of nothing. He won’t know what it is. All he knows is that a powerful dissatisfaction done set in his bones and can’t nothing he do make him feel satisfied. He’ll set his foot down on the road and the wind in the trees be talking to him and everywhere he step on the road, that road’ll give back your name and something will pull him right up to your doorstep. Now, I can do that. I can take my roots and fix that easy. But maybe he ain’t supposed to come back. And if he ain’t supposed to come bac . . . then he’ll be in your bed one morning and it’ll come up on him that he’s in the wrong place. That he’s lost outside of time from his place that he’s supposed to be in. Then both of you be lost and trapped outside of life and ain’t no way for you to get back into it. ‘Cause you lost from yourselves and where the places come together, where you’re supposed to be alive, your heart kicking in your chest with a song worth singing.

MATTIE: Make him come back to me. Make his feet say my name on the road. I don’t care what happens. Make him come back.

BYNUM: What’s your man’s name?

MATTIE: He go by Jack Carper. He was born in Alabama then he come to West Texas and find me and we come here. Been here three years before he left. Say I had a curse prayer on me and he started walking down the road and ain’t never come back. Somebody told me, say you can fix things like that.

BYNUM: He just got up one day, set his feet on the road, and walked away?

MATTIE: You got to make him come back, mister.

BYNUM: Did he say good-bye?

MATTIE: Ain’t said nothing. Just started walking, I could see where he disappeared. Didn’t look back. Just keep walking. Can’t you fix it so he come back? I ain’t got no curse prayer on me. I know I ain’t.

BYNUM: What made him say you had a curse prayer on you?

MATTIE: ‘Cause the babies died. Me and Jack had two babies. Two little babies that ain’t lived two months before they died. He say it’s because somebody cursed me not to have babies.

BYNUM: He ain’t bound to you if the babies died. Look like somebody trying to keep you from being bound up and he’s gone on back to whoever it is ’cause he’s already bound up to her. Ain’t nothing to be done. Somebody else done got a powerful hand in it and ain’t nothing to be done to break it. You got to let him go find where he’s supposed to be in the world.

MATTIE: Jack done gone off and you telling me to forget about him. All my life I been looking for somebody to stop and stay with me. I done already got too many things to forget about. I take Jack Carper’s hand and it feel so rough and strong. Seem like he’s the strongest man in the world the way he hold me. Like he’s bigger than the whole world and can’t nothing bad get to me. Even when he act mean sometimes he still make everything seem okay with the world. Like there’s part of it that belongs just to you. Now you telling me to forget about him?

BYNUM: Jack Carper gone off to where he belong. There’s somebody searching for your doorstep right now. Ain’t no need you fretting over Jack Carper. Right now he’s a strong thought in your mind. But every time you catch yourself fretting over Jack Carper you push that thought away. You push it out your mind and that thought will get weaker and weaker till you wake up one morning and you won’t even be able to call him up on your mind. (Gives her a small cloth packet) Take this and sleep with it under your pillow and it’ll bring good luck to you. Draw it to you like a magnet. It won’t be long before you forget all about Jack Carper.

MATTIE: How much. . . do I owe you?

BYNUM: Whatever you got there. . . that Il be all right.

(Mattie hands Bunum two quarters. She crosses to the door.)

You sleep with that under your pillow and you’ll be all right.

(Mattie opens the door to exit and Jeremy crosses over to her. Bynum overhears the first part of their conversation, then exits out the back.)

JEREMY: I overheard what you told Mr. Bynum. Had me an old gal did that to me. Woke up one morning and she was gone. Just took off to parts unknown. I woke up that morning and the only thing I could do was look around for my shoes. I woke up and got out of there. Found my shoes and took off. That’s the only thing I could think of to do.

MATTIE: She ain’t said nothing?

JEREMY: I just looked around for my shoes and got out of there.

MATTIE: Jack ain’t said nothing either. He just walked off.

JEREMY: Some mens do that. Womens too. I ain’t gone off looking for her. I just let her go. Figure she had a time to come to herself. Wasn’t no use of me standing in the way. Where you from?

MATTIE: Texas. I was born in Georgia but I went to Texas with my mama. She dead now. Was picking peaches and fell dead away. I come up here with Jack Carper.

JEREMY: I’m from North Carolina. Down around Raleigh where they got all that tobacco. Been up here about two weeks. I likes it fine except I still got to find me a woman. You got a nice look to you. Look like you have mens standing in your door. Is you got mens standing in your door to get a look at you?

MATTIE: I ain’t got nobody since Jack left.

JEREMY: A woman like you need a man. Maybe you let me be your man. I got a nice way with the women. That’s what they tell me.

MATTIE: I don’t know. Maybe Jacks coming back.

JEREMY: I’ll be your man till he come. A woman can’t be by her lonesome. Let me be your man till he come.

MATTIE: I just can’t go through life piecing myself out to different mens. I need a man who wants to stay with me.

JEREMY: I can’t say what’s gonna happen. Maybe I’ll be the man. I don’t know. You wanna go along the road a little ways with me?

MATTIE: I don’t know. Seem like life say it’s gonna be one thing and end up being another. I’m tired of going from man to man.

JEREMY: Life is like you got to take a chance. Everybody got to take a chance. Can’t nobody say what’s gonna be. Come on. . . take a chance with me and see what the year bring, Maybe you let me come and see you. Where you staying?

MATTIE: I got me a room up on Bedford. Me and Jack had a room together.

JEREMY: What’s the address? I’lI come by and get you tonight and we can go down to Seefus. I’m going down there and play my guitar.

MATTIE: You play guitar?

JEREMY: I play guitar like I’m born to it.

MATTIE: I live at 1727 Bedford Avenue. I’m gonna find out if you can play guitar like you say.

JEREMY: I plays it, sugar, and that ain’t all I do. I got a ten-pound hammer and I knows how to drive it down. Good God. . . you ought to hear my hammer ring!

MATTIE: Go on with that kind of talk, now. If you gonna come by and get me I got to get home and straighten up for you.

JEREMY: I’ll be by at eight o’clock. How’s eight o’clock? I’m gonna make you forget all about Jack Carper.

MATTIE: Go on, now. I got to get home and fix up for you.

JEREMY: Eight o’clock, sugar.

(The lights go down in the parlor and come up on the yard outside. Zonia is singing and playing a game.)

ZONIA:
I went downtown
To get my grip
I came back home

Just a pullin’ the skiff
I went upstairs To make my bed
I made a mistake
And I bumped my head
Just a pullin’ the skiff

I went downstairs
To milk the cow
I made a mistake
And I milked the sow
Just a pullin’ the skiff

Tomorrow, tomorrow
Tomorrow never comes
The marrow the marrow
The marrow in the bone.

(Reuben enters.)

REUBEN: Hi.

ZONIA: Hi.

REUBEN: What’s your name?

ZONIA: Zonia.

REUBEN: What kind of name is that?

ZONIA: It’s what my daddy named me.

REUBEN: My name’s Reuben. You staying in Mr. Seth’s house?

ZONIA: Yeah.

REUBEN: That your daddy I seen you with this morning?

ZONIA: I don’t know. Who you see me with?

REUBEN: I saw you with some man had on a great big old coat. And you was walking up to Mr. Seths house. Had on a hat too.

ZONIA: Yeah, that’s my daddy.

REUBEN: You like Mr. Seth?

ZONIA: I ain’t see him much.

REUBEN: My grandpap say he a great big old windbag. How come you living in Mr. Seth’s house? Don’t you have no house?

ZONIA: We going to find my mother.

REUBEN: Where she at?

ZONIA: I don’t know. We got to find her. We just go all over.

REUBEN: Why you got to find her? What happened to her?

ZONIA: She ran away.

REUBEN: Why she run away?

ZONIA: I don’t know. My daddy say some man named Joe Turner did something bad to him once and that made her run away.

REUBEN: Maybe she coming hack and you don’t have to go looking for her.

ZONIA: We ain’t there no more.

REUBEN: She could have come back when you wasn’t there.

ZONIA: My daddy said she ran off and left us so we going looking for her.

REUBEN: What he gonna do when he find her?

ZONIA: He didn’t say. He just say he got to find her.

REUBEN: Your daddy say how long you staying in Mr. Seth’s house?

ZONIA: He don’t say much. But we never stay too long nowhere. He say we got to keep moving till we find her.

REUBEN: Ain’t no kids hardly live around here. I had me a friend but he died. He was the best friend I ever had. Me and Eugene used to keep secrets. I still got his pigeons. He told me to let them go when he died. He say, “Reuben, promise me when I die you’ll let my pigeons go.” But I keep them to remember him by. I ain’t never gonna let them go. Even when I get to be grown up. I’m just always gonna have Eugene’s pigeons. (Pause) Mr. Bynum a conjure man. My grandpap scared of him. He don’t like me to come over here too much. I’m scared of him too. My grandpap told me not to let him get close enough to where he can reach out his hand and touch me.

ZONIA: He don’t scem scary to me.

REUBEN: He buys pigeons from me. . . and it you get up early in the morning you can see him out in the yard doing something with them pigeons. My grandpap say he kill them. I sold him one yesterday. I don’t know what he do with it. I just hope he don’t spook me up.

ZONIA: Why you sell him pigeons if he’s gonna spook you up?

REUBEN: I just do like Eugene do. He used to sell Mr. Bynum pigeons. That’s how he got to collecting them to sell to Mr. Bynum. Sometime he give me a nickel and sometime he give me a whole dime

(Loomis enters from the house.)

LOOMIS: Zonia!

ZONIA: Sir?

LOOMIS: What you doing;

ZONIA: Nothing.

LOOMIS: You stay around this house, you hear? I don’t want you wandering off nowhere.

ZONIA: I ain’t wandering off nowhere.

LOOMIS: Miss Bertha set that hot tub and you getting a good scrubbing. Get scrubbed up good. You ain’t been scrubbing.

ZONIA: I been scrubbing.

LOOMIS: Look at you. You growing too fast. Your bones getting bigger every day. I don’t want you getting grown on me. Dont you get grown on me too soon. We gonna find your mamma. She around here somewhere. I can smell her. You stay on around this house now. Don’t you go nowhere.

ZONIA: Yes, sir.

(Loomis exits into the house.)

REUBEN: Wow, your daddy’s scary!

