The Member of the Wedding (1952) Movie Script
It happened that green and crazy summer
when Frankie was 12 years old.
This was the summer when, for a long time,
she had not been a member.
She belonged to no club,
and was a member of nothing in the world.
Frankie had become an un-joined person,
and she was afraid.
And there, on the last Friday of August,
all this was changed.
It was so sudden, that Frankie puzzled
the whole blank afternoon.
And still she did not understand.
- Are they cold enough?
- Just a minute!
Yes, they're cold enough.
And them other two drinks is lemonade
for you and John Henry.
It seems to me this old arbor has shrunk.
I remember when I was a child...
Look! Mint juleps!
Well!
Happiness to Janice and Jarvis.
It was such a surprise when Jarvis
wrote home you were going to be married.
I hope it wasn't a bad surprise.
Oh, heavens, no.
As a matter of fact,
if only you knew how I feel.
Frankie's been bending my ears, Son,
ever since your letter came,
going on about weddings and brides.
Papa!
It's lovely we can be married
at Jarvis' house.
It's what Jarvis' mother would have wanted.
Oh, it will be beautiful.
Pretty soon we should be pushing off
for Winter Hill.
I have to be back in barracks tonight.
Winter Hill is such a lovely, cold name.
It reminds me of ice and snow.
Ice and snow!
It was 102 at the base yesterday.
Oh, that feels so good!
Sister-in-law.
Doesn't that sound wonderful?
Yes, dear.
You notice if you fix your attention
on the words,
they begin to sound funny.
Sister-in-law, sister-in-law...
Frankie's crazy.
You should have seen the letter
she wrote to me.
I wrote you so many letters, Jarvis,
and you never answered me.
And I sent you so many boxes
of homemade fudge,
but you never, never answered me.
Oh, Frankie, you know how it is.
I never saw a human grow so fast
as Frankie in all my life.
Last time I saw her
she was only up to here on me.
I think maybe we ought to tie a brick
to her head.
- Jarvis, don't!
- Don't tease your little sister like that.
Why, I don't think Frankie's too tall.
And she probably won't grow much more.
I had the biggest portion of my growth
by the time I was 13.
But I'm just 12. When I think of all
the growing years ahead of me, I get scared.
I wouldn't worry.
You see,
I never believed in love until now.
Where does the music come from?
It sounds so close.
It is. It's just behind us.
They have club meetings and parties
with boys on Friday nights.
Hey, there!
I watch them here from the yard.
It must be nice,
having your clubhouse so near.
Well, I'm not a member now.
But they're holding an election
this afternoon.
Frankie thinks she'll be elected.
I don't care one way or the other.
Well, see you Sunday.
Drive carefully, Son. Goodbye, Janice.
- Goodbye. Thanks, Mr. Addams.
- Bye, Janice. Bye, Jarvis.
Goodbye, Frankie, darling.
I'd better go back to the store, now,
and get my nose down to the grindstone.
Bernice, you send John Henry home
for supper at 6:00. Don't wait for me.
Yes, sir, Mr. Addams.
You hear that, candy?
Your mama wants you home
some of the time.
I hear.
I just can't understand it.
- The way it all just suddenly happened.
- Happened? Happened?
- I've never been so puzzled.
- Puzzled by what?
The whole thing.
They are so beautiful.
I believe the sun's done fried your brains.
Me, too.
Look here at me.
- You jealous?
- Jealous?
Jealous because your brother's
going to be married?
No, I just never saw
any two people like them.
When they walked in the house today,
it was so queer.
You are jealous.
Go behold yourself in the mirror.
I can tell from the color of your eyes.
They were the two prettiest people
I ever saw.
I just can't understand how it happened.
- Whatever ails you? Acting so queer.
- I don't know.
I bet they have a good time
every minute of the day.
Let's us have a good time.
Us have a good time?
- Us?
- Yes, us.
Come on.
Let us play a three-handed game of bridge.
Janice and Jarvis.
Winter Hill. The wedding.
It's all so queer.
Can't bid. Never have a hand these days.
- A spade.
- I want to bid spades.
That's what I was going to bid.
Well, that's your tough luck. I bid them first.
Oh, you fool jackass! It's not fair!
Hush quarreling, you two.
Tell the truth, neither one of you got such
a grand hand to fight over the bid about.
But where is the cards?
I ain't had no kind of hand all week.
I don't give a darn about it.
It is immaterial with me.
My heart feels I'm going away.
Going farther and farther away
while I'm stuck here by myself.
You ain't here by yourself.
They were the two prettiest people
I ever saw.
Yet, it was...
It was like I couldn't see all of them
I wanted to see.
My brains couldn't gather together
quick enough to take it all in.
And then they were gone.
Well, stop commenting about it.
You don't have your mind on the game.
Well, spades are trump and you got a spade.
I have some of my mind on the game.
- Go on, cheater.
- Make haste, candy.
I can't. It's a king.
The only spade I got is a king.
And I don't want to play my king under
Frankie's ace, and I'm not going to, either!
See, Bernice, he cheats.
Play the king, John Henry. You know
you got to follow the rules of the game.
My king!
It isn't fair!
Even with this trick, I can't win.
Well, just where is the cards?
Three days, I ain't had a decent hand.
Begin to suspicion something, too.
Come on let's count these old cards.
We've worn these old cards out.
If you would eat these old cards,
they would taste
like a combination of all the dinners
of this summer
together with a sweaty-handed nasty taste.
Why, the jacks and the queens are missing!
John Henry,
how come you do a thing like that?
So that's why you asked for the scissors
and stole off quiet behind the arbor.
Why you take our playing cards
and cut out all the pictures?
'Cause I wanted 'em. They're cute.
See, he's nothing but a child.
It's hopeless. Hopeless!
Just have to put him out of the game.
He's entirely too young.
Oh, no, we can't put candy out of the game.
Gotta have a third to play.
Besides, by the last count,
he owes me close to three million dollars.
Oh, I'm sick unto death!
Oh, I wish they'd taken me with them
to Winter Hill this afternoon.
I wish tomorrow was Sunday
instead of Saturday.
Sunday will come.
I doubt it.
I wish I was going somewhere for good.
I wish I had $100 and could just light out
and never see this town again.
Seems to me
like you're wishing for a lot of things.
I wish I was somebody else except me.
Frankie, you serious when you
gave me the doll a while ago?
It gives me a pain just to think about them.
It's a known truth
gray-eyed people is jealous.
- Let's go play with the children, Frankie.
- I don't want to.
- Let's go.
- You got ears, you heard me!
I think maybe I better go home.
You just can't eat dinner and then go
off in the afternoon like that.
I know it.
You can go home, candy lamb,
if you want to.
But let's go out, Frankie.
They sound like they're having a lot of fun.
No, they're not.
They're just a crowd of ugly, silly children.
Running and hollering.
Running and hollering. Nothing to it.
Look, those big girls!
Hey, there!
I'm mighty glad to see you. Come on in.
We can't. We were just passing through
to notify our new member.
Am I the new member?
No, you're not the one the club elected.
Not elected?
Every ballot was unanimous
for Mary Littlejohn.
Mary Littlejohn?
You mean that girl
that just moved in next door?
Pasty fat girl with those tacky pigtails?
The one who plays the piano all day long?
Yes. Mary is training for a concert career.
You don't have enough sense
to appreciate a talented girl like Mary.
What are you doing in my yard?
You're never to set foot
on my papa's property again!
You crooks!
I could shoot you with my papa's pistol!
Crooks!
Why didn't you elect me?
Why can't I be a member?
I wouldn't pay them club girls no mind.
All my life I've been wanting things
I ain't been getting.
Besides, them club girls
are fully two years older than you.
I think they've been spreading it
all over town that I smell bad.
When I had those boils
and had to use that black,
bitter-smelling ointment.
I know.
That old Helen Fletcher asked me
what was that funny smell I had.
I could shoot every one of them
with a pistol!
I don't think you smell so bad.
You smell sweet like a 100 flowers.
I bet I use more perfume
than anybody else in town.
Crooks!
And there was something else, too.
They were telling big lies about
grownup people.
I don't know what kind of fool
they take me for.
Keep telling you, they're too old for you.
Frankie, the whole idea of a club
is that there are members who are included
and the non-members who are not included.
Then what you ought to do is round you up
a club of your own.
That way you'd be the president yourself.
- Well, who would I get?
- Oh, the little boys and girls
you hear playing around here,
the neighborhood.
I don't want to be the president
of all those little young leftover people.
Well, go on and enjoy your misery.
I bet Janice and Jarvis are members
of a lot of clubs.
In fact, the Army is kind of like a club.
You've got two nickels and a dime.
Now, don't be rooting through
my pocketbook like that, candy.
That ain't nice, rooting through
folks' pocketbook.
They might get the idea
you're trying to steal their money.
I'm looking for your old blue glass eye.
Here it is.
That's my new eye. Give it here.
I still owe $64.23 on this eye.
Your old blue eye looked very cute.
Maybe the finance company will come out
and take it back.
They'll never repossess it while
I'm wearing it and I'm still the same size.
You got three eyes. Which one of them
do you see out of the best?
Left eye, precious. The glass eyes
don't do me no seeing good at all.
Janice and Jarvis.
It gives me this pain
just to think about them.
It's a known truth
gray-eyed people is jealous.
I told you I wasn't jealous!
I couldn't be jealous of one of them
unless I was jealous of them both.
I associate the two of them together.
Well, I was jealous when my
foster-brother, Honey, married Clorina.
I sent a warning I'd tear the ears clean
off her head. But you see I didn't.
She got ears just like everybody else.
J- A.
Janice and Jarvis.
Isn't that the strangest thing?
- What?
- J-A.
Both their names begin with J-A.
Well, what about it?
If only my name was
Jane or
Jasmine.
I don't follow your frame of mind.
Jarvis and Janice and Jasmine, see?
No, I don't see.
I wonder if it's against the law
to change your name or add to it.
Naturally, it's against the law.
Well, I don't care! F. Jasmine Addams!
You serious when you give me this?
I will name her Belle.
I don't know what went on in Jarvis' mind
when he brought me that doll.
Imagine bringing me a doll.
Your face when you unwrapped
that package sure was a study.
John Henry, quit picking at the doll's eyes,
it makes me so nervous. You hear me?
In fact, take that doll somewhere
out of my sight!
The big mistake I made
was to get this close crew cut.
For the wedding I ought to have
long brunette hair, don't you think so?
Don't see how come long brunette hair
is necessary.
But I warned you about getting your head
shaved off like that before you did it.
But nothing would do,
but you shave it off like that.
I'm so worried about being so tall.
I'm 12 and five-sixths years old.
Already I'm 5'5"
and three quarters inches tall.
If I keep growing like this until I'm 21,
I figure I'll be nearly 10 feet tall!
How tall, Frankie?
I doubt if they ever get married
or go to a wedding, those freaks.
- Freaks? What freaks are you talking about?
- The fair.
The ones we saw there last October.
Oh, the freaks at the fair.
She was the cutest little girl I ever saw.
I've never saw anything so cute
in my whole life.
- Did you, Frankie?
- No, I don't think she was cute.
Well, who is that he's talking about?
That little old pinhead at the fair.
Head no bigger than an orange.
The hair all shaved off
and a big pink bow at the top.
The bow was bigger than her head.
Well, that little-headed girl was cute.
The fact is all those freak folks
fairly give me the creeps.
Do I give you the creeps?
You?
Do you think I'll grow into a freak?
You? Certainly not, I trust heaven.
Well, do you think I will be pretty?
Maybe, if you file down
them horns an inch or two.
- Seriously.
- Seriously.
I think when you fill out,
you'll do very well, if you behave.
But by Sunday. I want to do something
to improve myself before the wedding.
Then get clean for a change.
Scrub them elbows. Fix yourself up nice.
You'll do very well.
You'll be all right
if you file down them horns.
I don't know what to do.
I just wish I would die.
- Well, die then.
- Die!
Go home! Go home!
You heard me. Go home!
- I'm sick and tired of you, you little midget!
- Now, just a minute...
- Will you listen to me...
- Go home!
Did you hear what I said?
What makes you act like that?
You're too mean to live.
I know it!
Something about John Henry
just gets on my nerves these days.
I've got a splinter in my foot.
That knife ain't no proper thing
for a splinter.
Seems to me that before this summer,
I always used to have such a good time.
Remember the spring,
how every Friday night Evelyn Owen
would come over and spend the night
with me? Or I'd go over to her house.
And then Evelyn had to go and move away
to Florida. Now she won't even write to me.
Don't that hurt you none?
Hurt anybody else except me.
Remember that show Evelyn and me put on?
Look ahead, look astern
Look the weather in the lee
- Blow high, blow low
- Blow high, blow low
- And so sailed we
- And so sailed we
You're going to meet another nice girl
like Evelyn Owen.
