It is 1957. Troy and Bono enter the yard, engaged in conversation. Troy is fifty-three years old, a large man with thick, heavy hands; it is this largeness that he strives to fill out and make an accommodation with. Together with his blackness, his largeness informs his sensibilities and the choices he has made in his life.
Of the two men, Bono is obviously the follower. His commitment to their friendship of thirty-odd years is rooted in his admiration of Troy’s honesty, capacity for hard work, and his strength, which Bono seeks to emulate.

It is Friday night, payday, and the one night of the week the two men engage in a ritual of talk and drink. Troy is usually the most talkative and at times he can be crude and almost vulgar, though he is capable of rising to profound heights of expression. The men carry lunch buckets and wear or carry burlap aprons and are dressed in clothes suitable to their jobs as garbage collectors.

BONO: Troy, you ought to stop that lying!

TROY: I ain’t lying! The nigger had a watermelon this big. (He indicates with his hands.) Talking about . . . “What watermelon, Mr. Rand?” I liked to fell out! “What watermelon, Mr. Rand?” . . . And it sitting there big as life.

BONO: What did Mr. Rand say?

TROY: Ain’t said nothing. Figure if the nigger too dumb to know he carrying a watermelon, he wasn’t gonna get much sense out of him. Trying to hide that great big old watermelon under his coat. Afraid to let the white man see him carry it home. bono: I’m like you . . . I ain’t got no time for them kind of people. troy: Now what he look like getting mad cause he see the man from the union talking to Mr. Rand?

BONO: He come to me talking about . . . “Maxson gonna get us fired.” I told him to get away from me with that. He walked away from me calling you a troublemaker. What Mr. Rand say?

TROY: Ain’t said nothing. He told me to go down the Commissioner’s office next Friday. They called me down there to see them.

BONO: Well, as long as you got your complaint filed, they can’t fire you. That’s what one of them white fellows tell me.

TROY: I ain’t worried about them firing me. They gonna fire me cause I asked a question? That’s all I did. I went to Mr. Rand and asked him, “Why? Why you got the white mens driving and the colored lifting?” Told him “what’s the matter, don’t I count? You think only white fellows got sense enough to drive a truck. That ain’t no paper job! Hell, anybody can drive a truck. How come you got all whites driving and the colored lifting?” He told me “take it to the union.” Well, hell, that’s what I done! Now they wanna come up with this pack of lies.

BONO: I told Brownie if the man come and ask him any questions . . . just tell the truth! It ain’t nothing but something they done trumped up on you cause you filed a complaint on them.

TROY: Brownie don’t understand nothing. All I want them to do is change the job description. Give everybody a chance to drive the truck. Brownie can’t see that. He ¬ain’t got that much sense.

BONO: How you figure he be making out with that gal be up at Taylors’ all the time . . . that Alberta gal?

TROY: Same as you and me. Getting just as much as we is. Which is to say nothing.

BONO: It is, huh? I figure you doing a little better than me . . . and I ain’t saying what I’m doing.

TROY: Aw, nigger, took here . . . I know you. If you had got anywhere near that gal, twenty minutes later you be looking to tell somebody. And the first one you gonna tell . . . that you gonna want to brag to . . . is gonna be me.

BONO: I ain’t saying that. I see where you be eyeing her.

TROY: I eye all the women. I don’t miss nothing. Don’t never let nobody tell you Troy Maxson don’t eye the women.

BONO: You been doing more than eyeing her. You done bought her a drink or two.

TROY: Hell yeah, I bought her a drink! What that mean? I bought you one, too. What that mean cause I buy her a drink? I’m just being polite.

BONO: It’s all right to buy her one drink. That’s what you call being polite. But when you wanna be buying two or three . . . that’s what you call eyeing her.

TROY: Look here, as long as you known me . . . you ever known me to chase after women?

BONO: Hell yeah! Long as I done known you. You forgetting I knew you when.

TROY: Naw, I’m talking about since I been married to Rose?

BONO: Oh, not since you been married to Rose. Now, that’s the truth, there. I can say that.

TROY: All right then! Case closed.

BONO: I see you be walking up around Alberta’s house. You supposed to be at Taylors’ and you be walking up around there.

TROY: What you watching where I’m walking for? I ain’t watching after you.