ZONIA: He is not! I don’t know what you talking about.

REUBEN: He got them mean-looking eyes!

ZONIA: My daddy ain’t got no mean-looking eyes!

REUBEN: Aw, girl, I was just messing with you. You wanna go see Eugenes pigeons? Got a great big coop out the back of my house. Come on, I’ll show you.

(Reuben and Zonia exit as the lights go down on the scene.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

SCENE 2

It is Saturday morning, one week later. The lights come up on the kitchen. Bertha is at the stove preparing breakfast while Seth sits at ihe table.

SETH: Something ain’t right about that fellow. I been watching him all week. Something ain’t right, I’m telling you.

BERTHA: Seth Holly, why don’t you hush up about that man this morning?

SETH: I don’t like the way he stare at everybody. Don’t look at you natural like. He just be staring at you. Like he trying to figure out something about you. Did you see him when he come back in here?

BERTHA: That man ain’t thinking about you.

SETH: He don’t work nowhere. Just go out and come back. Go out and come back.

BERTHA: As long as you get your boarding money it ain’t your cause about what he do. He don’t bother nobody.

SETH: Just go out and come back. Going around asking everybody about Martha. Like Henry Allen seen him down at the church last night.

BERTHA: The man’s allowed to go to church if he want. He say he a deacon. Ain’t nothing wrong about him going to church.

SETH: I ain’t talking about him going to church. I’m talking about him hanging around outside the church.

BERTHA: Henry Allen say that?

SETH: Say he be standing around outside the church. Like he be watching it,

BERTHA: What on earth he wanna be watching the church for, I wonder?

SETH: That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Looks like he fixing to rob it.

BERTHA: Seth, now do he look like the kind that would rob the church?

SETH: I ain’t saying that. I ain’t saying how he look. It’s how he do. Anybody liable to do anything as far as I’m concerned.

I ain’t never thought about how no church robbers look … but now that you mention it, I don’t see where they look no different than how he look.

BERTHA: Herald Loomis ain’t the kind of man who would rob no church.

SETH: I ain’t even so sure that’s his name.

BERTHA: Why the man got to lie about his name?

SETH: Anybody can tell anybody anything about what their name is. That’s what you call him . .. Herald Loomis. His name is liable to be anything.

BERTHA: Well, until he tell me different that’s what I’m gonna call him. You just getting yourself all worked up about the man for nothing.

SETH: Talking about Loomis: Marthas name wasn’t no Loomis nothing. Martha’s name is Pentecost.

BERTHA: How you so sure that’s her right name? Maybe she changed it.

SETH: Martha’s a good Christian woman. This fellow here look like he owe the devil a day’s work and he’s trying to figure out how he gonna pay him. Martha ain’t had a speck of distrust about her the whole time she was living here. They moved the church out there to Rankin and I was sorry to see her go.

BERTHA: That’s why he be hanging around the church. He looking for her.

SETH: If he looking for her, why don’t he go inside and ask? What he doing hanging around outside the church acting sneakly like?

(Bynum enters from the yard.)

BYNUM: Morning, Seth. Morning, Sister Bertha.

(Bynum continues through the kitchen and exits up the stairs.)

BERTHA: That’s who you should be. asking the questions. He been out there in that yard all morning. He was out there before the sun come up. He didn’t even come in for breakfast. I don’t know what he’s doing. He had three of them pigeons line up out there. He dance around till he get tired. He sit down a while then get up and dance some more. He come through here a little while ago looking like he was mad at the world.

SETH: I don’t pay Bynum no mind. He don’t spook me up with all that stuff.

BERTHA: That’s how Martha come to be living here. She come to see Bynum. She come to see him when she first left from down South.

SETH: Martha was living here before Bynum. She ain’t come on here when she first left from down there. She come on here after she went back to get her little girl. That’s when she come on here.

BERTHA: Well, where was Bynum? He was here when she came.

SETH: Bynum ain’t come till after her. That boy Hiram was staying up there in Bynum’s room.

BERTHA: Well, how long Bynum been here?

SETH: Bynum ain’t been here no longer than three years. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Martha was staying up there and sewing and cleaning for Doc Goldblum when Bynum came. This the longest he ever been in one place.

BERTHA: How you know how long the man been in one place?

SETH: I know Bynum. Bynum ain’t no mystery to me. I done seen a hundred niggers like him. He’s one of them fellows never could stay in one place. He was wandering all around the country till he got old and settled here. The only thing different about Bynum is he bring all this heebie-jeebie stuff with him.

BERTHA: I still say he was staying here when she came. That’s why she came … to see him.

SETH: You can say what you want. I know the facts of it. She come on here four years ago all heartbroken ’cause she couldn’t find her little girl. And Bynum wasn’t nowhere around. She got mixed up in that old heebie-jeebie nonsense with him after he came.

BERTHA: Well, if she came on before Bynum I don’t know where she stayed. ‘Cause she stayed up there in Hiram’s room. Hiram couldn’t get along with Bynum and left out of here owing you two dollars. Now, I know you ain’t forgot about that!

SETH: Sure did! You know Hiram ain’t paid me that two dollars yet. So that’s why he be ducking and hiding when he see me down on Logan Street. You right. Martha did come on after Bynum. I forgot that’s why Hiram left.

BERTHA: Him and Bynum never could see eye to eye. They always rubbed each other the wrong way. Hiram got to thinking that Bynum was trying to put a fix on him and he moved out. Martha came to see Bynum and ended up taking Hiram’s room. Now, I know what I’m talking about.

She stayed on here three years till they moved the church.

SETH: She out there in Rankin now. I know where she at. I know where they moved the church to. She right out there in Rankin in that place used to be a shoe store. Used to be Wolf’s shoe store. They moved to a bigger place and they put that church in there. I know where she at. I know just where she at.

BERTHA: Why don’t you tell the man? You see he looking for her.

SETH: I ain’t gonna tell that man where that woman is! What I wanna do that for? I don’t know nothing about that man. I don’t know why he looking for her. He might wanna do her a harm. I ain’t gonna carry that on my hands. He looking for her, he gonna have to find her for himself. I ain’t gonna help him. Now, if he had come and presented himself as a gentleman–the way Martha Pentecost’s husband would have done–then I would have told him. But I ain’t gonna tell this old wild-eyed mean-looking nigger nothing!

BERTHA: Well, why don’t you get a ride with Selig and go up there and tell her where he is? See if she wanna see him. If that’s her little girl … you say Martha was looking for her.

SETH: You know me, Bertha. I don’t get mixed up in nobody’s business.

(Bynum enters from the stairs.)

BYNUM: Morning, Seth. Morning, Bertha. Can I still get some breakfast? Mr. Loomis been down here this morning?

SETH: He done gone out and come back. He up there now. Left out of here early this morning wearing that coat. Hot as it is, the man wanna walk around wearing a big old heavy coat. He come back in here paid me for another week, sat down there waiting on Selig. Got tired of waiting and went back upstairs.

BYNUM: Where’s the little girl?

SETH: She out there in the front. Had to chase her and that Reuben off the front porch. She out there somewhere.

BYNUM: Look like if Martha was around here he would have found her by now. My guess is she ain’t in the city.

SETH: She ain’t! I know where she at. I know just where she at. But I ain’t gonna tell him. Not the way he look.

BERTHA: Here go your coffee, Bynum.

BYNUM: He says he gonna get Selig to find her for him.

SETH: Selig can’t find her. He talk all that . .. but unless he get lucky and knock on her door he can’t find her. That’s the only way he find anybody. He got to get lucky. But I know just where she at.

BERTHA: Here go some biscuits, Bynum.

BYNUM: What else you got over there, Sister Bertha? You got some grits and gravy over there? I could go for some of that this morning.

BERTHA (Sets a bowl on the table): Seth, come on and help me turn this mattress over. Come on.

SETH: Something ain’t right with that fellow, Bynum. I don’t like the way he stare at everybody.

BYNUM: Mr. Loomis all right, Seth. He just a man got something on his mind. He just got a straightforward mind, that’s all.

SETH: What’s that fellow that they had around here? Moses, that’s Moses Houser. Man went crazy and jumped off the Brady Street Bridge. I told you when I seen him something wasn’t right about him. And I’m telling you about this fellow now.

(There is a knock on the door. Seth goes to answer it. Enter Rutherford Selig.)

Ho! Come on in, Selig.

BYNUM: If it ain’t the People Finder himself.

SELIG: Bynum, before you start . .. I ain’t seen no shiny man now.

BYNUM: Who said anything about that? I ain’t said nothing about that. I just called you a first-class People Finder.

SELIG: How many dustpans you get out of that sheet metal, Seth?

SETH: You walked by them on your way in. They sitting out there on the porch. Got twenty-eight. Got four out of each sheet and made Bertha a coffeepot out the other one. They a little small but they got nice handles.

SELIG: That was twenty cents apiece, right? That’s what we agreed on.

SETH: That’s five dollars and sixty cents. Twenty on top of twenty-eight. How many sheets you bring me?

SELIG: I got eight out there. That’s a dollar twenty makes me owe you …

SETH: Four dollars and forty cents.

SELIG (Paying him): Go on and make me some dustpans. I can ..use, all you can make.

(Loomis enters from the stairs.)

LOOMIS: I been watching for you. He say you find people.

BYNUM: Mr. Loomis here wants you to find his wife.

LOOMIS: He say you find people. Find her for me.

SELIG: Well, let see here … find somebody, is it?

(Selig rummages through his pockets. He has several notebooks and he is searching for the right one.)

All right now … what’s the name?

LOOMIS: Martha Looms. She my wife. Got married legal, with the paper and all.

SELIG (Writing): Martha … Loomis. How tall is she?

LOOMIS: She five feet from the ground.

SELIG: Five feet … tall. Young or old?

LOOMIS: She a young woman. Got long pretty hair.

SELIG: Young … long … pretty . .. hair. Where did you last see her?

LOOMIS: Tennessee. Nearby Memphis.

SELIG: When was that?

LOOMIS: Nineteen hundred and one.

