King Hedley II

“You ain’t going to get the phone in your name. I’ll wait until I have the 225 dollars. What that look like, having my phone in your name?”

These lines speak to King’s characterization. Honor and masculinity are important to him, and ultimately he wants little more than to do right by his family. Here, he tells his mother that he would prefer to make his own money rather than to accept charity from her, and that interest in self-determination is a key point of his character. Although life affords him few opportunities, he is determined to make something of himself and not repeat past mistakes.

“You ain’t gotta tell me about gambling with Elmore. He got all my money from last time. He sold me that watch that quit working as soon as he walked out the door.”

This passage speaks to Elmore’s characterization. Elmore is a hustler and a gambler, and according to many a man not to be trusted. And yet, his love for Ruby is true, and he shows remorse for past misdeeds and the capacity for change. Part of the tragedy of this play is that the characters who seem to be mired in the cycle of violence demonstrate the capacity for redemption, yet are not given the opportunity to do so in a world characterized by structural inequality.

“This the only dirt I got. This me right here.”

Although Ruby is sure that his seeds will not grow, King has hope. King’s precarious future is a major focal point of this play, and King’s statement here about his seeds, the dirt, and his identity speak to the lack of opportunities available in the community. In spite of the lack of resources, King remains hopeful that he will be able to make something of himself. Tragically, although he makes some important steps on the road to redemption, King is unsuccessful in his endeavors.

“We ain’t doin nothin, Miss Ruby. We businessmen. We salesmen. We appliance salesmen.”

This line speaks to the theme of Structural Racism and the American Dream. Although Hedley and Mister hope to end their illegal ventures with the purchase of a legitimate business, they are unable to find legal work in their under-resourced neighborhood. They do not want to admit the illegality of their scheme in part to avoid being caught, but also because they are frustrated and ashamed by the need to resort to crime in order to make ends meet.

“He talk sugar, but give salt.”

Ruby speaks these lines about Elmore. They add to his characterization: Elmore is a career gambler, and inveterate liar, and a hustler extraordinaire. She knows that no matter what he promises, it is likely that he will deliver something else entirely. And yet, he is a complex character. He ultimately shows real remorse for past bad behavior and a deep awareness of the structural problems of their neighborhood.

“Aunt Ester’s the one to ask about that, but it’s too late now. She’s gone. She ain’t here no more. Aunt Ester knew all the secrets of life, but that’s all gone now. She took all that with her. I don’t know what we gonna do. We in trouble now.”

Aunt Ester is a character who appears in multiple plays within the Pittsburgh Cycle. A formerly enslaved woman, she represents strength, resilience, and family bonds. Her death in this play represents a profound loss for the community, but the way that Hill District residents come together in the wake of her passing speaks to the strength of their bonds.

“Naw, naw! We supposed to get the video store. We split the pot and there won’t be nothing to get it with!”

This passage speaks to King’s characterization. He is determined to make the transition from criminal to legal activity, and although he and Mister are engaged in several illegal schemes, he hopes to use their ill-gotten gains to jumpstart his legitimate businessmen. This speaks to the lack of opportunities available to Black American men like King and Mister in their community, and shows the necessity of taking desperate measures in order to find success.

“Tonya’s pregnant. It’s like I finally did something right. That’s why you gotta leave your money in the pot. I don’t want him to grow up with nothing.”

This passage speaks to King’s characterization. Although he is initially unwilling to admit it, he ultimately realizes that in killing Pernell he did little more than rob a man of his chance to parent his child and create a fatherless son. He sees fatherhood as a path of redemption, but tragically Tonya does not believe him capable of shouldering the burden of raising a child. That he recognizes the error in his ways and identifies a path forward only to die in a terrible accident is one of the play’s greatest tragedies.

“Teen killed in drive by. I’m tired of hearing that.”

Elmore speaks these lines. They describe the increased violence in the neighborhood and describe its general decline. Elmore and King are also part of this violence, but they each realize the error of their ways and come to understand the way that the cycle of violence traps young, Black American men.

“A man has got to have honor.”

King speaks these lines. It is interesting to note the way that his definition of honor changes throughout the course of the play. Initially he figures honor as a kind of self-defense. Avenging crimes committed against him is where he derives honor. Ultimately he realizes that this is little more than futile retribution and that it further mires him within a cycle of violence. At that point, honor becomes something else entirely: creating a better life for his family and for the next generation.

“You got all these kids. Don’t look like there’s nothing for them.”

This passage speaks to the air of desperation that hangs over life in the Hill District during the turbulent 1980s. There is little in the way of economic opportunity, and it is difficult to raise children without the resources to help them flourish. This lack of opportunity is a large part of why Tonya does not want to continue her pregnancy.

