6. What does Troy mean when he describes himself as being born with "two * 1 point strikes" (69)? O From the very start, the odds were against Troy O Troy started life understanding the odds against him playing professional baseball O Troy has always understood in life he would strike out eventually O Troy being born to an angry father and without a mother put two strikes against himon ROSE: And you know I ain't never wanted no half nothing in my family. My whole family is half. Everybody got different fathers and mothers. .my two sisters and my brother. lCan't hardly tell who's who. Can't never Sit down and talk about Papa and Mama. It's your papa and your mama and my papa and my mama. TROY: Rose.. stop it now. ROSE: I ain't never wanted that for none of my children. And now you wanna drag your behind in here and tell me something like this. TROY: You ought to know. It's time for you to kno ROSE: Well. I don't want to know. goddanm it! TROY: I can't just make it go away. It's done now. I can't wish the circumstance of the thing away. ROSE: And you don't want to either. Maybe you want to wish me and my boy away. Maybe that's house and get away from the pressures and problems. Be a different man. I ain't got to wonder how I'm gonna pay the bills or get the roof fixed. I can just be a part of myself that I ain't never been. ROSE: 'What I want to know. . . is do you plan to continue seeing her. That's all you can say to me. TROY: ICan sit up in her house and laugh. Do you understand what I'm saying. I can laugh out loud... and it feels good. It reaches all the way down to the bottom of my shoes. {Passed Rose. I can't give that up. ROSE: Maybe you ought to go on and stay down there with her. . .if she a better woman than me. TROY: It ain't about nobody being a better woman nothing. Rose. you ain't the blame. A man couldn't ask for no woman to be a better wife than you've been. I'm responsible for it. I done locked myself into a pattern ying to take care of you all thatI forgot about myself. ROSE: "What the hell was Ithere for? That was my what you want? INell. you can't wish us away. I've got job. not somebody else's. eighteen years of my life invested in you. You ought to have stayed upstairs in my bed where you belong. TROY: Rose... now listen to me .. . we can get a han- dle on this thing. 'Ne can talk this out. . come to an understanding ROSE: All of a sudden it's "we." Where was we at when you was down there rolling around with some godforsaken woman? "We" should have come to an understanding before you started making a damn fool of yourself. You re a day late and a dollar short when it comes to an understanding with me. TROY: It's just.. . She gives me a different idea...a different understanding about myself. I can step out of this TROY: Rose. I done tried all my life to live decent... to have a clean. .hard..useful life. I tried to be a good husband to you. In every way I knew how. Maybe come into the world backwards. I don't know. But. you born with two strikes on you before you come to the plate. You got to guard it closely. .always looking for the curve-ball on the inside corner. You can't abrd to let none get past you. You can't afford a call strike. If you going down. . you going down swinging. Everything lined up against you. what you gonna do. I fooled them. Rose. I bunted. 'When I found you and Cory and a FENCES 72 CORY: Mama! ROSE: Troy. You're hurting me. TROY: Don't you tell me about no taking and giving (CORY Comes up behind TROY and grabs him. TROY, surprised, is thrown of balance just as CORY throws a glancing blow that catches him on the chest and knocks him down. TROY is stunned, as is CORY.) ROSE Troy. Troy. No! (TROY gets to his feet and starts at CORY .) Troy..no. Please! Troy! (ROSE pulls on TROY to hold him back. TROY stops himself.) TROY: (To CORY) Alright. That's strike two, You stay away from around me, boy. Don't you strike out. You living with a full count. Don't you strike out. (TROY exits out the yard as the lights go down.)FENCES 66 TROY: Rose! (She stops and turns around. ,1 I don't know how to say this. (Pause) I can't explain it none. It just sort of grows on you till it gets out of hand. It starts out like a little bush... and the next thing you know it's a whole forest. ROSE: Troy. what is you talking about? TROY: I'm talking. woman. let me talk. I'm trying to find a way to tell you. .I'm gonna be a