SELIG: Nineteen . .. hundred and one. I’ll tell you, mister. you better off without them. Now you take me Rutherford Selig could tell you a thing or two about these women. I ain’t met one yet I could understand. Now, you take Sally out there. That’s all a man needs is a good horse. I say giddup and she go. Say whoa and she stop. I feed her some oats and she carry me wherever I want to go. Ain’t had a speck of trouble out of her since I had her. Now, I been married. A long time ago down in Kentucky. I got up one morning and I saw this look on my wife’s face. Like way down deep inside her she was wishing I was dead. I walked around that morning and every time I looked at her she had that look on her face. It seem like she knew I could see it on her. Every time I looked at her I got smaller and smaller. Well, I wasn’t gonna stay around there and just shrink away. I walked out on the porch and closed the door behind me. When I closed the door she locked it. I went out and bought me a horse. And I ain’t been without one since! Martha Loomis, huh? Well, now I’ll do the best I can do. That’s one dollar.

LOOMIS (Holding out dollar suspiciously): How you find her?

SELIG: Well now, it ain’t no easy job like you think. You can’t just go out there and find them like that. There’s a lot of little tricks to it. It’s not an easy job keeping up with you Nigras the way you move about so. Now you take this woman you looking for . . . this Martha Loomis. She could be anywhere. Time I find her, if you don’t keep your eye on her, she’ll be gone off someplace else. You’ll be thinking she over here and she’ll be over there. But like I say there’s a lot of little tricks to it.

LOOMIS: You say you find her.

SELIG: I can’t promise anything but we been finders in my family for a long time. Bringers and finders. My great-granddaddy used to bring Nigras across the ocean on ships. That wasn’t no easy job either. Sometimes the winds would blow so hard you’d think the hand of God was set against the sails. But it set him well in pay and he settled in this new land and found him a wife of good Christian charity with a mind for kids and the like and well… here I am, Rutherford Selig. You’re in good hands, mister. Me and my daddy have found plenty Nigras. My daddy, rest his soul, used to find runaway slaves for the plantation bosses. He was the best there was at it. Jonas B. Selig. Had him a reputation stretched clean across the country. After Abraham Lincoln give you all Nigras your freedom papers and with you all looking all over for each other . .. we started finding Nigras for Nigras. Of course, it don’t pay as much. But the People Finding business ain’t so bad.

LOOMIS (Hands him the dollar): Find her. Martha Loomis. Find her for me.

SELIG: Like I say, I can’t promise you anything, I’m going back upriver, and if she’s around in them parts I’ll find her for you. But I can’t promise you anything.

LOOMIS: When you coming back?

SELIG: I’ll be back on Saturday. I come and see Seth to pick up my order on Saturday.

BYNUM: You going upriver, huh? You going up around my way. I used to go all up through there. Blawnox. . . Clairton. Used to go up to Rankin and take that first righthand road. I wore many a pair of shoes out walking around that way. You’d have thought I was a missionary spreading the gospel the way I wandered all around them parts.

SELIG: Okay, Bynum. See you on Saturday.

SETH: Here, let me walk out with you. Help you with them dustpans.

(Seth and Selig exit out the back. Bertha enters from the stairs carrying a bundle of sheets.)

BYNUM: Herald Loomis got the People Finder looking for Martha.

BERTHA: You can call him a People Finder if you want to. I know Rutherford Selig carries people away too. He done carried a whole bunch of them away from here. Folks plan on leaving plan by Seligs timing. They wait till he get ready to go, then they hitch a ride on his wagon. Then he charge folks a dollar to tell them where he took them. Now, that’s the truth of Rutherford Selig, This old People Finding business is for the birds. He ain’t never found nobody he ain’t took away. Herald Loomis, you just wasted your dollar.

(Bertha exits into the bedroom.)

LOOMIS: He say he find her. He say he find her by Saturday. I’m gonna wait till Saturday.

(The lights fade to black.)

SCENE 3

It is Sunday morning, the next day. The lights come up on the kitchen. Seth sits talking to Bynum. The breakfast dishes have been cleared away.

SETH: They can’t see that. Neither one of them can see that. Now, how much sense it take to see that? All you got to do is be able to count. One man making ten pots is five men making fifty pots. But they can’t see that. Asked where I’m gonna get my five men. Hell, I can teach anybody how to make a pot. I can teach you. I can take you out there and get you started right now. Inside of two weeks you’d know how to make a pot. All you got to do is want to do it. I can get five men. I ain’t worried about getting no five men.

BERTHA (Calls from the bedroom): Seth. Come on and get ready now. Reverend Gates ain’t gonna be holding up his sermon ’cause you sitting out there talking.

SETH: Now, you take the boy Jeremy. What he gonna do after he put in that road? He can’t do nothing but go put in another one somewhere. Now, if he let me show him how to make some pots and pans … then he’d have something can’t nobody take away from him. After a while he could get his own tools and go off somewhere and make his own pots and pans. Find him somebody to sell them to. Now, Selig can’t make no pots and pans. He can sell them but he can’t make them. I get me five men with some tools and wed make him so many pots and pans he’d have to open up a store somewhere. But they can’t see that. Neither Mr. Cohen nor Sam Green.

BERTHA (Calls from the bedroom): Seth… time be wasting. Best be getting on.

SETH: I’m coming, woman! (To Bynum) Want me to sign over the house to borrow five hundred dollars. I ain’t that big a fool. That’s all I got. Sign it over to them and then I won’t have nothing.

(Jeremy enters waving a dollar and carrying his guitar.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

JEREMY: Look here, Mr. Bynum . . . won me another dollar last night down at Seefus! Me and that Mattie Campbell went down there again and I played contest. Ain’t no guitar players down there. Wasn’t even no contest. Say, Mr. Seth, I asked Mattie Campbell if she wanna come by and have Sunday dinner with us. Get some fried chicken.

SETH: It’s gonna cost you twenty-five cents.

JEREMY: That’s all right. I got a whole dollar here. Say Mr. Seth . .. me and Mattie Campbell talked it over last night and she gonna move in with me. If that’s all right with you.

SETH: Your business is your business … but it’s gonna cost her a dollar a week for her board. I can’t be feeding nobody for free.

JEREMY: Oh, she know that, Mr. Seth. That’s what I told her, say she’d have to pay for her meals.

SETH: You say you got a whole dollar there … turn loose that twenty-five cents.

JEREMY: Suppose she move in today, then that make seventy-five cents more, so I’ll give you the whole dollar for her now till she gets here.

(Seth pockets the money and exits into the bedroom.)

BYNUM: So you and that Mattie Campbell gonna take up together?

JEREMY: I told her she don’t need to be by her lonesome, Mr. Bynum. Don’t make no sense for both of us to be by our lonesome. So she gonna move in with me.

BINUM: Sometimes you got to be where you supposed to be. Sometimes you can get all mixed up in life and come to the wrong place.

JEREMY: That’s just what I told her, Mr. Bynum. It don’t make no sense for her to be all mixed up and lonesome. May as well come here and be with me. She a fine woman too. Got them long legs. Knows how to treat a fellow too. Treat you like you wanna be treated.

BYNUM: You just can’t look at it like that. You got to look at the whole thing. Now, you take a fellow go out there, grab hold to a woman and think he got something cause she sweet and soft to the touch. All right. Touching’s part of life. It’s in the world like everything else. Touching’s nice. It feels good. But you can lay your hand upside a horse or a cat, and that feels good too. What’s the difference? When you grab hold to a woman, you got something there. You got a whole world there. You got a way of life kicking up under your hand. That woman can take and make you feel like something. I ain’t just talking about in the way of jumping off into bed together and rolling around with each other. Anybody can do that. When you grab hold to that woman and look at the whole thing and see what you got. . . why, she can take and make something out of you. Your mother was a woman. That’s enough right there to show you what a woman is. Enough to show you what she can do. She made something out of you. Taught you converse, and all about how to take care of yourself, how to see where you at and where you going tomorrow, how to look out to see what’s coming in the way of eating, and what to do with yourself when you get lonesome. That’s a mighty thing she did. But you just can’t look at a woman to jump off into bed with her. That’s a foolish thing to ignore a woman like that.

JEREMY: Oh, I ain’t ignoring her, Mt. Bynum. It’s hard to ignore a woman got legs like she got.

BYNUM: All right. Let’s try it this way. Now, you take a ship. Be out there on the water traveling about. You out there on that ship sailing to and from. And then you see some land. Just like you see a woman walking down the street. You see that land and it don’t look like nothing but a line out there on the horizon. That’s all it is when you first see it. A line that cross your path out there on the horizon. Now, a smart man know when he see that land, it ain’t just a line setting out there. He know that if you get off the water to go take a good look . .. why, there’s a whole world right there. A whole world with everything imaginable under the sun. Anything you can think of you can find on that land. Same with a woman. A woman is everything a man need. To a smart man she water and berries. And that’s all a man need. That’s all he need to live on. You give me some water and berries and if there ain’t nothing else I can live a hundred years. See, you just like a man looking at the horizon from a ship. You just seeing a part of it. But it’s a blessing when you learn to look at a woman and see in maybe just a few strands of her hair, the way her cheek curves. to see in that everything there is out of life to be gotten. It’s a blessing to see that. You know you done right and proud by your mother to see that. But you got to learn it. My telling you ain’t gonna mean nothing. You got to learn how to come to your own time and place with a woman.

JEREMY: What about your woman, Mr. Bynum? I know you done had some woman.

BYNUM: Oh, I got them in memory time. That lasts longer than any of them ever stayed with me.

JEREMY: I had me an old gal one time.

(There is a knock on the door. Jeremy goes to answer it. Molly Cunningham enters. She is about twenty-six, the kind of woman that “could break in on a dollar anywhere she goes.” She carries a small cardboard suitcase, and wears a colorful dress of the fashion of the day. Jeremy’s heart jumps out of his chest when he sees her.)

MOLLY: You got any rooms here? I’m looking for a room.

JEREMY: Yeah . . . Mr. Seth got rooms. Sure . . . wait till I get Mr. Seth. (Calls) Mr. Seth! Somebody here to see you! (To Molly) Yeah, Mr. Seth got some rooms. Got one right next to me. This a nice place to stay, too. My name’s Jeremy. What’s yours?

(Seth enters dressed in his Sunday clothes.)

SETH: Ho!

JEREMY: This here woman looking for a place to stay. She say you got any rooms.

MOLLY: Mister, you got any rooms? I seen your sign say you got rooms.

SETH: How long you plan to staying?

