A Fine Christian Gentleman

(Planted in the audience is a man with a whiskey bottle and another who will shout at THE CHARACTER to stop panhandling.)

CHARACTER: (entering from back of house) CAN SOMEBODY BUY AN OLD MAN

A--(softer) Can somebody buy an old man a drink, kinda take the chill out of his bones? How about you, son? Buy an old man a drink, a little Christian Charity for a brother down on his luck??? Gladly pay fer the drink with my company...or leave you alone, either way, some folks’d say yer getting a bargain.....How about that drink, son? Tell ye a story, how ‘bout that? Pay fer it with a story? National treasure, the aged, ain’t that what they say now? Oral historians? A drink fer some native American Culture, then? I got it! Pay a drink to see my daughter? Her picture, son, what the hell do you think? I look like a pimp to you?

(He rolls up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a naked devil-woman in the Hot Stuff style.)

There, a real sweet lookin’ thing, ainchee? Yeah, she got horns and a tail, but them she got from me, the rest she got straight from her sweet mama. Now, how about that drink, eh? Maybe you could loan me a quarter till tomorrow....I’m good fer it...I--

(He is interrupted by the plant shouting at him to stop panhandling.)

Panhandlin’! Like Hell!! I’m askin’ a friend here fer a loan. No, no, I don’t know him. But I’m a friend to any good Christian man, and this one here looks like he’s a saint. (the man gives him a quarter) Thank you son. He, nothin’ but trouble, her mama. We got married in a fever, back in Oklahoma...Dustbowl days. You’d be too young to know anyting about that...Mary, that was her name, and we, well, we woulda done most anything to get out of Oklahoma back then....damn near did, too. Hopped a train out of Ponca City...headin’ to the Promised Land. Lot of people trying to get on that train, but we was two of the few that did it....Rail men, you know, their job was to keep us off of there.....say, my throat is getting a little...well, sir, Mary took a bullet right there, in her backside, and bless her heart, she never let out a peep, or they’d a tossed us off without slowing down a bit....Took that bullet out myself....with my teeth. We got to California, and fer a while there it was just as bad as what we left. All we had was each other. Funny thing, when somethin’ is all you got, you grab it and hold it fer all its worth.....Mary and I held each other....well, I got work and by and by things got a little better, and the more things got better, teh more you kinda loosen up on that tight hold, and you start to maybe grab at other things...Me, I grabbed a gal named Allison, and Mary grabbed a ticket back to Ponca City and took the baby with her. She’s dead now, I heard, and Alison, she took the cholera and she...she died too, and that’s when I grabbed me a bottle....and see, a bottle has a way of holding you when nothing else will....

(Man in audience hands him a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Old Number Seven Tennesee Sour Mash Whiskey.)

Thank you son, and God Bless....you are a true Christian Gentleman.

(Lights out)