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Act I, Scene One
Miami, 1926. September. Good Bread Alley, the notorious center of Colored Town. Lights up on “Live & Let Live”, a full service establishment in Celia’s two-story Dade County Pine house where folks board long-term (or short-term, if they miss the Colored town curfew); sample a taste of homebrew, get a poultice for a wound that won’t heal or buy a penny plate of pigeon peas & rice. She founded “Live & Let Live when she was sixteen and is now sole proprietor. It is dinnertime on the Sabbath and rowdy patrons can be heard playing the Bolita game in the backyard while they wait for the next round of fried grouper, stewed okra & tomatoes and Celia’s famous Johnny Cake. Celia enters from the altar room with stacks of money and little slips of white paper organizing them on one of the dining room tables. |
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CELIA:
Beatriz, bring the rest of them mason jars and start filling them up. It’s gone be tight up in here tonight.
(Beatriz calls from offstage.)
BEATRIZ: Sí, Mi Celia. Me voy ahorríta! [Yes, My Celia. I’m coming right now.]
CELIA: Cilo, can you start frying up the yucca? I know that Johnny Cake ain’t risen yet, so leave the oven as is. But you could toss that yucca right behind the grouper–
CILO: Sí, Mi Negra.
(Behind the bar is a full kitchen where Cilo makes Cuban coffee pressing sugar into el espumíta. Celia joins him behind the counter to participate in the ritual.)
CILO: Un café con leche bien claríto, pa’mi Negrita!
CELIA: You know I need that coffee like Jesus need a day off, right? Good Bread Alley ‘bout to get some new shoes.
(Crossing back to table and tallying money and putting it in envelopes. Beatriz, enters from the backyard with empty mason jars and a bucket of homebrew. She fills mason jars and seals them with wax paper and twine.)
BEATRIZ: Who won La Bolita?
CELIA: Man ‘round the corner with all them kids beating up on his wife cause he ain’t got no job. I’d pistol-whip him myself for I let him put all them babies up in me and can’t feed them.
CILO: You are ready for the fa-mi-ly? They come on the church bus from Tampa today, no?
CELIA: I wish Sister Day, would a just sent my chile along on the bus by herself. Little Miriam old enough now.
CILO: A visit of the fa-mi-ly is good. Your sister will be proud of the life you have made--
(We hear sounds of a fight breaking out in the backyard and Daddy Buster in a scuffle. Celia jumps up, crosses to the backdoor and pulls her pearl-handled pistol from her waist.)
CELIA: Daddy Buster, what you know good?
(Enter Daddy Buster meeting Celia at the door and grabbing her like the last piece of bread on a gravy-wiped plate–)
DADDY BUSTER: Gone and get ‘em if you want to…It’s just a bunch niggas hollering ‘cause they can’t believe I got the winning streak and the finest woman in the Alley. They love to gesticulate ‘cause they can’t appreciate--
CELIA: I got something for them to appreciate.
(His hands delicately retrace the lines of last night’s loving on her body.)
CELIA: What you doing?
DADDY BUSTER: Remembering you. I love it when you pull it out for me. You want to gone out there and get them?
CELIA: Gone.
DADDY BUSTER: I got something better for you to do with yourself.
(They kiss, the sky opens and the sun shines for them alone. Percival enters from upstairs in cravat and morning jacket addressing Celia & Daddy Buster.)
Beatriz, bring the rest of them mason jars and start filling them up. It’s gone be tight up in here tonight.
(Beatriz calls from offstage.)
BEATRIZ: Sí, Mi Celia. Me voy ahorríta! [Yes, My Celia. I’m coming right now.]
CELIA: Cilo, can you start frying up the yucca? I know that Johnny Cake ain’t risen yet, so leave the oven as is. But you could toss that yucca right behind the grouper–
CILO: Sí, Mi Negra.
(Behind the bar is a full kitchen where Cilo makes Cuban coffee pressing sugar into el espumíta. Celia joins him behind the counter to participate in the ritual.)
