Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer 13

by Jay Squires

The previous scene in a nutshell: After Fanny explains how the judge’s virtual death sentence on her daddy left him a pariah among his neighbors and church, and may have led to his unexplained actual death a month later, she urges the reporter to read the rest of Mr. Jenkins editorial. He does, and the reader is privy to the most stunning part of the Judge’s decision.

Act III
Scene 3

CHARACTERS:
Fanny Barnwarmer: Eighty-five-year-old woman with plenty of spark and sizzle still in her. Has been performing at the Tavern for forty-four years.
Reporter: Mid-thirties. Works for the New York Times, on assignment in Brady, Texas to write a human-interest story on the famous Fanny Barnwarmer.
Herbie: Son of Brady Inn's owner. Has been given the assignment to take the Reporter to the train station.

SETTING: Front porch of Fanny Barnwarmer’s home. Rocking chair, DOWNSTAGE RIGHT, facing kitchen chair, CENTER, and front steps behind, which descend to street level with a flowerbed to the side. OFFSTAGE LEFT, street sounds of traffic: of vintage 1928 cars, some horse whinnying, etc., that continue as a kind stew of white-noise background throughout the scene.

PLACE/TIME: Brady Texas, a little before 3 P.M., Sunday, August 11, 1929

AT RISE: FANNY and the REPORTER watch as HERBIE, the twenty-something son of Brady Inn’s owner lugs two suitcases from OFFSTAGE LEFT to the foot of the stairs.

HERBIE:
Yo, Miss Fanny an’ Mister Holmdahl ….

[The REPORTER cranes his neck, looking over his shoulder at HERBIE]

FANNY:
Mornin’ Herbie.
(Pointing at the REPORTER, with a grin)
Ya c’n crank y’alls neck in, Robert.* Spect’ Herbie’s jes tryin’ to hurry y’all outta town.

HERBIE:
( Brings suitcases up the stairs and places them alongside the REPORTER’S chair.)
Now, now, Miss Fanny. Y’all jes funnin’ me?

FANNY:
Aye, I’s doin’ thet. Word’s ben circulatin’, Herbie, as hows you an’ Miss Lucy soon be tyin’ th’ knot.

HERBIE:
(Removes his hat and holds it with both hands by the brim)
We done did it, Miss Fanny. Six months ago. Now I knows you's funnin’ me! You come to the weddin’!

FANNY:
(Flushing, eyes blinking rapidly)
Well ... sure I did! Yep, y'all surely made a han'some couple.

HERBIE:
(Fidgeting)
Me’n the wife be comin’ to y’all’s show Wednesday next. Ummm ….
(To the REPORTER)
Mister Holmdahl … Daddy say to tell you the wagon be comin’ here at four to take you an’ y’alls things to th’ station.
(Replaces his hat on his head)

REPORTER:
The train boards at five?
(Removes pocket watch and huffs. Then with a smile to FANNY)
Well, it has to be, I suppose. That gives us a little over an hour.
(Fetches a coin from his pocket and hands it to HERBIE, who accepts it with a grin, and tipping his hat and smiling to FANNY, descends the steps)
There’s never enough time, is there?

FANNY:
Well, Robert, me’n Mister Jenkins done tol’ ya all ya needs to know, anyways ’bout the trial. Them papers, they dug theys teeth ont’it like a mountain lion at th’ throat of a stray calf, they did, an’ they raised sech a stink ’bout thet jedge thet he skedaddled down to one o’ them southern states. An’ Thurston Flourney … well … well …
(Chuckling bitterly)
he be a prom’nant man in Illinois, an’ rich as Solomon an’ all, but them papers made him the laughin’ stock o’ the whole country what with theys puffed up cartoons with his big coat pockets an’ with jedge Weitherton hangin’ outta one’ of ’em. Ol’ Flourney, he has no choist but to pick up stakes an’ he takes his money to parts unknown.

REPORTER
Well … to Brady, you mean.

FANNY:
But he dint move there all at one'st. It’s then ’Lizabeth hired the Pinkertons to track him down. Ain’t no one what hated a man more’n ’Lizabeth hated Thurston Flourney. A day dint pass what she dint spew ’bout—

REPORTER:
Wait! Wait! Miss Fanny—Wait! You heard this from Miss Juniper? She was only five or six at the time. You’re telling me she remembered hearing her mother—

FANNY:
Dint say that t’all. I heered it m’self.
(Staring long at the REPORTER)
Robert, I’s passin’ surprised thet you—bein’ a reporter an’ all—woun’t wonder ’bout a fourteen-year-old girl left t’ raise a dim-lit mama an’ her feeble-minded brother after daddy’s killed. I be a-waitin' but you ne’er onest ast ’bout it ….