daddy. I'm gonna be somebody's daddy ROSE: Troy. You're not telling me this? You're gonna be. ..what? TROY: Rose now see.. . ROSE: You telling me you gonna be somebody's daddy? You telling your wife this? (GIiBRIEL enters from the street. H e carries a rose tn his hand.) GABRIEL: Hey. Troy! Hey. Rose! ROSE: I have to wait eighteen years to hear something likethis. GABRIEL:Hey. Rose I got a flower for you. (He hands 1'1 to hen) That's a rose. Same rose like you is. ROSE: Thanks. Gabe. GABRIEL: Troy. you ain't mad at me is you? Them bad mens come and put me away. You aint mad at rue is you? TROY: Naw. Gabe. I ain't mad at you. ACT TWO 6? ROSE: Eighteen years and you wanna come with this. GABRIEL: (Takes a quarter out ofnt'e pocket.) See what I got? Got a brand new quarter. TROY: Rose . it'sjust... ROSE: Ain't nothing you can say. Troy. Ain't no way of explaining that. GABRIEL: Fellow that give me this quarter had a whole mess of them. I'm gonna keep this quarter till it stop shining. ROSE: Gabe. go on in the house there. I got some water-melon in the frigidaire. Go on and get you a piece. GABRIEL: Say. Rose. . you knowI was chasing hell-hounds and them bad mens come and get me and take me away. Troy helped me. He come down there and told them they better let me go before he beat them up. Yea. he did! ROSE: You go on and get you a piece of watermelo Gabe. Them bad mens is gone now. GABRIEL: Okay. Rose. gonna get me some watermelon. The kind with the stripes on it. (GABRIEL extra into the house.) ROSE: "Why. Troy? Why? After all these years to come dragging this in to me now. It don't make no sense at your age. I could have expected this ten or fifteen years ago. but not now. TROY: Age ain't got nothing to do with it. Rose. ROSE: I done tried to be everything a wife should be. Eyelything a wife could be. Been Inan'ied eighteen years andI got to live to see the day you tell me you been seeing another woman and done fathered a child by her. TU halfway decent job ..I was safe. Couldn't nothing touch me. I wasn't gonna strike out no more. I wasn't going back to the penitentiary. I wasn't gonna lay in the streets with a bottle of wine. I was safe. I had me a family. A job. I wasn't gonna get that last strike.I was on rst looking for one of them boys to knock me in. To get me home. ROSE: You should have stayed in my bed. Troy. TROY: Then whenI saw that gal. .. she firmed up my backbone. AndI got to thinking that if I tried. .I just might be able to steal second. Do you understand after eighteen years I wanted to steal second. ROSE: You should have held me tight. You should have grabbed me and held on. TROY:Stood on first base for eighteen years and I thought. . well. goddamn it.. .go on for it! ROSE: We're not talking about baseball! IWe're talking about you going off to lay in bed with another woman and then bring it home to me. That's what we're talking about. 'We ain't talking about no baseball. TROY: Rose. you're not listening to me. I 'm trying the best I can to explain it to you. It's not easy for me to admit that I been standing in the same place for eighteen years. ROSE: I been standing with you! I been right here with you. Troy. I got a life too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? 'What about my life? What about me? Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to . .-. -' '7' . -... .- Tl about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you Troy. I took all my feelings. my wants and needs. my dreams and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom. But I held on to you. Troy. I held you tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room. 1With the darkness falling in on me...I gave evelything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn't the most honest man in the world. And wherever you was going I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that's the only way I was gonna survive as your wife. You always talking about what you give and what you don't have to give. But you take too. You take. . and don't even know nobody's giving! (ROSE turns to art: into the house; TROY grabs her arm.) TROY: You sayI take and don't give ROSE: Troy! You're hurting me! TROY: You say I take and don't give. ROSE: Troy. you're hinting my arm! Let go! TROY: I done give you evelything I got. Don't you tell that lie on me. ROSE Troy! TROY: Don't you tell that lie on me! (COR I\" anters'om the house.)