CILO: Un café con leche bien claríto, pa’mi Negrita!
CELIA: You know I need that coffee like Jesus need a day off, right? Good Bread Alley ‘bout to get some new shoes.
(Crossing back to table and tallying money and putting it in envelopes. Beatriz, enters from the backyard with empty mason jars and a bucket of homebrew. She fills mason jars and seals them with wax paper and twine.)
BEATRIZ: Who won La Bolita?
CELIA: Man ‘round the corner with all them kids beating up on his wife cause he ain’t got no job. I’d pistol-whip him myself for I let him put all them babies up in me and can’t feed them.
CILO: You are ready for the fa-mi-ly? They come on the church bus from Tampa today, no?
CELIA: I wish Sister Day, would a just sent my chile along on the bus by herself. Little Miriam old enough now.
CILO: A visit of the fa-mi-ly is good. Your sister will be proud of the life you have made--
(We hear sounds of a fight breaking out in the backyard and Daddy Buster in a scuffle. Celia jumps up, crosses to the backdoor and pulls her pearl-handled pistol from her waist.)
CELIA: Daddy Buster, what you know good?
(Enter Daddy Buster meeting Celia at the door and grabbing her like the last piece of bread on a gravy-wiped plate–)
DADDY BUSTER: Gone and get ‘em if you want to…It’s just a bunch niggas hollering ‘cause they can’t believe I got the winning streak and the finest woman in the Alley. They love to gesticulate ‘cause they can’t appreciate--
CELIA: I got something for them to appreciate.
(His hands delicately retrace the lines of last night’s loving on her body.)
CELIA: What you doing?
DADDY BUSTER: Remembering you. I love it when you pull it out for me. You want to gone out there and get them?
CELIA: Gone.
DADDY BUSTER: I got something better for you to do with yourself.
(They kiss, the sky opens and the sun shines for them alone. Percival enters from upstairs in cravat and morning jacket addressing Celia & Daddy Buster.)
PERCIVAL: As I recall, you have an entire floor of unoccupied rooms upstairs. (To Celia)
DADDY BUSTER: You need you some help with the Bolita count?
CELIA: I got it, Buster.
DADDY BUSTER: You always do.
CELIA: Don’t start.
DADDY BUSTER: I ain’t start nothing. It’s your business, Celia, not our business.
(Daddy Buster grabs a second mason jar and exits to the backyard as Percival crosses to kitchen for a coffee.)
PERCIVAL: When does dear Sister Day grace us with her shining countenance? I so long for the banter, the epic piety--
BEATRIZ: Percival, te luces maravilloso!…. Papa! Donde estan los pastelitos?
Without looking up from the pan of yucca, Cilo hands his daughter a box of Cuban pastelitos de guava y queso.
BEATRIZ: Te adoro, Papa! [I adore you, Papa!]
(The bell on the front door of the store rings. Day enters dragging Little Miriam through the doorway.)
DAY: Lawd, that dust done ruint my church shoes! When the last time it rain? It so dry! Cel, how you? Come on Little Miss Miriam. Why you walk so slow? Hug Mother-Dear.
(Little Miriam slowly comes toward her Mother. Celia senses she has missed an important “becoming” in Miriam’s life).
CELIA: Afternoon Day. You look good. Real good, sister. My baby…is…so pretty. That hair. It grow like wildfire all chocolate and red in the sun. Your hair too big for your little body.
LITTLE MIRIAM: Hello, Mother-Dear. Celia grabs her in an abrupt, intense hug and lets go just as quickly.
DAY: It’s only been a few months since you seen Miriam last. You’d think it’d been a lifetime.
PERCIVAL: Day, Darling. Let me take your coat.
DAY: Ain’t you the cat’s meow. You wore that to church?
PERCIVAL: Last night, The Princess performed three sets back to back. Hence, I saw Jesus over a bowl of grits this morning.
