Renaissance Collection

By Laurence Holder

Renaissance Collection #9620

Seven plays: RUBY and PEARL: A Class act is about 2 aging burlesque dancers who don’t want to take it all off; FAGEN is about the buffalo soldier who turned traitor and fought for the Philipine Army; NELSON’n’SIMONE is about the torrid love affair between France’s Simone de Beauvoir and the America’s Nelson Algren; F: The Fringe Candidate is about the vivacious and extremely thoughtful Lenora Fulani, political activist, featured are Jesse Jefferson and Madonna; DREAM ROOMS is a fable about couples in love; and the final 2 plays are about the great novelist Zora Neale Hurston: ZORA and LANGSTON and ZORA:WHU.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 27, 2003
• ISBN: 9781403393784

Laurence Holder

Mr. Holder is noted for writing historical, biographical plays such as Zora Neale Hurston at The American Place Theatre in 1998 starring Elizabeth Van Dyke and Joseph Edwards, directed by Wyn Handman, and When The Chickens Came Home To Roost starring Denzel Washington as Malcolm X and Kirk Kirksey as Elijah Muhammad, directed by Allie Woods, at The New Federal Theatre in 1981. Mr. Holder has won playwriting awards including the AUDELCO twice (Audience Development Committee acknowledges theatre excellence in African American Theatre) for When the Chickens Came Home To Roost and M: The Mandela Saga. For the body of his work, The National Black Theatre Festival presented him with both the OTTO for Political Theatre and The Garland Anderson Award. Mr. Holder is also noted for his experimental works including the multilingual BIRD OF PARADISE in 1972 with Ornette Coleman and the URBAN DECALOGUE in 1974 with Jacquie Berger. In addition to his work as a dramatist Mr. Holder is the author of several volumes of poetry and 7 novels. He has also acted in ZORA: WHU, which featured Yvonne Southerland as the famed novelist. He is the father of three children and husband to Andrea, an actress. Mr. Holder is a member of the faculty at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) where he has taught English in the SEEK Department for the past twenty-five years. The author is a native New Yorker and has watched the scene change slowly over the last sixty years. Over the last ten years he has made some astounding realizations about the nature and cause of it all, which is reflected and refracted in his work.

Book preview

RENAISSANCE ANTHOLOGY SERIES

Five volumes of plays by Laurence Holder

Edited by Richard Gaffield-Knight

Volume 5: Renaissance Collection

© 2002 by Laurence Holder. All rights reserved

With an Introduction by the Editor

This book is a work of fiction. Places, events, and situations in

this story are purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual

persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Ruby and Pearl: A Class Act: © 1991, 1995, 2002

by Laurence Holder. All rights reserved

Dream Rooms: © 1995 by Laurence Holder.

All rights reserved

Nelson’n’Simone: © 2001 by Laurence Holder.

All rights reserved

Fagen: © 1996 by Laurence Holder. All rights reserved

F: The Fringe Candidate: © 1995 by Laurence Holder.

All rights reserved

Zora and Langston: © 1998 by Laurence Holder.

All rights reserved

Zora:Whu: © 2000 by Laurence Holder. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written

permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4033-9378-4 (ebook)

1stBooks—rev. 11/26/02

For my MOTHER and my FATHER

my children

CHRISTOPHER

DORIANA

LAURA

and

my loving wife

ANDREA,

without whom

this would never have happened

and Richard Gaffield-Knight

RENAISSANCE ANTHOLOGY SERIES

All Plays by Laurence Holder

Series edited by Richard Gaffield-Knight

Volume 1—Renaissance Women—Ethel Waters, Hot Snow

(Valaida Snow); They Were All Gardenias (Billie Holiday); Zora

Neale Hurston; M: The Mandela Saga (Winifred Mandela)

Volume 2—Renaissance Men 1—When the Chickens Came Home to

Roost (Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad); Red Channels (Paul

Robeson, W.E.B. Dubois, Richard Nixon, Joseph McCarthy); Bussa

(Bussa, Nanny Grigg, Thomas Jefferson, Phyllis Wheatley,

William Wilberforce)

Volume 3—Renaissance Solos—Bird (Charlie Parker); Monk

(Thelonious Monk); The Gospel According To Max Roach (Max

Roach); Sugar Ray (Sugar Ray Robinson); Langston (Langston

Hughes); Hot Fingers (Jelly Roll Morton); Hot Lips (Valaida Snow);

