Time: mid/late 20th century.

Place: Below the Mason Dixon. 

Early September afternoon.

It is still summer. 

Mary's living room is of modest but of orderly means. A  painting in the manner

of  Franz Kline's # 2, hangs behind the couch upstage center. 

Billy, almost 8 years old, is sitting on the couch. He is completely wet.  He is waiting. 

Mary enters.

She’s wearing light blue Capri style pants, a sleeveless red buttoned shirt not tucked in; Keds white tennis sneakers; no socks.  Her neck length red hair is always in her bright pretty blue eyes.

She is patiently smart, but not hesitant to act.  She has youth, the majesty of anointment, and the routine of motherhood.

                                                        MARY

They're going to arrest Jeffers, but the sheriff said if you're not telling the truth you're going to be in big trouble.

                                                        BILLY

Why wouldn't I tell the truth?  I was drowning.

                                                        MARY

I didn't say you didn't tell the truth.

                                                        BILLY

Jeffers is a liar.

                                                        MARY

He said you went on your own.

                                                        BILLY

He's a liar.  He went to help someone else but he never come back.

                                                        MARY

Why didn't he come back?

                                                        BILLY

...I don't know.

                                                        MARY

I paid him to sail with you.

                                                        BILLY

I know.  I told him that.

                                                        MARY

So you went out by yourself on that river...?  Did you go out by yourself?

                                                        BILLY

...Yes, ma'am.

                                                        MARY

In that wind?

                                                        BILLY

He said -- be a man and go out on your own.

                                                        MARY

He said that to you?  Be a man?

                                                        BILLY

Yeah.

                                                        MARY

            (first sentence to herself)

Son of  a bitch...Did he rig the boat?

                                                        BILLY

I did.

                                                        MARY

You know how?

                                                        BILLY

...Sort of.

                                                        MARY

Sort of is not knowing how.

                                                        BILLY

I rigged it right, but I had problems.

                                                        MARY

Did you ask him to help you?   

                                                        BILLY

No.

                                                        MARY

Why?

                                                        BILLY

...I was afraid.

                                                        MARY

Of what?

                                                        BILLY

Of him.

                                                        MARY

Afraid he'd yell at you?

                                                        BILLY

...Yes.

                                                        Pause

                           

                                                        MARY

Then what happened?

                                                        BILLY

I got our there; the wind whipped me around; the boom swung out; the mainsheet jammed, and I capsized.

                                                        MARY

Was he there to help you?

                                                        BILLY

...No.

                                                        MARY

Where was he?

                                                        BILLY

On shore.

                                                        MARY

Doing what?

                                                        BILLY

Helping someone else.

                                                        MARY

Someone in distress?

                                                        BILLY

...No.

                                                        MARY

So then he wasn't helping someone.

                                                        BILLY

...No.

                                                        MARY

He was teaching someone.

                                                        BILLY

Yes.

                                                        MARY

But he was supposed to teach you.

                                                        BILLY

Yes.

                                                        MARY

But he didn't.

                                                        BILLY

No.

                                                        MARY

...He figured he could send you out, tend to this other boy and make double...Did you pay him?

                                                        BILLY

I had to.

                                                        MARY

You had to...?

                                                        BILLY

He said the money would get wet if I gave it to him later.

                                                        MARY

So, he knew you'd get wet.

                                                        BILLY

...I don't know.

                                                        MARY

How long were you stuck out in the water?

                                                        BILLY

I thought I was gonna to die, mama.

                                                        MARY

Billy...

                                                        BILLY

I thought I was gonna die.

                                                        MARY

Don't ever say that.

                                                        BILLY

I thought nobody was ever gonna come get me.

                                                        MARY

Billy...God saw to it that someone did.

                                                       BILLY

I don't ever want to be that close to dying again.

                                                       MARY

...Come here, Billy...Come here.

        (she hugs him for strength not pity)

You leave Jeffers to me.

“The best thing about living in a small town is when you don’t know what you’re doing someone else does.”