Characters:

• Kareem/Boo/Maurice N. Walker (African-American, Early 20's)
• Dorothy Walker (50's)
• Aunt Nancy (40's)
• Voice of Visitor
• Dr. Stephen Boyd (30's)
• Guard
• Voice on the Intercom
• Voice of Inmate(s)

Scenes:

1. I Can't Stay Long, Son.
2. Swan Dive.
3. Letters From Death Row.
4. Wheeling Alabaster Doves.
5. Leaving Death Row.

Scene 1: I Can't Stay Long, Son

Setting: A dark, dusky cubicle for non-contact visits in a maximum security prison near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Squat wooden chairs positioned both sides of a small, wire-mesh screen.

At Rise: Present. Late Spring. Mid-afternoon. Lights come up on Mrs. Dorothy Walker as she enters stage right. She is visibly nervous. She looks around, as if she's lost.

Dorothy: (to the audience) That damn fool son a mine. I ain't neva gon' git used to visiting him on death row. Scares the hell outta me. Gives me the creeps.

Suddenly we hear the thunderous sound of a steel gate slamming shut. (Dorothy jumps.)

Dorothy:See what I mean? Enuf to give you a damn heart attack. I done had two already.(She takes off her coat and sits it with her pocketbook on the counter.) Look I'ma jus' have to tell him: "I can't stay long, son." I got bingo on Saturday an' church on Sunday. Uhmmph. An' I gotta play my numbers. I might hit. i done all I could. Me an' his daddy, James L. Walker, a good, hard-workin' man, give that child a good stable home. Uhmmph. Neva wanted for nuthin'. (Dorothy sits.) I got two other chil'ren. He the only one went bad. My Shonda--that's the babygirl--is an actress. Keith is the oldest boy. Gots good paying job at Pittsburgh International Airport. Five years come February. So don't give me that one-in-every-four young black mens is in jail or on parole jive cuz you tellin' a damn lie. (She wags a finger at the audience.) I told my boy to stay away from that Mookie. Nooo, uh-uh. hard headed. (Dorothy struggles to fight back tears.) Listen, it was Mookie who shot that bank guard. Shot him dead. My son said he was jus' drivin' the getaway car but that lying Mookie gits up there an' say my poor son done it an' Mookie back out on the streets, still shooting white folks.

(We hear voices off stage.)

Actor: C'mon, Baby. Gimme a kiss. Gimme.

Actress: Now how I gon' do that through the screen? You is crazy.

Actor: Yeah. Crazy 'bout you girl. Jus' a 'lil kiss. Gimme. Gimme

Actress: You is nasty. no. I gotta go.

Actor: Bitch, I'ma kill you when i git out!

Dorothy: (shakes her head) Mmmph mmmph mmmph. Girl drags her behind all this way to see him an' he threatens to kill her. Devil. Some of these peoples belong in here. Crazy as a bed bug. That's why I think my son turned Mooz-lim. (Dorothy mispronounces "Muslim") Gotta be for protection cuz he ain't neva been sanctified an' holy. I coulda had pretty grandchildren by now if he'd married Francine--that's Deacon Henry's daughter. Girl was plum crazy 'bout that boy. But noooo, he wanna hang out with Mookie. Now he talks 'bout some book called the Ko-ran. A God called Allah. And birds. Done even up and changed his name. Call hisself Kareem Muhammed Somebody. I don't bother with the rest. He know better than to ask me to call him that. His Christian name is Maurice Nathaniel Walker, born February 19, 1973. He's our Boo. That's what we called him since he was a little baby. Boo-Boo.

We hear a voice boom over the intercom: "George Smith, visit; Floyd Cox, you also have a visit." Music replaces it in the visiting room and fades.

Kareem enters stage left. he is escorted by a guard with a hand firmly around his arm. Kareem looks displeased by the shoddy treatment but brightens when he sees his mother.

Kareem: (sits) How you doin' ma?

Dorothy: How you doin', Boo Boo?

Kareem: I'm cool. Reading my Quran.

Dorothy: (concerned) You look a 'lil' thin. You eating awright?

Kareem: Uh-huh. They feed us alright.

Dorothy: I can't tell. You know i ask that guard could I bring you in the plate I fixed but he talked 'bout some rule and regulation 'gainst it. i said, "It ain't nothin' but his favorite sweet potato pie. An' my Boo jus' luvs my macaroni an' cheese an' fried pork chops."

Kareem: Ma, puh-leeze.