The Last Dust Track; Zora (Zora Neale Hurston); Man

(Contemporary Man); Woman (Contemporary Woman); The Fighter

Volume 4—Renaissance Men 2—Juba; Scott Joplin; Hotfingers 2

(Jelly Roll Morton); VSOP:MONKnBUD; MONKnBUD (Thelonious

Monk, Bud Powell); Swee’Pea and the Duke (Duke Ellington, Lena

Horne, Billy Strayhorn)

Volume 5—Renaissance Collection—Ruby and Pearl: A Class Act;

Nelson’n’Simone (Nelson Algren, Simone Debeauvoir); Dream

Rooms; Fagen (A Buffalo Soldier); F: The Fringe Candidate (Lenora

Fulani); Zora and Langston (Zora Neale Hurston and Langston

Hughes); Zora:Whu (Zora Neale Hurston, Fred Whu)

For production rights information contact Author’s representative:

Donald Sutton, Global Artists Management

Email: [e-mail]

Telephone: [phone], or Fax: [phone]

Renaissance Anthology Series information:

http://www.laurenceholder.com

Laurence Holder, 626 Riverside Drive 10-J

New York, NY 10031 [phone]

Table of Contents

Author’s Foreword

Introduction

RUBY AND PEARL: A Class Act

DREAM ROOMS

F: The Fringe Candidate

FAGEN

NELSON‘n’SIMONE

ZORA and LANGSTON

ZORA:WHU

About the Author

Author’s Foreword

The seven plays being presented in this volume are varied in scope and nature, yet the ultimate common bond appears because they all deal with human beings in the business of survival.

RUBY AND PEARL: A Class Act emphasizes a dilemma for the title ladies, who as strippers do not want to take it all off, even as they are engulfed by younger women who aren’t even asking themselves the question.

This play was originally produced by American Folk Theater in 1983 on Theater Row, NYC, Dick Gaffield, Artistic Director. It was revived in 1996 on the Lower East Side in NYC by Theatre For The New City, Crystal Field, Executive Producer/Director, directed by award winning actor, director and lighting designer, Rome Neal.

NELSON’n’SIMONE is the story of the torrid love affair between Europe’s premiere woman of letters Simone deBeauvoir and America’s author of The Man With The Golden Arm, Nelson Algren, during the years after World War II.

This play was originally produced at Theatre For The New City, Crystal Field Executive Producer/Director in 2000 and featured Theo Polites and Kathryn Chilson.

ZORA AND LANGSTON another incantation of the luminous one, Zora Neale Hurston, this time paired with and dealing with Langston Hughes and the angst of their relationship.

Directed by Jasper McGruder and featuring Tony Jackson as Langston and Andrea Holder as Zora, it was produced in 1997 by Theatre For The New City, Crystal Field, Executive Producer/Director.

FAGEN was my response upon hearing of a Buffalo Soldier who had deserted and joined the enemy. This happened in The Philippines in 1902, or so, as America was concluding its expeditions in the Spanish American War.

It was performed by Jasper McGruder, Tony Jackson and Andrea Holder, untraditionally cast as a Swedish matron, at

Theatre For The New City, Crystal Field, Executive Producer/Director.

F: The Fringe Candidate was a wonderful escapade uttering the possible goals and ambitions of one of America’s most charismatic politicians, Lenora Fulani, PhD, as she brings to the U.S. an alternative political party.

The original script was performed at the Castillo Theatre and featured the dynamic Castillo Repertory Company, Diane Stiles, General Manager, and featured the wonderful Emmett Thrower as Jesse Jefferson. Directed by Fred Newman.

DREAM ROOMS, a study of contemporary morals in middle class America, is currently available for it’s world premiere production.

ZORA:WHU was the first dramatic play I wrote. It was the one to set the stage for the other four versions of a story that can never be told enough, about the redoubtable Zora Neale Hurston.

Produced by Edith O’Hara and the Thirteenth Street Theatre in NYC in 1979, and starred Yvonne Southerland (Baci) as our heroine, and yours truly as the ill-fated Fred Whu, a Black Japanese man. It was the only time I’ve ever appeared on stage.

Even as we prepared the manuscripts for these five volumes we realized that many of my good yet unproduced plays were left out of the cycle. Thinking of five plays in a volume, we think we’ve got four more volumes for a total of nine volumes. Nevertheless the plays in this initial cycle represent some of the best work I have written for theatre. With a range of possibilities staring people in the face we think the plays are great for theatre, great for educational purposes, and great for reading. I do hope your reasons for reading them are met.

