Blues for Mister Charlie Read Online Free Page A

We don’t see things the same way, Grandmama. I don’t know if I really
know
right from wrong—I’d like to, I always dig people the most who know
anything
, especially right from wrong!
    MOTHER HENRY : You’ve had yourself a little trouble, Richard, like we all do, and you a little tired, like we all get. You’ll be all right. You a young man. Only, just try not to
go
so much, try to calm down a little. Your Daddy loves you. You his only son.
    RICHARD : That’s a good reason, Grandmama. Let me tell you about New York. You ain’t never been North, have you?
    MOTHER HENRY : Your Daddy used to tell me a little about it every time he come back from visiting you all up there.
    RICHARD : Daddy don’t know nothing about New York. He just come up for a few days and went right on back. That ain’t the way to get to know New York. No ma’am. He
never
saw New York. Finally, I realized he wasn’t never
going
to see it—you know, there’s a whole lot of things Daddy’s never seen? I’ve seen more than he has.
    MOTHER HENRY : All young folks thinks that.
    RICHARD : Did
you?
When you were young? Did you think you knew more than your mother and father? But I bet you really did, you a pretty shrewd old lady, quiet as it’s kept.
    MOTHER HENRY : No, I didn’t think that. But I thought I could find
out
more, because
they
were born in slavery, but
I
was born free.
    RICHARD :
Did
you find out more?
    MOTHER HENRY : I found out what I had to find out—to take care of my husband and raise my children in the fear of God.
    RICHARD : You know I don’t believe in God, Grandmama.
    MOTHER HENRY : You don’t know what you talking about. Ain’t no way possible for you not to believe in God. It ain’t up to you.
    RICHARD : Who’s it up to, then?
    MOTHER HENRY : It’s up to the life in you—the life in you.
That
knows where it comes from,
that
believes in God. You doubt me, you just try holding your breath long enough to die.
    RICHARD : You pretty smart, ain’t you?
(A pause)
I convinced Daddy that I’d be better off in New York—and Edna, she convinced him too, she said it wasn’t as tight for a black man up there as it is down here. Well, that’s acrock, Grandmama, believe me when I tell you. At first I thought it was true, hell, I was just a green country boy and they ain’t got no signs up, dig, saying you can’t go here or you can’t go there. No, you got to find that out all by your lonesome. But—for awhile—I thought everything was swinging and Edna, she’s so dizzy she thinks everything is
always
swinging, so there we were—like
swinging.
    MOTHER HENRY : I know Edna got lost somewhere. But, Richard—why didn’t
you
come back? You knew your Daddy wanted you back, your Daddy and me both.
    RICHARD : I didn’t want to come back here like a whipped dog. One whipped dog running to another whipped dog. No, I didn’t want that. I wanted to make my Daddy proud of me—because, the day I left here, I sure as hell wasn’t proud of
him.
    MOTHER HENRY : Be careful, son. Be careful. Your Daddy’s a fine man. Your Daddy loves you.
    RICHARD : I know, Grandmama. But I just wish, that day that Mama died, he’d took a pistol and gone through that damn white man’s hotel and shot every son of a bitch in the place. That’s right. I wish he’d shot them dead. I been dreaming of that day ever since I left here. I been dreaming of my Mama falling down the steps of that hotel.
My
Mama. I never believed she fell. I
always
believed that some white man pushed her down those steps. And I know that Daddy thought so, too. But he wasn’t there, he didn’t know, he couldn’t say nothing, he couldn’t
do
nothing. I’ll never forget the way he looked—whipped, whipped, whipped, whipped!
    MOTHER HENRY : She fell, Richard, she
fell.
The stairs were wet and slippery and she
fell.
    RICHARD : My mother
fell
down the steps of that damn white hotel? My mother was
pushed
—you remember yourself how themwhite bastards was always sniffing