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  • The Deacons
  • Yusef Komunyakaa (bio)

Characters

Frank Junior: A former member of The Deacons for Defense, in his mid-sixties. He’s a high school biology teacher, contemplating retirement.

Troy Lewis: A former member of The Deacons for Defense, a year older than Frank Junior. He has recently retired from the US Postal Service, and he is now visiting his hometown after being away for thirty-odd years.

Annie Mae: Troy Lewis’s daughter, visiting her father’s hometown for the first time.

Setting

Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” plays.

The lights come up on the stage. The Blue Hour.

A rustic courtyard in a small, rural Louisiana town. This is an eccentric domain. A smallish “playhouse” in a corner of the courtyard. A make-shift table fashioned from a wooden cable-spool stands beneath a chinaberry tree. The table is set for three; three or four stools. A vase of red roses brightens the table. A stepladder used to peer over the wooden fence that encloses the yard—a wall of small doors and cubby-holes. A bar-be-cue grill—the slight smell of hickory smoke.

Act I

Frank Junior wears a floral-print apron (his dead mother’s). He dips a serving spoon into a steamy pot of gumbo; he raises the spoon to his lips and tastes.

Frank Junior

Now, Good Lord, don’t tell me this ain’t good as it gets. (He does a dance step.) Well—maybe a pinch of West African hot pepper can cap off this job, huh? [End Page 5]

Frank Junior sprinkles in some pepper; he tastes the gumbo again.

Damn! How good is good? (Pause) But is it good enough to even the score after thirty-some-odd years? I remember the days when Thelma Lou lived on mama’s gumbo. (Pause) Is my kindness the glint of a knife-blade or a pinch of rat poison in the hoecake?

Marvin Gaye’s voice fades as the sound of gangsta rap edges into Frank’s world; the boys on the other side of Frank’s fence taunt each other with obscenities—prerecorded.

Frank grabs a pump-action shotgun from behind a door in the wall. He ascends the stepladder and takes careful aim, and he makes a “shooting sound” with his voice.

Ka-Pooom! Ka-Pooom! Ka-Poooom!

Laughter and hoots. The gangsta rap stops.

Now, the sound of Troy Lewis knocking on Frank Junior’s door.

Frank Junior places the shotgun behind the door again. He takes off the apron. He glances at his face in a pot lid. He runs his hands over his hair. He speaks in a forceful voice as he moves toward a side door.

Hold your damn golden wild horses, you two strangers!

Frank Junior exits.

The muffled voices of Frank Junior and Troy Lewis offstage.

The two men enter; Troy Lewis gives Frank Junior a paper bag that contains a bottle of whiskey; they pace around each other like two roosters.

Frank Junior

Now, let’s go slow, Troy Lewis. Let’s tiptoe. (Pause) Again—where’s Thelma Lou?

Troy Lewis takes a cautious step back.

Troy Lewis

She ain’t here, Frank Junior.

Frank Junior

I can see that.

He places the bottle of whiskey on the table; he folds the paper bag and places it behind one of the small doors. [End Page 6]

Troy Lewis

I brought my daughter. Annie Mae.

Frank Junior

Annie Mae?

Troy Lewis

Yeah. Annie Mae.

Frank Junior

That’s my mama’s name.

Troy Lewis

She looks like Thelma.

Frank Junior

Where’s Thelma?

Troy Lewis

Annie Mae’s the spitting image of her mama.

Frank Junior

Where’s Thelma, Troy Lewis?

Troy Lewis

As if her mama done spat on a hunk of clay and played God.

Frank Junior

What did Thelma do, ditched you for a Johnny Come Lately?

Troy Lewis

She ain’t with us.

Frank Junior

How you leave that pretty woman back in Atlantic City? (Pause) I hope you left someone back there to keep a good eye on her.

Troy Lewis

She ain’t with us.

Frank Junior

Where’s the girl?

Troy Lewis

Girl...

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