Feeding the Dragon

Sharon Washington

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781786826299
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Théâtre américain

'Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a library...' Deep in the bowels of a New York Public Library lies a dragon: the monstrous coal furnace that Sharon's father, the live-in custodian, must feed every night. A moving examination of family secrets, forgiveness, and the power of language, Feeding the Dragon explores Sharon's life growing up in the library and the fire she never allowed to fade.

Lights slowly fade up to reveal the space. A small oak library desk and chair. A long library table with lamp. Bookcases, old wooden card catalogs, and a high stool. A suggestion of marble steps leading to floors above and below. Scattered around the space are stacks of books from which SHARON will occasionally pick one to read. All other props are mimed.

SHARON enters.

SHARON: From 1969 until 1973 my family lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. At 444 Amsterdam Avenue. In an apartment on the top floor inside the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library: my father George, my mother Connie, my Gramma Ma, my dog Brownie, and me.

A typical American family.

Living in a not-so-typical place.

Spots someone in audience.

Whenever I talk about it people’s eyes widen.

“Really?!”

“Inside the library?!”

“What was that LIKE?!”

“Is the apartment still there?”

“It’s like a fairytale: The Little Girl Who Lived in the Library!”

“You HAVE to tell that story!”

Beat.

So here I am.

Lights shift.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a library. At closing time, she’d head downstairs and take her post, sitting on a stool at the librarian’s desk.

Reading.

Waiting for Daddy to lock up for the night.

I read EVERYTHING!

Children. Adult. Fiction. Non-fiction. Classic. Pulp. Sci-Fi… Whatever. Even ones I didn’t understand. Right before summer break I’d thrown THIS into my bookbag to show off to my friends at school.

Holds up book and reads title.

Everything You’ve Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask.

I’d just turned eleven. My science teacher, Mrs. Geller, spotted it sitting on top of my Wonders of the Natural World Workbook. I’m pretty sure my parents got a call from school that day.

DADDY: Whatchu readin’ now? You always in them books. All that readin’ you gon’ ruin yo’ eyes. Welp. That’s it. Case closed. Quittin’ time.

In a melodic call or shout, almost like a song, like a conductor would sound announcing stops on a train:

“Quittin’ time, quittin’ time…”

SHARON: My father’s re-enactment of one of his favorite scenes from Gone With The Wind. You probably don’t even remember it. It’s a quick little scene at the very beginning of the film. Right after the shot of those two little pickaninnies swinging on that bell. Two slaves in the field at the end of the day as the golden sun sets behind them and Tara…

Cue Gone With The Wind theme music. In the same sing-song rhythm:

DADDY: (As SLAVE #1.) Quittin’ time. Quittin’ time!

(As SLAVE #2.) Quittin’ time? Who says it’s quittin time?

(As SLAVE #1.) I do.

(As SLAVE #2.) No I’s da foreman. I’s da one who says when it’s quittin’ time! Quittin’ time! Quittin’ time!’

SHARON: Yeah, he did this EVERY night! Cracked him up. Cracked ME up.

(Giggling, as YOUNG SHARON.) You’re so silly, Daddy.

Beat.

Years later when I finally saw the movie I HATED it!

Music abruptly out.

DADDY: Let me tell you something, baby. Folks say all the time it must be so nice to live rent-free. Shoot…this ain’t free. I work hard. Seven days a week. Don’t bother me…worth it to keep a roof over my family’s head. I ain’t scared of no hard work. That ain’t nothing new to me. Been working since I was fourteen. Had to. Dropped out of school to help support my younger brothers and sisters. Back in Charleston I shined shoes, sold newspapers, painted houses… When I moved up here to New York I ran a elevator, was a busboy, short-order cook, maintenance man, delivered groceries – I can still count change in Jewish…

He rattles the following off at top speed in rhythm using his fingers.

…eyns, tsvey, dray, fir, finf, zeks, zibn, akht, nayn, tsen. Elf, tsvelf, draytsn, fertsn, fuftsn, zekhtsn, zibetsn, akhtsn, nayntsn, tsvantsik.

Ein un tsvantsik, tsvey un tsvantsik, nayn un tsvantsik, draysik…

Greek too: ena, dio, tria, tessera, pente, eksi, epta, okto, ennea, deka. HA!

Didn’t expect I could do THAT did you?

Shoot, I’ve had every kind a job…done a little bit of everythang. So hard work – that ain’t nothing new to me. Polishing three floors of wood and marble and shining all this brass by my lonesome is tough – but that doggone furnace down there…THAT makes this here library job one of the toughest I’ve ever had.

You gotta put a even layer of fresh coal on top of them hot embers every day – sometimes two, three times a day in the winter. Keep her stoked. Keep her at a steady slow burn. Twenty-four seven. And you gotta clean out them ashes. What I always say?

SHARON: (As YOUNG SHARON.) Don’t let that furnace go out!”

DADDY: That’s right. ’Cause if it ever do – Lawd it’s a backbreaker to get her fired up again!

Mmph, mmph, mmph! The last of its kind…

MOMMY: (Who speaks throughout with a New Yawk accent.) All the other libraries in the city are being ‘modernized’. But not St. Agnes.

SHARON: My mother… My mother was the New York City Yin to my father’s South Carolina Yang. That accent? She and my grandmother were both proud native New Yawkahs.

We can trace the roots of our family tree all the way back to 1835, when my great-grandmother Elizabeth Henry was born on Mulberry Street in Lower Manhattan. By 1880 the family had moved ‘uptown’…to Hell’s Kitchen…two blocks from where I live right now. But that’s another story…

MOMMY: I’ve lived all over this city. Harlem. The Bronx. Queens. (Aside.) Not Staten Island. Been moving from pillar to post since I can remember. Always staying with one family member or another. Even after George and I got married. I was grateful, but like Billie said: “God Bless the Child that’s got his own.” I told you Billie Holiday was our neighbor when the family lived on 99th Street didn’t I? Such a talent…So sad…

SHARON: I guess I never really realized how much that libra...