Remember to secure the musical and publication rights to use the songs in productions. For that I am not to be held responsible.

Laurence Holder, Spring 2002

New York, New York

Introduction

By Richard Gaffield-Knight

Times are a’changin’, to quote Dylan. Believe me Bob, only change is eternal. Change is as natural as breathing, or falling in love. Change can be minimal over a long period, or maximal, instantly. Things are very different now, from before—and the change happened in a moment we remember only if we stop everything and listen to the sound of the wind in the trees, or a baby crying a long time ago. Alas, human survival depends on our ability to assimilate change.

The French poet, surrealist, actor, director and visionary, Antonin Artaud, thought theater could somehow persuade bourgeois society to listen, look, feel or think past it’s paycheck—and to reconsider it’s part in maintaining the planet as a … slippery world which is committing suicide without noticing it … .¹ Theater artists all over the world were inspired by him during the 2nd half of the twentieth century.

I know I was. As Artistic Director of the American Folk Theater I chose Laurence’s Ruby and Pearl: A Class Act, with Yvonne Southerland and Alice Spivak in the title roles to run in repertory with plays by Percy Granger, Marcia Savin and Leslie Lee at the Beckett Theater on Theater Row. A story of two 35-ish burlesque dancers, it was described as Gritty, realistic repartee … armpit realism by the The Village Voice when it premiered. Set in 1962, our leading ladies are strippers in the classical sense, however,

RUBY: Something’s going on here and I still don’t know about it.

MARNIE: Total nudity, girls. Tits, ass, and then some. You girls ever wonder why we don’t book you into San Francisco, huh?

RUBY: I thought about it.

PEARL: I didn’t.

RUBY: Why not?

PEARL: Because we don’t give them tits and ass, Ruby. We don’t so we don’t get any tips and we just keep making fools of ourselves.

Pushing our ladies to new limits is Sally Vavoom, a 19 year- old undergraduate student at Columbia University, who is prepared to take it all off. Imagine what it was like when, as a high school student, all she wanted was a way out of her ignorance and conformity. Ruby liberates herself from further degradation with this to Pearl:

RUBY: Well, baby doll, you’re not the only one who wants an immediate transition. I’m tired of junkie caballeros and dames singing the dope blues at all hours of the day and night. Am I making myself clear, Pearl? I’m sick of smelling the retch at home and at work every time I move anywhere. I’m tired of being pushed around, hyped, suckered, and sold to the highest bidder. Sanity isn’t the price I’m going to pay in order to perform. And if I have to I’ll go it alone.

Dreams are the driving power of change. Where there are hopes and dreams there is a way out of despair. Life without being free to dream of a better world for ourselves, our children and others is impossible. Dream Rooms, the second play in this volume, is an example of trying to cope with the impossible.

ROGER: Something happened. Remember? Huh? Do you? Do you remember?

REGINA: I remember.

ROGER: I was just walking down the street—what was it State Street? Near the Catholic High School. And someone was rolling the night watchman. You remember?

REGINA: I remember.

ROGER: And the description was a really good one. Light skinned Negro male weighing in about 240—250. I fit the description. I got arrested. I had no alibi. I had left you about what two hours earlier? They had me. Positive

identification. A black male is always out of work, aggressive, sexually active. I’m black. I fit the pattern. Just look at me. So they took four years out of my life. And I hadn’t done a damn thing.

The arresting officers were Chuck and Don, members of the local police force, with dreams of their own.

DON: Well, Buddy, soon we’ll be in Hawaii.

CHUCK: Surfing with the boys by day. Channeling with the babes by night.

DON: I love it. Do you think they’ll fall for it?

CHUCK: They’re greedy. We just play it cool. Most of the spotlight is going to be on us just because we’re the bodyguards.

DON: Moonlighters, at that.

CHUCK: Yeah, no more of this job crap. You see where they’re in their 3rd week of a national strike in France and the bureaucrats ain’t giving them nothing, so it’s hell with the unions.

DON: It’s every man for himself.

Next question: what happens when an enraged Simone deBeauvoir leaves her lover Jean Paul Sarte in France, arrives in America and meets ultra cool Nelson Algren? What happens when existentialism meets pragmatism, when The 2nd Sex meets The Man With The Golden Arm, when excatholic girl meets slick Midwestern ex-Jew? Holder’s answers are found in his sensuous and sexy Nelson’n’Simone: Out Of The Senses.

