Play # 9

Millie's Coffee

__________________________

By Joseph Frost

Originally written for the 2020 "31 Plays in 31 Days" challenge

Contact:
Joseph Frost
710 Newland St
Jackson MS 39211
FrostJosephD@gmail.com
Member, Dramatist's Guild
 MILLIE sits at a slightly crooked table, at a
booth in the back of a diner that’s probably not
supposed to be a diner. She smokes.

OLIVE, a server, brings a plate and a drink.

OLIVE
Millie.

MILLIE
Bacon better be crisp.

OLIVE
Isn’t it always?

Olive sets down the food.

MILLIE
One time it wasn’t.

OLIVE
Six years ago.

MILLIE
I don’t make mistakes twice.

OLIVE
Then put out the cigarette.

MILLIE
I make my mistakes as many times as I want.

OLIVE
You get us shut down, ain’t no one gonna burn your bacon like that any more.

MILLIE
It burns or y’all do.

OLIVE
You want coffee?

MILLIE
Have I ever wanted coffee?
 2.

OLIVE
I’m supposed to ask.

MILLIE
Not me you’re not.

OLIVE
You got something against coffee?

MILLIE
Coffee ain’t good for nothing but keeping you warm and giving you the shakes.
(beat)
Do I look hot to you?

OLIVE
Maybe you could use some shakes?

MILLIE
Out.

Olive starts out.

OLIVE
You got a visitor.

MILLIE
I don’t take visitors.

OLIVE
Brought you something special, I think.

MILLIE
Not while I’m eating.

OLIVE
I don’t think this can wait, Mill.

Olive points to the cigarette.

Millie puts it out.

MILLIE
This’ll spoil my breakfast.
 3.

OLIVE
Can’t help that.

Olive exits.

Millie takes out a cell phone and sends a text.

She puts the phone on the table.

In walks WALKER, a woman in a dark suit.

MILLIE
This ain’t the time.

WALKER
It’s never the time.

MILLIE
I’m having breakfast.

WALKER
No one says you can’t eat.
(beat)
Hard to believe the health department hasn’t shut this place down.

MILLIE
Sometimes you squash a roach and he just decide not to be dead yet.

WALKER
Is that the blue plate today?

MILLIE
I got important business today, Walker. You got something on your mind, or is this a
social call?

WALKER
Should I have brought a sponge cake?

MILLIE
You can’t bake.

WALKER
I know where the store is.
 4.

MILLIE
Prove it.

Walker steps to the table.

WALKER
Maybe I should. Since you got important business today.

Walker slides a chair over from a nearby table

and sits.

MILLIE
You know my boy, Jasper, don’t you?
(beat)
Jasper once promised me, “mama, when I get home I’m gonna clean up the whole house.
Take out the trash, mop the kitchen floor, pick up my toys, even scrub the tub.” I used to
like when he’d promise me that. He ain’t never did it one damn time, but when he’d
promise me, I tell you, I knew how much he loved me. Cause I knew he meant it. He
wanted to clean that house spotless for me. Stupid kid.

WALKER
That was before juvie?

MILLIE
He was a good boy.

WALKER
There were things he wasn’t good at.

MILLIE
You can do everything you can, but if the bad crowd wants you, and when you good the
bad crowd wants you, then ain’t nothing you can do.

WALKER
Can say no.

MILLIE
K, Nancy.

WALKER
Wasn’t right, what happened to him.
 5.

MILLIE
Sometimes a promise is a promise.
(beat)
Stupid kid.

WALKER
Stupid kid.

Millie indicates her breakfast.

MILLIE
You don’t mind if I--

WALKER
Not at all. Keeping your mouth full for a second might be a good idea. Give you a
chance to listen to what I got to say.

A moment.

Millie takes a big bite of food.

WALKER
You like stories. Let me spin a yarn.
(beat)
Old woman, lives on the corner of the neighborhood, got a picture window looking out
over her world. Makes a pitcher of tea and sits in the rocker, safe behind the window,
pitcher and a glass on the table next to her, big old telephone in her lap. Handle and the
curly cord, and the whole deal. Ain’t even a push button, it’s the rotary with the big clear
plastic wheel. Even dialing nine-one-one’d take time. All the way round to nine, then
one and one. Widow. Husband was a mechanic before he was shot in a robbery for forty-
five bucks and a couple of car parts. Like them kids’d know how to install them. Stupid
kids.
(beat)
Old woman likes to make phone calls. She don’t have a lot of visitors, and don’t mind
keeping it that way, but she likes to talk. Hooo, she talk talk talk. All day if you let her.
Sometimes it’s old biscuit recipes and gossip about church ladies’ hats being suggestive
to the men in the seniors’ Sunday school group, but sometimes. Some times let me tell
you Millie...
(beat)
She don’t like watching the soaps cause even though they’re called soaps they ain’t
nothing like being clean. But she does like to watch. And got that biiiig picture window.

