Blues for an Alabama Sky

GUY. There are still plenty of clubs in Harlem looking for a fine woman who can sing.

ANGEL. I can’t sing anymore. My heart is broken.

GUY. You can sing the blues.

ANGEL. Everybody in Harlem is singing the blues.

GUY. Paris has never seen costumes like the ones I’m designing for La Bakaire!

DELIA. Do you ever think you won’t go?

GUY. I’m going. Besides I have no choice. The matter is now officially out of my hands. Angel wasn’t the only one who got fired last evening. […] Well, I couldn’t hardly stand by and let Bobby toss her bodily out on the street, could I?

DELIA. What are you going to do?

GUY. I’m going to drive Josephine crazy until she sends for me. […]

DELIA. I’ve got a little money saved if you need anything.

GUY. Aren’t you sweet?

He kisses her.

I’m fine for now. […] Do me a favor?

DELIA. Sure.

GUY. Don’t tell Angel. I don’t want her to panic. I can take care of both of us if I have to. I won’t be the first time.

GUY. Look, even in your current sorry state, you’re better off than most of the Negroes in Harlem. You’ve got a place to stay and I’m not gonna let you starve to death. We’ll figure it out.

ANGEL. I should be figuring things out for myself.

GUY. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. […] Have I ever let you down?

ANGEL. You know you haven’t.

GUY. I know I haven’t, but I’m asking you.

A beat. He waits.

ANGEL. No, you have never let me down.

DELIA. He was wonderful! He got so worked up at the end of his sermon, he came out of the pulpit, walked straight down the middle aisle and right up Seventh Avenue. His robe was billowing out around him like wings…

GUY. That Negro ought to quit preaching and go on into full-time show business.

[…]

DELIA. I talked to him about the clinic.

GUY. You did?

DELIA: And I wasn’t even nervous. I was in line to shake his hand after service and he said he was happy to see I had decided to make Abyssinian my church home. And I said I was proud to be a part of a church that had a sense of responsibility to the masses. […] He knew what I meant! The people of Harlem.

GUY. You can’t make it real just because you want it to be.

ANGEL. Are you really going to Paris?

GUY. It’s not the same thing.

ANGEL. Why isn’t it? Because you’re some kind of genius with a dream and I’m just a colored woman out of a job?

GUY. Is that your dream? Singing for gangsters? And then what?

ANGEL. Then I’ll have to figure out something else. Isn’t that what you always tell me? ‘One step at a time.’

GUY. Okay. One step at a time. Audition. Sing your heart out and if he acts a fool, me and Sam will cut his heart out for him.

GUY. For prospects, you gotta look past 125th Street. No law says we gotta live and die in Harlem, USA, just ‘cause we happened to wind up here when we finally blew out of Savannah. […] I can look out of this very window and see us walking arm in arm down the Champs Elysées.

ANGEL. Remember how you used to take those old broke-up binoculars whenever we’d go to the beach at home? The only Negro in the world ever tried to see Paris from the coast of Georgia.

GUY. I am not! Langston said he used to… I almost forgot! He’s back! […] [T]he group is gathering at his place later for a welcome home. […] Want to go preen?

ANGEL. Can I wear your tux?

GUY. I’m wearing my tux! Why don’t you go very femme? You’ll probably be the only lady at this affair.

ANGEL. The myth of the magical Josephine. She practically lives with us but so far I haven’t seen her share of the rent money!

DELIA. Guy says he expects to hear from her by the end of the month.

ANGEL. Guy says, Guy says! He’s been sending her sketches for a year but have you seen a return cable? A letter? A postcard of the Eiffel Tower? Nothing! Nothing but that damn picture hanging up there grinning at me all day and all night! (A beat.) Guy’s a dreamer. He always was and he always will be, but I'm gonna hitch my star to somebody a little closer to home.

[LELAND] hands her the cable.

ANGEL. From Josephine?

She grabs it and reads quickly. When she is finished, she speaks sarcastically.

She says she just loves everything, of course. She can’t really commit to a job or anything, of course, but if he can just send three or four finished pieces, she’s almost certain they might be able to at least think about giving him a try.

She crumples the cable and tosses it down.

LELAND. He said it was a dream come true...

ANGEL. I’m tired of Negro dreams. All they ever do is break your heart.

ANGEL. I wish you’d be more careful.

GUY. Walking up to the corner in broad daylight?

ANGEL. Leland knows some of these guys and he said...

GUY. What guys?

ANGEL. Like the ones who...stopped you at the store.

GUY. They didn’t stop me. They offered to kick my ass.

ANGEL. You know they’ll spot you dressed like that!

GUY. Spot me? I’m not hiding! Look, I’m leaving this place as fast as I can, but until I do? I plan to walk where I please, wearing what I please, whenever I please.

GUY. I’m sewing for whatever clubs are left in Harlem and I got two weddings coming up if all else fails. We’ll make it, Angel. I promise.

ANGEL. You’re a hell of a provider, Big Daddy.

GUY. You wouldn’t dismiss it all so fast if I was a straight man offering to take you to Paris.

ANGEL. But you’re not that, are you?

SAM and Delia arrive.

[…]

GUY. Angel and I have been fighting about my effectiveness as a provider.

SAM. A provider of what?

ANGEL. Let’s talk about something else.

DELIA. Is Leland coming?

ANGEL. Any minute now.

SAM. Should I be asking about this Negro’s intentions?

GUY. Maybe you should ask him if he’s a good provider.

SAM. He seems to be an honest, hard-working man. You can’t hardly ask for more than that, can you?

LELAND. Men flirting with men?

GUY. They were homosexuals, for God’s sake. What’s wrong with you?

LELAND. Don’t put God’s name in the stuff you’re talking about! I don’t know how sophisticated New York people feel about it, but in Alabama, there’s still such a thing as abomination!

GUY (standing). Get out.

ANGEL. Guy! Don’t!

GUY. Then I think you better.

ANGEL (looking at LELAND helplessly). Will you wait for me downstairs for just a minute, honey?

ANGEL. I don't want to have this baby, Sam.

A beat.

SAM. What about Leland?

ANGEL. What about him? (A beat.) I don’t know. I just know I’m going to Paris. Guy booked passage for me and we sail next Friday.

SAM. Did you tell him about the baby?

ANGEL. Of course I told him. He was surprised at first, maybe a little mad at me. He sounded like you. ‘What about Leland? What about Leland?’ What about me?

SAM. This will kill him, Angel.

ANGEL. No, it won’t! He’ll live through it just fine. And so will I. (A beat.) This is my chance to live free, Doc, and I’m taking it.

GUY. Harlem was supposed to be a place where Negroes could come together and really walk about, and for a red-hot minute, we did. But this isn’t the end of the world, you know. It’s just New York City.

[…]

When I first met Angel at Miss Lillie’s, she was already saving her getaway money. […] She was headed up to Harlem as fast as she could get there and she believed it so hard, I believed it, too. […] And I’d be lying there with my eyes closed, letting those old men touch me wherever they felt like it, but it didn’t matter, because in my mind, I was stomping at the Savoy! […] [W]hen she was ready to make a move, I’d be ready too. […] I met her at the train station. She was happy to see me, but she sure would have left without me.