And what brings us back to theater again and again? A moment of theater is like life—gone without so much as a trace of what it really felt like. It can be described in words of course with a different degree of success. Oh, yes, it can be written about. The relationships can be documented and the feelings can be recorded, but a moment in theater cannot be re-lived. Theater is a fugitive art unlike film, a painting or sculpture. Like life, theater is a one time only experience, now

its here, in the moment, and now it isn’t like Simone in Nelson’s arms.

Loften Mitchell wrote in Black Drama:

I stood in the garden and cried

As I looked down on the flowers that would not grow

I bent over and I tried to pull the soil around one.

And the bush toppled.

It had no foundation because I, its planter,

Had not dug deep enough into the soil.²

Laurence Holder in this collection and 4 volumes that precede it, like Loften Mitchell did in Black Drama, digs deep into the soil and plants ideas that will be discussed as long as we dare to venture into their gardens.

Richard Gaffield-Knight, Summer, 2002

Upper West Side

Renaissance Collection

SEVEN PLAYS

By LAURENCE HOLDER

RUBY AND PEARL: A Class Act

By Laurence Holder

Cast:

Ruby, a 35 year-old burlesque dancer

Pearl, a 35 year-old burlesque dancer

Marnie, a 40 year-old manager of a strip tease joint

Fetch, a 55 year-old ex-boxer/porter

Sally VaVoom, a 19 year-old stripper

Mr. Big, a 50 year-old Producer

Place: New York

Time: 1962

(MARNIE WALKS UP TO MR. BIG WHO HAS JUST ENTERED THE CLUB AND SWEEPS HIM TO A TABLE)

MARNIE: How are you? I thought you were coming tomorrow evening.

BIG: I had to change the plans. Flying out to Vegas instead. But I wanted to take a look at the talent. See if there’s anything worthwhile.

MARNIE: How about Busty Bubbles?

BIG: Drinks too much. Loudmouth.

MARNIE: Well then, we still got Ruby and Pearl.

BIG: You still got those oddballs?

MARNIE: They just got back from a little six week tour.

BIG: I love those two. They’re nuts, you know? Antony and Cleopatra, Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. And they’re not lesbians. Can you beat that?

MARNIE: You want lesbians, I can get lesbians.

BIG: Now there’s an idea, Marnie.

MARNIE: What do you mean?

BIG: I mean live sex acts. Girl/girl. Boy/Boy. Girl/Boy. Boy/Girl. The possibilities are endless. I like that.

MARNIE: Live sex acts. It’s fabulous.

BIG: I don’t want you making no stink about it though, Marnie. OK?

MARNIE: OK.

BIG: I want to mull this over. So. Anyone else?

MARNIE: Got this new kid.

BIG: What’s her name?

MARNIE: Sally Dalyrumple.

BIG: What?

MARNIE: Yeah, I’m gonna change the name. Sally VaVoom is much more like it. And she loves the name. Young kid, you know?

BIG: Does she know the score?

MARNIE: No, but she will. I’ll get it to her.

BIG: Good. Now about Ruby and Pearl. Are they ready?

MARNIE: I don’t think so, Mr. Big. They ain’t ready to enter the 21st century.

BIG: Send them around anyway. Send the new kid around too. Yeah. Send them all.

(HE LAUGHS. MARNIE JOINS IN)

MARNIE: I got to set up for the show.

BIG: OK, Marnie. See ya later.

(MR. BIG SETS UP FOR A GOOD TIME WHILE MARNIE GOES TO THE HOT BOX FOR HIS ANNOUNCEMENTS. THE SET IS DOUBLE PURPOSED, A DRESSING ROOM FOR THE TWO MAIN PERFORMERS AND THE ACTUAL RUNWAY WHERE THE DANCES ARE PERFORMED. STAGE LEFT IS PEARL’S AREA, WHICH IS SIMPLY A DRESSING TABLE WITH ALL HER COSMETICS AND WIGS AND DANCE PARAPHERNALIA. THERE IS A DRAWER WHICH HOUSES SOME OF HER PERSONAL EFFECTS. STAGE RIGHT IS RUBY’S AREA AND ON HER DRESSING TABLE THERE IS THE SAME PARAPHERNALIA BUT SHE HAS A SMALL ALTAR

WHERE SHE MAKES VOODOO SPELLS. SHE HAS LITTLE BLACK DOLLS AND A SERIES OF LITTLE KNIVES AND OTHER IMPLEMENTS ASSISTING HER IN HER PRAYERS.