REPORTER:
(With a crooked smile)
I stand convicted. It was one of the questions I needed answered, and I would've gotten around to it, but there's so little time.

FANNY:
An’ now there be litt'ler ... so I best be playin’ th’ reporter an’ the teller.
(Winks broadly at him and taps her fingertips on his knee.)
Y’all jes try an’ keep up with yer writin’.
(Beat)
Now ... I be proud to call ’Lizabeth Mama … an’ even tried onest, kiddin’-like but she shushed me up ’counta Mama might hear. But Mama’s mind’d slipped even more, what with Daddy dyin’, an’ she prob’ly woun’t figger nothin’ diff’runt.
(Beat)
Fact is … ’Lizabeth took me an’ Mama an’ Josiah in to live with her an’ Juni after Daddy died. Josiah kep’ workin’ daytimes on our land nex' door a spell afore he lit out fer Chicago an’ we ne’er heerd no more ’bout him. Then, seein’s how ’Lizabeth din’t have nothin’ therebouts but bad mem’reys … she packs us up an’ moves us lock-stock’n-barrow to a purty little town in Farmington Missuruh, where she had kinfolk.

REPORTER:
It was a good place to forget about the past and start moving ahead with your lives?

FANNY:
Y’all talkin’ ’bout 'Lizabeth? Ya ain’t been listenin’ then. ’Lizabeth not be the fergittin’ kind. She be gittin’ telegrams mor’n onest a month from Pinkerton ’bout Flourney’s wherebouts. He be travelin’ west … be stoppin’ one place a spell … then movin’ on. Till he lit in Brady. An’ the Pinkertons, they foller the money. Flourney buys five-thousand head o’ longhorn cattle an’ a thousan' acres o’ land jes outside o’ Brady. Ya don’ do that if’n y’ain’t plannin’ on stayin’.

REPORTER:
But, Miss Fanny, this is what I don’t understand. I know I’m interrupting, and I need you to go on … but you have to tell me this …. Missus Albright, because of the foresight of her husband was … well … independently wealthy. But you're saying she was driven inside to avenge her husband’s death and the crooked trial that freed Thurston Flourney and his mob?

FANNY:
(Looking dismayed)
Well ... yes!

REPORTER:
If someone wants someone else dead, there are always people to be found who would be willing to act as his executioner … for a price.
(Throwing up his hands and looking with perplexity at FANNY)
All we’re left with is that twenty years after the trial, it’s Miss Juniper—your Juni—who ends up murdering Thurston Flourney in front of the Brady Inn.

FANNY:
Like I said, ain’t no one what hated Thurston Flourney more’n ’Lizabeth do—

REPORTER:
But you don’t think it even dawned on her that with her money she could pay to have him murdered?

FANNY:
Y’all’s not thinkin’ like a mother—putick’ly like a nigra mother what has a five-year ol’ daughter. If she do thet, an’ the ’sassin gits caught, y’all think it won’t unwind back t’ her? A nigra ain’t got no jedge in her pocket. Not in those times. Not bein’ a nigra.

REPORTER:
So, they’d hang her, and Miss Juniper would be left an orphan. But being a mulatto—and you said she was as white as you or me, you don’t think Miss Juniper could have been passed off as your own mother’s daughter … your sister?

FANNY:
If’n it all wound up like thet, Mama’d like as not a been a crack in th’ chamberpot. Asides, it’d have to be fast—the workin’ o’ fate, I mean.

REPORTER:
Fate? What fate?

FANNY:
Well, sir ... Ya see … not a year after ’Lizabeth moved us all to Farmington, Missuruh, Mama up an’ died in her sleep. She ain’t et nothin’ t’speak of since Daddy died … an’ she kep on actin’ like Josiah’s still with us when he already lit out fer Chicago. I think Mama jes plain tuckered out an’ closed her eyes an’ never waked up.

REPORTER:
That’s sad, Miss Fanny.

FANNY:
(Slowly nodding, then distantly, reflectively)
Yes, 'tis. Poor Mama. But then ... Poor ’Lizabeth. … Poor Juni.

REPORTER:
(Moved, staring at FANNY for a long while)
So … Missus Albright figured she couldn’t risk taking her revenge until Miss Juniper was of age. Is that what you're saying?
(Not waiting)
But, help me with this. What I don't understand ... at some point, when Miss Juniper was old enough to understand her mother’s obsession …. At that point, Missus Albright decided not to carry out her revenge herself, but to groom her daughter to do it instead? Is that what happened, Miss Fanny?

END OF SCENE THREE

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* From the above notation: Many thanks to Liz O'neil who offered me this gem of southern dialect, one of many she picked up from a group of Appalachian youngsters she taught.

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Fanny Ties Up Some Very Interesting Loose Ends

A chapter in the book The Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer

Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer 13

by Jay Squires

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