BONO: I seen you walking around there more than once.

TROY: Hell, you liable to see me walking anywhere! That don’t mean nothing cause you see me walking around there.

BONO: Where she come from anyway? She just kinda showed up one day.

TROY: Tallahassee. You can look at her and tell she one of them Florida gals. They got some big healthy women down there. Grow them right up out the ground. Got a little bit of Indian in her. Most of them niggers down in Florida got some Indian in them.

BONO: I don’t know about that Indian part. But she damn sure big and healthy. Woman wear some big stockings. Got them great big old legs and hips as wide as the Mississippi River.

TROY: Legs don’t mean nothing. You don’t do nothing but push them out of the way. But them hips cushion the ride!

BONO: Troy, you ain’t got no sense.

TROY: It’s the truth! Like you riding on Goodyears!

(ROSE enters from the house. She is ten years younger than TROY, her devotion to him stems from her recognition of the possibilities of her life without him: a succession of abusive men and their babies, a life of partying and running the streets, the Church, or aloneness with its attendant pain and frustration. She recognizes TROY’s spirit as a fine and illuminating one and she either ignores or forgives his faults, only some of which she recognizes. Though she doesn’t drink, her presence is an integral part of the Friday night rituals. She alternates between the porch and the kitchen, where supper preparations are under way.)

ROSE: What you all out here getting into?

TROY: What you worried about what we getting into for? This is men talk, woman.

ROSE: What I care what you all talking about? Bono, you gonna stay for supper?

BONO: No, I thank you, Rose. But Lucille say she cooking up a pot of pigfeet.

TROY: Pigfeet! Hell, I’m going home with you! Might even stay the night if you got some pigfeet. You got something in there to top them pigfeet, Rose?

ROSE: I’m cooking up some chicken. I got some chicken and collard greens.

TROY: Well, go on back in the house and let me and Bono finish what we was talking about. This is men talk. I got some talk for you later. You know what kind of talk I mean. You go on and powder it up.

ROSE: Troy Maxson, don’t you start that now!

TROY (puts his arm around her): Aw, woman . . . come here. Look here, Bono . . . when I met this woman . . . I got out that place, say, “Hitch up my pony, saddle up my mare . . . there’s a woman out there for me somewhere. I looked here. Looked there. Saw Rose and latched on to her.” I latched on to her and told her—I’m gonna tell you the truth—I told her, “Baby, I don’t wanna marry, I just wanna be your man.” Rose told me . . . tell him what you told me, Rose.

ROSE: I told him if he wasn’t the marrying kind, then move out the way so the marrying kind could find me.

TROY: That’s what she told me. “Nigger, you in my way. You blocking the view! Move out the way so I can find me a husband.” I thought it over two or three days. Come back—

ROSE: Ain’t no two or three days nothing. You was back the same night.

TROY: Come back, told her . . . “Okay, baby . . . but I’m gonna buy me a banty rooster and put him out there in the backyard . . . and when he see a stranger come, he’ll flap his wings and crow . . .” Look here, Bono, I could watch the front door by myself . . . it was that back door I was worried about.

ROSE: Troy, you ought not talk like that. Troy ain’t doing nothing but telling a lie.

TROY: Only thing is . . . when we first got married . . . forget the rooster . . . we ain’t had no yard!

BONO: I hear you tell it. Me and Lucille was staying down there on Logan Street. Had two rooms with the outhouse in the back. I ain’t mind the outhouse none. But when that goddamn wind blow through there in the winter . . . that’s what I’m talking about! To this day I wonder why in the hell I ever stayed down there for six long years. But see, I didn’t know I could do no better. I thought only white folks had inside toilets and things.

ROSE: There’s a lot of people don’t know they can do no better than they doing now. That’s just something you got to learn. A lot of folks still shop at Bella’s.

TROY: Ain’t nothing wrong with shopping at Bella’s. She got fresh food.

ROSE: I ain’t said nothing about if she got fresh food. I’m talking about what she charge. She charge ten cents more than the A&P.
TROY: The A&P ain’t never done nothing for me. I spends my money where I’m treated right. I go down to Bella, say, “I need a loaf of bread, I’ll pay you Friday.” She give it to me. What sense that make when I got money to go and spend it somewhere else and ignore the person who done right by me? That ain’t in the Bible.