CELIA: Oh, Lord…why we standing in the doorway like a bunch a crazy people. Come on in, we can sit, have us a drink and get you settled in some rooms upstairs.
DAY: I see you got the gas lamps on. You got the electric? Little Miriam need electric lights for her music lessons. You should see the congregation light up when she play piano and Reverend Tilton love to hear her play–
CELIA: She need electric for her studies. Playing them ivories ain’t gone get her as far as them books will.
DAY: Well, now Sister Cel, ain’t no book more important than the good book! That’s what the Right Reverend Tilton say and he ought to know. He is a graduate of Morehouse College–
CELIA: Day, I know the man pedigree. Yall had me up in his church playing that piano from the time I could walk. He on the bus with yall?
DAY: He rode right up front and preach the Sunday Service on the bus. Folk couldn’t take they eyes off of him. Talking about how we as a people got to come together and knock down walls of ignorance and defeat.
CELIA: Yes. That’s how he do it--
DAY: Why you got to make it sound like something dirty? He say he done forgot how you look ‘til he see Little Miriam. I do believe she his favorite. He forever pulling her to the side after service giving her books and whatnot. He plan on getting her in to teachers college since she done already jumped a grade she so smart– (To Little Miriam)
CELIA: You did? When was this? How come ain’t nobody telegram me?
DAY: You always going on ‘bout how I’m wasting your monthly check so I was E-cono-mizing--
CELIA: Now Day, you know I take care of my baby, you and Mother Sylvia till the day she left this earth and I ain’t never denied you nothing. You know you could a sent me a telegram--
DAY: I don’t know any of those things, Celia. I figure you find out all you need to know when she get here. (To Little Miriam)
CELIA: That’s wonderful, Baby Bird!
LITTLE MIRIAM: Yes mam. Reverend Tilton help me with the tests and books – I’m halfway through the Iliad.
CILO: Little Miriam, the pastor give you a book about Gods that are not Jesus and the Apostles?
LITTLE MIRIAM: Tio Cilo!
(Little Miriam runs to him and gives him a hug. Beatriz who has been hiding behind the counter waiting to surprise Little Miriam, pops out behind her father.)
BEATRIZ: Aye. Miriam! Que bella tu eres! –
LITTLE MIRIAM: Beatriz! You look like you been eating pretty–
DAY: Yall gone deafen me?
BEATRIZ: Lo siento, Miz Day.
LITTLE MIRIAM: I apologize, Aunt Day.
DAY: It like a foreign country up in here. How you, Mr. Cilo, Little Miss Be-AT-triss? How your Mama’em? Well, the place look nice, Sister Cel. I hear tell you sell dinners and candy and got an icebox, too. You, too modern for me with your Henry Ford in the car park. Too, too modern. Mother Sylvia, God rest her soul—
(Daddy Buster enters from backyard hollering carrying a mason jar of homebrew).
DADDY BUSTER: DON’T PLAY THAT NEXT HAND WITHOUT ME. I SLEEP WITH THE QUEEN OF THE BOLITA GAME, SO YOU BET NOT MAKE ME MAD— Good God, you still a pretty brown woman, Day! I didn’t know yall was here. Cel, why you ain’t call me?
(Daddy Buster grabs Day in a bear hug. He feigns lifting her off the ground, struggles, grunts and gives up.)
DADDY BUSTER: You look good enough to eat–
DAY: Buster, if you don’t gone somewhere.
DADDY BUSTER: Little Miss Miriam, you better come on over here and give me some sugar.
(He hugs the life out of Little Miriam.)
DAY: So we all gone act like Buster ain’t drinking and gambling on the Lord’s day? Res-traunt, boarders, gambling, drinking–
CELIA: So what, Day? I run a sideline out the back. The good white sheriff and the pastors all come by for a plate, a sip and to play the Bolita if the spirits say the breeze blowing in they direction–
DAY: What spirits? You be doing them roots up in this house?
