"My name is Uncle Ruckus, and this is the story of my relations." "I was born under unusual circumstances." "It was the Fourth of July, and I was told it was a especially good night to be born." "But that was some bullshit." "I came as soon as I heard." "What is it, doc?" "There's no easy way to put this." "That brown spot on your child's arm," "It's a rare and incurable skin disease." "It will spread all over his body." "His skin will continue to grow blacker and blacker and blacker and even blacker and more blacker and blacker and then even blacker." "Talk in plain English!" "I can't understand what you're saying!" "Eventually he will be indistinguishable from... a Negro." "No!" "Not that!" "Anything but that!" "Hey, you!" "What are you doing there?" "Hey!" "Come here, bitch." "Gimme some real quick." "You ain't said nothing so far about my hair." "Because it ain't yours." "It is so mine." "I'm the first colored girl you ever met with blonde hair, and one day I'm gonna have eyes as blue as the summer sky." "Bitch, you ain't never in a million fucking years gonna have no blue eyes." "You're hairier than a motherfucker too." "Your personality ain't much to speak of either." "Your cooking ain't shit." "You ain't clean worth a damn." "Nasty bitch." "But I need somebody around here that's gonna wash the shit stains out my drawers, so I guess you'll do." "But, Mister, your mama hates me." "Mama ain't got much more time left in her." "She gonna be dead in a few seconds, you watch and see." "I don't know." "Look, uh, why don't we go for a walk down by the swamp and talk about it?" "But what about the...?" "Bitch, I said, let's walk by the swamp!" "Okay, okay." "Aunt Juju, tell Mama I'll be right back." "Lord have mercy, what?" "Who left this baby on my step?" "Sweet Jesus." "I ought to cut this fucker." "No!" "This ain't no regular baby." "It's a white baby." "It's the most beautiful white baby in the whole wide world." "White baby?" "Aw, shit, that's all I need, a goddamn white-baby kidnapping charge." "Bitch, put that thing down before the police come." "No, wait, here's some money." "Somebody wanted us to take him." "Shit." "Finding white babies might be better than I thought." "What's this?" "Some kind of birthmark?" "Don't look like no birthmark I ever seen." "Who knows?" "I'm sure it's nothing." "Can we keep him?" "Can we love him forever and raise him to be our own beautiful white child?" "As husband and wife?" "Fine, bitch." "Oh, thank you, Mister!" "What should we name him?" "Name it after my uncle." "Okay." "Uncle Ruckus it is." "If the authorities come, you going to jail." "I didn't know nothing about this white baby shit." "* I am the stone The builder refused *" "* I am the visual The inspiration *" "* That made lady Sing the blues *" "* I'm the spark That makes your idea bright *" "* The same spark That lights the dark *" "* So that you can know Left from right *" "* I am the ballot in your box The bullet in the gun *" "* The inner glow That lets you know *" "* To call your brother sun *" "* The story that just begun *" "* The promise Of what's to come *" "* And I'm 'a remain a soldier *" "* Till the war is won Won *" "* Chop, chop, chop Judo flip *" "* Chop, chop, chop Judo flip *" "* Chop, chop, chop Judo flip *" "* Chop, chop, chop *" "I'll never forget the day my grandmamma, Nellie Ruckus, showed up at my house after all them many years." "I'll never forget it because it was a day that scarred mefor the rest of my natural born life." "Ow!" "Goddamn it!" "Oh, Uncle, it's you." "Nellie?" "Nellie, is that you?" "Nigga, I thought you was a burglar." "A big, fat, funky, nasty, stanky, black, one-eyed motherfucking burglar." "Why the fuck didn't you knock, nigga?" "You raggedy son of a bitch!" "I live here." "You sass me again, boy, and I'll cut you!" "What are you doing here?" "Uncle, I'm dying." "Doctor says it's gonna be any day now." "And I just couldn't do it." "I couldn't die in your father's house." "I..." "I haven't seen or heard from you since the day Daddy threw me out 53 years ago." "Yeah, so?" "What's new with you?" "Your daddy always used to say you wouldn't amount to shit." "Do you even have a job?" "I have 47 jobs, actually." "Yeah, right." "Is one of those