MOLLY: I ain’t gonna be here long. I ain’t looking for no home or nothing. I’d be in Cincinnati if I hadn’t missed my train.

SETH: Rooms cost two dollars a week.

MOLLY: Two dollars!

SETH: That includes meals. We serve two meals a day. That’s breakfast and dinner.

MOLLY: I hope it ain’t on the third floor.

SETH: That’s the only one I got. Third floor to the left. That’s pay up in advance week to week.

MOLLY (Going into her bosom): I’m gonna pay you for one week. My names Molly. Molly Cunningham.

SETH: I’m Seth Holly. My wife’s name is Bertha. She do the cooking and taking care of around here. She got sheets on the bed. Towels twenty-five cents a week extra if you ain’t got none. You get breakfast and dinner. We got fried chicken on Sundays.

MOLLY: That sounds good. Here’s two dollars and twenty-five cents. Look here, Mister . ..?

SETH: Holly. Seth Holly.

MOLLY: Look here, Mr. Holly. I forgot to tell you. I likes me some company from time to time. I don’t like being by myself.

SETH: Your business is your business. I don’t meddle in nobody’s business. But this is a respectable house. I don’t have no riffraff around here. And I don’t have no women hauling no men up to their rooms to be making their living. As long as we understand each other then we’ll be all right with each other.

MOLLY: Where’s the outhouse?

SETH: Straight through the door over yonder.

MOLLY: I get my own key to the front door?

SETH: Everybody get their own key. If you come in late just don’t be making no whole lot of noise and carrying on. Don’t allow no fussing and fighting around here.

MOLLY: You ain’t got to worty about that, mister. Which way you say that outhouse was again?

SETH: Straight through that door over yonder.

(Molly exits out the back door. Jeremy crosses to watch her.)

JEREMY: Mr. Bynum, you know what? I think I know what you was talking about now.

(The lights go down on the scene.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

SCENE 4

The lights come up on the kitchen. It is later the same evening. Mattie and all the residents of the house, except Loomis, sit around the table. They have finished eating and most of the dishes have been cleared.

MOLLY: That sure was some good chicken.

JEREMY: That’s what I’m talking about. Miss Bertha, you sure can fry some chicken. I thought my mama could fry some chicken. But she can’t do half as good as you.

SETH: I know it. That’s why I married her. She don’t know that, though. She think I married her for something else.

BERTHA: I ain’t studying you, Seth. Did you get your things moved in all right, Mattie?

MATTIE: I ain’t had that much. Jeremy helped me with what I did have.

BERTHA: You’ll get to know your way around here. If you have any questions about anything just ask me. You and Molly both. I get along with everybody. You’ll find I ain’t no trouble to get along with.

MATTIE: You need some help with the dishes?

BERTHA: I got me a helper. Ain’t I, Zonia? Got me a good helper.

ZONIA: Yes, ma’am.

SETH: Look at Bynum sitting over there with his belly all poked out. Ain’t saying nothing. Sitting over there half asleep. Ho, Bynum!

BERTHA: If Bynum ain’t saying nothing what you wanna start him up for?

SETH: Ho, Bynum!

BYNUM: What you hollering at me for? I ain’t doing nothing.

SETH: Come on, we gonna Juba.

BYNUM: You know me, I’m always ready to Juba.

SETH: Well, come on, then.

(Seth pulls out a harmonica and blows a few notes.)

Come on there, Jeremy. Where’s your guitar? Go get your guitar. Bynum say he’s ready to Juba.

JEREMY: Don’t need no guitar to Juba. Ain’t you never Juba without a guitar?

(Jeremy begins to drum on the table.)

SETH: It ain’t that. I ain’t never Juba with one! Figured to try it and see how it worked.

BYNUM (Drumming on the table): You don’t need no guitar. Look at Molly sitting over there. She don’t know we Juba on Sunday. We gonna show you something tonight. You and Mattie Campbell both. Ain’t that right, Seth?

SETH: You said it! Come on, Bertha, leave them dishes be for a while. We gonna Juba.

BYNUM: All right. Let’s Juba down!

(The Juba is reminiscent of the Ring Shouts of the African slaves. It is a call and response dance. Bynum sits at the table and drums. He calls the dance as others dap hands, shufle and stomp around the table. It should be as African as possible, with the performers working themselves up into a near frenzy. The words can be improvised, but should include some mention of the Holy Ghost. In the middle of the dance Loomis enters.)

LOOMIS (In a rage): Stop it! Stop!

(They stop and turn to look at him.)

You all sitting up here singing about the Holy Ghost. What’s so holy about the Holy Ghost? You singing and singing. You think the Holy Ghost coming? You singing for the Holy Ghost to come? What he gonna do, huh? He gonna come with tongues of fire to burn up your woolly heads? You gonna tie onto the Holy Ghost and get burned up? What you got then? Why God got to be so big? Why he got to be bigger than me? How much big is there? How much big do you want? (Starts to unzip his pants.)

SETH: Nigger, you crazy!

LOOMIS: How much big you want?

SETH: You done plumb lost your mind!

(Loomis begins to speak in tongues and dance around the kitchen. Seth starts after him.)

BERTHA: Leave him alone, Seth. He ain’t in his right mind.

LOOMIS (Stops suddenly): You all don’t know nothing about me. You don’t know what I done seen. Herald Loomis done seen some things he ain’t got words to tell you.

(Loomis starts to walk out the front door and is thrown back and collapses, terror-stricken by his vision. Bynum crawls to him.)

BYNUM: What you done seen, Herald Loomis?

LOOMIS: I done seen bones rise up out the water. Rise up and walk across the water. Bones walking on top of the water.

BYNUM: Tell me about them bones, Herald Looms. Tell me what you seen.

LOOMIS: I come to this place. . . to this water that was bigger than the whole world. And I looked out . . . and I seen these bones rise up out the water. Rise up and begin to walk on top of it.

BYNUM: Wasn’t nothing but bones and they walking on top of the water.

LOOMIS: Walking without sinking down. Walking on top of the water.

BYNUM: Just marching in a line.

LOOMIS: A whole heap of them. They come up out the water and started marching.

BYNUM: Wasn’t nothing but bones and they walking on top of the water.

LOOMIS: One after the other. They just come up out the water and start to walking.

BYNUM: They walking on the water without sinking down. They just walking and walking. And then . .. what happened, Herald Loomis?

LOOMIS: They just walking across the water.

BYNUM: What happened, Herald Loomis? What happened to the bones?

100MIS: They just walking across the water. . . and then . . . they sunk down.

BYNUM: The bones sunk into the water. They all sunk down.

LOOMIS: All at one time! They just all fell in the water at one time.

BYNUM: Sunk down like anybody else.

LOOMIS: When they sink down they made a big splash and this here wave come up.

BYNUM: A big wave, Herald Loomis. A big wave washed over the land.

LOOMIS: It washed them out of the water and up on the land. Only. . . only. . .

BYNUM: Only they ain’t bones no more.

L00MIS: They got flesh on them! Just like you and me!

BYNUM: Everywhere you look the waves is washing them up on the land right on top of one another.

LOOMIS: They black. Just like you and me. Ain’t no difference.

BYNUM: Then what happened, Herald Loomis?

LOOMIS: They ain’t moved or nothing. They just laying there.

BYNUM: You just laying there. What you waiting on, Herald Loomis?

LOOMIS: I’m laying there. . . waiting.

BYNUM: What you waiting on, Herald Loomis?

LOOMIS: I’m waiting on the breath to get into my body.

BYNUM: The breath coming into you, Herald Loomis. What you gonna do now?

LOOMIS: The wind’s blowing the breath into my body. I can feel it. I’m starting to breathe again.

BYNUM: What you gonna do, Herald Loomis?

LOOMIS: I’m gonna stand up. I got to stand up. I can’t lay here no more. All the breath coming into my body and I got to stand up.

BYNUM: Everybody’s standing up at the same time.

LOOMIS: The ground’s starting to shake. There’s a great shaking. The world’s busting half in two. The sky’s splitting open. I got to stand up. (Attempts to stand up) My legs … my legs won’t stand up!

BYNUM: Everybody’s standing and walking toward the road. What you gonna do, Herald Loomis?

LOOMIS: My legs won’t stand up.

BYNUM: They shaking hands and saying good-bye to each other and walking every which away down the road.

LOOMIS: I got to stand up!

BYNUM: They walking around here now. Mens. Just like you and me. Come right up out the water.

LOOMIS: Got to stand up.

BYNUM: They walking, Herald Loomis. They walking around here now.

LOOMIS: I got to stand up. Get up on the road.

BYNUM: Come on, Herald Loomis.

(Loomis tries to stand up.)

LOOMIS: My legs won’t stand up! My legs won’t stand up!

(Loomis collapses on the floor as the lights fade to black.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

Act Two
SCENE 1

The lights come up on the kitchen. Bertha busies herself with breakfast preparations. Seth sits at the table.

SETH: I don’t care what his problem is! He’s leaving here!

BERTHA: You can’t put the man out and he got that little girl. Where they gonna go then?

SETH: I don’t care where he go. Let him go back where he was before he come here. I ain’t asked him to come here. I knew when I first looked at him something wasn’t right with him. Dragging that little girl around with him. Looking like he be sleeping in the woods somewhere. I knew all along he wasn’t right.

BERTHA: A fellow get a little drunk he’s liable to say or do anything. He ain’t done no big harm.

SETH: I just don’t have all that carrying on in my house. When he come down here I’m gonna tell him. He got to leave here. My daddy wouldn’t stand for it and I ain’t gonna stand for it either.

BERTHA: Well, if you put him out you have to put Bynum out too. Bynum right there with him.

SETH: If it wasn’t for Bynum ain’t no telling what would have happened. Bynum talked to that fellow just as nice and calmed him down. If he wasn’t here ain’t no telling what would have happened. Bynum ain’t done nothing but talk to him and kept him calm. Man acting all crazy with that foolishness. Naw, he’s leaving here.

BERTHA: What you gonna tell him? How you gonna tell him to leave?

SETH: I’m gonna tell him straight out. Keep it nice and simple. Mister, you got to leave here!

(Molly enters from the stairs.)

MOLLY: Morning,

BERTHA: Did you sleep all right in that bed?

MOLLY: Tired as I was I could have slept anywhere. It’s a real nice room, though. This is a nice place.