Frankie, what you need is a needle.
I don't care anything about my old feet!
How old were you, Bernice,
when you married your first husband?
13 years old,
and I ain't growed an inch since.
Can marriage really stop your growth?
Marriage don't stop nothing.
You never loved any of your four husbands
but Ludie.
Ludie Maxwell Freeman
was the only husband I loved.
The rest was just scraps.
Did you marry with a veil every time?
Three times with a veil.
If only I just knew where he's gone.
Charles!
Now, quit worrying about that old alley cat.
- He's gone off to hunt a friend.
- Charles!
- To hunt a friend?
- Certainly.
He roamed off to find himself a lady friend.
Well, why don't he bring
his friend home with him?
He ought to know I would be only too glad
to have a whole family of cats.
Well, you done seen the last
of that old alley cat.
I ought to notify the police force.
They will find Charles.
I wouldn't do that.
I want the police force, please.
Police force?
I'm notifying you about my cat.
Cat!
He's lost. He's almost pure Persian.
As Persian as I is!
But with short hair, a lovely color of gray,
with a little white spot at his throat.
And he answers to the name of Charles.
But if he don't answer to that,
he might come if you called, "Charlina. "
What?
Oh, my name is
Miss F. Jasmine Addams.
That gets it. That gets it.
And the address is 124 Grove Street.
Gal, they're coming in here and tie you up
and drag you off to Houghtonville.
Just picture them fat blue police
chasing tomcats up and down alleys, all,
"Come here, Charles, come here, Charlina!"
Merciful heavens!
Oh, shut up!
Trouble with you,
you got no sense of humor no more.
Maybe I'd be better off in jail.
Sit down, Frankie. You make me nervous.
I bet Janice and Jarvis
are almost to Winter Hill by now.
- Did you hear what Jarvis said?
- No. What?
They were talking about whether to vote
for C.P. MacDonald.
And Jarvis said,
"Why, I wouldn't vote for that scoundrel
"if he were running to be dog catcher. "
Why, I never heard anything
so witty in my life.
And you know what Janice remarked
when Jarvis mentioned
about how much I'd grown?
She said she didn't think I looked
so terribly big.
She said she got the major portion
of her growth before she was 13.
She said I was the right height,
and had acting talent,
and ought to go to Hollywood.
She did, Bernice.
Okay, all right. She did.
She said I was a lovely size
and I probably wouldn't grow any taller.
She said, anyway,
all fashion models and movie stars...
She did not, she did not.
I heard her from the window.
She only remarked
you had probably reached your growth.
But she didn't go on and on like that,
or mention anything about Hollywood.
- She said to you...
- She said to me...
That's a serious fault, Frankie.
Somebody just chance
to make a loose remark,
you've cozen in that mind of yours
till nobody would recognize it.
Like the time your Aunt Pat
mentioned you had sweet manners.
The next thing I know,
you was going all around bragging
how you had the finest manners in town,
you ought to go to Hollywood.
That's a serious fault.
Quit preaching at me!
I'm not preaching at you.
It's the solemn truth, and you know it.
- Well, I admit it.
- Well?
A little.
What I need to know is this.
Do you think I made a good impression?
- Impression?
- Yes?
Well, how would I know?
Well, I mean, how did I act? What did I do?
You didn't do nothing to speak of.
Nothing?
No, you just stood there. Watched the pair
of them like they were ghosts.
And when they start talking
about that wedding,
them ears of yours stiffened out
the size of cabbage leaves.
- They didn't!
- They did.
Someday you're going to find
that big fat tongue of yours
pulled out by the roots
and laying there before you on the table!
Oh, quit talking so rude.
I'm so scared
I didn't make a good impression.
Oh, come, sugar,
Bernice didn't mean it that way.
They were so pretty.
They must have such a good time,
and they went away and left me.
Frankie, I want you to sit up
and behave yourself.
They came and went away
and left me with this feeling!
I bet I know something.
Frankie's got a crush.
Frankie's got a crush.
Frankie's got a crush on the wedding.
- Quit it!
- Frankie's got a crush.
- Frankie's got a crush.
- You better quit!
Put that knife down.
- Make me.
- Put it down, devil.
Well, throw it.
I'm the best knife thrower in this town.
Say whatever contest, I would win.
Frances Addams, you're going to try
that stunt once too often.
Warned you to stop picking at me.
You just ain't fit to live in a house.
Won't be living in this one much longer.
I'm gonna run away from home!
Good riddance to a big old bag of rubbish.
You wait and see. I'm leaving town.
Where do you think you're going?
I don't know.
You're going crazy,
that's where you're going.
No.
This coming Sunday, after the wedding,
I'm leaving town.
And I swear by my two eyes
I'm never coming back here anymore.
- Sugar, you're serious?
- Of course.
Do you think I would stand here
and swear that swear and tell a story?
Sometimes, Bernice,
I think it takes you longer to realize
a fact than it does anybody who ever lived.
But you say you don't know
where you're going.
You're going, but you don't know where.
And that don't make sense to me.
Well, I feel just exactly
like somebody's peeled all the skin off me.
I wish I had some good
cold peach ice cream.
But every word I told you
was the solemn truth.
I'm leaving here after the wedding.
Oh, hello, T.T. And Honey.
I didn't hear you coming.
Hello.
What's the matter?
Your foster-brother, Honey,
got into a ruckus again.
Standing on the sidewalk
in front of Sam's Caf,
and the police cracked him on the head.
What?
Why, it's a welt the size of a small egg!
Times like this I feel like
I've got to bust loose or die.
What was you doing?
Nothing.
I was just passing down the street
and minding my own business,
when this drunk soldier came out of Sam's
and bumped into me.
I looked at him and he gave me a push.
I pushed him back and he started a ruckus.
Then this M.P. Came up
and slammed me with his stick.
It was just one of those accidents.
Could have happened to anybody.
Toot some of your horn, Honey.
Now, don't bother my horn, Butch.
Told you not to touch my horn!
Look at it!
You got it full of slobber inside and out.
- It's ruined!
- Now don't touch that little boy,
or I'll stomp your brains out!
John Henry knows when he needs
a good shake. Don't you, Butch?
Now, you run on home, candy.
It's way past your supper time.
John Henry, which hand is the money in?
You can keep it if you can guess right.
I won. Much obliged.
That sure is a cute suit you got on, Honey.
Yesterday I heard somebody speak
about you as Lightfoot Brown.
I think that's a grand nickname.
It's on account of your going to Harlem,
and all the different places
where you've run away. Lightfoot.
I wish somebody
would call me Lightfoot Addams.
Suit me better if Honey Camden
had brick feet.
Keeps me anxious and keeps me worried.
Come on, let's go.
Now, Frankie, I want you to forget all that
foolishness we were discussing. You hear?
Now, if your papa ain't home by good dark,
go over to your Aunt Pat's
and play with John Henry.
Since when have I been scared of the dark?
You'll find your supper on top of the stove
and pie in the icebox.
Good night, sugar.
John Henry!
John Henry!
John Henry!
Yes, Frankie?
You asleep?
No. What do you want, Frankie?
Come on over and spend the night with me.
I can't.
Why?
Just because.
Because why? We could have a good time.
Frankie, I don't want to.
Oh, you fool jackass! Suit yourself!
Only asked you because you looked
so ugly and so lonesome!
Why, I'm not a bit lonesome.
Well, I don't want to go into that empty,
ugly house all by myself.
I'm mad at you.
I think something's wrong. It's too quiet.
I've a peculiar, supernatural warning
in my bones.
I'll bet you $100 it's going to storm.
I don't want to spend the night with you.
A terrible, terrible dog-day storm.
Or maybe even a cyclone,
or a tornado, or a tidal wave!
Frankie, if you're afraid,
I'll get my weekend bag and come over.
- Suit yourself.
- Then I'll stay here.
You don't need a weekend bag.
You're not going up to Savannah, just here.
Go tell your mama.
She's at the show.
Well, she'll know where you are. Come on.
Now I lay me down to sleep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
God bless Bernice, Mama, Uncle Royal,
Honey, T.T., the Americans and Frankie.
Frankie, when Bernice said...
That sounds like Honey.
He stopped to bang the spit out of his horn.
Please, Honey, go on, finish.
I bet a policeman stopped him.
To me it is the irony of fate,
the way they come here.
Those moths could fly anywhere,
yet they keep hanging around
the windows of this house.
I told Bernice I was leaving town for good.
She did not believe me.
Sometimes I honestly think
she's the biggest fool that ever drew breath.
You try to impress something
on a big fool like that,
and it's just like talking
to a block of cement.
I kept on telling and telling and telling her.
I told her I had to leave this town for good,
'cause it is inevitable.
Inevitable!
What's "inevitable"?
Don't bother me, John Henry. I'm thinking.
What you thinking about?
About the wedding.
About my brother and the bride.
Everything's been so sudden today.
I never believed before
about the fact that the Earth turns
at about the rate of 1,000 miles a day.
But now it seems to me,
I feel the world going around very fast.
I feel it turning, and it makes me dizzy.
Turn the other way.
I'm going with them!
- What?
- I tell you, I'm going with them!
It's like I've known it all my life.
- Tomorrow I will tell everybody.
- Huh?
After the wedding,
I'm going with them to Winter Hill.
You serious?
The trouble with me
is that for a long time
I have been just an "I" person.
All people belong to a "we," except me.
When Bernice says "we," she means
her church, and lodge, and colored people.
Soldiers can say "we" and mean the army.
Until this afternoon, I didn't have a "we. "
But now, after seeing Janice and Jarvis,
I suddenly realize
that the bride and my brother
are the "we" of me.
So, I'm going with them.
I'm going with them
and joining with the wedding.
This coming Sunday,
when my brother and the bride leave town,
I'm going with them to Winter Hill,
and after that, to whatever place
that they will ever go.
I love the two of them so much,
and we belong to be together.
I love the two of them so much,
because they are the "we" of me.
You're going into tar, if you ain't careful.
I'm leaving town tomorrow.
After the wedding, I'm going with
my brother, Jarvis and Janice to Winter Hill.
And after that, for the rest of our lives
over the whole wide world.
That's a solemn fact.
I'll probably never see this old street again
for the rest of my whole life.
- Goodbye!
- Take care.
Good morning, Papa.
Good morning.
Papa, there's something I have to tell you.
After the wedding, I'm going away.
Papa?
How many times do I have to tell you
not to touch things.
If you break that, it will cost me $5.
Papa, please, listen to me.
All right, I'm listening. What is it?
I'm trying to tell you
that after the wedding, I'm...
Frankie, you take that lipstick off.
Now, what was it you wanted?
- I have to buy a wedding dress.
- All right, you charge it at O'Rourke's.
And wedding shoes
and a pair of sheer stockings.
You get what you need.
I'll call up and tell them it's all right.
Now, you get something nice.
I'll write to you, Papa.
I'll write you every day.
Pretty good, huh?
Yes. You on that stuff again?
Of course not.
Stop lying, Satan.
That much wind ain't natural.
That's gin blowing.
What's gin, Bernice?
Now, you go inside, candy,
and if you get caught high like that,
you're going to be in trouble for sure.
The parole man says so,
and remember, I've warned you.
Honey,
I need some help down at my store.
My porter's failed me again.
I wonder if you could help me.
I ain't got the time.
He's got a job.
He plays nights at Sam's Caf, Mr. Addams.
Keep Frankie home.
I won't be back for supper
I don't want her running wild in the streets.
All right, Mr. Addams.
Liar! And you got me lying, too.
You're in Sam's all night, playing,
but you're playing for nothing.
And when you ain't playing,
you're drumming up liquor parties.
But I feel good when I play.
Bernice, I got to have a dollar.
You're barking up the wrong tree, boy.
One of these days,
I'm getting me a good job.
Save my money, get out of this town.
You're just mean enough to do that.
Can't get a job to earn your rent money,
but you can to go away
and leave me alone to worry.
Bernice,
I got to have a dollar.
Here. At least it'll stop you from stealing.
Well, guess I'll be dancing off now.
Go away, boy. You ain't fooling nobody.
Don't worry. One buck ain't gonna get me
no ticket to Chicago.
Frankie, I'll thank you to do one thing
or the other, eat or comb.
I'm about to show you something.
- What? Frankie, what?
- You'll see.
Now, don't come in here, mind.
And don't peek!
Now, close your eyes,
and don't open them until I tell you.
These are the wedding clothes.
Oh, how pretty!
Well, what's the matter, Bernice?
Don't you like it?
No. It don't do.
What do you mean, it don't do?
Exactly that. It just don't do.
But I don't see what you mean.
What is wrong?
Well, if you can't see what is wrong,
I can't explain it to you.
Look at your head to begin with. Done had
all your hair shaved off like a convict.
