MAMA Ben? Ben?
She crosses to the door.
MAMA Ben? That was outside wasn't it? That was outside wasn't it honey?
She exits and goes up the stairs.
— CURTAIN —
ACT V
SCENE I
The kitchen. It is empty. The woodstove remains although the stove pipe is lying in the floor. The windows have been boarded over. Ben's pickup pulls into the drive and the truck door opens and closes and the kitchen door opens and Ben enters. He leaves the door open. He stands in the kitchen and looks around, then goes out and up the stairs. The light comes on stage right where the naked iron bedstead is the only piece of furniture left in Big Ben's bedroom. Ben comes through the room and comes around the bed and sits slowly on the bedsprings and looks out, his hands clasped, his elbows on his knees. The light comes on at the podium.
BEN The big elm tree died. The old dog died. Things that you can touch go away forever. I don't know what that means. I don't know what it means that things exist and then exist no more. Trees. Dogs. People. Will that namelessness into which we vanish then taste of us? The world was before man was and it will be again when he is gone. But it was not this world nor will it be, for where man lives is in this world only.
Ultimately there is no one to tell you if you are justified in your own house.
The people I know who are honorable never think about it. I think of little else.
If I'd ransomed everything and given it all to him would it have saved him?
No.
Was I obligated to do so?
Yes.
Why did you not?
Ben sitting on the bed, lowers his head.
BEN Papaw. Papaw. Why were you everything to me and nothing to him?
SCENE II
Stage left. Ben is standing on the porch of a small frame house. It is night and the porch light is on. He taps at the door (again). The door opens and MARY WEAVER—a woman in her midforties, not unattractive, looks out at him. She is wearing a housedress but she is well groomed.
BEN Hello. Are you Mary Weaver?
She studies him. She nods her head.
MARY I guess you're Benny.
BEN Yes mam.
MARY I cain't do nothin for you child. Let the dead sleep.
BEN I just wondered if I could talk to you for a minute.
MARY What would be the use in it?
Ben looks away. He gestures futilely. He is almost crying.
BEN I'm not here to bother you Mrs Weaver.
She shakes her head resignedly. She looks up at him. She pushes open the door.
MARY Come on in.
He enters and she closes the door and goes past him to a kitchen table with two chairs.
MARY You want a glass of iced tea?
BEN Yes mam. That would be fine.
She goes past him just offstage. She returns with a pitcher and two glasses.
MARY And quit callin me mam. I ain't that old. This is done got sugar in it.
BEN That's all right.
MARY Well set down.
She pours the glasses. He sits. She takes her cigarettes from her housedress pocket and puts them on the table and sits down.
BEN Thank you.
He sips the tea. She watches him. She sighs and reaches for the cigarettes.
MARY What did you want me to tell you?
BEN Anything that you'd be willing to. About my father. Anything...
MARY You talk like he died fore you was born.
She lights a cigarette and studies him through the smoke.
MARY I knew when I seen you standin there you didn't know what it was you wanted.
BEN I guess I don't. It's just that you're about the only person he knew that I didn't and I kept thinking that there must be somebody... there must be somebody ...
MARY I don't know why that poor man killed hisself.
BEN No. I guess you don't.
MARY Do you?
BEN (Shaking his head) No.
They sit. She smokes.
BEN I don't know anything about him. You live with someone all your life. All their life... My sister's boy. Fifteen years old. I thought he was just a troublesome kid. He was involved in things I hardly knew existed. The things I found out I couldn't believe. Yet they were so. They were so.
MARY Do you want to know what kind of man your father was? I knew him for ten years. Did you want to know that he was kind and sweet and generous? And a real man too. Because he was. Or did you come here to find out about yourself.
He looks at her. He smiles. His eyes are wet.
BEN I don't know. Maybe.
MARY What did he say about me. What did he say about me.
BEN No.
MARY He never liked to talk about things once they was over and done with. I see you don't favor him in that respect leastways.
She carefully stubs out the cigarette.
MARY It wasn't the money. Been the money he been dead years ago. He always had money troubles. Died owin me four hundred dollar.
BEN I'll see that you get it.
MARY What for? You don't owe it. I don't want it noway.
BEN He never talked about his family?
MARY Very seldom. Very seldom. Only thing I ever remember him to say that told me a little about his deeper thought was that he'd had two brothers and a sister and they was all dead. Him bein the baby of the family I think he felt alone in the world someway. He was not a happy man, Benny. Never was. If he had of been I wouldn't of had him.