SETH: I’m sorry you had to put up with all that carrying on last night.

MOLLY: It don’t bother me none. I done seen that kind of stuff before.

SETH: You won’t have to see it around here no more.

(Bynum is heard singing offstage.)

I don’t put up with all that stuff. When that fellow come down here I’m gonna tell him.

BYNUM (Singing):

Soon my work will all be done
Soon my work will all be done
Soon my work will all be done
I’m going to see the king.

(Bynum enters.)

Morning, Seth. Morning, Sister Bertha. I see we got Molly Cunningham down here at breakfast.

SETH: Bynum, I wanna thank you for talking to that fellow last night and calming him down. If you hadnt been here ain’t no telling what might have happened.

BYNUM: Mr. Loomis all right, Seth. He just got a little excited.

SETH: Well, he can get excited somewhere else ’cause he leaving here.

(Mattie enters from the stairs.)

BYNUM: Well, there’s Mattie Campbell.

MATTIE: Good morning.

BERTHA: Sit on down there, Mattie. I got some biscuits be ready in a minute. The coffee’s hot.

MATTIE: Jeremy gone already?

BYNUM: Yeah, he leave out of here early. He got to be there when the sun come up. Most working men got to be there when the sun come up. Everybody but Seth. Seth work at night. Mr. Olowski so busy in his shop he got fellows working at night.

(Loomis enters from the stairs.)

SETH: Mr. Loomis, now . .. I don’t want no trouble. I keeps me a respectable house here. I don’t have no carrying on like what went on last night. This has been a respectable house for a long time. I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.

LOOMIS: You got my two dollars. That two dollars say we stay till Saturday.

(Loomis and Seth glare at each other.)

SETH: All right. Fair enough. You stay till Saturday. But come Saturday you got to leave here.

LOOMIS (Continues to glare at Seth. He goes to the door and calls):

Zonia. You stay around this house, you hear? Don’t you go anywhere.

(Loomis exits out the front door.)

SETH: I knew it when I first seen him. I knew something wasn’t right with him.

BERTHA: Seth, leave the people alone to eat their breakfast. They don’t want to hear that. Go on out there and make some pots and pans. That’s the only time you satisfied is when you out there. Go on out there and make some pots and pans and leave them people alone.

SETH: I aint bothering anybody. I’m just stating the facts. I told you, Bynum.

(Bertha shoos Seth out the back door and exits into the bedroom.)

MOLIX (To Bynum): You one of them voo-doo people?

BYNUM: I got a power to bind folks if that what you talking about.

MOLLY: I thought so. The way you talked to that man when he started all that spooky stuff. What you say you had the power to do to people? You ain’t the cause of him acting like that, is you?

BYNUM: I binds them together. Sometimes I help them find each other.

MOLLY: How do you do that?

BYNUM: With a song. My daddy taught me how to do it.

MOLLY: That’s what they say. Most folks be what they daddy is. I wouldn’t want to be like my daddy. Nothing ever set right with him. He tried to make the world over. Carry it around with him everywhere he go. I don’t want to be like that. I just take life as it come. I don’t be trying to make it over. (Pause) Your daddy used to do that too, huh? Make people stay together?

BYNUM: My daddy used to heal people. He had the Healing Song. I got the Binding Song,

MOLIY: My mama used to believe in all that stuff. If she got sick she would have gone and saw your daddy. As long as he didn’t make her drink nothing. She wouldn’t drink nothing nobody give her. She was always afraid somebody was gonna poison her. How your daddy heal people?

BYNUM: With a song. He healed people by singing over them. I seen him do it. He sung over this little white girl when she was sick. They made a big to-do about it. They carried the girl’s bed out in the yard and had all her kinfolk standing around. The little girl laying up there in the bed. Doctors standing around cant do nothing to help her. And they had my daddy come up and sing his song. It didn’t sound no different than any other song. It was just somebody singing. But the song was its own thing and it come out and took upon this little girl with its power and it healed her.

MOLLY: That’s sure something else. I don’t understand that kind of thing, I guess if the doctor couldn’t make me well Id try it. But otherwise I don’t wanna be bothered with that kind of thing. It’s too spooky.

BYNUM: Well, let me get on out here and get to work.

(Bynum gets up and heads out toward the back door.)

MOLLY: I ain’t meant to offend you or nothing. What’s your name. . . Bynum? I ain’t meant to say nothing to make you feel bad now.

(Bynum exits out the back door.)

(To Mattie) I hope he don’t feel bad. He’s a nice man. I don’t wanna hurt nobody’s feelings or nothing,

MATTIE: I got to go on up to Doc Goldblum’s and finish this ironing.

MOLLY: Now, that’s something I don’t never wanna do. Iron no clothes. Especially somebody else’s. That’s what I believe killed my mama. Always ironing and working, doing somebody else’s work. Not Molly Cunningham.

MATTIE: It’s the only job I got. I got to make it someway to fend for myself.

MOLLY: I thought Jeremy was your man. Ain’t he working?

MATTIE: We just be keeping company, rill maybe Jack come back.

MOLLY: I don’t trust none of these men. Jack or nobody else. These men liable to do anything. They wait just until they get one woman tied and locked up with them… then they look around to see if they can get another one. Molly don’t pay them no mind. One’s just as good as the other if you ask me. I ain’t never met one that meant nobody no good. You got any babies?

MATTIE: I had two for my man, Jack Carper. But they both died.

MOLLY: That be the best. These men make all these babies, then run off and leave you to take care of them. Talking about they wanna see what’s on the other side of the hill. I make sure I don’t get no babies. My mama taught me how to do that.

MATTIE: Don’t make me no mind. That be nice to be a mother.

MOLLY: Yeah? Well, you go on, then. Molly Cunningham ain’t gonna be tied down with no babies. Had me a man one time who I thought had some love in him. Come home one day and he was packing his trunk. Told me the time come when even the best of friends must part. Say he was gonna send me a Special Delivery some old day. I watched him out the window when he carried that trunk out and down to the train station. Said if he was gonna send me a Special Delivery I wasn’t gonna be there to get it. I done found out the harder you try to hold onto them, the easier it is for some gal to pull them away. Molly done learned that. That’s why I don’t trust nobody but the good Lord above, and I don’t love nobody but my mama.

MATTIE: I got to get on. Doc Goldblum gonna be waiting.

(Mattie exits out the front door. Seth enters from his workshop with his apron, gloves, goggles, etc. He carries a bucket and crosses to the sink for water.)

SETH: Everybody gone but you, huh?

MOLIX: That little shack out there by the outhouse . .. that’s where you make them pots and pans and stuff?

SETH: Yeah, that’s my workshed. I go out there . .. take these hands and make something out of nothing. Take that metal and bend and twist it whatever way I want. My daddy taught me that. He used to make pots and pans. That’s how I learned it.

MOLLY: I never knew nobody made no pots and pans. My uncle used to shoe horses.

(Jeremy enters at the front door.)

SETH: I thought you was working? Ain’t you working today?

JEREMY: Naw, they fired me. White fellow come by told me to give him fifty cents if I wanted to keep working, Going around to all the colored making them give him fifty cents to keep hold to their jobs. Them other fellows, they was giving it to him. I kept hold to mine and they fired me.

SETH: Boy, what kind of sense that make? What kind of sense it make to get fired from a job where you making eight dollars a week and all it cost you is fifty cents. That’s seven do! lars and fifty cents profit! This way you ain’t got nothing.

JEREMY: It didn’t make no sense to me. I don’t make but eight dollars. Why I got to give him fifty cents of it? He go ground to all the colored and he got ten dollars extra. That’s more than I make for a whole week.

SETH: I see you gonna learn the hard way. You just looking at the facts of it. See, right now, without the job, you aint got nothing. What you gonna do when you can’t keep a roof over your head? Right now, come Saturday, unless you come up with another two dollars, you gonna be out there in the streets. Down up under one of them bridges trying to put some food in your belly and wishing you had given that fellow that fifty cents.

JEREMY: Don’t make me no difference. There’s a big road out there. I can get my guitar and always find me another place to stay. I ain’t planning on staying in one place for too long noway.

SETH: We gonna see if you feel like that come Saturday!

(Seth exits out the back. Jeremy sees Molly.)

JEREMY: Molly Cunningham. How you doing today, sugar?

MOLLY: You can go on back down there tomorrow and go back to work if you want. They won’t even know who you is. Won’t even know it’s you. I had me a fellow did that one time. They just went ahead and signed him up like they never seen him before.

JEREMY: I’m tired of working anyway. I’m glad they fired me. You sure look pretty today.

MOLLY: Don’t come telling me all that pretty stuff. Beauty wanna come in and sit down at your table asking to be fed. I ain’t hardly got enough for me.

JEREMY: You know you pretty. Ain’t no sense in you saying nothing about that. Why don’t you come on and go away with me?

MOLLY: You tied up with that Mattie Campbell. Now you talking about running away with me.

JEREMY: I was just keeping her company ’cause she lonely. You ain’t the lonely kind. You the kind that know what she want and how to get it. I need a woman like you to travel around with. Don’t you wanna travel around and look at some places with Jeremy? With a woman like you beside him, a man can make it nice in the world.

MOLLY: Moll can make it nice by herself too. Molly don’t need nobody leave her cold in hand. The world rough enough as it is.

JEREMY: We can make it better together. I got my guitar and I can play. Won me another dollar last night playing gui tar. We can go around and I can play at the dances and we can just enjoy life. You can make it by yourself all right, I agrees with that. A woman like you can make it anywhere she go. But you can make it better if you got a man to protect you.

MOLLY: What places you wanna go around and look at?

TEREMY: All of them! I don’t want to miss nothing. I wanna go everywhere and do everything there is to be got out of life. With a woman like you it’s like having water and berries. A man got everything he need.

MOLLY: You got to be doing more than playing that guitar. A dollar a day ain’t hardly what Molly got in mind.

JEREMY: I gambles real good. I got a hand for it.

MOLLY: Molly don’t work. And Molly ain’t up for sale.

JEREMY: Sure, baby. You ain’t got to work with Jeremy.

MOLLY: There’s one more thing.

JEREMY: Whats that, sugar?

MOLLY: Molly ain’t going South.

(The lights go down on the scene.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

SCENE 2

The lights come up on the parlor. Seth and Bynum sit playing a game of dominoes. Bynum sings to himself.