CELIA: My house is a refuge from the pain of being black all day long under a white sun. And the veil ain’t no damned roots. It’s a gift that provides for us–
DAY: I can always go back into service, particularly, if I know you was making money from the veil–
CELIA: So you rather get down on your knees and clean up after some white woman than own your own business? See that’s the goddamned problem right there--
DAY: Don’t you take the Lord’s name--
CELIA: Me and JC is copathestic. So don’t you worry ‘bout it.
DAY: The veil and talking to spirits is not Christian–
CILO: Pero, Celia na’cio en manto. And the veil is in the bible, Day–
LITTLE MIRIAM: What’s the veil, Tio Cilo?
CILO: When a child is born con el manto. The veil. Their eyes are cloudy like the cataracts and if it goes away on its own, the child wakes up with the sight or they are blind forever.
DAY: What is all this here nonsense? Papa would get up out his coffin and walk out that door if he knew--
CELIA: Papa the one told us how my veil lifted after three days of laying in the crib with Mother Sylvia singing dem ole Africa songs to me…At the end of those three days, my eyes cleared and I wanted to nurse. Papa say, “Sylvia this girl has the sight, she will be the one you teach the ways.”
DAY: He was just talking drylongso like Gullah do— Gullah Dolls from the ritual tradition of Obeah are very similar to the munecas Negras in the Santeria tradition.
CELIA: I sit and breath drylongso just like my Mother. She could see the future of anybody she touch just as clear as day.
DAY: I’m not going sit here and let the devil enter into our midst–
CELIA: You ain’t been here a hot second for you got to tear me down. Why that is?
(The bell on the door rings. Enter Reverend FG Tilton.)
FG: Celia Grace Graham. It is good to see your face after all this time.
CELIA: What a surprise, FG, come on in. Can I get you a plate and a sip?
DAY: Reverend Tilton, we was just talking about you--
DADDY BUSTER: FG, good to see you man. Last visit, you seemed to have yourself a good time, so we looking forward to seeing more of you.
FG: Well, now Buster, my trip here is short and the road is long. But anything could happen, my man, anything could happen. Afternoon all. Sister Day.
(He tips his hat and removes it.)
FG: Little Miss Miriam, you left your copy of the Iliad on the bus. (He hands her the book.) ‘Cause you know soon as we get back to Tampa, I’m testing you?
LITTLE MISS MIRIAM: Yes, F.G.–Reverend Tilton, sir.
PERCIVAL: My, how grown up you’ve become, Miss Miriam.
FG: Yes. Well, I just wanted to have a word, Miss Celia, but I see your house is full. It would be lovely to hear Celia Graham play “Eye on the Sparrow” come next Sunday’s service. I wonder if the good Lord could make a way out of no way?
CELIA: FG, you better gone. Beatriz, make Reverend Tilton a plate and pack a little something special in there like always.
FG: Much obliged, much obliged. How about I pick it up on my way back from the Pastor’s meeting this evening? CELIA That would be fine. Just fine.
(FG tips his hat and exits.)
DAY: Godspeed, Reverend.
CELIA: He come all the way over here, just to drop off a book…
DADDY BUSTER: You need you some help with the Bolita count?
CELIA: I got it, Buster.
DADDY BUSTER: You always do.
CELIA: Don’t start.
DADDY BUSTER: I ain’t start nothing. It’s your business, Celia, not our business.
(Daddy Buster grabs a second mason jar and exits to the backyard as Percival crosses to kitchen for a coffee.)
PERCIVAL: When does dear Sister Day grace us with her shining countenance? I so long for the banter, the epic piety--
BEATRIZ: Percival, te luces maravilloso!…. Papa! Donde estan los pastelitos?
Without looking up from the pan of yucca, Cilo hands his daughter a box of Cuban pastelitos de guava y queso.
BEATRIZ: Te adoro, Papa! [I adore you, Papa!]
(The bell on the front door of the store rings. Day enters dragging Little Miriam through the doorway.)