“The police come and threaten to arrest me. They tried to take my receipt. I told them they have to kill me first.”

This passage speaks to the injustice in King’s world. Although he had paid for a set of photographs and had a receipt to prove it, he was told that he needed a phone number. He cannot understand why a receipt would not prove that someone had made a purchase, and tries to speak calmly with the store’s representative. He is not treated with respect, and he loses his temper. That the police are called is a further, unnecessary escalation, and the incident becomes one more reminder that for Black men in the United States, life is not fair.

“You like I used to be. You gonna fight all the battles. You don’t know you don’t have to do that. You gotta pick and choose when to fight.”

These lines, spoken by Elmore to King, represent the passage of knowledge from one generation to the next. In a world in which Black people are treated as second-class citizens, there is a sense that the members of Pittsburgh’s hill district get respect, wisdom, and love from one another rather than from the city as a whole.

“My fifth grade teacher told me I was going to make a good janitor.”

This portion of the play, in which the three men talk about their early experiences with racism at school, speaks to the drama’s interest in racial justice and anticipates contemporary conversations about mass incarceration, the schools-to-prisons pipeline, and the unequal use of classroom discipline. Each man remembers being targeted for their race early in their educational careers and also recalls the way that their characterization as “bad” students followed them to adulthood.

“What them kids gonna do now? They burned up their history?”

These lines are spoken by Stool Pigeon, the neighborhood “truth sayer.” He, more so than any other character, takes a step back and looks at the problems of the neighborhood, writ large. While King and Mister are too embedded within the fractured culture of the Hill District to really criticize or even understand it, Stool Pigeon sees his community as one in crisis.

“You turned out alright. Life throwed a little bit of trouble at you just to keep you on your toes, but you turned out alright.”

Elmore says these lines to King. They speak to the play’s interest in the role that community plays in healing. Although King finds little respect and few opportunities outside of his community, he does find support and affirmation from those in the neighborhood.

“He walkin around carrying that gun. Now you gotta wonder if he ever gonna come through the door again or not. Every time he go out somewhere I hold my breath. I’m tired of it.”

Tonya speaks these lines to King. This passage shows the extent to which their relationship is defined by a precarity that Tonya increasingly cannot handle. Although King is excited that Tonya is pregnant, she remains unconvinced that King can become a stable provider. Although familial and community relationships are extremely important to the characters in this play, they are all, in some way, fraught.

“His daddy laying out in the cemetery. That like me and my daddy.”

King speaks these lines. They indicate a turning point of sorts: Up until King saw Pernell’s grave, he had not stopped to think about Pernell in the context of his whole life: He had been a father. King realizes that in killing Pernell, he created a fatherless son just like himself. It is the first moment that he thinks about the role that he plays in his neighborhood’s cycle of violence.

“Look at that. That dirt’s hard. That dirt’s rocky. But it’s still growing. It’s gonna open up and it’s gonna be beautiful. I ain’t never seen a flower before.”

These lines are spoken about the seeds that King plants. They represent his hopes and dreams for the future, and the dry and rocky land they are planted in represents the difficult, under-resourced area in which he and the rest of the Hill District residents grew up.

“I used to think Pernell did it to me. But I did it to myself.”

This line reflects King’s burgeoning awareness of the futility of the cycle of violence. Although he’d been sure that Pernell had deserved his death, when King realizes that he’d taken away years of opportunities from the man, he reconsiders. Although King ultimately falls victim to the cycle of violence, moments like this are supposed to show that it is possible to escape it. There is the sense that, had King survived the final card game with Elmore, he was on the road to self-actualization and change.

“Somebody kill your daddy, that seem like blood for blood to me. I know King. That’s just what he’s thinking.” 

This passage speaks to the cycle of violence depicted in the play that various characters struggle to escape. Although King and Elmore are shown at various times to perceive their violent actions as defensible and even justified, ultimately each man comes to understand the error of that line of thinking.

“Unable to harm Elmore, King turns and sticks the machete in the ground.”

Although King’s story will end in tragedy and he will ultimately find himself incapable of escaping the cycle of neighborhood violence, King has moments of clarity and understands the futility of violent acts and retribution. His realization that Pernell was a multifaceted human and this moment during which he finds himself incapable of injuring Elmore are the two most prominent. There is ambiguity in this narrative, and King’s burgeoning understanding of the way that his actions reverberate will become all the more tragic in light of his death.

“Somebody’s gotta win, and somebody’s gotta lose, just like me and Leroy.”

This mentality helps explain the cyclical nature of neighborhood violence. In the first scene of the play, Stool Pigeon observes that there is a tit-for-tat climate of retribution, which mires men like King and Elmore in a cycle of violence that they cannot escape.