BYNUM (Singing):

They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone
Ohhh Lordy
They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone
Ohhh Lordy
Got my man and gone

Come with forty links of chain
Ohhh Lordy
Come with forty links of chain
Ohhh Lordy
Got my man and gone.

SETH: Come on and play if you gonna play.

BYNUM: I’m gonna play. Soon as I figure out what to do.

SETH: You can’t figure out if you wanna play or you wanna sing,

BYNUM: Well sir, I’m gonna do a little bit of both. (Playing) There. What you gonna do now? (Singing:)

They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone
Ohhh Lordy
They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone
Ohhh Lordy.

SETH: Why don’t you hush up that noise.

BYNUM: That’s a song the women sing down around Memphis. The women down there made up that song. I picked it up down there about fifteen years ago.

(Loomis enters from the front door.)

Evening, Mr. Loomis.

SETH: Today’s Monday, Mr. Loomis. Come Saturday your time is up. We done ate already. My wife roasted up some yams. She got your plate sitting in there on the table. (To Bynum) Whose play is it?

BYNUM: Ain’t you keeping up with the game? I thought you was a domino player. I just played so it got to be your turn.

(Loomis goes into the kitchen, where a plate of yams is covered and set on the table. He sits down and begins to eat with his hands.)

SETH (Plays): Twenty! Give me twenty! You didn’t know I had that ace five. You was trying to play around that. You didn’t know I had that lying there for you.

BYNUM: You ain’t done nothing, I let you have that to get mine.

SETH: Come on and play. You ain’t doing nothing but talking, I got a hundred and forty points to your eighty. You ain’t doing nothing but talking. Come on and play.

BYNUM (Singing):

They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone
Ohhh Lordy.
They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone
Ohhh Lordy
Got my man and gone

He come with forty links of chain
Ohhh Lordy.

LOOMIS: Why you singing that song? Why you singing about Joe Turner?

BYNUM: I’m just singing to entertain myself.

SETH: You trying to distract me. That’s what you trying to do.

BYNUM (Singing):

Come with forty links of chain
Ohhh Lordy
Come with forty links of chain
Ohhh Lordy.

LOOMIS: I don’t like you singing that song, mister!

SETH: Now, I ain’t gonna have no more disturbance around here, Herald Loomis. You start any more disturbance and you leavin’ here, Saturday or no Saturday.

BYNUM: The man ain’t causing no disturbance, Seth. He just say he don’t like the song.

SETH: Well, we all friendly folk. All neighborly like. Don’t have no squabbling around here. Don’t have no disturbance. You gonna have to take that someplace else.

BYNUM: He just say he don’t like the song. I done sung a whole lot of songs people don’t like. I respect everybody. He here in the house too. If he don’t like the song, I’ll sing something else. I know lots of songs. You got “I Belong to the Band” “Don’t You Leave Me Here.” You got “Praying on the Old Campground, “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” … I know lots of songs. (Singing:)

Boys, I’ll be so glad when payday come
Captain, Captain, when payday comes
Gonna catch that Illinois Central
Going to Kankakee.

SETH: Why don’t you hush up that hollering and come on and play dominoes.

BYNUM: You ever been to Iohnstown, Herald Loomis? You look like a fellow I seen around there.

LOOMIS: I don’t know no place with that name.

BYNUM: That’s around where I seen my shiny man. See, you looking for this woman. I’m looking for a shiny man. Seem like everybody looking for something.

SETH: I’m looking for you to come and play these dominoes. That’s what I’m looking for.

BYNUM: You a farming man, Herald Loomis? You look like you done some farming.

LOOMIS: Same as everybody. I done farmed some, yeah.

BYNUM: I used to work at farming . . . picking cotton. I reckon everybody done picked some cotton.

SETH: I ain’t! I ain’t never picked no cotton. I was born up here in the North. My daddy was a freedman. I ain’t never even seen no cotton!

BYNUM: Mr. Loomis done picked some cotton. Ain’t you, Herald Loomis? You done picked a bunch of cotton.

LOOMIS: How you know so much about me? How you know what I done? How much cotton I picked?

BYNUM: I can tell from looking at you. My daddy taught me how to do that. Say when you look at a fellow, if you taught yourself to look for it, you can see his song written on him. Tell you what kind of man he is in the world.

Now, I can look at you, Mr. Loomis, and see you a man who done forgot his song. Forgot how to sing it. A fellow forget that and he forget who he is. Forget how he’s supposed to mark down life. Now, I used to travel all up and down, this road and that . . . looking here and there. Searching. Just like you, Mr. Loomis. I didn’t know what I was searching for. The only thing I knew was something was keeping me dissatisfied. Something wasn’t making my heart smooth and easy. ‘Then one day my daddy gave me a song. That song had a weight to it that was hard to handle. That song was hard to carry. I fought against it. Didn’t want to accept that song. I tried to find my daddy to give him back the song. But I found out it wasn’t his song. It was my song. It had come from way deep inside me. Ilooked long back in memory and gathered up pieces and snatches of things to make that song. I was making it up out of myself. And that song helped me on the road. Made it smooth to where my footsteps didn’t bite back at me. All the time that song getting bigger and bigger. That song growing with each step of the road. It got so I used all of myself up in the making of that song. Then I was the song in search of itself. That song rattling in my throat and I’m looking for it. See, Mr. Loomis, when a man forgets his song he goes off in search of it . . . till he find out he’s got it with him all the time. That’s why I can tell you one of Joe Turner’s niggers. ‘Cause you forgot how to sing your song.

LOOMIS: You lie! How you see that? I got a mark on me? Joe Turner done marked me to where you can see it? You telling me I’m a marked man. What kind of mark you got on you?

(Bynum begins singing:)

BYNUM:

They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone
Ohhh Lordy
They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone
Ohhh Lordy
Got my man and gone.

LOOMIS: Had a whole mess of men he catched. Just go out hunting regular like you go out hunting possum. He catch you and go home to his wife and family. Ain’t thought about you going home to yours. Joe Turner catched me when my little girl was just born. Wasn’t nothing but a little baby sucking on her mama’s titty when he catched me. Joe Turner catched me in nineteen hundred and one. Kept me seven years until nineteen hundred and eight. Kept everybody seven years. He’d go out hunting and bring back forty men at a time. And keep them seven years. I was walking down this road in this little town outside of Memphis. Come up on these fellows gambling, I was a deacon in the Abundant Life Church. I stopped to preach to these fellows to see if maybe I could turn some of them from their sinning when Joe Turner, brother of the governor of the great sovereign state of Tennessee, swooped down on us and grabbed everybody there. Kept us all seven years. My wife Martha gone from me after Joe Turner catched me. Got out from under Joe Turner on his birthday. Me and forty other men put in our seven years and he let us go on his birthday. I made it back to Henry Thompson’s place where me and Martha was sharecropping and Martha’s gone. She taken my little girl and left her with her mama and took off North. We been looking for her ever since. That’s been going on four years now we been looking. That’s the only thing I know to do. I just wanna see her face so I can get me a starting place in the world. The world got to start somewhere. That’s what I been looking for. I been wandering a long time in somebody else’s world. When I find my wife that be the making of my own.

BYNUM: loe Turner tell why he caught you? You ever asked him that?

LOOMIS: I ain’t never seen Joe Turner. Seen him to where I could touch him. I asked one of them fellows one time why he catch niggers. Asked him what I got he want? Why don’t he keep on to himself? Why he got to catch me going down the road by my lonesome? He told me I was worth-less. Worthless is something you throw away. Something you don’t bother with. I ain’t seen him throw me away. Wouldn’t even let me stay away when I was by my lone-some. I ain’t tried to catch him when he going down the road. So I must got something he want. What I got?

SETH: He just want you to do his work for him. That’s all.

LOOMIS: I can look at him and see where he big and strong enough to do his own work. So it can’t be that. He must want something he ain’t got.

BYNUM: That ain’t hard to figure out. What he wanted was your song. He wanted to have that song to be his. He thought by catching you he could learn that song. Every nigger he catch he’s looking for the one he can learn that song from. Now he’s got you bound up to where you can’t sing your own song. Couldn’t sing it them seven years ’cause you was afraid he would snatch it from under you. But you still got it. You just forgot how to sing it.

LOOMIS (To Bynum): I know who you are. You one of them bones people.

(The lights fade to black.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

SCENE 3

The lights come up on the kitchen. It is the following morning. Mattie and Bynum sit at the table. Bertha busies herself at the stove.

BYNUM: Good luck don’t know no special time to come. You sleep with that up under your pillow and good luck can’t help but come to you. Sometimes it come and go and you don’t even know it’s been there.

BERTHA: Bynum, why don’t you leave that gal alone? She don’t wanna be hearing all that. Why don’t you go on and get out the way and leave her alone?

BYNUM (Getting up): All right, all right. But you mark what I’m saying. It’ll draw it to you just like a magnet.

(Bynum exits up the stairs as Loomis enters.)

BERTHA: I got some grits here, Mr. Loomis. (Sets a bowl on the table) If I was you, Mattie, I wouldn’t go getting all tied up with Bynum in that stuff. That kind of stuff, even if it do work for a while, it don’t last. That just get people more mixed up than they is already. And I wouldn’t waste my time fretting over Jeremy either. I seen it coming. I seen it when she first come here. She that kind of woman run off with the first man got a dollar to spend on her. Jeremy just young. He don’t know what he getting into. That gal don’t mean him no good. She’s just using him to keep from being by herself. That’s the worst use of a man you can have. You ought to be glad to wash him out of your hair. I done seen all kind of men. I done seen them come and go through here. Jeremy ain’t had enough to him for you. You need a man who’s got some understanding and who willing to work with that understanding to come to the best he can. You got your time coming. You just tries too hard and can’t understand why it don’t work for you. Trying to figure it out don’t do nothing but give you a troubled mind. Don’t no man want a woman with a troubled mind. You get all that trouble off your mind and just when it look like you ain’t never gonna find what you want … you look up and it’s standing right there. That’s how I met my Seth. You gonna look up one day and find everything you want standing right in front of you. Been twenty-seven years now since that happened to me. But life ain’t no happy-go-lucky time where everything be just like you want it. You got your time coming. You watch what Bertha’s saying.

(Seth enters.)

SETH: Ho!

