18

WILLIE JOE	(winking broadly) Jim, how you and Evalina making out these days?

JIM	(starts painfully) We'd be all right, I reckon, if we - if - if somebody didn't come between us.

NUNKIE.	You ain't no kind of a man or nobody couldn't come between you. Some things ain't decent for a man to take. You low-rates your-self if you do. So what you going to do? * (over) (insuch Nu page)

RUBY	(jimping up suddenly with wet eyes) Why don't you-all leave him alone? You ain't got no gumption - teasing him 'bout a tiling like that. If a person can't get the one they love, it's pitiful! It ain't nothing to be cracking over. Leave Jim be!

WILLIE JOE.	How come he's got to be different from everybody else 'round here? Y'all laughed and made all manner of jokes when Pearl left me and went down the East coast. Jim and all the rest of y'all cracked me hard. How come he can't take what he give?

ORAL.	That ain't the first time a man's wife been took away from him. Jim is just a fool to keep hanging after Lina when she's done told him she don't want him and gone to living with Spunk.

NUNKIE.	Yeah, I had a good woman. (shrugs resignedly) The fool laid down and died.

JIM	(stands with hands in pocket) Just like you say, Nunkie, I reckon it is my fault for being so easy. (strikes a belligerent pose) But Spunk done gone too far. I stopped by here today just in order to tackle 'em when they pass. I'm going to know from him today what he means by coming between me and Lina. I love that girl! I love her! If I don't love her, God's a gopher! (all but sobs)

WILLIE JOE	That's right, Jim. Make him tell you something. Man ain't nothing but a man.