A moment.

Millie swallows her food.

 6.

Millie maintains eye contact with Walker.

MILLIE
(loudly)
Olive!

OLIVE
(offstage)
Yeah, Mill?

MILLIE
(loudly)
Coffee.

OLIVE
(off)
You sure, Mill?

MILLIE
Yeah. I am.

OLIVE
(off)
But--

MILLIE
Please, Olive.

OLIVE
(off)
You got it.

Millie continues to stare down Walker.

MILLIE
You need a doughnut?

WALKER
I already got my teeth into something.

MILLIE
You’re looking thin.

WALKER
Diet and exercise. And counting them points.
 7.

MILLIE
I never got the points.

WALKER
I like them.

MILLIE
Where do the points come from?

WALKER
They tell you.

MILLIE
How do they know?

WALKER
What am I? A detective?
(beat)
Makes it easier to keep track.

MILLIE
Yeah, but then you’re keeping track, you know what I’m saying?

WALKER
I do.

MILLIE
Takes all the fun out eating.

WALKER
Is it supposed to be fun?

MILLIE
It ain’t a job, is it?
(moment)
Is it?
(long moment)
Shame what happened to Miss Fran’s husband. Guess a couple parts and fifty bucks
might not have been worth fighting for.

A long, tense moment.

Olive enters with two plain ceramic cups and a

glass pot of coffee. She sets down the cups, and
fills them both.
 8.

Olive exits.

MILLIE
Tell you what.

WALKER
I wish you would.

Millie smiles, just a bit.

MILLIE
If I knew that something were going to happen, say, at the corner of the neighborhood...

WALKER
I’m listening.

MILLIE
I mean, sometimes older people wake up in the middle of the night.

WALKER
That they do.

MILLIE
They say that three am is a witching hour.

WALKER
They do?

MILLIE
They do.

WALKER
Three am is?

MILLIE
That’s right.

WALKER
I thought it was midnight.

MILLIE
What is?

WALKER
The witching hour.
 9.

MILLIE
Midnight’s bad luck. But three is worse.

WALKER
Worse.

MILLIE
Nothing but creatures of the night at three am.

WALKER
Creatures of the night.

MILLIE
Uh huh. Demons. Bad shit.

WALKER
Bad shit.

MILLIE
Bad.
(beat)
Only reason I’m saying anything.

WALKER
Stupid kids?

MILLIE
The stupidest.

Walker moves her coffee cup.

WALKER
I guess I should prepare myself for a wake up call.

MILLIE
You might want to rest up.

WALKER
Go to bed early.

MILLIE
Take a melatonin. Probably got less points than a regular sleeping pill.

WALKER
You think?
 10.

MILLIE
How would I know?

Walker knocks on the table and stands up.

MILLIE
You don’t want your coffee?

WALKER
You didn’t drink yours.

MILLIE
I hate coffee.

WALKER
I figured you had it poisoned or something.

MILLIE
It already is poison.

Walker steps to the door.

MILLIE
I was told you had something for me.

WALKER
You were?

MILLIE
You saying Olive is a liar?

WALKER
That’s not what I said.

Walker exits.

Millie sits a moment.

Olive enters. She picks up the empty plate.

OLIVE
Was the bacon burnt enough for you?

MILLIE
Did the trick.
 11.

OLIVE
You want your coffee?

MILLIE
Never did.

Olive stacks the cups on the plate.

She starts for the door.

Millie notices a slip of paper on the table.

MILLIE
What’s this?

OLIVE
(turns back)
I dunno. What is it?

Millie unfolds it and reads.

MILLIE
It’s a number.

OLIVE
A number to what?

MILLIE
Jasper’s parole officer.

OLIVE
What do you make of that?

MILLIE
I gotta call to make, Olive.

Olive exits.

Millie picks up her phone and dials.

Lights down.