AT THE OUTSET THEY ARE POISED TO GO ON STAGE. PEARL IS DRESSED IN A TUXEDO AND HAS ON A WIG WHICH STRANGELY MAKES HER APPEAR TO BE THE PRESIDENT AND RUBY HAS ON A DRESSING GOWN WITH A WIG THAT STRANGELY MAKES HER APPEAR TO BE JACKIE KENNEDY. UPSTAGE RIGHT IS THE LIGHTING AND SOUND BOOTH WHERE MARNIE MAKES HIS ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARNIE: And now ladies and gentlemen, fresh from a tour of the United States, the two most scintillating, salacious, sensational, stupendous, shocking, and sublime scandals in the world. Ladies and gentlemen, Marnie’s is proud, privileged, and pleased to present to you Ruby and Pearl— A Class Act.

(THE TWO DANCERS STEP OUT WALTZING TO THE WEDDING MARCH AND THEN BEGIN THEIR PROVOCATIVE STRIPTEASE AS THE MUSIC SHIFTS NEATLY TO THE CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCE BECOMING HOT AS THEY PROCEED TO THE MARRIAGE BED, SHEARING TUX AND GOWN FROM EACH OTHER UNTIL ALMOST TOTALLY UNDRESSED. THE AUDIENCE IS WITH THEM SPELLBOUND WHEN SUDDENLY THE NEEDLE ON THE RECORD GETS STUCK AND BEGINS TO REPEAT AND REPEAT UNTIL MARNIE JUST RIPS THE NEEDLE ACROSS THE RECORD. RUBY AND PEARL RETREAT TO THE DRESSING ROOM TO HOOTS AND JEERS)

MARNIE: Sorry about that. And now ladies and gentlemen Marnie’s is pleased to present a new comer, a new star on the beat. Ladies and gentlemen—Sally VaVoom.

(SALLY LOOKS AT MARNIE)

SALLY: They’re waiting for me. Excuse me. I’m so nervous. I’ve never done this before. I’m so—what will the girls at school say?

MARNIE: Good luck, Missy.

(HE PATS HER BUTT)

SALLY: Thank you, Mr. Marnie.

(MARNIE LOOKS AT RUBY AND PEARL. THERE ARE CHEERS AS SALLY PUSHES PAST RUBY AND PEARL)

RUBY: I want to be a Queen.

PEARL: I want to be an Empress.

RUBY: I want to be a swan in the Empress’ pool.

PEARL: I want to be—oh, dammit, did you hear what happened?

RUBY: I’m gonna honky tonk him as soon as he gets here, which should be just about—

(THE DOOR OPENS AND MARNIE STEPS INSIDE WITH A BIG GRIN ON HIS FACE)

—now.

PEARL: What’s so damned funny, Marnie? This is our first show back and we had a great routine going.

MARNIE: Yeah, real— what’s the word, Ruby?

RUBY: Literate, Marnie. Literate.

MARNIE: Yeah, that’s the one.

PEARL: So what are you doing here?

MARNIE: Is this any way to greet someone wishing you welcome back?

RUBY: Great welcome, Marnie. But aren’t you forgetting something?

MARNIE: No, what?

RUBY: Your apology.

MARNIE: Apology? Oh, you mean back then.

RUBY: Yes, back then.

MARNIE: Ruby, you know how these things go. Who can tell when a needle goes bad?

(HE CHUCKLES AND LOOKS AT PEARL)

RUBY: I told you before to get a tape recorder. I’m calling Phil, Pearl.

(PEARL LOOKS AT RUBY, NODS HER HEAD)

PEARL: Yeah, get him on the phone.

(PEARL LOOKS AT MARNIE AND SCOWLS. SHE RUBS HER ARM. HE GRINS KNOWINGLY AT PEARL)

MARNIE: Yeah, well you let me know if there’s something I can do for you.

PEARL: Right, Marnie.

(PEARL TURNS AWAY FROM HIM AS HE EXITS. RUBY IS HOLDING ONTO THE PHONE AS IT RINGS AND RINGS. PEARL REACHES FOR A BOTTLE UNDER HER DRESSING TABLE)

RUBY: What are you doing?

