A time before our own. The community is lively in Ocean’s County, Mississippi. It’s a full moon in August, early evening. Blackness is glowing; A reading is happening in the Blackfoot/Moreau cabin kitchen. Everything has a place and it’s not much space to begin with.
CORALEE stands by the window in a simple bright green dress to watch the moon with a mason jar of moonshine. CORALEE doesn’t drink. IVY and KOYA are seated at the table with mason jars. KOYA is definitely inebriated in an orange dress and a fashionable hat on her head sideways, that she keeps rearranging. IVY is not far behind cloaked in blue, shuffling and reshuffling her cards, shaky and uncertain. KOYA has begun, with a slight slurred southern drawl. The reading has not.
KOYA
… … And that old white woman still talking, like she ain’t said enough already. She got nerve to say, I ought to change my name!
IVY
(shuffles the deck.)
Oh lawd, the ways of white folks. They never stop being white folk.
KOYA
I’m still standing, trying to mind mine. I can’t leave my boys but I be aiming to abandon my own flesh and blood.
IVY
(looks at a card, then puts it back in the deck.)
Well, what be wrong with your name? Why you need a new one?
KOYA
She thinking, it being an Indian name and all, the Indian don’t be dark so I ain’t looking Indian to her. Standing round looking like all of the rest of the niggers.
IVY
Oh lawd – have mercy on her ignorant soul.
KOYA
(sips her moonshine, it stirs something to make her shift her hat.)
I reckon, the lord done had too much mercy on her soul as is. Here a woman caring enough to know my name only to decide she don’t like my name AND it ain’t no name I should be having no how!
(stands to peacock and shimmy a little – the moonshine is good!) Look at me! You think she got a thing to do with all this goodness here! Me and Mama Earth got something in common!
CORALEE
(lifts her mason jar in the air, laughing.)
Amen!
IVY
(shuffles her cards.)
Sit down and let me do this reading.
KOYA
(takes her seat, sips her moonshine, fixes her hat and dress.)
You slug slow and seven seasons long, Mz. Ivy Woods. Look at the moon leaving us! I be a whole different woman that need a whole different reading by the time you feel right and ready in your bones.
IVY
Spirit got a lot of competition with you all up and about Mz FreedaMae kitchen trying to wake the dead.
CORA chuckles. KOYA sips and IVY shuffles.
IVY
What I know as sure as I know the sun gone rise is that Koya Sun don’t be no name white folk giving out to Negroes.
KOYA
And, what about Mz CoraLee Rose there looking out that window at the moon and stars since before the sun leave the sky, like she waiting on’em to get back here, grab her up, and carry her home!
(fixes her hat.)
Tell her why the Indians look like her now, seeing how she got time.
(sips her moonshine.)
And Mz. FreedaMae Blackfoot, nobody white passing out names for Negroes with freedom and black in it! That be wrong even in their good book!
(slaps the table for emphasis.)
CORALEE
Deet come in thinking womenfolk don’t need moonshine if it leave’em making all this noise in his house.
KOYA
We ain’t worrying about no man name Deet with no wife name Blackfoot.
IVY
(leans in with a lowered voice.)
You know he still mighty tender and raw she keep her family name. I be sure he not ready for us to speak on it in jest, Mz Koya.
KOYA
I done said, what I done said.
IVY
He give us this moonshine. Now, ain’t no sense in making sure we don’t get another taste of it while we here, Mz Koya.
KOYA
I see that I can speak on something else now when you make sense of it in such a way.
IVY
I be thinking you would.
IVY shuffles. KOYA finishes her moonshine.
KOYA
Mz CoraLee, get on over here and sit with us now. Stop being ornery.
CORALEE
I be needing to go look after the little ones soon, Koya.
KOYA
FreedaMae do a fine job of keeping watch over the little ones.
CORALEE
Don’t be right to have folk over and now you looking after your little ones and everybody else’s.
KOYA
She be fine. When she not fine, she come in here and tell us, ‘she not fine’.
IVY
(lays a card on the table. Inspects the card.)
It be mighty unkind for you to stand round here like a tree in Mz FreedaMae kitchen like that, Mz Cora.
KOYA
Or bake some bread if you gone stand round putting weight in the floor, all uneven like!
(dreamily and hinting.)
Nothing like the smell of fresh baked bread in the air on a night like tonight.
IVY
I reckon you get started, we get a taste to have with my moonshine.
(picks up her cards to shuffle again.)
KOYA
You know, Mz Ivy sure do love her some bread, especially your bread, Mz CoraLee. You make the best bread on the Mississippi River!
The back door opens and closes. FREEDAMAE enters in a gold dress, focused and quiet.
IVY
Mz CoraLee get you the moon on this table before we get some fresh baked bread this evening.
FREEDAMAE passes between the table and CORALEE. their bodies touch in passing. FREEDAMAE and CORALEE freeze – they are soft, glowing, subtly flirtatious. FREEDAMAE grabs a couple of cookies from the stove, watching CORALEE.
IVY (Cont.)
Way it be goin’, it be next week when we get Mz CoraLee started on even getting some dough set out to rise.
FREEDAMAE walks to CORALEE again.
FREEDAMAE
(to CoraLee.)
Pardon.
CORALEE holds her moonshine, takes a step back.
CORALEE
(to FreedaMae, embarrassed.)
Sorry.
FREEDAMAE
(wraps cookies in cloth, but hands one to Coralee.)
A cookie?
CORALEE takes the cookie, unsure. Somewhere a small child cries.
FREEDAMAE rushes out the back door.
IVY
(lays three cards out on the table, face up.)
It be another season when we get a whiff of baking bread in the air messing ‘round with Mz Rose over there.