jobs the Unabomber?" "And how am I supposed to die in this fucked-up chair?" "No lumbar support." "You want me to die with back problems?" "You raggedy motherfucker!" "Hey, Robert, I just finished re-tiling the roof." "You still need me to snake out them toilets upstairs?" "I can do it right now." "Only take me three, four hours." "Right now?" "I don't know." "It's getting late." "Hey, boys, I got an idea." "Why don't we turn off all the lights," "I'll get under a sheet and we can play Klan and the Little Negroes." "Or how about you go on a hot date and I'll stay here and babysit the little coon kiddies." "All night." "Ruckus, are you trying not to leave my house?" "My Grandma Nellie just showed up and she's..." "Well, I can't explain it." "I just can't go back." "Ruckus, everybody got a messed-up family." "Shoot, look at the boys." "What?" "No." "Mine is different." "The re-vitaligo spread rapidly across my whole body." "Like that black symbiote that turned Topher Grace into Venom in Spider-Man Part Three." "By the time I was 3 years old," "I was indistinguishable from any other African Negro child." "Uncle!" "Uncle!" "I'm coming, Mister!" "My adopted Negro father was a loser, even by loser Negro standards." "Yes, Mister?" "While you frolicking in the damn fields, frolic your ass to the store and get me some beer, nigga." "He was miserable just for the sake of being miserable." "But what I remember most was his unwarranted hatred of the white man." "Goddamn crackers." "Black man can't get ahead for nothing." "I remember him making me feel very ashamed for my very own whiteness." "I hate all these white motherfuckers." "But Mom, I'm white." "Daddy's just upset, baby, because he's lazy and the white man makes him work hard." "I had two younger brothers:" "my brother Darryl and my other brother Darell." "But Mister always seemed to single me out the worst." "I would get beatings for anything." "Nigga, did you just break that vase?" "Oh, sweet Jesus!" "Lord have mercy!" "My baby!" "Just having fun was off limits in Mister's house." "Nigga, did I just catch you having fun?" "Oh, sweet Jesus!" "Lord have mercy!" "My baby!" "Every day he reminded me of what a failure I was going to be." "Mister, I wanna be a doctor when I grow up." "Nigga, did I just catch you wanting to be shit?" "Oh, sweet Jesus!" "Lord have mercy!" "My baby!" "My darling adopted Negro mother, who I loved almost like she was white, did the best she could." "Now don't you listen to him, Uncle." "You ain't no worthless nigga." "Deep down, deep down in your heart, you always have to believe that you are special." "She made sure I knew all my white history." "Mama, who's George Washington Carver?" "He's the man responsible for more peanut allergy deaths than anyone who ever lived." "Baby, why don't we read aboutEli Whitney instead?" "He invented the cotton gin." "He was a great white man." "Just like you." "Many a night I dreamed about my biological father returning to take me away to white people land, but it never happened." "When I thought it couldn't get no worse, my grandmamma showed up at the doorstep." "I'm dying." "She was the only person" "I ever met more miserable than my daddy." "Ugh, look at you." "Didn't I tell you you wasn't gonna be shit?" "With your stupid ugly wife and your stupid ugly childrens." "I can't wait to die so I don't have to look at your ugly black nigga ass no more." "Goddamn it!" "Aah!" "I can't take it no more!" "It was very shortly after that my adopted father threw me out of the house." "I ain't seen none of them since." "Your story, it's just so powerful." "And so sad." "Real, real sad." "I mean, I ain't gonna cry, because that's gay, but..." "But it is real sad." "But I don't know what to do." "I swear I can't go back home with that woman there." "Please don't make me go." "Oh, I get it." "You leave me in the shack and you come and hang out in here in a fancy motherfucking mansion." "Get out of my way, goddamn it." "I'll get her out of here, Robert," "I'll get her out of here." "Aw, shit, now this is a dying chair, right here." "No, no, no." "Mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm." "That's my chair." "That's a living chair." "Oh, yeah, I might wanna get buried in