BERTHA: What you doing come in here so late?

SETH: I was standing down there on Logan Street talking with the fellows. Henry Allen tried to sell me that old piece of horse he got. (Sees Loomis) Today’s Tuesday, Mr. Looms.

BERTHA (Pulling him toward the bedroom): Come on in here and leave that man alone to eat his breakfast.

SETH: I ain’t bothering nobody. I’m just reminding him what day it is.

(Seth and Bertha exit into the bedroom.)

LOOMIS: That dress got a color to it.

MATTIE: Did you really see them things like you said? Them people come up out the ocean?

LOOMIS: It happened just like that, yeah.

MATTIE: I hope you find your wife. It be good for your little girl for you to find her.

LOOMIS: Got to find her for myself. Find my starting place in the world. Find me a world I can fit in.

MATTIE: I ain’t never found no place for me to fit. Seem like all I do is start over. It ain’t nothing to find no starting place in the world. You just start from where you find yourself.

LOOMIS: Got to find my wife. That be my starting place.

MATTIE: What if you don’t find her? What you gonna do then if you don’t find her?

LOOMIS: She out there somewhere. Ain’t no such thing as not finding her.

MATTIE: How she got lost from you? Jack just walked away from me.

LOOMIS: Joe Turner split us up. Joe Turner turned the world upside-down. He bound me on to him for seven years.

MATTIE: I hope you find her. It be good for you to find her.

LOOMIS: I been watching you. I been watching you watch me.

MATTIE: I was just trying to figure out if you seen things like you said.

LOOMIS (Getting up): Come here and let me touch you. I been watching you. You a full woman. A man needs a full woman. Come on and be with me.

MATTIE: I ain’t got enough for you. You’d use me up too fast.

LOOMIS: Herald Loomis got a mind seem like you a part of it since I first seen you. It’s been a long time since I seen a full woman. I can smell you from here. I know you got Herald Loomis on your mind, can’t keep him apart from it. Come on and be with Herald Loomis.

(He crosses to Mattie. He touches her awkwardly, gently, tenderly. Inside he howls like a lost wolf pup whose hunger is deep. He goes to touch her but finds he cannot.)

I done forgot how to touch.

(The lights fade to black.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

SCENE 4

It is early the next morning. The lights come up on Zonia and Reuben in the yard.

REUBEN: Something spookly going on around here. Last night Mr. Bynum was out in the yard singing and talking to the wind . . . and the wind it just be talking back to him. Did you hear it?

ZONIA: I heard it. I was scared to get up and look. I thought it was a storm.

REUBEN: That wasn’t no storm. That was Mr. Bynum. First he say something . . and the wind it say back to him.

ZONIA: I heard it. Was you scared? I was scared.

REUBEN: And then this morning . . . I seen Miss Mabel!

ZONIA: Who Miss Mabel?

REUBEN: Mr. Seth’s mother. He got her picture hanging up in the house. She been dead.

ZONIA: How you seen her if she been dead?

REUBEN: Zonia . . . if I tell you something you promise you won’t tell anybody?

ZONIA: I promise.

REUBEN: It was early this morning . . . I went out to the coop to feed the pigeons. I was down on the ground like this to open up the door to the coop . . . when all of a sudden I seen some feets in front of me. I looked up . . . and there was Miss Mabel standing there.

ZONIA: Reuben, you better stop telling that! You ain’t seen nobody!

REUBEN: Naw, it’s the truth. I swear! I seen her just like I see you. Look … you can see where she hit me with her cane.

ZONIA: Hit you? What she hit you for?

REUBEN: She says, “Didn’t you promise Eugene something?” Then she hit me with her cane. She say, “Let them pigeons go.” Then she hit me again. That’s what made thern marks.

ZONIA: Jeez man . . get away from me. You done see a haunt!

REUBEN: Shhhh. You promised, Zonia!

ZONIA: You sure it wasn’t Miss Bertha come over there and hit you with her hoe?

REUBEN: It wasn’t no Miss Bertha. I told you it was Miss Mabel. She was standing right there by the coop. She had this light coming out of her and then she just melted away.

ZONIA: What she had on?

REUBEN: A white dress. Ain’t even had no shoes or nothing. Just had on that white dress and them big hands . . . and that cane she hit me with.

ZONIA: How you reckon she knew about the pigeons? You reckon Eugene told her?

REUBEN: I don’t know. I sure ain’t asked her none. She say Eugene was waiting on them pigeons. Say he couldn’t go back home till I let them go. I couldn’t get the door to the coop open fast enough.

ZONIA: Maybe she an angel? From the way you say she look with that white dress. Maybe she an angel.

REUBEN: Mean as she was . . . how she gonna be an angel? She used to chase us out her yard and frown up and look evil all the time.

ZONIA: That don’t mean she can’t be no angel ’cause of how she looked and ’cause she wouldn’t let no kids play in her yard. It go by if you got any spots on your heart and if you pray and go to church.

REUBEN: What about she hit me with her cane? An angel wouldn’t hit me with her cane.

ZONIA: I don’t know. She might. I still say she was an angel.

REUBEN: You reckon Eugene the one who sent old Miss Mabel?

ZONIA: Why he send her? Why he don’t come himself?

REUBEN: Figured if he send her maybe that’ll make me listen. ‘Cause she old.

ZONIA: What you think it feel like?

REUBEN: What?

ZONIA: Being dead.

REUBEN: Like being sleep only you don’t know nothing and can’t move no more.

ZONIA: If Miss Mabel can come back . . . then maybe Eugene can come back too.

REUBEN: We can go down to the hideout like we used to! He could come back every day! It be just like he ain’t dead.

ZONIA: Maybe that ain’t right for him to come back. Feel kinda funny to be playing games with a haunt.

REUBEN: Yeah. . . what if everybody came back? What if Miss Mabel came back just like she ain’t dead? Where you and your daddy gonna sleep then?

ZONIA: Maybe they go back at night and don’t need no place to sleep.

REUBEN: It still don’t seem right. I’m sure gonna miss Eugene. He’s the bestest friend anybody ever had.

ZONIA: My daddy say if you miss somebody too much it can kill you. Say he missed me till it liked to killed him.

REUBEN: What if your mama’s already dead and all the time you looking for het?

ZONIA: Naw, she ain’t dead. My daddy say he can smell her.

REUBEN: You can’t smell nobody that ain’t here. Maybe he smelling old Miss Bertha. Maybe Miss Bertha your mama?

ZONIA: Naw, she ain’t. My mamma got long pretty hair and she five feet from the ground!

REUBEN: Your daddy say when you leaving?

(Zonia doesn’t respond.)

Maybe you gonna stay in Mr. Seth’s house and don’t go looking for your mama no more.

ZONIA: He say we got to leave on Saturday.

REUBEN: Dag! You just only been here for a little while. Don’t seem like nothing ever stay the same.

ZONIA: He say he got to find her. Find him a place in the world.

REUBEN: He could find him a place in Mr. Seth’s house.

ZONIA: It don’t look like we never gonna find her.

REUBEN: Maybe he find her by Saturday then you don’t have to go.

ZONIA: I don’t know.

REUBEN: You look like a spider!

ZONIA: I ain’t no spider!

REUBEN: Got them long skinny arms and legs. You look like one of them Black Widows.

ZONIA: I ain’t no Black Window nothing! My name is ‘Zonia!

REUBEN: That’s what I’m gonna call you … Spider.

ZONIA: You can call me that, but I don’t have to answer.

REUBEN: You know what? I think maybe I be your husband when I grow up.

ZONIA: How you know?

REUBEN: I ask my grandpap how you know and he say when the moon falls into a girl’s eyes that how you know.

ZONIA: Did it fall into my eyes?

REUBEN: Not that I can tell. Maybe I ain’t old enough. Maybe you ain’t old enough.

ZONIA: So there! I don’t know why you telling me that lie!

REUBEN: That don’t mean nothing ’cause I can’t see it. I know it’s there. Just the way you look at me sometimes look like the moon might have been in your eyes.

ZONIA: That don’t mean nothing if you can’t see it. You supposed to see it.

REUBEN: Shucks, I see it good enough for me. You ever let anybody kiss you?

ZONIA: Just my daddy. He kiss me on the cheek.

REUBEN: It’s better on the lips. Can I kiss you on the lips?

ZONIA: I don’t know. You ever kiss anybody before?

REUBEN: I had a cousin let me kiss her on the lips one time.

Can I kiss you?

ZONIA: Okay.

(Reuben kisses her and lays his head against her chest.)

What you doing?

REUBEN: Listening. Your heart singing!

ZONIA: It is not.

REUBEN: Just beating like a drum. Let’s kiss again.

(They kiss again.)

Now you mine, Spider. You my girl, okay?

ZONIA: Okay.

REUBEN: When I get grown, I come looking for you.

ZONIA: Okay.

(The lights fade to black.)

Source: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Full Vimeo Uploader: Anna Bean Uploaded: Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 8:11 PM

SCENE 5

The lights come up on the kitchen. It is Saturday. Bynum, Loomis and Zonia sit at the table. Bertha prepares breakfast. Zonia has on a white dress.

BYNUM: With all this rain we been having he might have ran into some washed-out roads. If that wagon got stuck in the mud he’s liable to be still upriver somewhere. If he’s upriver then he ain’t coming until tomorrow.

LOOMIS: Today’s Saturday. He say he be here on Saturday.

BERTHA: ‘Zonia, you gonna eat your breakfast this morning.

ZONIA: Yes, ma’am.

BERTHA: I don’t know how you expect to get any bigger if you don’t eat. I ain’t never seen a child that didn’t eat. You about as skinny as a bean pole. (Pause) Mr. Loomis, there’s a place down on Wylie. Zeke Mayweather got a house down there. You ought to see if he got any rooms.

(Loomis doesn’t respond.)

Well, you’re welcome to some breakfast before you move on.

(Mattie enters from the stairs.)

MATTIE: Good morning.

BERTHA: Morning, Mattie. Sit on down there and get you some breakfast.

BYNUM: Well, Mattie Campbell, you been sleeping with that up under your pillow like I told you?

BERTHA: Bynum, I done told you to leave that gal alone with all that stuff. You around here meddling in other peoples lives. She don’t want to hear all that. You ain’t doing nothing but confusing her with that stuff.

