Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry [10]
RUTH (Bitterly) Oh, Walter Lee …
(She folds her head on her arms over the table)
WALTER (Rising and coming to her and standing over her) You tired, ain’t you? Tired of everything. Me, the boy, the way we live—this beat-up hole—everything. Ain’t you? (She doesn’t look up, doesn’t answer) So tired—moaning and groaning all the time, but you wouldn’t do nothing to help, would you? You couldn’t be on my side that long for nothing, could you?
RUTH Walter, please leave me alone.
WALTER A man needs for a woman to back him up …
RUTH Walter—
WALTER Mama would listen to you. You know she listen to you more than she do me and Bennie. She think more of you. All you have to do is just sit down with her when you drinking your coffee one morning and talking ’bout things like you do and—(He sits down beside her and demonstrates graphically what he thinks her methods and tone should be)—you just sip your coffee, see, and say easy like that you been thinking ’bout that deal Walter Lee is so interested in, ’bout the store and all, and sip some more coffee, like what you saying ain’t really that important to you— And the next thing you know, she be listening good and asking you questions and when I come home—I can tell her the details. This ain’t no fly-by-night proposition, baby. I mean we figured it out, me and Willy and Bobo.
RUTH (With a frown) Bobo?
WALTER Yeah. You see, this little liquor store we got in mind cost seventy-five thousand and we figured the initial investment on the place be ’bout thirty thousand, see. That be ten thousand each. Course, there’s a couple of hundred you got to pay so’s you don’t spend your life just waiting for them clowns to let your license get approved—
RUTH You mean graft?
WALTER (Frowning impatiently) Don’t call it that. See there, that just goes to show you what women understand about the world. Baby, don’t nothing happen for you in this world ’less you pay somebody off!
RUTH Walter, leave me alone! (She raises her head and stares at him vigorously—then says, more quietly) Eat your eggs, they gonna be cold.
WALTER (Straightening up from her and looking off) That’s it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. (Sadly, but gaining in power) Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. (Passionately now) Man say: I got to change my life, I’m choking to death, baby! And his woman say—(In utter anguish as he brings his fists down on his thighs)—Your eggs is getting cold!
RUTH (Softly) Walter, that ain’t none of our money.
WALTER (Not listening at all or even looking at her) This morning, I was lookin’ in the mirror and thinking about it … I’m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room—(Very, very quietly)—and all I got to give him is stories about how rich white people live …
RUTH Eat your eggs, Walter.
WALTER (Slams the table and jumps up)—DAMN MY EGGS—DAMN ALL THE EGGS THAT EVER WAS!
RUTH Then go to work.
WALTER (Looking up at her) See—I’m trying to talk to you ’bout myself—(Shaking his head with the repetition)—and all you can say is eat them eggs and go to work.
RUTH (Wearily) Honey, you never say nothing new. I listen to you every day, every night and every morning, and you never say nothing new. (Shrugging) So you would rather be Mr. Arnold than be his chauffeur. So—I would rather be living in Buckingham Palace.
WALTER That is just what is wrong with the colored woman in this world … Don’t understand about building their men up and making ’em feel like they somebody. Like they can do something.
RUTH (Drily, but to hurt) There are colored men who do things.
WALTER No thanks to the colored woman.
RUTH Well, being a colored woman, I guess I can’t help myself none.
(She