You tie this ribbon around this head
with no hair, it looks peculiar.
But I'm going to wash
and try to stretch my hair tonight.
Stretch your hair?
How you going to stretch your hair?
And look at them elbows. Done bought
a grown woman's evening dress.
All that brown crust on your elbows.
The two things don't mix.
Take it back. Take it back to the store.
But I can't take it back,
it's bargain basement.
Well, let me see what I can do with it.
I think you're just not accustomed
to seeing anybody dressed up.
I ain't accustomed to seeing
human Christmas trees in August.
Frankie's dress looks like a Christmas tree!
Two-faced Judas! You just now said
it was pretty. Old double-faced Judas!
Step... Step back a little.
Now, don't you honestly think it's pretty?
Give me your candy opinion.
Frankie, I never knew anybody
so unreasonable.
You ask me my candy opinion.
I give you my candy opinion.
You ask me again, I give it again.
But what you want
is not my honest opinion,
but my good opinion on something
I know is wrong.
Do you think they'd think it looked funny?
Yes, sugar, I honestly do.
I only want to look pretty
for Janice and Jarvis.
Frankie, you still got your mind set
on going with them,
when you know in your soul
this mania of yours is pure foolishness.
I don't wish to have to remind you anymore.
Please call me F. Jasmine.
Furthermore, I want to emphasize
that everything good of mine
has got to be washed and ironed
so I can pack them in the suitcase.
Everybody in town believes that I'm leaving.
All except Papa.
He's stubborn as an old mule.
No use arguing with people like that.
Me and Mr. Addams has got some sense.
I told Papa this morning I was going,
but he wouldn't listen to me.
He never listens to what I say.
Sometimes I wonder if Papa loves me or not.
Of course he loves you. He's just
a busy widowed man set in his ways.
I wonder if I can find some tissue paper
to line this suitcase.
- Look at me!
- Take that off!
- You gave it to me. You said...
- Take it off!
You just put it on to make a show of me!
Truly, Frankie, what makes you think
they want you tagging along with them?
Two is company, three's a crowd.
- That's the main thing about a wedding.
- You wait and see.
Remember back to the time of the flood.
Remember Noah and the ark?
And what has that got to do with it?
Remember the way
he admitted them creatures?
Shut up, you big old mouth!
Two by two he admitted them creatures.
Two by two.
That's all right.
But you wait and see, they will take me.
And if they don't?
And if they don't,
I will kill myself.
Kill yourself? How?
I will shoot myself in the side of the head
with the pistol that Papa keeps
under his handkerchiefs
with Mother's picture in the bureau drawer.
You know what Mr. Addams said about you
playing around with that pistol.
I've heard of a many
a peculiar thing in my day,
but this idea of yours is the most peculiar.
I've known men to have fallen in love
with girls so ugly,
you'd wonder if their eyes are straight.
Even known boys to have fallen in love
with women older than their mothers.
Take Honey. He's in love with that horn.
I've known people to have fallen in love
with their selves.
Dear Lord, we thank thee for what we're
about to receive to nourish our body.
Amen.
And what was we talking about
in the first place?
- About peculiar things.
- Yes. As I was just now saying,
I've seen and heard of many a peculiar thing
in my day,
but one thing I ain't never seen
or heard tell of, no, sir,
never in all my boring days
have I ever heard
of anybody falling in love with a wedding.
And you have to think...
You know, I've come to a conclusion.
What you ought to be thinking about,
young lady, is a beau. Nice little beau.
I don't want any beau.
What would I do with one?
Do you mean something like a soldier who
would maybe take me to the Blue Moon?
Who said anything about soldiers?
I'm talking about a nice little white boy beau
your own age.
How about that little old Barney next door?
Barney McKean. That nasty Barney?
Certainly. You can make out with him
till someone better comes along. You do.
You are the biggest crazy in this town.
Crazy calls the sane the crazy.
Him and that girl down the block.
They go to the alley
behind that Pat's garage.
I think maybe they smoke or something.
They don't let anybody watch them.
I watched them once.
What do they do?
They don't smoke.
The piano tuning man.
I seriously believe this will be the last straw.
Me, too.
If it isn't Mary Littlejohn practicing, it's this.
They tell me that when they want to punish
the crazy people in Houghtonville,
they tie them up and make them listen
to piano tuning.
We could turn on the radio, drown him out.
I don't want the radio on.
But I advise you to keep the radio on
after I leave.
You may very likely hear us
speak over the radio.
Speak about what, pray tell?
Oh, I don't know what about exactly,
but probably some eyewitness account
about something we'll be asked to speak.
Don't follow you. What are you going
to eyewitness? Who could ask us to speak?
What, Frankie?
Who's speaking on the radio?
When I said, "We," you thought I meant
you and me and John Henry West,
to speak over the world radio.
I've never heard about anything so funny
since I was born.
Who? Why?
The club of girls.
What do you crooks mean
crossing my yard?
How many times do I have to tell you
not to set foot on my papa's property?
Get out of here!
You just ignore them.
Make out like you don't see them pass.
I hope they die.
Oh, Frankie, you mustn't say things
like that. We all die soon enough.
You going to die, Bernice?
Certainly, precious, everybody's got to die.
Everybody? Are you going to die, Frankie?
I doubt it.
I honestly don't think I'll ever die.
What is "die"?
It must be terrible to be dead.
Nothing but black, black, black.
Yes, baby.
Yes, baby.
How many dead people do you know?
I know six dead people in all,
not counting my mother.
Ludie Maxwell Freeman is dead.
I didn't count Ludie, it wouldn't be fair,
because he died just before I was born.
Bernice, do you think very frequently
about Ludie?
You know I do.
I think of the five wonderful years
we had together.
All the bad times I've seen since.
Sometimes I almost wish
I had never knew Ludie at all.
It makes you too lonesome afterwards.
You go home from work at night,
a terrible lonesome quinch comes over you.
Take up with too many sorry men
to try and get over the feeling.
But T.T. Is not sorry.
Oh, I wasn't referring to T.T.
He is a fine upstanding, colored gentleman,
that's walked in the state
of grace all his life.
But are you going to marry with him?
I'm not going to marry with him.
But you are just now saying...
I was just now saying
how sincerely I respect T.T.,
and how sincerely I regard T.T.
But he don't make me shiver none.
Listen, Bernice.
There's something queer I have to tell you.
It's... It's something that happened to me
when I was riding around town today.
Now, I don't exactly know
how to explain what I mean.
Then what is it?
Well, I was riding along
and I passed two stores with an alley
in between. The sun was frying hot.
And just as I passed this alley,
I caught a glimpse of something
out of the corner of my left eye.
A dark double shape.
And this glimpse brought to my mind,
so sudden and clear,
my brother and the bride, that I just stopped
and couldn't hardly bear
to look and see what it was.
And then I turned slowly and look.
And you know what was there?
It was just two boys. That was all.
But it gave me such a queer feeling.
This is the most remarkable thing
I ever heard of.
- What I mean is...
- I know. I know what you mean.
You mean right here
in the corner of your eyes,
you suddenly catch something.
A shiver runs through you.
You whirl around,
stand there facing you don't know what.
But not Ludie, not who you want.
And for a minute, you feel like
you've been dropped down a well.
Yes, that's it.
It's mighty remarkable.
It's a thing been happening to me all my life.
Yet, just now is the first time
I ever heard it put into words.
Yes, that's the way it is when you're in love.
I always maintained I never believed in love.
I never believed in love.
I have something to tell you,
and it's to be a warning.
You hear me, Frankie?
You hear me, John Henry?
Yes. I hear you, Bernice.
I'm here to tell you I was happy.
No human woman in all the world
was happier than I was in them days.
And that includes everybody.
The five years you were married to Ludie.
From that autumn morning
when I first met him
on the road in front
of Campbell's Filling Station,
up until the very night he died,
November, the year 1940.
The very year and the very month
I was born.
It was Thursday.
Thursday, long towards 6:00.
Around this time of day, only November.
I remember I went to the passage
and opened the front door.
Dark was coming on.
An old hound was howling far away.
And I go back in the room
and lay down on Ludie's bed.
And I lay myself over Ludie
with my arms spread out
and my face on his face.
And I prayed and asked the Lord
to contage my strength, my strength to him.
I even asked the Lord to let it be anybody,
but please don't let it be Ludie.
I laid there, I prayed.
Oh, how I've prayed.
Prayed for a long time,
until night.
Yet, that night he died.
I tell you he died.
Ludie.
Ludie Freeman.
Ludie Maxwell Freeman died.
It seems to me, I feel sadder
about Ludie than any other dead person,
although I never knew him.
I know I ought to cry sometimes
about my mother,
but it looks like I can't.
But Ludie...
Maybe it was because I was born
so soon after Ludie died.
But you were starting out to tell
some kind of a warning.
Don't you see what I was doing?
I loved Ludie.
He was the first man I ever loved.
Therefore, I had to go
and copy myself forever after.
And what I did was to marry off
just little pieces of Ludie
wherever I run across them.
And it was my misfortune
they all turned out to be the wrong pieces.
But my intentions
was to repeat me and Ludie.
Now don't you see?
I see what you're driving at. But I don't see
how it is a warning applied to me.
You don't?
Then I'll tell you.
You and that wedding tomorrow,
that's what I'm warning you about.
I see what you have in mind,
don't think I don't.
You think you're going to march up
to the preacher,
right in between your brother and the bride.
You think you're going
to break into that wedding,
and heavens only knows what else.
No.
I don't see myself walking
to the preacher with them.
I see through them eyes,
don't argue with me.
And what I'm warning you is this.
If you fall in love
with some unheard of thing like this,
what is ever going to happen to you?
Will you be trying to break into weddings
the rest of your days?
It makes me sick to listen to people
who don't have any sense!
You just like to talk about Ludie, that's all,
it's got nothing to do with me!
You're setting yourself this fancy trap
to catch yourself in trouble,
and you know it.
They will take me, you wait and see!
I'm only trying to reason seriously,
but I see it's no use.
You're just jealous!
You're just trying to deprive me
of all the pleasure of leaving town.
Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti, Ti, Ti!
It could drive you wild!
Well, you didn't say anything
about Willis Rhodes. Why'd you marry him?
He have a mashed thumb,
or a code or something?
Now that... That really was something.
I only know he stole your furniture.
He was so terrible, you had to call the law.
That ain't all.
He was always running off somewhere.
So, imagine a cold, bitter January night,
if you can.
Me laying by myself on a big old pile of bed
and no one in the house,
'cause everybody had gone out
for the Saturday night.
Me, mind you, hates to sleep
in a big old empty bed by myself at anytime.
Well, come past 12:00 on this cold,
bitter January night...
Can you remember winter time, John Henry?
Well, imagine,
suddenly there come a sloughing sound,
and a tap, tap, tap, on the window,
and Miss me...
I...
So what? What happened?
The way you look. Will you look at yonder.
Just look at my two pigeons
and their four big ears.
What happened?
Come on, sugar. Let's roll out the dough
for the wind cookies.
If it's anything I mortally despise,
it's a person who starts off to tell something
and works up people's interest
and then stops!
I admit it.
I'm sorry, but it was one of them things
I suddenly realized
I couldn't tell you and John Henry.
You could've sent him
out of the room and told me.
Oh, no, precious,
Bernice couldn't do that either.
Don't think I care a particle
about what happened.
I just wish Willis Rhodes had come in
about that time and slit your throat.
I wish you'd stop talking so rude.
Now, here, candy. Here's a scrap of dough
for you to make your cookie then.
Cookies. Cookies. Cookies!
I intend to take two baths tonight.
One long soaking bath and scrub
with the brush.
I'm gonna try and scrape this crust
off my elbows,
then let out the dirty water,
take a second bath.
Great. Good idea.
I'd be glad to see you clean for a change.
I will take two baths.
Why is it against the law
to change your name?
What's that on your neck?
Thought that was a head you carried
on that neck. Just think.
Suppose I ups and calls myself
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.
John Henry here tries to palm himself off
as Henry Ford.
Don't talk childish.
That's not the kind of changing I mean.
I mean from a name that doesn't suit you
to a name you prefer.
Like I'd change from Frankie to F. Jasmine.
But it would still be confusion.
Suppose we all decided to change
to entirely different names.
Nobody would know
who anybody was talking about.
The whole world would go crazy.
I don't see what that has to do with it.
Because things accumulate around a name.
You have a name,
one thing after another happens to you,
things have accumulated around your name.
But what has accumulated
around my old name?
Nothing, see?
My name just didn't mean anything.
Until yesterday,
nothing ever happened to me.
But it will. Things will happen.
What?
Halt.
Take off my shoes,
my hat, my pocketbook,
and I thank you very much.
Listen, Bernice.
