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By Root 168 0

to you what the rest of the world been doing to you. (She turns off the radio) Walter—(She stops and he looks up slowly at her and she meets his eyes pleadingly) What you ain’t never understood is that I ain’t got nothing, don’t own nothing, ain’t never really wanted nothing that wasn’t for you. There ain’t nothing as precious to me … There ain’t nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else—if it means—if it means it’s going to destroy my boy. (She takes an envelope out of her handbag and puts it in front of him and he watches her without speaking or moving) I paid the man thirty-five hundred dollars down on the house. That leaves sixty-five hundred dollars. Monday morning I want you to take this money and take three thousand dollars and put it in a savings account for Beneatha’s medical schooling. The rest you put in a checking account—with your name on it. And from now on any penny that come out of it or that go in it is for you to look after. For you to decide. (She drops her hands a little helplessly) It ain’t much, but it’s all I got in the world and I’m putting it in your hands. I’m telling you to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be.

WALTER (Stares at the money) You trust me like that, Mama?

MAMA I ain’t never stop trusting you. Like I ain’t never stop loving you.

(She goes out, and WALTER sits looking at the money on the table. Finally, in a decisive gesture, he gets up, and, in mingled joy and desperation, picks up the money. At the same moment, TRAVIS enters for bed)

TRAVIS What’s the matter, Daddy? You drunk?

WALTER (Sweetly, more sweetly than we have ever known him) No, Daddy ain’t drunk. Daddy ain’t going to never be drunk again.…

TRAVIS Well, good night, Daddy.

(The FATHER has come from behind the couch and leans over, embracing his son)

WALTER Son, I feel like talking to you tonight.

TRAVIS About what?

WALTER Oh, about a lot of things. About you and what kind of man you going to be when you grow up. … Son—son, what do you want to be when you grow up?

TRAVIS A bus driver.

WALTER (Laughing a little) A what? Man, that ain’t nothing to want to be!

TRAVIS Why not?

WALTER ’Cause, man—it ain’t big enough—you know what I mean.

TRAVIS I don’t know then. I can’t make up my mind. Sometimes Mama asks me that too. And sometimes when I tell her I just want to be like you—she says she don’t want me to be like that and sometimes she says she does.…

WALTER (Gathering him up in his arms) You know what, Travis? In seven years you going to be seventeen years old. And things is going to be very different with us in seven years, Travis. … One day when you are seventeen I’ll come home—home from my office downtown somewhere—

TRAVIS You don’t work in no office, Daddy.

WALTER No—but after tonight. After what your daddy gonna do tonight, there’s going to be offices—a whole lot of offices.…

TRAVIS What you gonna do tonight, Daddy?

WALTER You wouldn’t understand yet, son, but your daddy’s gonna make a transaction … a business transaction that’s going to change our lives. … That’s how come one day when you ’bout seventeen years old I’ll come home and I’ll be pretty tired, you know what I mean, after a day of conferences and secretaries getting things wrong the way they do … ’cause an executive’s life is hell, man—(The more he talks the farther away he gets) And I’ll pull the car up on the driveway … just a plain black Chrysler, I think, with white walls—no—black tires. More elegant. Rich people don’t have to be flashy … though I’ll have to get something a little sportier for Ruth—maybe a Cadillac convertible to do her shopping in. … And I’ll come up the steps to the house and the gardener will be clipping away at the hedges and he’ll say, “Good evening, Mr. Younger.” And I’ll say, “Hello, Jefferson, how are you this evening?” And I’ll go inside and Ruth will come downstairs and meet me at the door and we’ll kiss each other and she’ll take my arm and we’ll go up to your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogues of all the great schools in America around you. …