ROSE: We ain’t talking about what’s in the Bible. What sense it make to shop there when she overcharge?

TROY: You shop where you want to. I’ll do my shopping where the people been good to me.

ROSE: Well, I don’t think it’s right for her to overcharge. That’s all I was saying.

BONO: Look here . . . I got to get on. Lucille going be raising all kind of hell.

TROY: Where you going, nigger? We ain’t finished this pint. Come here, finish this pint.

BONO: Well, hell, I am . . . if you ever turn the bottle loose.

TROY (hands him the bottle): The only thing I say about the A&P is I’m glad Cory got that job down there. Help him take care of his school clothes and things. Gabe done moved out and things getting tight around here. He got that job. . . . He can start to look out for himself.

ROSE: Cory done went and got recruited by a college football team.

TROY: I told that boy about that football stuff. The white man ain’t gonna let him get nowhere with that football. I told him when he first come to me with it. Now you come telling me he done went and got more tied up in it. He ought to go and get recruited in how to fix cars or something where he can make a living.

ROSE: He ain’t talking about making no living playing football. It’s just something the boys in school do. They gonna send a recruiter by to talk to you. He’ll tell you he ¬ain’t talking about making no living playing football. It’s a honor to be recruited.

TROY: It ain’t gonna get him nowhere. Bono’ll tell you that.

BONO: If he be like you in the sports . . . he’s gonna be all right. Ain’t but two men ever played baseball as good as you. That’s Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson. Them’s the only two men ever hit more home runs than you.

TROY: What it ever get me? Ain’t got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

ROSE: Times have changed since you was playing baseball, Troy. That was before the war. Times have changed a lot since then.

TROY: How in hell they done changed?

ROSE: They got lots of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football.

BONO: You right about that, Rose. Times have changed, Troy. You just come along too early.

TROY: There ought not never have been no time called too early! Now you take that fellow . . . what’s that fellow they had playing right field for the Yankees back then? You know who I’m talking about, Bono. Used to play right field for the Yankees.

ROSE: Selkirk?

TROY: Selkirk! That’s it! Man batting .269, understand? .269. What kind of sense that make? I was hitting .432 with thirty-seven home runs! Man batting .269 and playing right field for the Yankees! I saw Josh Gibson’s daughter yesterday. She walking around with raggedy shoes on her feet. Now I bet you Selkirk’s daughter ain’t walking around with raggedy shoes on her feet! I bet you that!

ROSE: They got a lot of colored baseball players now. Jackie Robinson was the first. Folks had to wait for Jackie Robinson.

TROY: I done seen a hundred niggers play baseball better than Jackie Robinson. Hell, I know some teams Jackie Robinson couldn’t even make! What you talking about Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson wasn’t nobody. I’m talking about if you could play ball then they ought to have let you play. Don’t care what color you were. Come telling me I come along too early. If you could play . . . then they ought to have let you play.
(TROY takes a long drink from the bottle.)

ROSE: You gonna drink yourself to death. You don’t need to be drinking like that.

TROY: Death ain’t nothing. I done seen him. Done wrassled with him. You can’t tell me nothing about death. Death ain’t nothing but a fastball on the outside corner. And you know what I’ll do to that! Lookee here, Bono . . . am I lying? You get one of them fastballs, about waist high, over the outside corner of the plate where you can get the meat of the bat on it . . . and good god! You can kiss it goodbye. Now, am I lying?

BONO: Naw, you telling the truth there. I seen you do it.

TROY: If I’m lying . . . that 450 feet worth of lying! (Pause.) That’s all death is to me. A fastball on the outside corner.

ROSE: I don’t know why you want to get on talking about death.

TROY: Ain’t nothing wrong with talking about death. That’s part of life. Everybody gonna die. You gonna die, I’m gonna die. Bono’s gonna die. Hell, we all gonna die.

ROSE: But you ain’t got to talk about it. I don’t like to talk about it.

