Wilma: (To audience) You know, I first dug Bird `cause everybody was into him and used to talk about him all the time. Then when I really listened to him …. Dudes `round my way would only take their special woman to dig Bird with. I went down to Birdland one night and everybody was waiting for him and when he finally showed he looked like he slept under the bandstand and hadn’t shaved for weeks. I never saw anything like that and I never heard anything like his music. Charlie Parker played in tongues … I don’t want to give up my baby, but I know that it’s a boy in here. Funny what Bird means to me. Secretly, I always wanted to be a man `cause they can do things and go places. Bird is the man I wanted to be. Maybe my son will be like him. Dig that. Maybe I’m giving up a Charlie Parker. Maybe I’m thinking about giving up a Charlie Parker. The baby’s father? He’s just someone I met at a dance. Tall, dark, and good-looking. And I like the way his smile tasted in my mouth. Anthony. He smiled at me and I smiled back and we wanted each other. He’s just a man I gave myself to and I can’t blame him for anything. Really. But I do because I’m here and he’s … (Shrugging her shoulders helplessly) You know what this is? (Puts her hand on her stomach) It’s a curse … it got my mother and now it’s got me … fatherless child, manless woman, it’s deep, it’s always there waiting, no matter how you try to escape. I watched it pick us off like typhoid, one by one. We knew a girl had caught it when her belly got bigger and bigger and her eyes took on a certain feverish look and everybody wondered who’s next … who’s next … and now it’s my turn ….

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