Dorothy: Anyway, he said he wished he could do it since I brought the plate all this way he had to 'spect it for contraband. Ten minutes later I saw him picking his teeth.

Kareem: I keep trying to tell you you have to change your dietary habits, ma. With your heart condition, you ain't supposed to be eating that greasy stuff. Blacks lead the entire nation in cancer, heart attacks, and strokes. Even your Bible speaks about the abomination and the swine. Which is why i been stopped eating pork long time ago, when i accepted Islam.

Dorothy: (to the audience)Rhetoric. it ain't been thatlong. Them black Mooz-lims be tellin' him lies. Why, I raised all my chil'ren on pork.

Your sister Shonda tol' me to tell you Hi. That not to worry. She done landed a part in a musical on Broadway an' she gittin' together with your brother to git you a new lawyer. That damn lawyer you had... he was paid off too if you ask me. Francine asks 'bout you.

Kareem: I told you to tell them I'm cool, Ma. I got wings. They can't touch me. Even if I am an endangered species

Dorothy: An' I tol' you to stop tawkin' like that. 'Til the last breath in my body I'm gon' fight 'til you git outta this place. You ain't kilt nobody. nobody! it ain't right. Your Daddy asked 'bout you, Boo Boo.

Kareem:I got a good book from the library, Ma. British coastal birds. Three particularly I dig. The puffin, guillemot, and the kittiwake.

Dorothy: You hear me? Your daddy says he luvs you, Boo.

Kareem: These birds are all kind of anti-social, meaning -- take the puffin, for instance. It spends its winters far out at sea, when it ain't nesting in high cliffs and clifftons, away from it all. The kittiwake is a small, graceful gull, they named it after its call.

(Kareem makes an eerie bird-like call-a sound that startles his mother. She watches him rise, gingerly, pivoting on the balls of his feet. He outstretches his arms and begins a steady rhythm as the throaty, disconcerting noise swells voluminously.)

Dorothy: Stop it, Boo Boo! You stop it right this minute! I ain't playin' with you, boy!

(Kareem looks upstage and stops.)

Kareem (sits): i don't want to talk about it again, Ma.

Dorothy: But he's your daddy. He luvs you to death.

Kareem: He never loved me and you know it.

Dorothy: That's not true. He does. He may dunno how to 'xpress it in words, some mens neva learn that --your daddy is one of them.

Kareem: Oh, he was never at a loss for words when it came to Keith and Shonda. Keith make him beam with pride. Captain in the Air Force. Medals for bravery. Fighter pilot. Desert Storm. Lands a high paying job right out of the service. But i can fly too. i have my own wings. i have dreams. Just like Shonda. Oh, this is his babygirl. His little princess. She wants to be an actress. Halle Berry. Elegant. Dorothy Dandrige. Beautiful. Graceful. he'll get to brag to his buddies about all her Hollywood friends. I didn't want to attend the college he wanted me to attend, study what he wanted me to study. "What kind of man wants to be a bird doctor but a damn coo-coo bird," he said. I said, "pop, it's called ornithology, which is a branch of zoology that deals with birds. i want to be an ornithologist." "coo-coo bird," he'd say.

Dorothy: Oh, you an' your daddy got into arguments 'bout the lillest things. You'd run away from home. You still runnin'. By the way, your daddy's 'lil sister, Nancy, says she done put a 'lil money 'side for your appeal. Says she luvs her Boo Baby.

Kareem:Aunt Nan? How's she doing?

Dorothy: She sick. Done come down with sump'n.

Kareem: What wrong with Aunt Nan?

Dorothy: Dunno. She in an' out the hospital. This last time the doctor kept her. She said to 'pect a letter from her soon.

(The guard enters, picking his teeth.)

Guard: Time to fly back to your nest, Bird Man.

Kareem: (jumps up) Look, I told you my name is Kareem Muhammad Shabazz! Not Bird Man!

Guard: Whatever. Visiting time's up.

(Light fades on Dorothy.)

Scene 2: Swan Dive

Setting: Later that day. Nancy inside the office of Doctor Stephen Boyd. She's just had another battery of tests -- procedures that portend doom. her eyes hold an empty, dreamlike glaze as she stares into some distant, deep, dark chasm.