Doesn't it strike you as strange
that I am I, and you are you?
Like when you walk down the street
and you meet somebody,
and you are you, and he is him.
Yet, when you look at each other,
the eyes make a connection.
Then you go off one way
and he goes off another way.
And maybe you never see each other again,
not in your whole life.
Do you see what I mean?
Not exactly.
That's not what I meant to say anyway.
I'm talking about this town.
There are all those people here in town
that I don't even know by sight or name.
And now I'm leaving town and there are
all those people I will never know.
- Well, who is it you want to know?
- Everybody.
- Everybody in the world.
- Well, just listen to that.
It would take you over 200,000 years
to know everybody.
That's not what I mean.
That's not what I'm talking about!
Then what do you mean,
and what are you talking about?
- Let's play out, Frankie.
- No, you go!
- This is what I mean.
- What on earth is wrong with you?
Man, oh, boy! Boy, oh, man!
When we leave Winter Hill,
we're going to more places than you ever
thought about or even knew existed.
Just where we'll go first,
I don't know, and it don't matter,
because after we go to that place,
we're going on to another.
Alaska, China, Iceland, South America.
Traveling on trains,
riding a rip on motorcycles,
flying all over the world in airplanes!
Here today and gone tomorrow,
all over the world!
- It's the whole truth. Boy, oh, man!
- Now, Frank...
And talking of things happening,
things will happen so fast,
we won't hardly have time to realize them.
Captain Jarvis Addams wins highest medals
and is decorated by the President.
Miss F. Jasmine Addams breaks all records.
Mrs. Janice Addams elected
Miss United Nations in beauty contest.
One thing after another,
happening so fast, we'd hardly realize it.
- Hold still...
- And we'll meet them. Everybody.
We'll just walk up to people
and know them right away.
We'll be walking down a dark road
and see a lighted house
and knock on the door,
and strangers will rush to meet us
and say, "Come in! Come in!"
We will know decorated aviators,
and New York people, and movie stars.
And we'll have thousands
and thousands of friends.
We'll belong to so many clubs
that we can't even keep track of them all.
We will be members
of the whole world. Boy, oh, man!
- Man, oh, boy!
- Hush, child, child.
Come, child. Come to Bernice.
Bernice knows. Bernice understands.
And now, Bernice wants you to sit
on her lap so she can quiet you down.
You know you're trying
to grow up too fast, Frankie.
Leave Frankie alone.
She ain't bothering you.
- I'm sick.
- Oh, no, you're not.
And don't you grudge your cousin
a little bit of love.
- Old mean bossy Frankie.
- What is she doing so mean right now?
Just laying here, all wore out,
trying to get some rest.
If I have to be me for the rest of my life,
I think I'll go crazy.
Sometimes I feel like
I just can't breathe anymore.
I feel like I just wish
I could tear down the whole town.
So, I've heard you mention,
but that don't help none.
We go around trying first one thing
and then another.
Yet, we're still caught, just the same.
That's the way I see it in my mind's eye.
Bernice, which eye is your mind's eye?
Don't yank my head back like that, candy.
Me and Frankie ain't going to float
through the ceiling and leave you.
I wonder if you've ever thought about this?
Here we are, right now,
this very minute, now.
While we're talking right now,
this minute is passing,
and it will never come again,
never in the whole world.
When it's gone, it is gone,
no power on earth could bring it back again.
I sing because I'm happy
I sing because I'm free
For His eye is on the sparrow
I know He watches me
Why should I feel discouraged
Why should the shadows come
Why should my heart be lonely
Away from heaven and home
For Jesus is my portion
My constant friend is He
For His eye is on the sparrow
And I know He watches me
His eye is on the sparrow
And I know
that He watches me
So I sing
because I'm happy
- Oh, I sing
- Oh, I sing
- because I'm free
- because I'm free
- For His eye
- For His eye
- is on the sparrow
- is on the sparrow
- And I know
- And I know
- He watches me
- He watches me
Frankie, you got
the sharpest set of human bones I ever felt.
Dearly beloved,
we are gathered together here,
in the sight of God,
and in the presence of these witnesses,
to join together this man and this woman
in holy matrimony.
Do you, Jarvis,
take Janice to be your wedded wife,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, to love
and to cherish till death do you part?
I do.
And do you, Janice,
take Jarvis to be your wedded husband,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish
till death do you part?
I do.
The ring.
Repeat after me, Jarvis.
With this ring, I thee wed.
With this ring, I thee wed.
- Give me that.
- Let go! Let go!
Frankie! Frankie!
A toast! A toast to the bride and groom!
Congratulations!
- Frankie?
- Frankie?
- I'm going with you.
- With us?
- But, Frankie, you can't.
- I love you.
We have to be together.
Wherever you go, I'm going, too.
- Frankie, this is our honeymoon.
- What is it?
- Frankie, get out of there.
- No, no, no!
- Janice and Jarvis are taking me with them.
- This is the absolute limit.
- Frankie, get out of there or I'll pull you out.
- No, don't touch me!
Dad, let me talk to her, please.
Frankie, your brother and I are married now,
and we only have three days together
before he has to go back to camp.
You don't want to spoil it for us, do you?
I know you love us and we love you, but...
We. We. When you say "we,"
you only mean you and Jarvis,
and I'm not included.
Frankie, you're spoiling our wedding.
No, I'm not! I'm not! Take me! Take me!
All right, you'll have to be shown then!
Will you get out of here!
I've had enough of this nonsense.
Take me! Take me!
Come on, baby.
Come on, baby, in the house.
They put old Frankie out of the wedding.
They hauled her out of the wedding car.
That's sufficient, John Henry.
You leave Frankie alone.
My heart feels so cheap.
Now, what makes
you want to leave your old papa like this?
I love them so.
Frankie, don't cry.
Now, please be reasonable, Frankie.
I just wish the whole world would die.
Listen.
Tell me what you'd like,
and I'll try to do it if it's in my power.
All I wish in the world
is for no human being to speak to me again
as long as I live.
Well, bawl then, misery.
Well, it looks like the show is over
and the monkey's dead.
- You think it's over, but it's not.
- Now, now, now, now, now.
You want to come down
and help me in the store tomorrow?
Polish some silver with the chamois rag?
You can even play
with those old watch springs.
If you think it's all over,
that only shows how little you know.
They all complimented the wine punch.
- You got a touch with liquor, T.T.
- I do for a fact.
Well, I reckon it's because
I keep the liquor on the outside of me
instead of on the in, most of the time.
Who's that?
- Bernice.
- What are you doing out there?
- Douse the light.
- What are you doing out there?
- What are you afraid of?
- Turn off the light.
- Are you drunk?
- I'm scared out of being drunk.
- You in trouble.
- The law's after me.
Honey, what have you done now?
Well, I borrowed this car, and...
John Henry, what are doing here like that?
You want to catch your death?
- I feel funny, Bernice.
- No, you don't.
Now, go home to bed before
your mama comes back and finds you here.
- I'm sick, Bernice.
- No, you're not. You just want attention.
Now, run on home, candy.
I don't have the patience
to fool with you tonight.
- What happened?
- Well, I borrowed this car.
- The car hit a man hard, like, to kill him.
- And you run away?
You fool, Honey Brown, you fool.
- Was it a white man?
- I think so.
Bernice, you got to help me.
They put me on the road again
for this for sure.
- Lf I'm lucky, they put me on the road.
- Don't talk like that.
T.T., I have to ask you to do this for me.
Here's all the money I got.
You want me
to take him out of town in my car?
Please.
Bernice, I...
Honey. Honey.
You will be careful.
You be careful, both of you.
Lord, you took Ludie,
won't you please
watch over Honey Camden?
He's all the family I've got left.
- You heard me, pick that up!
- Pick it up yourself.
You clean that up.
I'm not your slave to walk around
after you and clean up your dirt.
You pig, you. Get out!
Get out of here! Go someplace and die!
Hey, there.
I saw you through the window.
Hello.
- Where are you going?
- I don't know, Savannah, I guess.
I have to go back to camp tomorrow.
Boy, I sure will be glad
to get out of this old town.
Three days I've been here, three days,
and nobody has even said hello to me.
All they want to say
is how much something costs.
What's the matter?
Well, what's the matter?
I think they're after me.
My father might have sent them.
You see, I've decided to leave home.
There's a back room.
We can go in there.
Come on. Bring the beer.
Well, let's sit down.
- Drink up.
- No, I don't think I want anymore, thank you.
Well, don't be scared.
Let's go outside. They probably went away.
It's nicer in here.
Let go!
Papa.
Bernice? Bernice?
Bernice?
John Henry. John Henry!
John Henry's bad sick.
Don't make any noise.
I'll come up.
You stay there. The doctor doesn't know
what ails John Henry yet,
it might be catching.
But he'd like to see me.
He's too sick, Frankie. Now you go to bed.
How bad is he sick, Bernice?
He's... He's...
The whole house seems so hollow.
It gives me a creepy feeling
watching them take our things out.
Occasionally, when it gets so quiet like this,
I have a strange feeling.
It's like John Henry
is hovering in this kitchen,
solemn-looking and ghost-gray.
I don't see why he had to suffer so,
that poor little soul.
I never believed John Henry would die.
It's funny.
I felt so sad, and I missed him so much,
but lately I can hardly even picture him.
He's like a little white ghost
going further and further away.
And to think I said, "Run along, candy.
I don't have the patience to fool with you. "
- It's just judgment on me.
- I'm forgetting about him.
Sometimes I never think of him once,
all day long.
That's natural. You're growing up.
I'll thank you not to be banging
that old sewing machine around like that.
I've had 22 years service out of it,
and there's still plenty use in it yet.
Okay, okay.
Bernice, I wish
you didn't have to give quitting orders
just because we're all moving together.
But your papa won't be needing me
with your Aunt Pat keeping house.
- What's that?
- Rachmaninoff.
I'm just mad about Rachmaninoff.
Mary is just beginning this concerto.
She may play it for her debut
when she is 18 years old.
Mary playing the piano,
and a whole orchestra playing at one
and the same time, mind you.
- Awfully hard.
- Mary Littlejohn?
I don't know why you always have to speak
her name in a tinged voice like that.
Have I ever said anything against her?
All I said was she's too lumpy,
marshmallow white,
and she makes me nervous to see her
sitting there sucking on them pigtails.
Braids.
Furthermore, there's no use
our discussing a certain party.
You could never possibly understand,
it's just not in you.
Be that as it may,
let us not fuss or quarrel our last afternoon.
I don't want to fuss either.
Besides, it's not our last afternoon.
I'll come and see you often.
No, you won't, baby.
You'll have other things to do.
Your road is already strange to me now.
You still have the fox fur
that Ludie gave you.
Somehow this little fur
looks so sad, so thin,
with a sad little fox-wise face.
Got every reason to look sad with
what's happened these past few months.
And I just don't know...
I don't know what I've done to deserve it.
The way Honey looked
when the judge said 10 years.
John Henry, my little boy, gone.
It's peculiar the way it all happened so fast.
First Honey caught,
then later in that same week,
John Henry died,
and then I got to know Mary.
As the irony of fate would have it,
we first got to know each other
in front of the lipsticks
and cosmetics counter at Woolworth's.
And it was the week of the fair.
- Frankie. Hey, Frankie.
- Yes, Barney.
- Is Mary there?
- No.
It's Barney McKean.
I'm meeting her at our new house at 5:00.
- Come on in, Barney, won't you?
- Okay.
Barney puts me in mind of a Greek god.
- Barney puts you in mind of what?
- Of a Greek god.
Mary remarked
that Barney reminded her of a Greek god.
It looks like I can't understand
a thing you say no more.
You know, those old-timey Greeks
worshipped those Greek gods.
But what has that got to do
with Barney McKean?
On account of the figure.
Hi, Greek god Barney.
This afternoon I seen your initials
chalked down on the sidewalk.
"M.L. Loves B.M."
If I could find out who did it,
I'd rub it out with their faces.
- Did you do it, Frankie?
- I wouldn't do a kid thing like that.
I even resent you asking me.
Resent you asking me.
- Mary can't stand me anyhow.
- Yes, she can stand you.
I'm her most intimate friend,
I ought to know.
As a matter of fact, she's told me
several lovely compliments about you.
I'm riding on the moving van
to our new house.
Would you like to come along?
- Sure.
- Okay.
You can ride back with the furniture,
'cause I'm riding on the front seat
with the driver.
We got a letter
from Janice and Jarvis this afternoon.
Jarvis is stationed
with the occupation forces in Germany,
and they took a vacation trip
to Luxembourg.
Luxembourg.
Don't you think
that's a lovely name, Bernice?
Kind of pretty name,
but it reminds me of soapy water.
Mary and I will most likely
pass through Luxembourg
when we are going
around the world together.