MATTIE (To Loomis): You all fixing to move on?

LOOMIS: Today’s Saturday. I’m paid up till Saturday.

MATTIE: Where you going to?

LOOMIS: Gonna find my wife.

MATTIE: You going off to another city?

LOOMIS: We gonna see where the road take us. Ain’t no telling where we wind up.

WATTIE: Eleven years is a long time. Your wife … she might have taken up with someone else. People do that when they get lost from each other.

LOOMIS: Zonia. Come on, we gonna find your mama.

(Loomis and Zonia cross to the door.)

MATTIE (To Zonia): Zonia, Mattie got a ribbon here match your dress. Want Mattie to fix your hair with her ribbon?

(Zonia nods. Mattie ties the ribbon in her hair.)

There . . . it got a color just like your dress. (To Loomis) I hope you find her. I hope you be happy.

LOOMIS: A man looking for a woman be lucky to find you. You a good woman, Mattie. Keep a good heart.

(Loomis and Zonia exit.)

BERTHA: I been watching that man for two weeks . . . and that’s the closest I come to seeing him act civilized. I don’t know what’s between you all, Mattie . . . but the only thing that man needs is somebody to make him laugh. That’s all you need in the world is love and laughter. That’s all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.

(Bertha moves about the kitchen as though blessing it and chasing away the huge sadness that seems to envelop it. It is a dance and demonstration of her own magic, her own remedy that is centuries Old and to which she is connected by the muscles of her heart and the blood’s memory.)

You hear me, Mattie? I’m talking about laughing. The kind of laugh that comes from way deep inside. To just stand and laugh and let life flow right through you. Just laugh to let yourself know you’re alive.

(She begins to laugh. It is a near-hysterical laughter that is a celebration of life, both its pain and its blessing. Mattie and Bynum join in the laughter. Seth enters from the front door.)

SETH: Well, I see you all having fun. (Begins to laugh with them) That Loomis fellow standing up there on the corner watching the house. He standing right up there on Manila Street.

BERTHA: Don’t you get started on him. The man done left out of here and that’s the last I wanna hear of it. You about to drive me crazy with that man.

SETH: I just say he standing up there on the corner. Acting sneaky like he always do. He can stand up there all he want. As long as he don’t come back in here.

(There is a knock on the door. Seth goes to answer it. Martha Loomis [Pentecost] enters. She is a young woman about twenty-eight. She is dressed as befitting a member of an Evangelist church. Rutherford Selig follows.)

Look here, Bertha. It’s Martha Pentecost. Come on in, Martha. Who that with you? Oh . .. that’s Selig. Come on in, Selig.

BERTHA: Come on in, Martha. It’s sure good to see you.

BYNUM: Rutherford Selig, you a sure enough first-class People Finder!

SELIG: She was right out there in Rankin. You take that first righthand road . . . right there at that church on Wooster Street. I started to go right past and something told me to stop at the church and see if they needed any dustpans.

SETH: Don’t she look good, Bertha.

BERTHA: Look all nice and healthy.

MARTHA: Mr. Bynum. . . Selig told me my little girl was here.

SETH: There’s some fellow around here say he your husband. Say his name is Loomis. Say you his wife.

MARTHA: Is my little girl with him?

SETH: Yeah, he got a little girl with him. I wasn’t gonna tell him where you was. Not the way this fellow look. So he got Selig to find you.

MARTHA: Where they at? They upstairs?

SETH: He was standing right up there on Manila Street. I had to ask him to leave ’cause of how he was carrying on. He come in here one night–

(The door opens and Looms and Zonia enter. Martha and Loomis stare at each other.)

LOOMIS: Hello, Martha.

MARTHA: Herald . . . Zonia?

LOOMIS: You ain’t waited for me, Martha. I got out the place looking to see your face. Seven years I waited to see your face.

MARTHA: Herald, I been looking for you. I wasn’t but two months behind you when you went to my mama’s and got Zonia. I been looking for you ever since.

LOOMIS: Toe Turner let me loose and I felt all turned around inside. I just wanted to see your face to know that the world was still there. Make sure everything still in its place so I could reconnect myself together. I got there and you was gone, Martha.

MARTHA: Herald. . .

LOOMIS: Left my little girl motherless in the world.

MARTHA: I didn’t leave her motherless, Herald. Reverend Tolliver wanted to move the church up North cause of all the trouble the colored folks was having down there. Nobody knew what was gonna happen traveling them roads. We didn’t even know if we was gonna make it up here or not. I left her with my mama so she be safe. That was better than dragging her out on the road having to duck and hide from people. Wasn’t no telling what was gonna happen to us. I didn’t leave her motherless in the world. I been looking for you.

LOOMIS: I come up on Henry Thompson’s place after seven years of living in hell, and all I’m looking to do is see your face.

MARTHA: Herald, I didn’t know if you was ever coming back. They told me Joe Turner had you and my whole world split half in two. My whole life shattered. It was like I had poured it in a cracked jar and it all leaked out the bottom. When it go like that there ain’t nothing you can do put it back together. You talking about Henry Thompson’s place like I’m still gonna be working the land by myself. How I’m gonna do that? You wasn’t gone but two months and Henry Thompson kicked me off his land and I ain’t had no place to go but to my mama’s. I stayed and waited there for five years before I woke up one morning and decided that you was dead. Even if you weren’t, you was dead to me. I wasn’t gonna carry you with me no more. So I killed you in my heart. I buried you. I mourned you. And then I picked up what was left and went on to make life without you. I was a young woman with life at my beckon. I couldn’t drag you behind me like a sack of cotton.

LOOMIS: I just been waiting to look on your face to say my good-bye. That good-bye got so big at times, seem like it was gonna swallow me up. Like Jonah in the whale’s belly I sat up in that good-bye for three years. That good-bye kept me out on the road searching. Not looking on women in their houses. It kept me bound up to the road. All the time that good-bye swelling up in my chest till I’m about to bust. Now that I see your face I can say my goodbye and make my own world.

(Loomis takes Zonia’s hand and presents her to Martha.)

Martha . . . here go your daughter. I tried to take care of her. See that she had something to eat. See that she was out of the elements. Whatever I know I tried to teach her. Now she need to learn from her mother whatever you got to teach her. That way she won’t be no one-sided person.

(Loomis stoops to Zonia.)

Zonia, you go live with your mama. She a good woman. You go on with her and listen to her good. You my daughter and I love you like a daughter. I hope to see you again in the world somewhere. I’ll never forget you.

ZONIA (Throws her arms around Loomis in a panic): I won’t get no bigger! My bones won’t get no bigger! They won’t! I promise! ‘Iake me with you till we keep searching and never, finding. I won’t get no bigger! I promise!

LOOMIS: Go on and do what I told you now.

MARTHA (Goes to Zonia and comforts her): Its all right, baby. Mama’s here. Mama’s here. Don’t worry. Don’t cry. (Turns to Bynum) Mr. Bynum, I don’t know how to thank you. God bless you.

LOOMIS: It was you! All the time it was you that bind me up! You bound me to the road!

BYNUM: I ain’t bind you, Herald Loomis. You can’t bind what don’t cling.

LOOMIS: Everywhere I go people wanna bind me up. Joe Turner wanna bind me up! Reverend Tolliver wanna bind me up. You wanna bind me up. Everybody wanna bind me up. Well, Joe Turner’s come and gone and Herald Loomis ain’t for no binding. I ain’t gonna let nobody bind me up!

(Loomis pulls out a knife.)

BYNUM: It wasn’t you, Herald Loomis. I ain’t bound you. I bound the little girl to her mother. That’s who I bound. You binding yourself. You bound onto your song. All you got to do is stand up and sing it, Herald Loomis. It’s right there kicking at your throat. All you got to do is sing it. Then you be free.

MARTHA: Herald . . . look at yourself! Standing there with a knife in your hand. You done gone over to the devil. Came on . . . put down the knife. You got to look to Jesus. Even Wif you done fell away from the church you can be saved again. The Bible say, “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still water. He restoreth my soul. He leads me in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the shadow of death–“

LOOMIS: That’s just where I be walking!

MARTHA: “I shall fear no evil. For Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”

LOOMIS: You can’t tell me nothing about no valleys. I done been all across the valleys and the hills and the mountains and the oceans.

MARTHA: “Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies.”

LOOMIS: And all I seen was a bunch of niggers dazed out of their woolly heads. And Mr. Jesus Christ standing there in the middle of them, grinning.

MARTHA: “Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.”

LOOMIS: He grin that big old grin . . . and niggers wallowing at his feet.

MARTHA: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

LOOMIS: Great big old white man . . . your Mr. Jesus Christ. Standing there with a whip in one hand and tote board in another, and them niggers swimming in a sea of cotton. And he counting. He tallying up the cotton. “Well, Jeremiah . . . what’s the matter, you ain’t picked but two hundred pounds of cotton today? Got to put you on half rations.” And Jeremiah go back and lay up there on his half rations and talk about what a nice man Mr. Jesus Christ is cause he give him salvation after he die. Something wrong here. Something don’t fit right!

MARTHA: You got to open up your heart and have faith, Herald. This world is just a trial for the next. Jesus offers you salvation.

LOOMIS: I been wading in the water. I been walking all over the tiver Jordan. But what it get me, huh? I done been baptized with blood of the lamb and the fire of the Holy Ghost. But what I got, huh? I got salvation? My enemies all around me picking the flesh from my bones. I’m choking on my own blood and all you got to give me is salvation?

MARTHA: You got to be clean, Herald. You got to be washed with the blood of the lamb.

LOOMIS: Blood make you clean? You clean with blood?

MARTHA: Jesus bled for you. He’s the Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world.

LOOMIS: I don’t need nobody to bleed for me! I can bleed for myself.

MARTHA: You got to be something, Herald. You just can’t be alive. Life don’t mean nothing unless it got a meaning.

LOOMIS: What kind of meaning you got? What kind of clean you got, woman? You want blood? Blood make you clean? You clean with blood?

(Loomis slashes himself across the chest. He rubs the blood over his face and comes to a realization.)

I’m standing! I’m standing. My legs stood up! I’m standing now!

(Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions.)

Good-bye, Martha.

(Loomis turns and exits, the knife still in his hands: Mattie looks about the room and rushes out after him.)

BYNUM: Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money!

(The lights fade to black.)

END OF PLAY