Nancy: (to the audience) I wonder what Karla Faye Tucker felt, before Texas executed her. fear? Shock? Regret? Hate? Repentance? Joy? Who knows. I have a nephew on Death Row, my Boo Baby. Me pesty little dreamer. I don't want him to go through that. he's too young to think about death. The end. Darkness. I wept inconsolably for Karla Faye. The light lifted her skyward on invisible wings. White pearls strung around her exquisite swan-like neck replaced the hangman's noose. I feel something dreadful happening to me. Some evil affliction. Daggers of white-hot pain. Dr. Stephen Boyd keeps setting up these appointments. But a woman knows these things. Female intuition. I'll let him serve the death warrant. lethal injection. I'm ready.

(Doctor Stephen Boyd enters. He has her medical chart.)

Dr. Boyd: The results of the second biopsy came back. There's an abnormality -- God, Nancy, why couldn't you've just come in for your annual exam?

Nancy: Just tell me, Stephen. Cancer, right?

Dr. Boyd: (clears his throat) Well, your mammography was slightly different. The lump in your breast --

Nancy: (cuts him off) Oh, God. No.

Dr. Boyd: I'm afraid, is a tumor.

Nancy: A tumor?

Dr. Boyd: That was my fear. You do understand why i had to conduct a series of tests before we could be sure. This is serious, Nancy.

Nancy: How serious?

Dr. Boyd: It could be life-threatening if we don't arrest it quickly. Your 44-year-old body is under attack by a peculiar, vicious mass roiling about. Without surgery to remove the cancerous area we won't know how far it has spread, if at all.

Nancy: I want the surgery. Do what you have to do. Take it out. take it out!

Dr. Boyd: Then I'll schedule you for pre-op procedures.

(Suddenly a magical, surrealistic light explodes as a spiritual sound fills the doctor's office. Birds chirping. Then a small flock of pink paper doves tethered to a string flutters across the top back wall of Dr. Boyd's office, swoops low, and disappears into the light.)

Scene 3: Letters from Death Row

Setting: Months later, the crisp white walls of a hospital room contrasted against the dark, funereal gloom of Death Row. Nancy is sitting on the bed writing a letter to her nephew Kareem, who is in his cell writing a reply. The perpetual, hypnotic sound of a deranged inmate's ear-piercing screams and the crackle of radios and televisions fills the corridor as he writes, mindless of the bleak, intermittent light of his own TV. A small, white telephone and a peach-blow vase filled with flowers sits on the table in the hospital room: a few feet from Kareem's cell, a black telephone hangs on the wall. Nancy and Kareem's identical worlds are separated by only a thin wall wedged between them.

Nancy:Dear Boo Baby, ... I'm writing to thank your sweet heart for writing to your auntie. You always had a way with words, little dreamer. Don't worry about me.

Kareem:Dear Aunt Nan, ... In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful, my greetings of peace and paradise. I've always admired your strength, Aunite... You embody the spirit of every black woman I adore: Rosa Parks and Lena Horne and Billy Holiday. Dorothy Dandridge and Lorraine Hansberry and Zora Neale Hurston. Winnie Mandela and Betty Shabazz and Maya Angelou. You're my Grandparents Baltimore and Mamie Walker's babygirl; my Daddy's little sister; Eva and Tillie Hadley's niece--my gorgeous Aunt Nancy. how can i not worry about you?

Nancy: (writing) Dear Boo, ... Such a flatterer! But I am no longer as you remember me. The surgeon mutilated by breast, the stones chipped away, like wind erosion. The chemo took all my hair.

Kareem:Dear Aunt Nan, ... It'll grow back.

Nancy: But it never did.

Kareem:Remember you used to visit our house in the hill district, way, way back in the day?

Nancy: Dear Boo baby, ... Yes, you were a small, dreamy-eyed adolescent. I was a young, precocious teenager, who wanted to be a model and an actress. With that old Polaroid camera I bought you for Christmas, I'd pretend to be a glamorous Black Hollywood starlet. Remember?

(She rises and begins to prance about the room in elegant poses. Kareem leaps about holding his imaginary camera.)

Kareem:Yes! Look this way Ms. Dandridge!

(She turns her head slightly)

Nancy: (Bats her eyes coquettishly.) Like this, Pierre?

Kareem: Yes, yes! That's it, Ms. Dandridge! Hold it there! Fabulous! Click. Click. Click. (Kareem mimes pointing his camera lens at the opposite wall as Nancy preens on the other side. After a moment a sudden jolt of debilitating pain shoots up her spine and she cries out in agony--though Kareem cannot hear nor see her. She almost crumbles. It's a struggle making it back to the bed.)