I'll see you soon, Bernice.
Sure, baby.
when Frankie was 12 years old.
This was the summer when, for a long time,
she had not been a member.
She belonged to no club,
and was a member of nothing in the world.
Frankie had become an un-joined person,
and she was afraid.
And there, on the last Friday of August,
all this was changed.
It was so sudden, that Frankie puzzled
the whole blank afternoon.
And still she did not understand.
- Are they cold enough?
- Just a minute!
Yes, they're cold enough.
And them other two drinks is lemonade
for you and John Henry.
It seems to me this old arbor has shrunk.
I remember when I was a child...
Look! Mint juleps!
Well!
Happiness to Janice and Jarvis.
It was such a surprise when Jarvis
wrote home you were going to be married.
I hope it wasn't a bad surprise.
Oh, heavens, no.
As a matter of fact,
if only you knew how I feel.
Frankie's been bending my ears, Son,
ever since your letter came,
going on about weddings and brides.
Papa!
It's lovely we can be married
at Jarvis' house.
It's what Jarvis' mother would have wanted.
Oh, it will be beautiful.
Pretty soon we should be pushing off
for Winter Hill.
I have to be back in barracks tonight.
Winter Hill is such a lovely, cold name.
It reminds me of ice and snow.
Ice and snow!
It was 102 at the base yesterday.
Oh, that feels so good!
Sister-in-law.
Doesn't that sound wonderful?
Yes, dear.
You notice if you fix your attention
on the words,
they begin to sound funny.
Sister-in-law, sister-in-law...
Frankie's crazy.
You should have seen the letter
she wrote to me.
I wrote you so many letters, Jarvis,
and you never answered me.
And I sent you so many boxes
of homemade fudge,
but you never, never answered me.
Oh, Frankie, you know how it is.
I never saw a human grow so fast
as Frankie in all my life.
Last time I saw her
she was only up to here on me.
I think maybe we ought to tie a brick
to her head.
- Jarvis, don't!
- Don't tease your little sister like that.
Why, I don't think Frankie's too tall.
And she probably won't grow much more.
I had the biggest portion of my growth
by the time I was 13.
But I'm just 12. When I think of all
the growing years ahead of me, I get scared.
I wouldn't worry.
You see,
I never believed in love until now.
Where does the music come from?
It sounds so close.
It is. It's just behind us.
They have club meetings and parties
with boys on Friday nights.
Hey, there!
I watch them here from the yard.
It must be nice,
having your clubhouse so near.
Well, I'm not a member now.
But they're holding an election
this afternoon.
Frankie thinks she'll be elected.
I don't care one way or the other.
Well, see you Sunday.
Drive carefully, Son. Goodbye, Janice.
- Goodbye. Thanks, Mr. Addams.
- Bye, Janice. Bye, Jarvis.
Goodbye, Frankie, darling.
I'd better go back to the store, now,
and get my nose down to the grindstone.
Bernice, you send John Henry home
for supper at 6:00. Don't wait for me.
Yes, sir, Mr. Addams.
You hear that, candy?
Your mama wants you home
some of the time.
I hear.
I just can't understand it.
- The way it all just suddenly happened.
- Happened? Happened?
- I've never been so puzzled.
- Puzzled by what?
The whole thing.
They are so beautiful.
I believe the sun's done fried your brains.
Me, too.
Look here at me.
- You jealous?
- Jealous?
Jealous because your brother's
going to be married?
No, I just never saw
any two people like them.
When they walked in the house today,
it was so queer.
You are jealous.
Go behold yourself in the mirror.
I can tell from the color of your eyes.
They were the two prettiest people
I ever saw.
I just can't understand how it happened.
- Whatever ails you? Acting so queer.
- I don't know.
I bet they have a good time
every minute of the day.
Let's us have a good time.
Us have a good time?
- Us?
- Yes, us.
Come on.
Let us play a three-handed game of bridge.
Janice and Jarvis.
Winter Hill. The wedding.
It's all so queer.
Can't bid. Never have a hand these days.
- A spade.
- I want to bid spades.
That's what I was going to bid.
Well, that's your tough luck. I bid them first.
Oh, you fool jackass! It's not fair!
Hush quarreling, you two.
Tell the truth, neither one of you got such
a grand hand to fight over the bid about.
But where is the cards?
I ain't had no kind of hand all week.
I don't give a darn about it.
It is immaterial with me.
My heart feels I'm going away.
Going farther and farther away
while I'm stuck here by myself.
You ain't here by yourself.
They were the two prettiest people
I ever saw.
Yet, it was...
It was like I couldn't see all of them
I wanted to see.
My brains couldn't gather together
quick enough to take it all in.
And then they were gone.
Well, stop commenting about it.
You don't have your mind on the game.
Well, spades are trump and you got a spade.
I have some of my mind on the game.
- Go on, cheater.
- Make haste, candy.
I can't. It's a king.
The only spade I got is a king.
And I don't want to play my king under
Frankie's ace, and I'm not going to, either!
See, Bernice, he cheats.
Play the king, John Henry. You know
you got to follow the rules of the game.
My king!
It isn't fair!
Even with this trick, I can't win.
Well, just where is the cards?
Three days, I ain't had a decent hand.
Begin to suspicion something, too.
Come on let's count these old cards.
We've worn these old cards out.
If you would eat these old cards,
they would taste
like a combination of all the dinners
of this summer
together with a sweaty-handed nasty taste.
Why, the jacks and the queens are missing!
John Henry,
how come you do a thing like that?
So that's why you asked for the scissors
and stole off quiet behind the arbor.
Why you take our playing cards
and cut out all the pictures?
'Cause I wanted 'em. They're cute.
See, he's nothing but a child.
It's hopeless. Hopeless!
Just have to put him out of the game.
He's entirely too young.
Oh, no, we can't put candy out of the game.
Gotta have a third to play.
Besides, by the last count,
he owes me close to three million dollars.
Oh, I'm sick unto death!
Oh, I wish they'd taken me with them
to Winter Hill this afternoon.
I wish tomorrow was Sunday
instead of Saturday.
Sunday will come.
I doubt it.
I wish I was going somewhere for good.
I wish I had $100 and could just light out
and never see this town again.
Seems to me
like you're wishing for a lot of things.
I wish I was somebody else except me.
Frankie, you serious when you
gave me the doll a while ago?
It gives me a pain just to think about them.
It's a known truth
gray-eyed people is jealous.
- Let's go play with the children, Frankie.
- I don't want to.
- Let's go.
- You got ears, you heard me!
I think maybe I better go home.
You just can't eat dinner and then go
off in the afternoon like that.
I know it.
You can go home, candy lamb,
if you want to.
But let's go out, Frankie.
They sound like they're having a lot of fun.
No, they're not.
They're just a crowd of ugly, silly children.
Running and hollering.
Running and hollering. Nothing to it.
Look, those big girls!
Hey, there!
I'm mighty glad to see you. Come on in.
We can't. We were just passing through
to notify our new member.
Am I the new member?
No, you're not the one the club elected.
Not elected?
Every ballot was unanimous
for Mary Littlejohn.
Mary Littlejohn?
You mean that girl
that just moved in next door?
Pasty fat girl with those tacky pigtails?
The one who plays the piano all day long?
Yes. Mary is training for a concert career.
You don't have enough sense
to appreciate a talented girl like Mary.
What are you doing in my yard?
You're never to set foot
on my papa's property again!
You crooks!
I could shoot you with my papa's pistol!
Crooks!
Why didn't you elect me?
Why can't I be a member?
I wouldn't pay them club girls no mind.
All my life I've been wanting things
I ain't been getting.
Besides, them club girls
are fully two years older than you.
I think they've been spreading it
all over town that I smell bad.
When I had those boils
and had to use that black,
bitter-smelling ointment.
I know.
That old Helen Fletcher asked me
what was that funny smell I had.
I could shoot every one of them
with a pistol!
I don't think you smell so bad.
You smell sweet like a 100 flowers.
I bet I use more perfume
than anybody else in town.
Crooks!
And there was something else, too.
They were telling big lies about
grownup people.
I don't know what kind of fool
they take me for.
Keep telling you, they're too old for you.
Frankie, the whole idea of a club
is that there are members who are included
and the non-members who are not included.
Then what you ought to do is round you up
a club of your own.
That way you'd be the president yourself.
- Well, who would I get?
- Oh, the little boys and girls
you hear playing around here,
the neighborhood.
I don't want to be the president
of all those little young leftover people.
Well, go on and enjoy your misery.
I bet Janice and Jarvis are members
of a lot of clubs.
In fact, the Army is kind of like a club.
You've got two nickels and a dime.
Now, don't be rooting through
my pocketbook like that, candy.
That ain't nice, rooting through
folks' pocketbook.
They might get the idea
you're trying to steal their money.
I'm looking for your old blue glass eye.
Here it is.
That's my new eye. Give it here.
I still owe $64.23 on this eye.
Your old blue eye looked very cute.
Maybe the finance company will come out
and take it back.
They'll never repossess it while
I'm wearing it and I'm still the same size.
You got three eyes. Which one of them
do you see out of the best?
Left eye, precious. The glass eyes
don't do me no seeing good at all.
Janice and Jarvis.
It gives me this pain
just to think about them.
It's a known truth
gray-eyed people is jealous.
I told you I wasn't jealous!
I couldn't be jealous of one of them
unless I was jealous of them both.
I associate the two of them together.
Well, I was jealous when my
foster-brother, Honey, married Clorina.
I sent a warning I'd tear the ears clean
off her head. But you see I didn't.
She got ears just like everybody else.
J- A.
Janice and Jarvis.
Isn't that the strangest thing?
- What?
- J-A.
Both their names begin with J-A.
Well, what about it?
If only my name was
Jane or
Jasmine.
I don't follow your frame of mind.
Jarvis and Janice and Jasmine, see?
No, I don't see.
I wonder if it's against the law
to change your name or add to it.
Naturally, it's against the law.
Well, I don't care! F. Jasmine Addams!
You serious when you give me this?
I will name her Belle.
I don't know what went on in Jarvis' mind
when he brought me that doll.
Imagine bringing me a doll.
Your face when you unwrapped
that package sure was a study.
John Henry, quit picking at the doll's eyes,
it makes me so nervous. You hear me?
In fact, take that doll somewhere
out of my sight!
The big mistake I made
was to get this close crew cut.
For the wedding I ought to have
long brunette hair, don't you think so?
Don't see how come long brunette hair
is necessary.
But I warned you about getting your head
shaved off like that before you did it.
But nothing would do,
but you shave it off like that.
I'm so worried about being so tall.
I'm 12 and five-sixths years old.
Already I'm 5'5"
and three quarters inches tall.
If I keep growing like this until I'm 21,
I figure I'll be nearly 10 feet tall!
How tall, Frankie?
I doubt if they ever get married
or go to a wedding, those freaks.
- Freaks? What freaks are you talking about?
- The fair.
The ones we saw there last October.
Oh, the freaks at the fair.
She was the cutest little girl I ever saw.
I've never saw anything so cute
in my whole life.
- Did you, Frankie?
- No, I don't think she was cute.
Well, who is that he's talking about?
That little old pinhead at the fair.
Head no bigger than an orange.
The hair all shaved off
and a big pink bow at the top.
The bow was bigger than her head.
Well, that little-headed girl was cute.
The fact is all those freak folks
fairly give me the creeps.
Do I give you the creeps?
You?
Do you think I'll grow into a freak?
You? Certainly not, I trust heaven.
Well, do you think I will be pretty?
Maybe, if you file down
them horns an inch or two.
- Seriously.
- Seriously.
I think when you fill out,
you'll do very well, if you behave.
But by Sunday. I want to do something
to improve myself before the wedding.
Then get clean for a change.
Scrub them elbows. Fix yourself up nice.
You'll do very well.
You'll be all right
if you file down them horns.
I don't know what to do.
I just wish I would die.
- Well, die then.
- Die!
Go home! Go home!
You heard me. Go home!
- I'm sick and tired of you, you little midget!
- Now, just a minute...
- Will you listen to me...
- Go home!
Did you hear what I said?
What makes you act like that?
You're too mean to live.
I know it!
Something about John Henry
just gets on my nerves these days.
I've got a splinter in my foot.
That knife ain't no proper thing
for a splinter.
Seems to me that before this summer,
I always used to have such a good time.
Remember the spring,
how every Friday night Evelyn Owen
would come over and spend the night
with me? Or I'd go over to her house.
And then Evelyn had to go and move away
to Florida. Now she won't even write to me.
Don't that hurt you none?
Hurt anybody else except me.
Remember that show Evelyn and me put on?
Look ahead, look astern
Look the weather in the lee
- Blow high, blow low
- Blow high, blow low
- And so sailed we
- And so sailed we
You're going to meet another nice girl
like Evelyn Owen.