DAY: Lawd, that dust done ruint my church shoes! When the last time it rain? It so dry! Cel, how you? Come on Little Miss Miriam. Why you walk so slow? Hug Mother-Dear.
(Little Miriam slowly comes toward her Mother. Celia senses she has missed an important “becoming” in Miriam’s life).
CELIA: Afternoon Day. You look good. Real good, sister. My baby…is…so pretty. That hair. It grow like wildfire all chocolate and red in the sun. Your hair too big for your little body.
LITTLE MIRIAM: Hello, Mother-Dear. Celia grabs her in an abrupt, intense hug and lets go just as quickly.
DAY: It’s only been a few months since you seen Miriam last. You’d think it’d been a lifetime.
PERCIVAL: Day, Darling. Let me take your coat.
DAY: Ain’t you the cat’s meow. You wore that to church?
PERCIVAL: Last night, The Princess performed three sets back to back. Hence, I saw Jesus over a bowl of grits this morning.
CELIA: Oh, Lord…why we standing in the doorway like a bunch a crazy people. Come on in, we can sit, have us a drink and get you settled in some rooms upstairs.
DAY: I see you got the gas lamps on. You got the electric? Little Miriam need electric lights for her music lessons. You should see the congregation light up when she play piano and Reverend Tilton love to hear her play–
CELIA: She need electric for her studies. Playing them ivories ain’t gone get her as far as them books will.
DAY: Well, now Sister Cel, ain’t no book more important than the good book! That’s what the Right Reverend Tilton say and he ought to know. He is a graduate of Morehouse College–
CELIA: Day, I know the man pedigree. Yall had me up in his church playing that piano from the time I could walk. He on the bus with yall?
DAY: He rode right up front and preach the Sunday Service on the bus. Folk couldn’t take they eyes off of him. Talking about how we as a people got to come together and knock down walls of ignorance and defeat.
CELIA: Yes. That’s how he do it--
DAY: Why you got to make it sound like something dirty? He say he done forgot how you look ‘til he see Little Miriam. I do believe she his favorite. He forever pulling her to the side after service giving her books and whatnot. He plan on getting her in to teachers college since she done already jumped a grade she so smart– (To Little Miriam)
CELIA: You did? When was this? How come ain’t nobody telegram me?
DAY: You always going on ‘bout how I’m wasting your monthly check so I was E-cono-mizing--
CELIA: Now Day, you know I take care of my baby, you and Mother Sylvia till the day she left this earth and I ain’t never denied you nothing. You know you could a sent me a telegram--
DAY: I don’t know any of those things, Celia. I figure you find out all you need to know when she get here. (To Little Miriam)
CELIA: That’s wonderful, Baby Bird!
LITTLE MIRIAM: Yes mam. Reverend Tilton help me with the tests and books – I’m halfway through the Iliad.
CILO: Little Miriam, the pastor give you a book about Gods that are not Jesus and the Apostles?
LITTLE MIRIAM: Tio Cilo!
(Little Miriam runs to him and gives him a hug. Beatriz who has been hiding behind the counter waiting to surprise Little Miriam, pops out behind her father.)
BEATRIZ: Aye. Miriam! Que bella tu eres! –
LITTLE MIRIAM: Beatriz! You look like you been eating pretty–
DAY: Yall gone deafen me?
BEATRIZ: Lo siento, Miz Day.
LITTLE MIRIAM: I apologize, Aunt Day.
DAY: It like a foreign country up in here. How you, Mr. Cilo, Little Miss Be-AT-triss? How your Mama’em? Well, the place look nice, Sister Cel. I hear tell you sell dinners and candy and got an icebox, too. You, too modern for me with your Henry Ford in the car park. Too, too modern. Mother Sylvia, God rest her soul—
(Daddy Buster enters from backyard hollering carrying a mason jar of homebrew).
DADDY BUSTER: DON’T PLAY THAT NEXT HAND WITHOUT ME. I SLEEP WITH THE QUEEN OF THE BOLITA GAME, SO YOU BET NOT MAKE ME MAD— Good God, you still a pretty brown woman, Day! I didn’t know yall was here. Cel, why you ain’t call me?