this motherfucker right here!" "Grandma Nellie, please, you can't die in Robert's chair." "Let's go back home..." "I don't wanna die in that shit hole," "I want to die in the fancy fucking mansion." "I only get to do this once and I'm gonna do it right." "Robert, you gotta help me." "You black, you understand dysfunctional families." "Make her leave." "I can't." "She's my grandmother." "You can." "Hell, you're old enough to be a grandmother." "I don't know who'd wanna keep living in this world." "Economy gone down the damn toilet, got disease, war, oil spills, fucking food shortages," "I bet people gonna start eating each other." "They're probably gonna eat them children first." "Flesh more tender." "Please, Robert, please." "She won't be too much hassle." "The doctor said she gonna be dead any minute now." "No." "She can't stay here, and she definitely can't die here." "On the front lawn maybe, but not in the living room." "Now you make her leave or I'm gonna make her leave." "I know what God really wants, damn it." "He wants me to kill my motherfucking self." "That's why he fucks with me." "That's why he gave me a fucked-up ass life." "But the joke's on him." "I ain't gonna give that motherfucker the satisfaction." "You make her leave." "Nigga, what the fuck do you want?" "Ma'am, it is a pleasure to meet you, and I'm very, very sorry about your impending demise, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave." "Fucker, I'll leave when I'm dead." "Ain't y'all got no food in this raggedy piece of shit fancy fucking mansion?" "Okay, that's enough." "I'm not playing around anymore." "I ain't scared of you, nigga." "We can both die in this house today." "She ain't gonna talk to me like that in my house." "I ain't no punk." "Let me at her." "Let me go." "Oh, damn." "It's probably Mister." "Daddy?" "Daddy is coming here?" "I told him I was here." "And he talking about he wanna come watch me die." "Ain't that a bitch?" "Good." "He can take your ass out of here and watch you die someplace else." "Nerve of that bitch trying to pull a blade on me in my house." "It was the first time seeing my adopted family in 50 years." "My mother, Bunny Ruckus." "My brother, Darryl, and my other brother, Darell." "And finally my father, Mister Ruckus." "Is the bitch dead yet?" "Okay, we here." "Now go ahead and die already." "You think you impatient?" "I been waiting to die since the day you was born, you worthless bastard." "Guys, can't we do this someplace else?" "I ain't moving." "First person to lay a finger on me is getting cut." "You know what?" "You been talking that same dying shit for 96 years." "Now I ain't got all day." "Hurry up and die so I can go back home." "Oh, if you got shit to do, nigga, leave." "I can die on my own, goddamn it." "No." "I'm gonna make sure you dead." "Then I'm gonna celebrate." "For the first time in my life, I'm gonna be truly happy." "I'm gonna have some balloons and some ice cream and cake for your fucking funeral." "Then I'm gonna put some cement over your grave so even if the dead come back to life like in them zombie movies, your ass ain't gonna be nowhere." "Look guys, enough is enough." "We shouldn't do this in other people's houses." "Let's go." "Come on, Nellie." "Aah!" "Oh, my God!" "Lord have mercy!" "My baby!" "Oh, man." "Oh, I can't tell you how nice it is to see all of my boys under one roof." "Oh, white God is good, ain't he?" "We got so much catching up to do." "Now, Uncle, did you know that Darryl is an accountant for a white finance company and just got a promotion from his white boss?" "Ooh, isn't that amazing?" "That's, wonderful, Darryl." "A white man promoted you." "Congratulations." "Oh, it's really not that big a deal." "And Darell here owns his very own motorcycle shop, and he's married to a white woman." "Oh, she's the most beautifulest white woman you've ever seen." "And she has his name tattooed right here on her white titty." "Heh-heh." "Mama, that's personal." "I can't believe it." "My own brother with his name tattooed across a white woman's milk gland." "Congratulations." "Speaking of accomplishments, what'd you accomplish, boy?" "Hush, Mister." "I'm proud of Uncle." "He lives in this beautiful neighborhood around some lovely