Frankie, what you need is a needle.
I don't care anything about my old feet!
How old were you, Bernice,
when you married your first husband?
13 years old,
and I ain't growed an inch since.
Can marriage really stop your growth?
Marriage don't stop nothing.
You never loved any of your four husbands
but Ludie.
Ludie Maxwell Freeman
was the only husband I loved.
The rest was just scraps.
Did you marry with a veil every time?
Three times with a veil.
If only I just knew where he's gone.
Charles!
Now, quit worrying about that old alley cat.
- He's gone off to hunt a friend.
- Charles!
- To hunt a friend?
- Certainly.
He roamed off to find himself a lady friend.
Well, why don't he bring
his friend home with him?
He ought to know I would be only too glad
to have a whole family of cats.
Well, you done seen the last
of that old alley cat.
I ought to notify the police force.
They will find Charles.
I wouldn't do that.
I want the police force, please.
Police force?
I'm notifying you about my cat.
Cat!
He's lost. He's almost pure Persian.
As Persian as I is!
But with short hair, a lovely color of gray,
with a little white spot at his throat.
And he answers to the name of Charles.
But if he don't answer to that,
he might come if you called, "Charlina. "
What?
Oh, my name is
Miss F. Jasmine Addams.
That gets it. That gets it.
And the address is 124 Grove Street.
Gal, they're coming in here and tie you up
and drag you off to Houghtonville.
Just picture them fat blue police
chasing tomcats up and down alleys, all,
"Come here, Charles, come here, Charlina!"
Merciful heavens!
Oh, shut up!
Trouble with you,
you got no sense of humor no more.
Maybe I'd be better off in jail.
Sit down, Frankie. You make me nervous.
I bet Janice and Jarvis
are almost to Winter Hill by now.
- Did you hear what Jarvis said?
- No. What?
They were talking about whether to vote
for C.P. MacDonald.
And Jarvis said,
"Why, I wouldn't vote for that scoundrel
"if he were running to be dog catcher. "
Why, I never heard anything
so witty in my life.
And you know what Janice remarked
when Jarvis mentioned
about how much I'd grown?
She said she didn't think I looked
so terribly big.
She said she got the major portion
of her growth before she was 13.
She said I was the right height,
and had acting talent,
and ought to go to Hollywood.
She did, Bernice.
Okay, all right. She did.
She said I was a lovely size
and I probably wouldn't grow any taller.
She said, anyway,
all fashion models and movie stars...
She did not, she did not.
I heard her from the window.
She only remarked
you had probably reached your growth.
But she didn't go on and on like that,
or mention anything about Hollywood.
- She said to you...
- She said to me...
That's a serious fault, Frankie.
Somebody just chance
to make a loose remark,
you've cozen in that mind of yours
till nobody would recognize it.
Like the time your Aunt Pat
mentioned you had sweet manners.
The next thing I know,
you was going all around bragging
how you had the finest manners in town,
you ought to go to Hollywood.
That's a serious fault.
Quit preaching at me!
I'm not preaching at you.
It's the solemn truth, and you know it.
- Well, I admit it.
- Well?
A little.
What I need to know is this.
Do you think I made a good impression?
- Impression?
- Yes?
Well, how would I know?
Well, I mean, how did I act? What did I do?
You didn't do nothing to speak of.
Nothing?
No, you just stood there. Watched the pair
of them like they were ghosts.
And when they start talking
about that wedding,
them ears of yours stiffened out
the size of cabbage leaves.
- They didn't!
- They did.
Someday you're going to find
that big fat tongue of yours
pulled out by the roots
and laying there before you on the table!
Oh, quit talking so rude.
I'm so scared
I didn't make a good impression.
Oh, come, sugar,
Bernice didn't mean it that way.
They were so pretty.
They must have such a good time,
and they went away and left me.
Frankie, I want you to sit up
and behave yourself.
They came and went away
and left me with this feeling!
I bet I know something.
Frankie's got a crush.
Frankie's got a crush.
Frankie's got a crush on the wedding.
- Quit it!
- Frankie's got a crush.
- Frankie's got a crush.
- You better quit!
Put that knife down.
- Make me.
- Put it down, devil.
Well, throw it.
I'm the best knife thrower in this town.
Say whatever contest, I would win.
Frances Addams, you're going to try
that stunt once too often.
Warned you to stop picking at me.
You just ain't fit to live in a house.
Won't be living in this one much longer.
I'm gonna run away from home!
Good riddance to a big old bag of rubbish.
You wait and see. I'm leaving town.
Where do you think you're going?
I don't know.
You're going crazy,
that's where you're going.
No.
This coming Sunday, after the wedding,
I'm leaving town.
And I swear by my two eyes
I'm never coming back here anymore.
- Sugar, you're serious?
- Of course.
Do you think I would stand here
and swear that swear and tell a story?
Sometimes, Bernice,
I think it takes you longer to realize
a fact than it does anybody who ever lived.
But you say you don't know
where you're going.
You're going, but you don't know where.
And that don't make sense to me.
Well, I feel just exactly
like somebody's peeled all the skin off me.
I wish I had some good
cold peach ice cream.
But every word I told you
was the solemn truth.
I'm leaving here after the wedding.
Oh, hello, T.T. And Honey.
I didn't hear you coming.
Hello.
What's the matter?
Your foster-brother, Honey,
got into a ruckus again.
Standing on the sidewalk
in front of Sam's Caf,
and the police cracked him on the head.
What?
Why, it's a welt the size of a small egg!
Times like this I feel like
I've got to bust loose or die.
What was you doing?
Nothing.
I was just passing down the street
and minding my own business,
when this drunk soldier came out of Sam's
and bumped into me.
I looked at him and he gave me a push.
I pushed him back and he started a ruckus.
Then this M.P. Came up
and slammed me with his stick.
It was just one of those accidents.
Could have happened to anybody.
Toot some of your horn, Honey.
Now, don't bother my horn, Butch.
Told you not to touch my horn!
Look at it!
You got it full of slobber inside and out.
- It's ruined!
- Now don't touch that little boy,
or I'll stomp your brains out!
John Henry knows when he needs
a good shake. Don't you, Butch?
Now, you run on home, candy.
It's way past your supper time.
John Henry, which hand is the money in?
You can keep it if you can guess right.
I won. Much obliged.
That sure is a cute suit you got on, Honey.
Yesterday I heard somebody speak
about you as Lightfoot Brown.
I think that's a grand nickname.
It's on account of your going to Harlem,
and all the different places
where you've run away. Lightfoot.
I wish somebody
would call me Lightfoot Addams.
Suit me better if Honey Camden
had brick feet.
Keeps me anxious and keeps me worried.
Come on, let's go.
Now, Frankie, I want you to forget all that
foolishness we were discussing. You hear?
Now, if your papa ain't home by good dark,
go over to your Aunt Pat's
and play with John Henry.
Since when have I been scared of the dark?
You'll find your supper on top of the stove
and pie in the icebox.
Good night, sugar.
John Henry!
John Henry!
John Henry!
Yes, Frankie?
You asleep?
No. What do you want, Frankie?
Come on over and spend the night with me.
I can't.
Why?
Just because.
Because why? We could have a good time.
Frankie, I don't want to.
Oh, you fool jackass! Suit yourself!
Only asked you because you looked
so ugly and so lonesome!
Why, I'm not a bit lonesome.
Well, I don't want to go into that empty,
ugly house all by myself.
I'm mad at you.
I think something's wrong. It's too quiet.
I've a peculiar, supernatural warning
in my bones.
I'll bet you $100 it's going to storm.
I don't want to spend the night with you.
A terrible, terrible dog-day storm.
Or maybe even a cyclone,
or a tornado, or a tidal wave!
Frankie, if you're afraid,
I'll get my weekend bag and come over.
- Suit yourself.
- Then I'll stay here.
You don't need a weekend bag.
You're not going up to Savannah, just here.
Go tell your mama.
She's at the show.
Well, she'll know where you are. Come on.
Now I lay me down to sleep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
God bless Bernice, Mama, Uncle Royal,
Honey, T.T., the Americans and Frankie.
Frankie, when Bernice said...
That sounds like Honey.
He stopped to bang the spit out of his horn.
Please, Honey, go on, finish.
I bet a policeman stopped him.
To me it is the irony of fate,
the way they come here.
Those moths could fly anywhere,
yet they keep hanging around
the windows of this house.
I told Bernice I was leaving town for good.
She did not believe me.
Sometimes I honestly think
she's the biggest fool that ever drew breath.
You try to impress something
on a big fool like that,
and it's just like talking
to a block of cement.
I kept on telling and telling and telling her.
I told her I had to leave this town for good,
'cause it is inevitable.
Inevitable!
What's "inevitable"?
Don't bother me, John Henry. I'm thinking.
What you thinking about?
About the wedding.
About my brother and the bride.
Everything's been so sudden today.
I never believed before
about the fact that the Earth turns
at about the rate of 1,000 miles a day.
But now it seems to me,
I feel the world going around very fast.
I feel it turning, and it makes me dizzy.
Turn the other way.
I'm going with them!
- What?
- I tell you, I'm going with them!
It's like I've known it all my life.
- Tomorrow I will tell everybody.
- Huh?
After the wedding,
I'm going with them to Winter Hill.
You serious?
The trouble with me
is that for a long time
I have been just an "I" person.
All people belong to a "we," except me.
When Bernice says "we," she means
her church, and lodge, and colored people.
Soldiers can say "we" and mean the army.
Until this afternoon, I didn't have a "we. "
But now, after seeing Janice and Jarvis,
I suddenly realize
that the bride and my brother
are the "we" of me.
So, I'm going with them.
I'm going with them
and joining with the wedding.
This coming Sunday,
when my brother and the bride leave town,
I'm going with them to Winter Hill,
and after that, to whatever place
that they will ever go.
I love the two of them so much,
and we belong to be together.
I love the two of them so much,
because they are the "we" of me.
You're going into tar, if you ain't careful.
I'm leaving town tomorrow.
After the wedding, I'm going with
my brother, Jarvis and Janice to Winter Hill.
And after that, for the rest of our lives
over the whole wide world.
That's a solemn fact.
I'll probably never see this old street again
for the rest of my whole life.
- Goodbye!
- Take care.
Good morning, Papa.
Good morning.
Papa, there's something I have to tell you.
After the wedding, I'm going away.
Papa?
How many times do I have to tell you
not to touch things.
If you break that, it will cost me $5.
Papa, please, listen to me.
All right, I'm listening. What is it?
I'm trying to tell you
that after the wedding, I'm...
Frankie, you take that lipstick off.
Now, what was it you wanted?
- I have to buy a wedding dress.
- All right, you charge it at O'Rourke's.
And wedding shoes
and a pair of sheer stockings.
You get what you need.
I'll call up and tell them it's all right.
Now, you get something nice.
I'll write to you, Papa.
I'll write you every day.
Pretty good, huh?
Yes. You on that stuff again?
Of course not.
Stop lying, Satan.
That much wind ain't natural.
That's gin blowing.
What's gin, Bernice?
Now, you go inside, candy,
and if you get caught high like that,
you're going to be in trouble for sure.
The parole man says so,
and remember, I've warned you.
Honey,
I need some help down at my store.
My porter's failed me again.
I wonder if you could help me.
I ain't got the time.
He's got a job.
He plays nights at Sam's Caf, Mr. Addams.
Keep Frankie home.
I won't be back for supper
I don't want her running wild in the streets.
All right, Mr. Addams.
Liar! And you got me lying, too.
You're in Sam's all night, playing,
but you're playing for nothing.
And when you ain't playing,
you're drumming up liquor parties.
But I feel good when I play.
Bernice, I got to have a dollar.
You're barking up the wrong tree, boy.
One of these days,
I'm getting me a good job.
Save my money, get out of this town.
You're just mean enough to do that.
Can't get a job to earn your rent money,
but you can to go away
and leave me alone to worry.
Bernice,
I got to have a dollar.
Here. At least it'll stop you from stealing.
Well, guess I'll be dancing off now.
Go away, boy. You ain't fooling nobody.
Don't worry. One buck ain't gonna get me
no ticket to Chicago.
Frankie, I'll thank you to do one thing
or the other, eat or comb.
I'm about to show you something.
- What? Frankie, what?
- You'll see.
Now, don't come in here, mind.
And don't peek!
Now, close your eyes,
and don't open them until I tell you.
These are the wedding clothes.
Oh, how pretty!
Well, what's the matter, Bernice?
Don't you like it?
No. It don't do.
What do you mean, it don't do?
Exactly that. It just don't do.
But I don't see what you mean.
What is wrong?
Well, if you can't see what is wrong,
I can't explain it to you.
Look at your head to begin with. Done had
all your hair shaved off like a convict.
