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TOLEDO: Go ahead, then. Spell it. Music. Spell it.

LEVEE: I can spell it, nigger! M-U-S-I-K. There!

            (He reaches for the money.)

TOLEDO: Naw! Naw! Leave that money alone! You ain’t spelled it.

LEVEE: What you mean I ain’t spelled it? I said M-U-S-I-K!

TOLEDO: That ain’t how you spell it! That ain’t how you spell it! It’s M-U-S-I-C! C, nigger. Not K! M-U-S-I-C!

LEVEE: What you mean, C? Who say it’s C?

TOLEDO: Cutler. Slow Drag, Tell this fool.

            (They look at each other and then away.)

Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!

            (TOLEDO picks up the money and hands LEVEE his dollar back.)

Here’s your dollar back, Levee. I done won it, you understand. I done won the dollar. But if don’t nobody know but me, how am I gonna prove it to you?

I am a fantastic lover. I’ve got to give me that. There are only two things about me that females don’t like: the fact that I sing when I drive—admittedly, I’m not a musician—and my skiing. All the girls I know ski moguls well—really solid bump skiers—and I try to turn in the swells and lose my downhill line. I have thick hair. I’ve got a car that stinks from new leather. My skin, my body—that’s all decent. But I get ridiculed on bumps, and the way I sing gets mistaken for a joke or an imitation of someone dippy, when in fact your car is one of the few places besides the bathroom where you can sing the best songs the way they were meant to be sung. They all think my singing is terrible. Screw them. (I did.)

ALEX: I get panic attacks over nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’ll be at work, or at home, or at school, and suddenly I’ll start shaking and I won’t be able to breathe.

          (pause)

School counselor says that it might be a chemical imbalance. Or, she says, it might have something to do with my past. I think it has something to do with my past, so if you’re my father, it’s probably your fault.

Go Ju go Ju go.

Lightskinned Rainbow

eclipsed Tick Tock,

his chocolate walk-partner.

Incestuous Pootchie and Tan.

Both Frogs. Squirrel. Crazy ass Sponge.

Bama Duke’s lopsided,

sticky daughter, Peaches.

Out b-shaped barber,

Blinky. We miss you,

Missy, rest in peace.

John Rocks-on-Rocks.

The Young Dillingers.

Freckles versus Baby Tim.

Cabalou stuttering,

i-m-m-mi-t-ta-ting Johnny Lips.

Hillbilly, Lefty, Itchy and Skip.

Dootie Bug’s first

baby’s mama, leaving.

Tootie had Fin.

JUDGE LITTLEFIELD: Cunningham, you’re the cynical, faithless spawn of a crackpot gypsy and a defrocked mick—yet, you just told me Jesus would have you on your knees in three minutes.

CUNNINGHAM: So?

JUDGE LITTLEFIELD: So consider this: your friend Judas? He has Jesus for three years. Think about that, Cunningham. Three years in the foxhole with the best friend ya ever had, then he shot him in the back for a pack of Kools. Think what that says about the essential character of the man. Now go home and stir that into your wee gypsy teapot! Petition’s invalid, motion denied! Next case!