white people." "He live in a shack on the outskirts of town." "He works hard." "And still ain't got shit, and ain't never gonna have shit." "You know what that makes you?" "A Mexican." "Is that what you've accomplished with your life, boy?" "Being a Mexican?" "You ain't even gotta speak English to be a Mexican." "Whose fault is it you a professional Mexican?" "Is that my fault?" "He's not a Mexican." "He's our son." "You always treated me different." "You never loved me because..." "Because..." "Because I am adopted." "Adopted?" "Boy you still believe that shit?" "Goddamn it, how old are you?" "Mister, stop." "You still believe you got..." "What was that called?" "What'd you call it?" "Uh, "re-vitaligo"?" "Daddy, come on." "That's enough." "He does have re-vitaligo." "You ever heard of anybody else having re-vitaligo?" "Your mama made that shit up, boy." "She thought it'd be good for your self-esteem if you believed deep down you was white." "That's why they shouldn't let dumb bitches read psychology books." "That's not true." "We found you on the doorstep." "I swear." "I don't hate you because you adopted." "I hate you because knocking up your mama killed my chances of me ever experiencing a single moment of happiness or joy for the rest of my damn life." "Baby, don't listen to him." "After that, it was more and more hungry niggas' mouths to feed." "All my big plans gone right down the shitter." "I worked my life away for these damn crackers, still couldn't make my ends meet." "Mister, now you leave the white man out of this." "Shut your ass up, Bunny." "I'm sick of you talking about that goddamn white man all the time." "Name one of them who ever did shit for any of you." "Huh?" "Can't do it, can you?" "Look at what you did." "All my kids is some damn Uncle Toms." "And you the worst." "A black fool who hates hisself so much he can't even see what's in front of him in the mirror." "Just another black nigga like the rest of us." "I hate you!" "You're the reason why after I say the name "Ruckus,"" "I always say, "No relation."" "I am adopted, I am adopted!" "It's a shame we don't all get together more often." "Well, there's got to be some way to get these people out of my house." "Wait, what about hounds?" "Can we release some hounds that, you know, chase them away?" "That's legal, right?" "Riley, Google "hounds."" "Ruckus, are you okay?" "Yeah." "Yeah, yeah." "He..." "He just said something." "He said something terrible." "He said I wasn't adopted." "Adopted?" "Nigga, you ain't..." "Well, I'm sure he was just trying to push your buttons." "Oh." "Yeah, you right, you right." "I mean, of course I'm adopted, heh." "Hell, we don't even look nothing alike, heh." "I'm sorry, boys, this must be confusing for y'all." "I know you think of your old Uncle Ruckus as a pillar of strength and confidence." "Look, Uncle Ruckus, we know what it's like to have an abusive parental figure." "To suffer the mental and physical abuse." "Hey." "This ain't about me." "Leave that alone." "The endless work." ""Clean up your room, take out the trash, do your homework."" "Always walking on eggshells, wondering when the next whooping gonna come." "Aah!" "Oh, I'll never forget the day." "The day he threw me out." "The day that changed everything." "No!" "No!" "No!" "Someone was supposed to put that away." "He stepped in a animal trap." "Ooh, that's leaded paint." "Ooh." "No." "We'll have to presoak that or it won't come out!" "Damn nigga." "Out, I say." "Get out." "You lazy, worthless nigga." "Stop it!" "Why?" "Why?" "Why?" "That's so unbelievably sad." "That's like, Academy Award-nominated sad." "Man, I ain't crying because of the story." "I got allergies." "But that was pretty sad." "Huh?" "Uncle." "She gone." "In my living room?" "Oh, no!" "Ugh!" "In my living chair?" "Oh, no!" "Huey, get my chainsaw." "Where we going?" "Back to the hotel, Daddy." "Already?" "Let's keep partying." "She's finally dead." "It's not true, is it?" "What Mister said?" "You know you can't listen to that black fool." "Your daddy's just miserable because he never learned to love the white man." "Mark my words, he's gonna end up just like his mama." "Just be happy you're adopted, son." "We darkies are a mess." "Bunny, get the molasses