You tie this ribbon around this head
with no hair, it looks peculiar.
But I'm going to wash
and try to stretch my hair tonight.
Stretch your hair?
How you going to stretch your hair?
And look at them elbows. Done bought
a grown woman's evening dress.
All that brown crust on your elbows.
The two things don't mix.
Take it back. Take it back to the store.
But I can't take it back,
it's bargain basement.
Well, let me see what I can do with it.
I think you're just not accustomed
to seeing anybody dressed up.
I ain't accustomed to seeing
human Christmas trees in August.
Frankie's dress looks like a Christmas tree!
Two-faced Judas! You just now said
it was pretty. Old double-faced Judas!
Step... Step back a little.
Now, don't you honestly think it's pretty?
Give me your candy opinion.
Frankie, I never knew anybody
so unreasonable.
You ask me my candy opinion.
I give you my candy opinion.
You ask me again, I give it again.
But what you want
is not my honest opinion,
but my good opinion on something
I know is wrong.
Do you think they'd think it looked funny?
Yes, sugar, I honestly do.
I only want to look pretty
for Janice and Jarvis.
Frankie, you still got your mind set
on going with them,
when you know in your soul
this mania of yours is pure foolishness.
I don't wish to have to remind you anymore.
Please call me F. Jasmine.
Furthermore, I want to emphasize
that everything good of mine
has got to be washed and ironed
so I can pack them in the suitcase.
Everybody in town believes that I'm leaving.
All except Papa.
He's stubborn as an old mule.
No use arguing with people like that.
Me and Mr. Addams has got some sense.
I told Papa this morning I was going,
but he wouldn't listen to me.
He never listens to what I say.
Sometimes I wonder if Papa loves me or not.
Of course he loves you. He's just
a busy widowed man set in his ways.
I wonder if I can find some tissue paper
to line this suitcase.
- Look at me!
- Take that off!
- You gave it to me. You said...
- Take it off!
You just put it on to make a show of me!
Truly, Frankie, what makes you think
they want you tagging along with them?
Two is company, three's a crowd.
- That's the main thing about a wedding.
- You wait and see.
Remember back to the time of the flood.
Remember Noah and the ark?
And what has that got to do with it?
Remember the way
he admitted them creatures?
Shut up, you big old mouth!
Two by two he admitted them creatures.
Two by two.
That's all right.
But you wait and see, they will take me.
And if they don't?
And if they don't,
I will kill myself.
Kill yourself? How?
I will shoot myself in the side of the head
with the pistol that Papa keeps
under his handkerchiefs
with Mother's picture in the bureau drawer.
You know what Mr. Addams said about you
playing around with that pistol.
I've heard of a many
a peculiar thing in my day,
but this idea of yours is the most peculiar.
I've known men to have fallen in love
with girls so ugly,
you'd wonder if their eyes are straight.
Even known boys to have fallen in love
with women older than their mothers.
Take Honey. He's in love with that horn.
I've known people to have fallen in love
with their selves.
Dear Lord, we thank thee for what we're
about to receive to nourish our body.
Amen.
And what was we talking about
in the first place?
- About peculiar things.
- Yes. As I was just now saying,
I've seen and heard of many a peculiar thing
in my day,
but one thing I ain't never seen
or heard tell of, no, sir,
never in all my boring days
have I ever heard
of anybody falling in love with a wedding.
And you have to think...
You know, I've come to a conclusion.
What you ought to be thinking about,
young lady, is a beau. Nice little beau.
I don't want any beau.
What would I do with one?
Do you mean something like a soldier who
would maybe take me to the Blue Moon?
Who said anything about soldiers?
I'm talking about a nice little white boy beau
your own age.
How about that little old Barney next door?
Barney McKean. That nasty Barney?
Certainly. You can make out with him
till someone better comes along. You do.
You are the biggest crazy in this town.
Crazy calls the sane the crazy.
Him and that girl down the block.
They go to the alley
behind that Pat's garage.
I think maybe they smoke or something.
They don't let anybody watch them.
I watched them once.
What do they do?
They don't smoke.
The piano tuning man.
I seriously believe this will be the last straw.
Me, too.
If it isn't Mary Littlejohn practicing, it's this.
They tell me that when they want to punish
the crazy people in Houghtonville,
they tie them up and make them listen
to piano tuning.
We could turn on the radio, drown him out.
I don't want the radio on.
But I advise you to keep the radio on
after I leave.
You may very likely hear us
speak over the radio.
Speak about what, pray tell?
Oh, I don't know what about exactly,
but probably some eyewitness account
about something we'll be asked to speak.
Don't follow you. What are you going
to eyewitness? Who could ask us to speak?
What, Frankie?
Who's speaking on the radio?
When I said, "We," you thought I meant
you and me and John Henry West,
to speak over the world radio.
I've never heard about anything so funny
since I was born.
Who? Why?
The club of girls.
What do you crooks mean
crossing my yard?
How many times do I have to tell you
not to set foot on my papa's property?
Get out of here!
You just ignore them.
Make out like you don't see them pass.
I hope they die.
Oh, Frankie, you mustn't say things
like that. We all die soon enough.
You going to die, Bernice?
Certainly, precious, everybody's got to die.
Everybody? Are you going to die, Frankie?
I doubt it.
I honestly don't think I'll ever die.
What is "die"?
It must be terrible to be dead.
Nothing but black, black, black.
Yes, baby.
Yes, baby.
How many dead people do you know?
I know six dead people in all,
not counting my mother.
Ludie Maxwell Freeman is dead.
I didn't count Ludie, it wouldn't be fair,
because he died just before I was born.
Bernice, do you think very frequently
about Ludie?
You know I do.
I think of the five wonderful years
we had together.
All the bad times I've seen since.
Sometimes I almost wish
I had never knew Ludie at all.
It makes you too lonesome afterwards.
You go home from work at night,
a terrible lonesome quinch comes over you.
Take up with too many sorry men
to try and get over the feeling.
But T.T. Is not sorry.
Oh, I wasn't referring to T.T.
He is a fine upstanding, colored gentleman,
that's walked in the state
of grace all his life.
But are you going to marry with him?
I'm not going to marry with him.
But you are just now saying...
I was just now saying
how sincerely I respect T.T.,
and how sincerely I regard T.T.
But he don't make me shiver none.
Listen, Bernice.
There's something queer I have to tell you.
It's... It's something that happened to me
when I was riding around town today.
Now, I don't exactly know
how to explain what I mean.
Then what is it?
Well, I was riding along
and I passed two stores with an alley
in between. The sun was frying hot.
And just as I passed this alley,
I caught a glimpse of something
out of the corner of my left eye.
A dark double shape.
And this glimpse brought to my mind,
so sudden and clear,
my brother and the bride, that I just stopped
and couldn't hardly bear
to look and see what it was.
And then I turned slowly and look.
And you know what was there?
It was just two boys. That was all.
But it gave me such a queer feeling.
This is the most remarkable thing
I ever heard of.
- What I mean is...
- I know. I know what you mean.
You mean right here
in the corner of your eyes,
you suddenly catch something.
A shiver runs through you.
You whirl around,
stand there facing you don't know what.
But not Ludie, not who you want.
And for a minute, you feel like
you've been dropped down a well.
Yes, that's it.
It's mighty remarkable.
It's a thing been happening to me all my life.
Yet, just now is the first time
I ever heard it put into words.
Yes, that's the way it is when you're in love.
I always maintained I never believed in love.
I never believed in love.
I have something to tell you,
and it's to be a warning.
You hear me, Frankie?
You hear me, John Henry?
Yes. I hear you, Bernice.
I'm here to tell you I was happy.
No human woman in all the world
was happier than I was in them days.
And that includes everybody.
The five years you were married to Ludie.
From that autumn morning
when I first met him
on the road in front
of Campbell's Filling Station,
up until the very night he died,
November, the year 1940.
The very year and the very month
I was born.
It was Thursday.
Thursday, long towards 6:00.
Around this time of day, only November.
I remember I went to the passage
and opened the front door.
Dark was coming on.
An old hound was howling far away.
And I go back in the room
and lay down on Ludie's bed.
And I lay myself over Ludie
with my arms spread out
and my face on his face.
And I prayed and asked the Lord
to contage my strength, my strength to him.
I even asked the Lord to let it be anybody,
but please don't let it be Ludie.
I laid there, I prayed.
Oh, how I've prayed.
Prayed for a long time,
until night.
Yet, that night he died.
I tell you he died.
Ludie.
Ludie Freeman.
Ludie Maxwell Freeman died.
It seems to me, I feel sadder
about Ludie than any other dead person,
although I never knew him.
I know I ought to cry sometimes
about my mother,
but it looks like I can't.
But Ludie...
Maybe it was because I was born
so soon after Ludie died.
But you were starting out to tell
some kind of a warning.
Don't you see what I was doing?
I loved Ludie.
He was the first man I ever loved.
Therefore, I had to go
and copy myself forever after.
And what I did was to marry off
just little pieces of Ludie
wherever I run across them.
And it was my misfortune
they all turned out to be the wrong pieces.
But my intentions
was to repeat me and Ludie.
Now don't you see?
I see what you're driving at. But I don't see
how it is a warning applied to me.
You don't?
Then I'll tell you.
You and that wedding tomorrow,
that's what I'm warning you about.
I see what you have in mind,
don't think I don't.
You think you're going to march up
to the preacher,
right in between your brother and the bride.
You think you're going
to break into that wedding,
and heavens only knows what else.
No.
I don't see myself walking
to the preacher with them.
I see through them eyes,
don't argue with me.
And what I'm warning you is this.
If you fall in love
with some unheard of thing like this,
what is ever going to happen to you?
Will you be trying to break into weddings
the rest of your days?
It makes me sick to listen to people
who don't have any sense!
You just like to talk about Ludie, that's all,
it's got nothing to do with me!
You're setting yourself this fancy trap
to catch yourself in trouble,
and you know it.
They will take me, you wait and see!
I'm only trying to reason seriously,
but I see it's no use.
You're just jealous!
You're just trying to deprive me
of all the pleasure of leaving town.
Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti, Ti, Ti!
It could drive you wild!
Well, you didn't say anything
about Willis Rhodes. Why'd you marry him?
He have a mashed thumb,
or a code or something?
Now that... That really was something.
I only know he stole your furniture.
He was so terrible, you had to call the law.
That ain't all.
He was always running off somewhere.
So, imagine a cold, bitter January night,
if you can.
Me laying by myself on a big old pile of bed
and no one in the house,
'cause everybody had gone out
for the Saturday night.
Me, mind you, hates to sleep
in a big old empty bed by myself at anytime.
Well, come past 12:00 on this cold,
bitter January night...
Can you remember winter time, John Henry?
Well, imagine,
suddenly there come a sloughing sound,
and a tap, tap, tap, on the window,
and Miss me...
I...
So what? What happened?
The way you look. Will you look at yonder.
Just look at my two pigeons
and their four big ears.
What happened?
Come on, sugar. Let's roll out the dough
for the wind cookies.
If it's anything I mortally despise,
it's a person who starts off to tell something
and works up people's interest
and then stops!
I admit it.
I'm sorry, but it was one of them things
I suddenly realized
I couldn't tell you and John Henry.
You could've sent him
out of the room and told me.
Oh, no, precious,
Bernice couldn't do that either.
Don't think I care a particle
about what happened.
I just wish Willis Rhodes had come in
about that time and slit your throat.
I wish you'd stop talking so rude.
Now, here, candy. Here's a scrap of dough
for you to make your cookie then.
Cookies. Cookies. Cookies!
I intend to take two baths tonight.
One long soaking bath and scrub
with the brush.
I'm gonna try and scrape this crust
off my elbows,
then let out the dirty water,
take a second bath.
Great. Good idea.
I'd be glad to see you clean for a change.
I will take two baths.
Why is it against the law
to change your name?
What's that on your neck?
Thought that was a head you carried
on that neck. Just think.
Suppose I ups and calls myself
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.
John Henry here tries to palm himself off
as Henry Ford.
Don't talk childish.
That's not the kind of changing I mean.
I mean from a name that doesn't suit you
to a name you prefer.
Like I'd change from Frankie to F. Jasmine.
But it would still be confusion.
Suppose we all decided to change
to entirely different names.
Nobody would know
who anybody was talking about.
The whole world would go crazy.
I don't see what that has to do with it.
Because things accumulate around a name.
You have a name,
one thing after another happens to you,
things have accumulated around your name.
But what has accumulated
around my old name?
Nothing, see?
My name just didn't mean anything.
Until yesterday,
nothing ever happened to me.
But it will. Things will happen.
What?
Halt.
Take off my shoes,
my hat, my pocketbook,
and I thank you very much.
Listen, Bernice.
Doesn't it strike you as strange
that I am I, and you are you?
