Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry [38]
WALTER (Dumbfounded, looking at LINDNER) IS this what you came marching all the way over here to tell us?
LINDNER Well, now we’ve been having a fine conversation. I hope you’ll hear me all the way through.
WALTER (Tightly) Go ahead, man.
LINDNER You see—in the face of all the things I have said, we are prepared to make your family a very generous offer …
BENEATHA Thirty pieces and not a coin less!
WALTER Yeah?
LINDNER (Putting on his glasses and drawing a form out of the briefcase) Our association is prepared, through the collective effort of our people, to buy the house from you at a financial gain to your family.
RUTH Lord have mercy, ain’t this the living gall!
WALTER All right, you through?
LINDNER Well, I want to give you the exact terms of the financial arrangement—
WALTER We don’t want to hear no exact terms of no arrangements. I want to know if you got any more to tell us ’bout getting together?
LINDNER (Taking off his glasses) Well—I don’t suppose that you feel …
WALTER Never mind how I feel—you got any more to say ’bout how people ought to sit down and talk to each other? … Get out of my house, man.
(He turns his back and walks to the door)
LINDNER (Looking around at the hostile faces and reaching and assembling his hat and briefcase) Well—I don’t understand why you people are reacting this way. What do you think you are going to gain by moving into a neighborhood where you just aren’t wanted and where some elements—well—people can get awful worked up when they feel that their whole way of life and everything they’ve ever worked for is threatened.
WALTER Get out.
LINDNER (At the door, holding a small card) Well—I’m sorry it went like this.
WALTER Get out.
LINDNER (Almost sadly regarding wALTER) YOU just can’t force people to change their hearts, son.
(He turns and put his card on a table and exits. WALTER pushes the door to with stinging hatred, and stands looking at it. RUTH just sits and BENEATHA just stands. They say nothing. MAMA and TRAVIS enter)
MAMA Well—this all the packing got done since I left out of here this morning. I testify before God that my children got all the energy of the dead! What time the moving men due?
BENEATHA Four o’clock. You had a caller, Mama.
(She is smiling, teasingly)
MAMA Sure enough—who?
BENEATHA (Her arms folded saucily) The Welcoming Committee.
(WALTER and RUTH giggle)
MAMA (Innocently) Who?
BENEATHA The Welcoming Committee. They said they’re sure going to be glad to see you when you get there.
WALTER (Devilishly) Yeah, they said they can’t hardly wait to see your face.
(Laughter)
MAMA (Sensing their facetiousness) What’s the matter with you all?
WALTER Ain’t nothing the matter with us. We just telling you ’bout the gentleman who came to see you this afternoon. From the Clybourne Park Improvement Association.
MAMA What he want?
RUTH (In the same mood as BENEATHA and WALTER) TO welcome you, honey.
WALTER He said they can’t hardly wait. He said the one thing they don’t have, that they just dying to have out there is a fine family of fine colored people! (To RUTH and BENEATHA) Ain’t that right!
RUTH (Mockingly) Yeah! He left his card—
BENEATHA (Handing card to MAMA) In case.
(MAMA reads and throws it on the floor—understanding and looking off as she draws her chair up to the table on which she has put her plant and some sticks and some cord)
MAMA Father, give us strength. (Knowingly—and without fun) Did he threaten us?
BENEATHA Oh—Mama—they don’t do it like that any more. He talked Brotherhood. He said everybody ought to learn how to sit down and hate each other with good Christian fellowship.
(She and WALTER shake hands to ridicule the remark)
MAMA (Sadly) Lord, protect us …
RUTH You should hear the money those folks raised to buy the house from us. All we paid and then some.
BENEATHA What they think we going to do—eat ’em?
RUTH No, honey, marry ’em.
MAMA (Shaking her head) Lord, Lord, Lord …
RUTH Well—that’s the way the crackers crumble. (A beat) Joke.
BENEATHA (Laughingly