Kareem: One more shot, Ms. Dandridge! One more! Click. Click. Click.

Nancy: No, no please. no more. I'm not feeling very well, I'm withering, wasting away. I'm dying, Pierre.

Kareem:Dear Aunt Nan, ... I still have all those photographs. Your lovely image forever captured in the timelessness of cinema verite.

Nancy: Dear Boo, ... It's a joy to hear from you. Today was one of my bad days all day long. I just came up with a new problem, additional to having cancer. A month ago I got arthritis in my back, some days especially when it's real cold outside, I ache all over my body. The pain pills just don't work. The best part of the day was when I read your sweet letter.

Kareem:Dear Aunt Nan, ... I've seen so-called tough guys on Death Row take their own lives. And I've seen hardened soldiers return from wars battle-weary and broken and scarred. You're a strong black woman. hang in there, soldier.

Nancy: Dear Boo, Baby, ... The family got you a good appeals lawyer. I love you.

Kareem: You didn't have to do that! You have to pay your medical bills!

Nancy: (writing) don't be silly. I'm covered by insurance. Early retirement benefits. I am unmarried and childless. Let only one of us be doomed.

Kareem: (writing) Please get well.

Nancy: You're such a beautiful brown bird. Spread your wings. Fly away from there. Call me.

Kareem: As if you thought I would forget.

Scene 4: Wheeling Alabaster Doves

Setting: Hospital room. Music. Indicating the passage of time. Nancy and Dr. Stephen Boyd.

Nancy: (in pain) But the chemo doesn't work, Stephen. The pills don't either. Can't you give me something stronger?

Dr. Boyd.: I've done all I could, Nancy. I wish I could do more, but I can't. You are in the advanced stages of cancer. God Nancy, why couldn't you just come in much earlier for your screenings?

Nancy: (raising her voice) That's not what i asked you dammit!

Dr. Boyd: I've already increased your morphine dosage by 250 milligrams. Please. I can't. You could. . . I will lose my -- if something goes wrong. Just calm down --

Nancy: You are a doctor, ain't you? Help me! make the pain go away! Make it go away! It hurts!(She screams.)

Dr. Boyd: Nancy, please. I --

(She screams louder. The doctor flees.)

Nancy: Why can't you leave me alone? Why must you torment me, like you did Karla Faye? We didn't deserve this. Was it because I never married? Wouldn't let your filthy, sex-starved beast touch me? Was it because I chose to live alone, without your so-called helpmate? (She shakes her clenched fist at the sky.) You never loved me. You never did. If you did you would send me wings, wings, wings, to take me away.

(She leans on the table to catch her breath, wipes her sweaty forehead, stumbles over to the bed and rips a sheet of paper from the pad and writes:)

Nancy: ... I'm tired and am going to bed. Good night, Boo baby, and I'll write soon as I am feeling better. (Nancy lies down. Dies)

(A moment fleets past. The light dramatically changes to a magical, iridescent glow as the spiritual sound fills the stage and a small flock of white paper doves tethered to a string wheels downward. We see a magnificent ascent. The light fades.)

Scene 5: Leaving Death Row

Guard: Kareem Muhammad Shabazz?

Kareem: Yes, sir.

Guard: I have legal mail for you.

(He hands him the letter. Kareem rips it open and reads it aloud.)

Kareem: Dear Mr. Shabazz, ... As you are well aware, i was awaiting news of a decision from the state supreme court in the appeal I filed on your behalf. I was particularly hopeful, in light of the new evidence I uncovered in your case. As you are also aware, your co-conspirator, Darnell Green, aka "mookie," was recently shot by a bank guard during an attempted holdup. He lingered for several days, but before expiring he gave a dying-bed confession admitting to being the actual trigger man in your case. The court threw out your conviction. You're coming home, son.

(Kareem leaps of his bed, waving the letter.)

Kareem: Al-Ham Dullah! Al-Ham Dullah! Praise be to God! I'm leaving Death Row! Guard! Guard!

(The guard enters.)

Guard: What is it now, Shabazz?

Kareem (dancing): I'm leaving Death Row, man! Gone! I'm outta here! I want to call my Aunt Nan and tell her the good news!

Guard: Well, alright. You got fifteen minutes. That's all.

(He lets Kareem our of his cell. Kareem picks up the phone and dials. The lights come up on an empty, made-up hospital bed. The phone rings ... and rings ...)

CURTAIN