Like when you walk down the street
and you meet somebody,
and you are you, and he is him.
Yet, when you look at each other,
the eyes make a connection.
Then you go off one way
and he goes off another way.
And maybe you never see each other again,
not in your whole life.
Do you see what I mean?
Not exactly.
That's not what I meant to say anyway.
I'm talking about this town.
There are all those people here in town
that I don't even know by sight or name.
And now I'm leaving town and there are
all those people I will never know.
- Well, who is it you want to know?
- Everybody.
- Everybody in the world.
- Well, just listen to that.
It would take you over 200,000 years
to know everybody.
That's not what I mean.
That's not what I'm talking about!
Then what do you mean,
and what are you talking about?
- Let's play out, Frankie.
- No, you go!
- This is what I mean.
- What on earth is wrong with you?
Man, oh, boy! Boy, oh, man!
When we leave Winter Hill,
we're going to more places than you ever
thought about or even knew existed.
Just where we'll go first,
I don't know, and it don't matter,
because after we go to that place,
we're going on to another.
Alaska, China, Iceland, South America.
Traveling on trains,
riding a rip on motorcycles,
flying all over the world in airplanes!
Here today and gone tomorrow,
all over the world!
- It's the whole truth. Boy, oh, man!
- Now, Frank...
And talking of things happening,
things will happen so fast,
we won't hardly have time to realize them.
Captain Jarvis Addams wins highest medals
and is decorated by the President.
Miss F. Jasmine Addams breaks all records.
Mrs. Janice Addams elected
Miss United Nations in beauty contest.
One thing after another,
happening so fast, we'd hardly realize it.
- Hold still...
- And we'll meet them. Everybody.
We'll just walk up to people
and know them right away.
We'll be walking down a dark road
and see a lighted house
and knock on the door,
and strangers will rush to meet us
and say, "Come in! Come in!"
We will know decorated aviators,
and New York people, and movie stars.
And we'll have thousands
and thousands of friends.
We'll belong to so many clubs
that we can't even keep track of them all.
We will be members
of the whole world. Boy, oh, man!
- Man, oh, boy!
- Hush, child, child.
Come, child. Come to Bernice.
Bernice knows. Bernice understands.
And now, Bernice wants you to sit
on her lap so she can quiet you down.
You know you're trying
to grow up too fast, Frankie.
Leave Frankie alone.
She ain't bothering you.
- I'm sick.
- Oh, no, you're not.
And don't you grudge your cousin
a little bit of love.
- Old mean bossy Frankie.
- What is she doing so mean right now?
Just laying here, all wore out,
trying to get some rest.
If I have to be me for the rest of my life,
I think I'll go crazy.
Sometimes I feel like
I just can't breathe anymore.
I feel like I just wish
I could tear down the whole town.
So, I've heard you mention,
but that don't help none.
We go around trying first one thing
and then another.
Yet, we're still caught, just the same.
That's the way I see it in my mind's eye.
Bernice, which eye is your mind's eye?
Don't yank my head back like that, candy.
Me and Frankie ain't going to float
through the ceiling and leave you.
I wonder if you've ever thought about this?
Here we are, right now,
this very minute, now.
While we're talking right now,
this minute is passing,
and it will never come again,
never in the whole world.
When it's gone, it is gone,
no power on earth could bring it back again.
I sing because I'm happy
I sing because I'm free
For His eye is on the sparrow
I know He watches me
Why should I feel discouraged
Why should the shadows come
Why should my heart be lonely
Away from heaven and home
For Jesus is my portion
My constant friend is He
For His eye is on the sparrow
And I know He watches me
His eye is on the sparrow
And I know
that He watches me
So I sing
because I'm happy
- Oh, I sing
- Oh, I sing
- because I'm free
- because I'm free
- For His eye
- For His eye
- is on the sparrow
- is on the sparrow
- And I know
- And I know
- He watches me
- He watches me
Frankie, you got
the sharpest set of human bones I ever felt.
Dearly beloved,
we are gathered together here,
in the sight of God,
and in the presence of these witnesses,
to join together this man and this woman
in holy matrimony.
Do you, Jarvis,
take Janice to be your wedded wife,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, to love
and to cherish till death do you part?
I do.
And do you, Janice,
take Jarvis to be your wedded husband,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish
till death do you part?
I do.
The ring.
Repeat after me, Jarvis.
With this ring, I thee wed.
With this ring, I thee wed.
- Give me that.
- Let go! Let go!
Frankie! Frankie!
A toast! A toast to the bride and groom!
Congratulations!
- Frankie?
- Frankie?
- I'm going with you.
- With us?
- But, Frankie, you can't.
- I love you.
We have to be together.
Wherever you go, I'm going, too.
- Frankie, this is our honeymoon.
- What is it?
- Frankie, get out of there.
- No, no, no!
- Janice and Jarvis are taking me with them.
- This is the absolute limit.
- Frankie, get out of there or I'll pull you out.
- No, don't touch me!
Dad, let me talk to her, please.
Frankie, your brother and I are married now,
and we only have three days together
before he has to go back to camp.
You don't want to spoil it for us, do you?
I know you love us and we love you, but...
We. We. When you say "we,"
you only mean you and Jarvis,
and I'm not included.
Frankie, you're spoiling our wedding.
No, I'm not! I'm not! Take me! Take me!
All right, you'll have to be shown then!
Will you get out of here!
I've had enough of this nonsense.
Take me! Take me!
Come on, baby.
Come on, baby, in the house.
They put old Frankie out of the wedding.
They hauled her out of the wedding car.
That's sufficient, John Henry.
You leave Frankie alone.
My heart feels so cheap.
Now, what makes
you want to leave your old papa like this?
I love them so.
Frankie, don't cry.
Now, please be reasonable, Frankie.
I just wish the whole world would die.
Listen.
Tell me what you'd like,
and I'll try to do it if it's in my power.
All I wish in the world
is for no human being to speak to me again
as long as I live.
Well, bawl then, misery.
Well, it looks like the show is over
and the monkey's dead.
- You think it's over, but it's not.
- Now, now, now, now, now.
You want to come down
and help me in the store tomorrow?
Polish some silver with the chamois rag?
You can even play
with those old watch springs.
If you think it's all over,
that only shows how little you know.
They all complimented the wine punch.
- You got a touch with liquor, T.T.
- I do for a fact.
Well, I reckon it's because
I keep the liquor on the outside of me
instead of on the in, most of the time.
Who's that?
- Bernice.
- What are you doing out there?
- Douse the light.
- What are you doing out there?
- What are you afraid of?
- Turn off the light.
- Are you drunk?
- I'm scared out of being drunk.
- You in trouble.
- The law's after me.
Honey, what have you done now?
Well, I borrowed this car, and...
John Henry, what are doing here like that?
You want to catch your death?
- I feel funny, Bernice.
- No, you don't.
Now, go home to bed before
your mama comes back and finds you here.
- I'm sick, Bernice.
- No, you're not. You just want attention.
Now, run on home, candy.
I don't have the patience
to fool with you tonight.
- What happened?
- Well, I borrowed this car.
- The car hit a man hard, like, to kill him.
- And you run away?
You fool, Honey Brown, you fool.
- Was it a white man?
- I think so.
Bernice, you got to help me.
They put me on the road again
for this for sure.
- Lf I'm lucky, they put me on the road.
- Don't talk like that.
T.T., I have to ask you to do this for me.
Here's all the money I got.
You want me
to take him out of town in my car?
Please.
Bernice, I...
Honey. Honey.
You will be careful.
You be careful, both of you.
Lord, you took Ludie,
won't you please
watch over Honey Camden?
He's all the family I've got left.
- You heard me, pick that up!
- Pick it up yourself.
You clean that up.
I'm not your slave to walk around
after you and clean up your dirt.
You pig, you. Get out!
Get out of here! Go someplace and die!
Hey, there.
I saw you through the window.
Hello.
- Where are you going?
- I don't know, Savannah, I guess.
I have to go back to camp tomorrow.
Boy, I sure will be glad
to get out of this old town.
Three days I've been here, three days,
and nobody has even said hello to me.
All they want to say
is how much something costs.
What's the matter?
Well, what's the matter?
I think they're after me.
My father might have sent them.
You see, I've decided to leave home.
There's a back room.
We can go in there.
Come on. Bring the beer.
Well, let's sit down.
- Drink up.
- No, I don't think I want anymore, thank you.
Well, don't be scared.
Let's go outside. They probably went away.
It's nicer in here.
Let go!
Papa.
Bernice? Bernice?
Bernice?
John Henry. John Henry!
John Henry's bad sick.
Don't make any noise.
I'll come up.
You stay there. The doctor doesn't know
what ails John Henry yet,
it might be catching.
But he'd like to see me.
He's too sick, Frankie. Now you go to bed.
How bad is he sick, Bernice?
He's... He's...
The whole house seems so hollow.
It gives me a creepy feeling
watching them take our things out.
Occasionally, when it gets so quiet like this,
I have a strange feeling.
It's like John Henry
is hovering in this kitchen,
solemn-looking and ghost-gray.
I don't see why he had to suffer so,
that poor little soul.
I never believed John Henry would die.
It's funny.
I felt so sad, and I missed him so much,
but lately I can hardly even picture him.
He's like a little white ghost
going further and further away.
And to think I said, "Run along, candy.
I don't have the patience to fool with you. "
- It's just judgment on me.
- I'm forgetting about him.
Sometimes I never think of him once,
all day long.
That's natural. You're growing up.
I'll thank you not to be banging
that old sewing machine around like that.
I've had 22 years service out of it,
and there's still plenty use in it yet.
Okay, okay.
Bernice, I wish
you didn't have to give quitting orders
just because we're all moving together.
But your papa won't be needing me
with your Aunt Pat keeping house.
- What's that?
- Rachmaninoff.
I'm just mad about Rachmaninoff.
Mary is just beginning this concerto.
She may play it for her debut
when she is 18 years old.
Mary playing the piano,
and a whole orchestra playing at one
and the same time, mind you.
- Awfully hard.
- Mary Littlejohn?
I don't know why you always have to speak
her name in a tinged voice like that.
Have I ever said anything against her?
All I said was she's too lumpy,
marshmallow white,
and she makes me nervous to see her
sitting there sucking on them pigtails.
Braids.
Furthermore, there's no use
our discussing a certain party.
You could never possibly understand,
it's just not in you.
Be that as it may,
let us not fuss or quarrel our last afternoon.
I don't want to fuss either.
Besides, it's not our last afternoon.
I'll come and see you often.
No, you won't, baby.
You'll have other things to do.
Your road is already strange to me now.
You still have the fox fur
that Ludie gave you.
Somehow this little fur
looks so sad, so thin,
with a sad little fox-wise face.
Got every reason to look sad with
what's happened these past few months.
And I just don't know...
I don't know what I've done to deserve it.
The way Honey looked
when the judge said 10 years.
John Henry, my little boy, gone.
It's peculiar the way it all happened so fast.
First Honey caught,
then later in that same week,
John Henry died,
and then I got to know Mary.
As the irony of fate would have it,
we first got to know each other
in front of the lipsticks
and cosmetics counter at Woolworth's.
And it was the week of the fair.
- Frankie. Hey, Frankie.
- Yes, Barney.
- Is Mary there?
- No.
It's Barney McKean.
I'm meeting her at our new house at 5:00.
- Come on in, Barney, won't you?
- Okay.
Barney puts me in mind of a Greek god.
- Barney puts you in mind of what?
- Of a Greek god.
Mary remarked
that Barney reminded her of a Greek god.
It looks like I can't understand
a thing you say no more.
You know, those old-timey Greeks
worshipped those Greek gods.
But what has that got to do
with Barney McKean?
On account of the figure.
Hi, Greek god Barney.
This afternoon I seen your initials
chalked down on the sidewalk.
"M.L. Loves B.M."
If I could find out who did it,
I'd rub it out with their faces.
- Did you do it, Frankie?
- I wouldn't do a kid thing like that.
I even resent you asking me.
Resent you asking me.
- Mary can't stand me anyhow.
- Yes, she can stand you.
I'm her most intimate friend,
I ought to know.
As a matter of fact, she's told me
several lovely compliments about you.
I'm riding on the moving van
to our new house.
Would you like to come along?
- Sure.
- Okay.
You can ride back with the furniture,
'cause I'm riding on the front seat
with the driver.
We got a letter
from Janice and Jarvis this afternoon.
Jarvis is stationed
with the occupation forces in Germany,
and they took a vacation trip
to Luxembourg.
Luxembourg.
Don't you think
that's a lovely name, Bernice?
Kind of pretty name,
but it reminds me of soapy water.
Mary and I will most likely
pass through Luxembourg
when we are going
around the world together.
I'll see you soon, Bernice.
Sure, baby.