TROY: You the one brought it up. Me and Bono was talking about baseball . . . you tell me I’m gonna drink myself to death. Ain’t that right, Bono? You know I don’t drink this but one night out of the week. That’s Friday night. I’m gonna drink just enough to where I can handle it. Then I cuts it loose. I leave it alone. So don’t you worry about me drinking myself to death. ’Cause I ain’t worried about Death. I done seen him. I done wrestled with him.
Look here, Bono . . . I looked up one day and Death was marching straight at me. Like Soldiers on Parade! The Army of Death was marching straight at me. The middle of July, 1941. It got real cold just like it be winter. It seem like Death himself reached out and touched me on the shoulder. He touch me just like I touch you. I got cold as ice and Death standing there grinning at me.

ROSE: Troy, why don’t you hush that talk.

TROY: I say . . . What you want, Mr. Death? You be wanting me? You done brought your army to be getting me? I looked him dead in the eye. I wasn’t fearing nothing. I was ready to tangle. Just like I’m ready to tangle now. The Bible say be ever vigilant. That’s why I don’t get but so drunk. I got to keep watch.

ROSE: Troy was right down there in Mercy Hospital. You remember he had pneumonia? Laying there with a fever talking plumb out of his head.

TROY: Death standing there staring at me . . . carrying that sickle in his hand. Finally he say, “You want bound over for another year?” See, just like that . . . “You want bound over for another year?” I told him, “Bound over hell! Let’s settle this now!” It seem like he kinda fell back when I said that, and all the cold went out of me. I reached down and grabbed that sickle and threw it just as far as I could throw it . . . and me and him commenced to wrestling. We wrestled for three days and three nights. I can’t say where I found the strength from. Every time it seemed like he was gonna get the best of me, I’d reach way down deep inside myself and find the strength to do him one better.

ROSE: Every time Troy tell that story he find different ways to tell it. Different things to make up about it.

TROY: I ain’t making up nothing. I’m telling you the facts of what happened. I wrestled with Death for three days and three nights and I’m standing here to tell you about it. (Pause.) All right. At the end of the third night we done weakened each other to where we can’t hardly move. Death stood up, throwed on his robe . . . had him a white robe with a hood on it. He throwed on that robe and went off to look for his sickle. Say, “I’ll be back.” Just like that. “I’ll be back.” I told him, say, “Yeah, but . . . you gonna have to find me!” I wasn’t no fool. I wan’t going looking for him. Death ain’t nothing to play with. And I know he’s gonna get me. I know I got to join his army . . . his camp followers. But as long as I keep my strength and see him coming . . . as long as I keep up my vigilance . . . he’s gonna have to fight to get me. I ain’t going easy.

BONO: Well, look here, since you got to keep up your vigilance . . . let me have the bottle.

TROY: Aw hell, I shouldn’t have told you that part. I should have left out that part.

ROSE: Troy be talking that stuff and half the time don’t even know what he be talking about.

TROY: Bono know me better than that.

BONO: That’s right. I know you. I know you got some Uncle Remus in your blood. You got more stories than the devil got sinners.

TROY: Aw hell, I done seen him too! Done talked with the devil.

ROSE: Troy, don’t nobody wanna be hearing all that stuff.
(LYONS enters the yard from the street. Thirty-four years old, TROY’s son by a previous marriage, he sports a neatly trimmed goatee, sport coat, white shirt, tieless and buttoned at the collar. Though he fancies himself a musician, he is more caught up in the rituals and “idea” of being a musician than in the actual practice of the music. He has come to borrow money from TROY, and while he knows he will be successful, he is uncertain as to what extent his lifestyle will be held up to scrutiny and ridicule.)

LYONS: Hey, Pop.

TROY: What you come “Hey, Popping” me for?

LYONS: How you doing, Rose? (He kisses her.) Mr. Bono. How you doing?

BONO: Hey, Lyons . . . how you been?

TROY: He must have been doing all right. I ain’t seen him around here last week.

ROSE: Troy, leave your boy alone. He come by to see you and you wanna start all that nonsense.

TROY: I ain’t bothering Lyons. (Offers him the bottle.) Here . . . get you a drink. We got an understanding. I know why he come by to see me and he know I know.

LYONS: Come on, Pop . . . I just stopped by to say hi . . . see how you was doing.

TROY: You ain’t stopped by yesterday.

ROSE: You gonna stay for supper, Lyons? I got some chicken cooking in the oven.