KOYA
Mz. Cora?
(teasing in a sing-song kind of way.)
Mz CoraLee Rose? CoraLee?
CORALEE breaks off a piece of cookie to nibble at, wondering; Silent.
KOYA (Cont.)
I say, Mz CoraLee, wheresoever your heart go, I reckon your hearing done gone on with it.
(to Ivy.)
She hear me calling on her!
IVY
I reckon, no bread getting baked tonight. Got my mouth all set…
KOYA
(uses hands to gesture.)
Take the moon out the sky and sit it right here on this table. Throw some cinnamon on it, a taste of cardamom, and pinch of ginger; Get a little honey to dip it in, she be right on over here, glowing. Standing over there looking like a tree of life from the beginning of time rooted in Mz Freedamae kitchen like that. They invite us over and she give they floor a good dip, instead! Ain’t neighborly.
IVY
We can’t get that moon in here no more than we get some bread baking. Stove ain’t hot! Dough ain’t set.
(gathers her cards up again.)
KOYA
Mayhap, we find more moonshine to make us forget all about that bread, Mz Ivy.
(shakes her glass. Her glass is empty.)
We be done with it, anyhow.
IVY
Sure wish it be enough moonshine to make me forget I get to share my bed with the children instead of a man. I need enough to make my body forget what it feel like when a man love a woman. When he love her right and proper. Until the moon leave the sky and the sun rises.
KOYA
(takes Ivy’s moonshine glass to raise high.)
Amen to that!
(takes to sipping Ivy’s moonshine.)
Mz Cora over there waiting on the moonshine in the sky to take her away. I reckon at the end of it all, you be wanting the same things – the moon to see you.
IVY
(lays down one card to inspect.)
Deet moonshine work faster than that old faithful in the sky. That be the moonshine that get me in trouble. Make me all soft, got me thinking I’m a flower blooming when I suppose to be sleeping. I take Joe back two times with a moon in the sky just like tonight. I be wanting a moonshine I can drink. I don’t need no more dreams. Dreams need supper! Want more than I got in me to give. Mz. CoraLee have her moonshine all to her lonesome. No more glowing sweet for me.
KOYA
Mayhap, Mz. CoraLee use her soft and dream ways to get our glasses filled.
CORALEE
(turns around smiling at Koya with her cookie and mason jar still.)
I’m thinking, Deet hear you from across the way and he thinking you done had your fill.
KOYA
I’m thinking, that YOU thinking, we had our fill, Mz CoraLee.
`
IVY
Mayhap, we get Mz FreedaMae. She come in and out, I’m sure she in need of a swallow of moonshine herself.
KOYA
I think FreedaMae be smitten by the same moonshine that catch CoraLee up. Mz FreedaMae don’t mess with no drink no how. She ain’t likely to help us none. I reckon we go sit out and drink the other moonshine, if it be all we get a hold of.
IVY
(gathers her cards and leans in tentatively.)
Well… I get a hold of some grain… I done made my own.
CORALEE turns completely around to stare at IVY.
KOYA
Hush up now, Mz Ivy! Negro men come up missing for it! Get rid of it.
IVY
They come up missing for everything, Koya. Over in Lane County, Greens is gone and so is his store.
(puts a card done, inspects it for a moment.)
Thomas and Mary gone for trying to vote in Bland County. Don’t seem it take much to be disappeared over, to me.
Beat.
(Shuffles the deck, puts a card on the table.)
The energy is moving like a river before a storm. Can’t catch a thing in it.
KOYA
You done laid out that buffalo four or five times now. The fern showed itself twice and you been inspecting that butterfly like you don’t know what a butterfly is. If I didn’t know no better, I say, you doing your own reading, Mz Ivy. I’m in need of turtles, land bugs, and oak trees. Where this old body going? Kids raised, they daddy laid low – Don’t give me all that moving.
IVY shuffles the cards again
KOYA (Cont.)
Do Cora? Stop her from putting a dip in the corner like she do.
CORALEE sits at the table, eats a corner of the cookie to not respond to Koya. IVY lays a card on the table face up.
KOYA (Cont.)
You gone say something? Call on something that ain’t here? Tell the river to rest? Who you calling on?
IVY
(lays another card on the table face up.)
Her spirit know she here. Hush up, so they can feel her and not hear you.
IVY lays the last card on the table face up. CORALEE picks up the first card.
CORALEE
A river. Fire. And a … a plant?
IVY
Roots.
KOYA
Water, Fire, and Earth – That’s what I wanted!
IVY
(shuffles her cards again.)
One more card for you, Mz Koya.
CORALEE
I reckon there’s a moonshine card in that deck.
KOYA
God don’t like ugly, Mz CoraLee Rose.
IVY
(lays a card on the table.)
Another Buffalo? That’s five buffalo this evening.
CORALEE
(picks up the card to inspect.)
A storm. Livestock run from the storm. Buffalo run through it.
(continues to inspect the card.)
They don’t travel alone. That means community. Family. Strength in numbers. They don’t falter. There’s plenty courage. They know the land and the sky.
(lays the card on the table and turns it around.)
Five times…. Five is change. Change is the butterfly. They let go of one body to live in another with the same soul. One is heavy, the next one is lighter. A storm is coming. Go through it. On the other side, the storm is done. You will be changed.
IVY and KOYA look at CORALEE curiously, speechless.
CORALEE (Cont.)
What? The Blackfoot talk about the buffalo.
KOYA takes all the cards, gathers them and puts them in front of CORALEE. Gives CORALEE’S Moonshine to IVY
KOYA
You read the cards from now on. And you drink moonshine instead of the other stuff you trying to do.
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