Master Harold and the Boys

Hally’s mother calls the tea room again. She is bringing his father home, despite Hally’s pleas. Hally tries one more time, increasingly desperately, to insist that his father stay in the hospital. He tells his mother that things will be terrible if his father comes home; he will steal her money for alcohol. Hally does not want to have to take care of his father and threatens to leave home if his parents start fighting, as they often do. His mother puts his father on the phone, and Hally’s voice changes completely. He is warm and jovial with his father, insisting that the news of his coming home is the “best news in the world” (49). His mother tells him to lock up and bring a bottle of brandy home from the tea room. When she hangs up, Hally is despondent. Sam and Willie try to cheer him up by continuing to talk about the ballroom competition, but Hally becomes upset. He sees all their talk about a better world as a useless waste of time and asserts that the world is a terrible place that is never going to change. He sees no point in his homework and tells Sam and Willie to hurry up and finish their work so he can close the tea room and go home.

Hally begins another tirade, this time about people with disabilities (referring to his father). He argues that in the dance of real life, “Nobody knows the steps, there’s no music, the cripples are also out there tripping up everybody and trying to get into the act” (51). Sam warns Hally not to talk about his father this way. Hally responds badly; he does not think that Sam could possibly understand how he feels. Sam and Hally fight, and Hally eventually tells Sam to mind his own business and get back to work. Sam is hurt by Hally’s cruelty, but his reaction only makes Hally angrier. He tells Sam his mother does not think that Sam and Willie respect him enough; she is always telling Hally that he should not become too familiar with them. Now Hally thinks she is right; he believes that Sam and Willie should remember their place as servants and respect his father as their boss. Sam points out that Hally’s father is not his boss; Hally’s mother is, as she owns the tea house. Hally insists that Sam should respect his father because he is white.

Hally wants Sam to call him “Master Harold” like Willie does. Sam warns him that if that is what he really wants, he will “never call [him] anything else again” (54). Hally insists that he does want this. His father is always telling him, “You must teach the boys to show you more respect” (55). He tells Sam that he and his father have lots of fun together. For example, they love the same jokes. Hally tells a particularly racist joke about “a [n-word]’s arse” not being “fair” (55). Hally assumes that Willie will not understand the joke and cruelly explains to him that the joke is a pun, where “fair” means both right or just, and white. Sam tells Hally that he is trying to be cruel on purpose and chastises him for bringing Willie into his cruelty when Willie has always been kind and respectful to Hally. Angrily, Sam pulls down his pants and shows Hally his backside. He dares Hally to go home and tell his father that “he is right. It’s not fair” (56). Hally spits in Sam’s face.

Sam wipes the spit off his face. He does not find it hard to refer to Hally as “Master Harold” now. He accuses Hally of spitting at him when he should be spitting at his father. Sam asks Willie if he thinks he should hit Hally. Though Willie also wants to hit him, he argues that Hally is only playing at being a man; he is still only a boy. Sam is still angry, but his anger subsides. He says that Hally has made him feel dirty. He recalls helping Hally fetch his drunk father from a hotel when Hally was a young boy. In that moment, he felt sorry for Hally; he knows how hard it has been for him to both love and feel ashamed of his father at the same time. He wanted to help Hally not be so ashamed so that he could grow up into a man that he could be proud of. That was why he made the kite, so that Hally could “look up, be proud of something, of [himself]” (58). Sam reveals that the twist that Hally wanted to that story was there all along: The bench that Hally sat on was a “Whites Only” bench. Hally did not notice because he was too young, but Sam could not sit with him. Sam warns that if Hally does not do better, he will always be alone at that bench.

Hally begins to pack up to go home. Sam addresses him as Hally again; he regrets not being a good role model for him today. He wants them to try to fly another kite again; they both need it this time. Hally reminds Sam that they cannot fly a kite in the rain. Sam asks if all they can do is wait for better weather, and Hally does not know what to say. Sam insists that they have both learned a lot this afternoon and that Hally now knows what the bench means. He now has the power to get up from it and walk away if he wants to. Hally leaves without responding. Willie tells Sam that he is going to apologize to Hilda for his actions and convince her to practice with him again until they are both good enough to win the competition. He decides that, rather than save his money for the bus ride, he will walk home. He uses the money to play a song on the jukebox so that he and Sam can dance together and dream.