LYONS: No, Rose . . . thanks. I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by for a minute.

TROY: You was in the neighborhood all right, nigger. You telling the truth there. You was in the neighborhood cause it’s my payday.

LYONS: Well, hell, since you mentioned it . . . let me have ten dollars.

TROY: I’ll be damned! I’ll die and go to hell and play blackjack with the devil before I give you ten dollars.

BONO: That’s what I wanna know about . . . that devil you done seen.

LYONS: What . . . Pop done seen the devil? You too much, Pops.

TROY: Yeah, I done seen him. Talked to him too!

ROSE: You ain’t seen no devil. I done told you that man ain’t had nothing to do with the devil. Anything you can’t understand, you want to call it the devil.

TROY: Look here, Bono . . . I went down to see Hertzberger about some furniture. Got three rooms for two-ninety-eight. That what it say on the radio. “Three rooms . . . two-ninety-eight.” Even made up a little song about it. Go down there . . . man tell me I can’t get no credit. I’m working every day and can’t get no credit. What to do? I got an empty house with some raggedy furniture in it. Cory ain’t got no bed. He’s sleeping on a pile of rags on the floor. Working every day and can’t get no credit. Come back here—Rose’ll tell you—madder than hell. Sit down . . . try to figure what I’m gonna do. Come a knock on the door. Ain’t been living here but three days. Who know I’m here? Open the door . . . devil standing there bigger than life. White fellow . . . got on good clothes and everything. Standing there with a clipboard in his hand. I ain’t had to say nothing. First words come out of his mouth was . . . “I understand you need some furniture and can’t get no credit.” I liked to fell over. He say, “I’ll give you all the credit you want, but you got to pay the interest on it.” I told him, “Give me three rooms worth and charge whatever you want.” Next day a truck pulled up here and two men unloaded them three rooms. Man what drove the truck give me a book. Say send ten dollars, first of every month to the address in the book and everything will be all right. Say if I miss a payment the devil was coming back and it’ll be hell to pay. That was fifteen years ago. To this day . . . the first of the month I send my ten dollars, Rose’ll tell you.

ROSE: Troy lying.

TROY: I ain’t never seen that man since. Now you tell me who else that could have been but the devil? I ain’t sold my soul or nothing like that, you understand. Naw, I wouldn’t have truck with the devil about nothing like that. I got my furniture and pays my ten dollars the first of the month just like clockwork.

BONO: How long you say you been paying this ten dollars a month?

TROY: Fifteen years!

BONO: Hell, ain’t you finished paying for it yet? How much the man done charged you?

TROY: Ah hell, I done paid for it. I done paid for it ten times over! The fact is I’m scared to stop paying it.

ROSE: Troy lying. We got that furniture from Mr. Glickman. He ain’t paying no ten dollars a month to nobody.

TROY: Aw hell, woman. Bono know I ain’t that big a fool.

LYONS: I was just getting ready to say . . . I know where there’s a bridge for sale.

TROY: Look here, I’ll tell you this . . . it don’t matter to me if he was the devil. It don’t matter if the devil give credit. Somebody has got to give it.

ROSE: It ought to matter. You going around talking about having truck with the devil . . . God’s the one you gonna have to answer to. He’s the one gonna be at the Judgment.

LYONS: Yeah, well, look here, Pop . . . let me have that ten dollars. I’ll give it back to you. Bonnie got a job working at the hospital.

TROY: What I tell you, Bono? The only time I see this nigger is when he wants something. That’s the only time I see him.

LYONS: Come on, Pop, Mr. Bono don’t want to hear all that. Let me have the ten dollars. I told you Bonnie working.

TROY: What that mean to me? “Bonnie working.” I don’t care if she working. Go ask her for the ten dollars if she working. Talking about “Bonnie working.” Why ain’t you working?

LYONS: Aw, Pop, you know I can’t find no decent job. Where am I gonna get a job at? You know I can’t get no job.

TROY: I told you I know some people down there. I can get you on the rubbish if you want to work. I told you that the last time you came by here asking me for something.

LYONS: Naw, Pop . . . thanks. That ain’t for me. I don’t wanna be carrying nobody’s rubbish. I don’t wanna be punching nobody’s time clock.

