A monologue from the play by Dominique Morisseau
FAYE (fifties, African American)
Let me tell you somethin’. Run down a lil’ scale for you. First you start with nothin’. Grow up and get yourself first job.
Then first car. Then first house. Then family, property, all that. Then first thing to go be the family. Then the house.
Then the car. Then the job. You know what’s left after that? The soul. Then nothin’. I’m runnin’ on soul now Reggie.
Only thing still got fuel in it. And what strip me faster than anything else is bein’ made helpless.
I done grew up on the East side of Detroit and seen my whole neighborhood change over the years. Seen houses burn down to the ground on Devil’s Night.
Seen people squattin’ in houses with no water and no shelter and no ability to take care of themselves.
I done grown up with a Mama who could barely keep the lights on. We done sat in that house with no water and no gas sometimes
and found ways to eat and stay clean and warm. I ain’t sayin’ it’s pretty. I ain’t sayin’ I wanna go back to that. I ain’t sayin’ I will.
I’m just sayin’ I got the mind and the creativity and the ingenuity in me since I was a kid, and I don’t like nobody questionin’ my ability to be able to rise up.
I’m a born and raised Detroiter. East-sider. If it’s one thing I know how to do…it’s rise the hell up.