(Daddy Buster grabs Day in a bear hug. He feigns lifting her off the ground, struggles, grunts and gives up.)
DADDY BUSTER: You look good enough to eat–
DAY: Buster, if you don’t gone somewhere.
DADDY BUSTER: Little Miss Miriam, you better come on over here and give me some sugar.
(He hugs the life out of Little Miriam.)
DAY: So we all gone act like Buster ain’t drinking and gambling on the Lord’s day? Res-traunt, boarders, gambling, drinking–
CELIA: So what, Day? I run a sideline out the back. The good white sheriff and the pastors all come by for a plate, a sip and to play the Bolita if the spirits say the breeze blowing in they direction–
DAY: What spirits? You be doing them roots up in this house?
CELIA: My house is a refuge from the pain of being black all day long under a white sun. And the veil ain’t no damned roots. It’s a gift that provides for us–
DAY: I can always go back into service, particularly, if I know you was making money from the veil–
CELIA: So you rather get down on your knees and clean up after some white woman than own your own business? See that’s the goddamned problem right there--
DAY: Don’t you take the Lord’s name--
CELIA: Me and JC is copathestic. So don’t you worry ‘bout it.
DAY: The veil and talking to spirits is not Christian–
CILO: Pero, Celia na’cio en manto. And the veil is in the bible, Day–
LITTLE MIRIAM: What’s the veil, Tio Cilo?
CILO: When a child is born con el manto. The veil. Their eyes are cloudy like the cataracts and if it goes away on its own, the child wakes up with the sight or they are blind forever.
DAY: What is all this here nonsense? Papa would get up out his coffin and walk out that door if he knew--
CELIA: Papa the one told us how my veil lifted after three days of laying in the crib with Mother Sylvia singing dem ole Africa songs to me…At the end of those three days, my eyes cleared and I wanted to nurse. Papa say, “Sylvia this girl has the sight, she will be the one you teach the ways.”
DAY: He was just talking drylongso like Gullah do— Gullah Dolls from the ritual tradition of Obeah are very similar to the munecas Negras in the Santeria tradition.
CELIA: I sit and breath drylongso just like my Mother. She could see the future of anybody she touch just as clear as day.
DAY: I’m not going sit here and let the devil enter into our midst–
CELIA: You ain’t been here a hot second for you got to tear me down. Why that is?
(The bell on the door rings. Enter Reverend FG Tilton.)
FG: Celia Grace Graham. It is good to see your face after all this time.
CELIA: What a surprise, FG, come on in. Can I get you a plate and a sip?
DAY: Reverend Tilton, we was just talking about you--
DADDY BUSTER: FG, good to see you man. Last visit, you seemed to have yourself a good time, so we looking forward to seeing more of you.
FG: Well, now Buster, my trip here is short and the road is long. But anything could happen, my man, anything could happen. Afternoon all. Sister Day.
(He tips his hat and removes it.)
FG: Little Miss Miriam, you left your copy of the Iliad on the bus. (He hands her the book.) ‘Cause you know soon as we get back to Tampa, I’m testing you?
LITTLE MISS MIRIAM: Yes, F.G.–Reverend Tilton, sir.
PERCIVAL: My, how grown up you’ve become, Miss Miriam.
FG: Yes. Well, I just wanted to have a word, Miss Celia, but I see your house is full. It would be lovely to hear Celia Graham play “Eye on the Sparrow” come next Sunday’s service. I wonder if the good Lord could make a way out of no way?
CELIA: FG, you better gone. Beatriz, make Reverend Tilton a plate and pack a little something special in there like always.
FG: Much obliged, much obliged. How about I pick it up on my way back from the Pastor’s meeting this evening? CELIA That would be fine. Just fine.
(FG tips his hat and exits.)
DAY: Godspeed, Reverend.
CELIA: He come all the way over here, just to drop off a book…