TROY: What’s the matter, you too good to carry people’s rubbish? Where you think that ten dollars you talking about come from? I’m just supposed to haul people’s rubbish and give my money to you cause you too lazy to work. You too lazy to work and wanna know why you ain’t got what I got.

ROSE: What hospital Bonnie working at? Mercy?

LYONS: She’s down at Passavant working in the laundry.

TROY: I ain’t got nothing as it is. I give you that ten dollars and I got to eat beans the rest of the week. Naw . . . you ain’t getting no ten dollars here.

LYONS: You ain’t got to be eating no beans. I don’t know why you wanna say that.

TROY: I ain’t got no extra money. Gabe done moved over to Miss Pearl’s paying her the rent and things done got tight around here. I can’t afford to be giving you every payday.

LYONS: I ain’t asked you to give me nothing. I asked you to loan me ten dollars. I know you got ten dollars.

TROY: Yeah, I got it. You know why I got it? Cause I don’t throw my money away out there in the streets. You living the fast life . . . wanna be a musician . . . running around in them clubs and things . . . then, you learn to take care of yourself. You ain’t gonna find me going and asking nobody for nothing. I done spent too many years without.

LYONS: You and me is two different people, Pop.

TROY: I done learned my mistake and learned to do what’s right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don’t owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself. Ask Bono. He’ll tell you I’m right.

LYONS: You got your way of dealing with the world . . . I got mine. The only thing that matters to me is music.

TROY: Yeah, I can see that! It don’t matter how you gonna eat . . . where your next dollar is coming from. You telling the truth there.

LYONS: I know I got to eat. But I got to live too. I need something that gonna help me to get out of the bed in the morning. Make me feel like I belong in the world. I don’t bother nobody. I just stay with my music cause that’s the only way I can find to live in the world. Otherwise there ain’t no telling what I might do. Now I don’t come criticizing you and how you live. I just come by to ask you for ten dollars. I don’t wanna hear all that about how I live.

TROY: Boy, your mamma did a hell of a job raising you.

LYONS: You can’t change me, Pop. I’m thirty-four years old. If you wanted to change me, you should have been there when I was growing up. I come by to see you . . . ask for ten dollars and you want to talk about how I was raised. You don’t know nothing about how I was raised.

ROSE: Let the boy have ten dollars, Troy.

TROY (to LYONS.): What the hell you looking at me for? I ain’t got no ten dollars. You know what I do with my money. (To ROSE.) Give him ten dollars if you want him to have it.

ROSE: I will. Just as soon as you turn it loose.

TROY (handing ROSE the money): There it is. Seventy-six dollars and forty-two cents. You see this, Bono? Now, I ain’t gonna get but six of that back.

ROSE: You ought to stop telling that lie. Here, Lyons. (She hands him the money.)

LYONS: Thanks, Rose. Look . . . I got to run . . . I’ll see you later.

TROY: Wait a minute. You gonna say, “thanks, Rose” and ain’t gonna look to see where she got that ten dollars from? See how they do me, Bono?

LYONS: I know she got it from you, Pop. Thanks. I’ll give it back to you.

TROY: There he go telling another lie. Time I see that ten dollars . . . he’ll be owing me thirty more.

LYONS: See you, Mr. Bono
.
BONO: Take care, Lyons!

LYONS: Thanks, Pop. I’ll see you again.
LYONS exits the yard.

TROY: I don’t know why he don’t go and get him a decent job and take care of that woman he got.

BONO: He’ll be all right, Troy. The boy is still young.

TROY: The boy is thirty-four years old.

ROSE: Let’s not get off into all that.

BONO: Look here . . . I got to be going. I got to be getting on. Lucille gonna be waiting.

TROY (puts his arm around ROSE): See this woman, Bono? I love this woman. I love this woman so much it hurts. I love her so much . . . I done run out of ways of loving her. So I got to go back to basics. Don’t you come by my house Monday morning talking about time to go to work . . .’cause I’m still gonna be stroking!

ROSE: Troy! Stop it now!

BONO: I ain’t paying him no mind, Rose. That ain’t nothing but gin-talk. Go on, Troy. I’ll see you Monday.

TROY: Don’t you come by my house, nigger! I done told you what I’m gonna be doing.
(The lights go down to black.)