out your ass and come on." "On Thursdays between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.," "I dig graves." "The family decided it was best to bury Nellie Ruckus here in Woodcrest." "That was on account of the generous 70 percent discount offered to employees such as myself." "Mind if we help?" "Don't seem like this should be all on you." "That's a good one, Darryl." "Good one too, Darell." "You did always seem to get it the worst, Uncle." "What I never could understand was how the man got to be so hateful." "So mad at the world for no reason." "Look, nothing excuses what Mister did to us growing up, but as we got older we saw things." "The white folks Mister worked for, well, they didn't always treat him very well." "No." "That's crazy talk." "No, Uncle." "It's true." "Every time Mister went out into the world, the white man took a little more of his dignity." "And his sanity." "And his humanity." "He served white folks his whole life." "Aah!" "He was even worked at the police department as a practice dummy." "Aah!" "Sometimes they would just abuse him for no reason." "Good job, boy." "Well, he must've done something." "It just ain't in the white man's nature to act cruel for no reason." "Sometimes I think him being so hard on us was his misguided way to try and toughen us up for a tough world." "I can't believe you made us get dressed up for this, Granddad." "The earlier parts were just so moving." "I have to see how this tragic story ends." "Nellie had a statement that she wanted read today." ""For the last six decades of my miserable life," ""I had only two wishes." ""The first was to die." ""The second was that my only son, Mister," ""would somehow reach the grave before me." ""While I am obviously disappointed" ""that this didn't happen, and I curse him" ""from the grave, I'm still pretty happy to be dead."" "Ha-ha." "That was beautiful, thank you." "However, I get the last word because I'm alive, bitch." "And a round of applause for my son Uncle, for the fine job he did digging the grave." "It's okay, boy." "I had some shitty jobs in my day." "Course, that was back in Jim Crow." "Now how you gonna be a failure in the 21st century with a nigga in the White House is beyond me." "Dad, that's enough." "Dad, please." "No, no, that's okay." "Keep talking." "Keep talking, Daddy." "That's the eulogy this old woman deserves." "Oh, she did this to you." "And now you doing it to me." "You been doing it our whole lives." "And it's getting old." "It's getting real old, old man." "So get it out your system, then sit down and shut the fuck up!" "Oh, shit." "Boy, what did you say to me?" "Uh, what part in particular?" "I'll show you what part in particular." "My back." "It's my old injury." "Oh, Mister, Mister!" "He's dead." "Well, I guess Grandma Nellie got her wish." "Yes." "Now I can marry my white lover." "If only Mister had lived long enough to love the white man too." "I never thought I'd say this, but our family isn't as messed up as I thought." "I feel great." "I saw a story that moved me emotionally." "Yeah, me too." "I'd hate to be them." "And I've learned my lesson." "I see I been too soft on you guys all this time." "From now on I'm really gonna let you have it." "I'm fitting to give y'all some of them good old-fashion country beatings." "Come here." "Stop it, Granddad." "You crazy." "I'm gonna hit you with a switch or something bigger than a switch, like some firewood." "Or throw you out into the fields." "Or push you out of a moving car." "Ha-ha!" "I'll push you out of the car, Granddad." "Why you ain't laughing, Huey?" "See you soon, Ruckus." "You was a sight for sore eyes." "Take care of yourself, Uncle." "Bye, Darryl." "Bye, Darell." "Hug your white wife for me." "Bye, Mama." "Bye, Mama's white lover." "Bye, Uncle." "Bless you." "Bye-bye." "It's hard to escape becoming your parents." "Hard, but not impossible." "Hopefully it's easier when they're your adopted parents." "I hadn't realized before how much my hatred of the Negro came from my hatred of Mister." "Maybe it was time to stop hating niggas for being black, and start having sympathy for them, for being hopelessly inferior to white folks." "But as far as darkies go, my adopted family is all right."