PEARL: I need a drink.

RUBY: You’re always taking a drink. After every show. PEARL: I need it.

RUBY: After every show?

PEARL: Stop nagging me.

RUBY: We do ten shows a day/night. That’s ten drinks a night, seven nights a week, 50 weeks a year. That’s thirty- five hundred drinks a year. Are you crazy?

PEARL: No, you are. You never drink.

RUBY: Twenty, twenty-five drinks to a bottle at 10 a bottle— that’s—

PEARL: You should’ve gone into education, Ruby, you’re a helluva math teacher.

(SHE TAKES A BIG BELT) RUBY: No answer.

(SHE SLAMS THE PHONE DOWN CHANGES TO A

ROBE. PEARL FOLLOWS SUIT)

PEARL: Who’s picking you up tonight?

RUBY: Stop asking me stupid questions. You know no one is picking me up.

PEARL: Not even Yank.

RUBY: Don’t mention that ape to me again. He’s so fresh out of the trees he still can’t peel bananas. How many times do I have to tell you that?

PEARL: Yeah, well the way I heard it you broke his kneecaps with a chair. Why should he come around?

(RUBY STOPS CLEANSING HER FACE AND LOOKS AT PEARL)

RUBY: Where’d you hear all that?

PEARL: A week before we left on tour, Ruby. Remember him limping out of the dressing room. Swearing all the way. Damned bitch. Imagine the nerve of her, smashing me, Yank Lawson, don’t she know who I am. I ought mess up that face of hers. Smashing my kneecap like that. And he used stronger words, like—

RUBY: All right.

PEARL: You wish he was here now, don’t you? Wish he could talk to Marnie for you and—

(RUBY CUTS HER OFF)

RUBY: Shut up, Pearl. Of course I wish I could handle Marnie. I wish Yank would. Now leave me alone.

PEARL: Sure, Ruby.

(THEY TURN BACK TO CLEANSING AND SETTING UP THEIR FACES FOR THE NEXT SHOW)

RUBY: Anybody coming for you tonight?

PEARL: No, but did you see that guy in the first row?

RUBY: I see all the carnivores, Pearl.

PEARL: Yeah, but this one really had his eye on me.

RUBY: Sure he did, Pearl.

PEARL: Well, he did. And if he comes backstage for me, I’m going with him. I’m not spending another night staring at you and wondering what’s happening to us. Not one more night. I need some fun, not no more intellectual stimulation with you.

RUBY: What are you talking about?

PEARL: Oh, you can’t see the handwriting on the wall, Ruby? Huh?

RUBY: Spell it out, Pearl. Use baby words, but spell it out.

PEARL: We’re thirty five years old, Ruby. Does that say anything to you?

RUBY: You can count. So what?

PEARL: The dandies have stopped coming backstage for us.

RUBY: So what? Who needs them?

PEARL: I do. It says something to me. I’m an entertainer. I need to know that they like me. Half the time now we don’t even get applause. And you hear the hoots and jeers tonight, all the time now.

RUBY: That was because of the stick in the record.

PEARL: I don’t think so. I think it’s the stick in our lives, in our age, in the times. We’re getting older, Ruby, and there ain’t much room in this business for over the hill G strings.

RUBY: Make sense.

PEARL: The men expect more from us.

RUBY: More?

PEARL: More. The women expect more.

(THE DOOR SUDDENLY OPENS AND FETCH, THE JANITOR, WALKS IN CARRYING FLOWERS)

RUBY: Forget your manners, Fetch?

FETCH: I ain’t forgettin’ nothin’ I remember when I almost took Joe Louis’ head off in a sparrin’ session, so you know I ain’t forgettin’ nothing.

RUBY: You like tellin’ that lie, Fetch.

FETCH: Ruby, fuck you! Marnie says I ain’t got to take shit off you.

RUBY: What? He said that?

FETCH: Why don’t you go and ask him?

(THERE IS A TREMENDOUS CHEER FROM THE CROWD AND THEY ALL GO TO THE APRON AND PEER OUT. RUBY GASPS. PEARL NODS HER HEAD AND FETCH LEERS AT SALLY)

Now that’s what I call a nice piece of ass.

(FETCH CHUCKLES. RUBY IS SHAKEN AND GOES BACK TO HER TABLE. PEARL STANDS THERE LOOKING AT HER FRIEND)

PEARL: See what I mean?

(RUBY COLLECTS HERSELF