“Play pro ball and you count for something in Monologues this world.” That’s what my Dad always says. “Football’s your chance to make it big!” (An- For Males grily) But it’s not my chance—it’s his! I gotta do what he never did—I gotta give him what he never got for himself! (Fiercely) Someday Winners I’m gonna tell him, “You don’t get a second by Cynthia Mercati chance in life! This is my life and my chance! And if I want to blow it—I will! (Desperately) But Scene: Male monologue. if I blow it, I’ll be a nobody, going nowhere— Character: ZEKE CARTER, a popular football counting for nothing. (Bitterly) Just ask my player. Dad. Setting: Central High School. ... Time: The present. “You put too much pressure on the boy!” That’s Situation: This is a contemporary play con- what Mom always says. “He can take it,” Dad cerned with the priorities of high school stu- says. “He’s a man—he’s a jock! He can handle dents—fitting in, making friends, and being it.” And I guess I can. oneself. For three years Zeke has been an all- ... conference football player at Central High “Don’t let me down,” that’s what the old man al- School and the big man on campus. His foot- ways says. “I’m counting on you!” Well, you ball career comes to a sudden end when the can’t count on me anymore, Dad. And I did let principal suspends him and kicks him off the you down. I found out I’m off the team perma- team after finding out about his stash of drugs. nently. And I’m outta school—for good. And I am going to court. “He can handle it,” the old I man always says. “He can take it!” But you know what, Dad—I can’t. Oh, getting high’ll ZEKE A chip off the old block. That’s what my help—(Starkly, the veneer gone) For awhile. See I Dad calls me. He was a big football star in high found out something else today, Dad. Take school—and he’s still got every one of his tro- away the uniform and there’s nothing left. phies to prove it. Games 30 years old, he can Take away the cheers—and I can’t hear my remember every play! But he never made it name. I was always looking for me in other big. He never got that scholarship. Good as he people’s eyes—trying to find a reflection so I’d was—he wasn’t good enough. But his son’s know I was real. But now—there’s nothing gonna be. Oh, yeah, his son’s gonna be the there. Or maybe—there never was anything best. (Grimly) He better be. there. (And he exits) . “Big game tonight,” my Dad always says. Every game is a big game to him. “Everyone’s count- ing on you,” he always says. “Your coach, the Simply Heavenly school. The whole town! And me. Especially by Langston Hughes me. Don’t let me down, Zeke.” . Scene: Male monologue. (Bitterly) Then after the game, the old man always Character: JESSE B. SIMPLE, a likeable young says, “You could have done better. You should man who is down on his luck. have done better.” Setting: A hospital room in Harlem. ... Time: The present I The Playbook I 375 Situation: While joy-riding with a few friends, Joyce, you know I bended. When I seen her Simple was injured in a car accident. When crying, I would have let Aunt Lucy kill me be- this scene opens, he is lying in a hospital bed fore I raised a hand. When she got through, I with both of his legs in traction. When Joyce, said, “Aunt Lucy, you ain’t gonna have to whip the woman he loves, comes to visit, he feels me no more—I’m going to do my best to do guilty about the accident and reminisces an in- right from now on, and not try your soul. And cident from his childhood. I am sorry about that hen. .” Joyce, from that day to this, I have tried to behave myself. I Aunt Lucy is gone to Glory, now, but if she’s looking down, she knows that’s true. That was SIMPLE Aunt Lucy is dead and gone to glory, my last whipping. But it wasn’t the whipping Joyce. But it were Aunt Lucy taught me right that taught me what I needed to know. It was from wrong. When I were a little young child, I because she cried and cried. When peoples didn’t have much raising. I knocked around care for you and cry for you—and love you— every-which-where, pillar to post. But when Joyce, they can straighten out your soul. (Sim- Aunt Lucy took me, she did her best to whip ple, lost in his story, had not been looking at Joyce. me and raise me, too—’cause Aunt Lucy really Instead, as he finishes, he is looking at the ceiling. believed in her Bible. “Spare the rod and spoil Suddenly Joyce turns to bury her head on the back of the child.” I were not spoiled. But that last her chair, sobbing aloud. Simple, forgetting that his whipping is what did it—made me the man I legs are tied and that he cannot get out of bed, tries am today. I could see that whipping com- to rise.) (If he could, he would go to her and take her ing, Joyce, when I sneaked out of the hen- in his arms.) Joyce, you’re crying for me! house one of Aunt Lucy’s best hens and give it to that girl to roast for her Sunday School pic- nic, because that old girl said she was aiming to picnic me—except that she didn’t have nothing much to put in her basket. I was try- Harvey ing to jive that girl, you know. Anyhow, Aunt by Mary Chase Lucy found out about it and woke me up the next morning with a switch in her hand. Scene: Male monologue. But I got all mannish that morning, Joyce. I Character: ELWOOD P. DOWD, a 47-year-old said, “Aunt Lucy, you ain’t gonna whip me no man. more. I’se a man now—and you ain’t gonna Setting: The library of the old Dowd family whip me.” Aunt Lucy said, “You know you had mansion. no business snatching my best laying hen right Time: A spring afternoon. The 1940s. off her nest.” Aunt Lucy was angry. And big as Situation: Elwood P. Dowd, a lovable, slightly I was, I was scared. Yet I was meaning not to peculiar man is accompanied by an invisible let her whip me, Joyce. But, just when I was six-foot-tall white rabbit named Harvey. His sis- aiming to snatch that switch out of her hand, I ter Veta and her daughter Myrtle, who live seed Aunt Lucy was crying. I said, “What you with him in the family home, are embarrassed crying for?” She said, “I’m crying ’cause here and humiliated by Elwood’s behavior. As the you is a man and don’t know how to act right play opens, Elwood is playing pinochle at the yet, and I done did my best to raise you so Fourth Avenue Firehouse, and Veta and you’ll grow up to be a good man. I wore out so Myrtle are hosting an afternoon tea for the many switches on your back—still you tries my members of the Wednesday Forum in the fam- soul. But it ain’t my soul I’m thinking of, son, ily home. During the party, much to their dis- it’s you. Jess, I wants you to carry yourself appointment, Elwood returns and visits on the right. You understand me? I’m getting too old phone with a magazine solicitor who has to be using my strength up like this. Here!” called the wrong number. Aunt Lucy hollered, “Bend over and lemme whip you one more time!” . Big as I was, I 376 I The Playbook I (Through door U.L . enters Elwood P. Dowd. He is a man about 47 years old with a dignified bearing, and yet a dreamy expression in his eyes. His expres- Hamlet sion is benign, yet serious to the point of gravity. He by William Shakespeare wears an overcoat and a battered old hat. This hat, Act III, Scene i reminiscent of the Joe College era, sits on the top of his head. Over his arm he carries another hat and Scene: Male monologue. coat. As he enters, although he is alone, he seems to Character: HAMLET, Prince of Denmark. be ushering and bowing someone else in with him. Setting: A hall in the castle of Elsinore. He bows the invisible person over to a chair. His step Time: The sixteenth century. is light, his movements quiet and his voice low- Situation: Hamlet is a troubled young man be- pitched.) cause his uncle, Claudius, has killed his father, married his mother, and taken over his fa- ELWOOD (To invisible person.) Excuse me a mo- ther’s kingdom. Hamlet pretends to be mad ment. I have to answer the phone. Make your- until the time is right to avenge his father’s self comfortable, Harvey. (Phone rings.) Hello. death. In this scene Hamlet gives acting advice Oh, you’ve got the wrong number.