[Friday evening. The end of summer. MAVIS and MARK are seated at the dining table, which is covered with textbooks, notebooks, etc. After a moment, MARK stands and starts for the counter area.]

Where are you going now?

I need to sharpen my pencil.

You "need" to sit your happy behind down and do these problems. If you keep jumping up every five minutes, you'll never get finished.

C'mon, Mavis. It's Friday night.

I know that.  It's not like I don't have other things I could be doing with my time.

Then why don't you go do 'em and quit buggin'.

Don't try me, kid. I am not in the mood.

Me neither. I'm tired of this. I want to have some fun.

You been having fun all summer. Now it's time for you do some work. School will be starting before you know it and you've got a lot of catching up to do if you're gonna be ready.

Why do I have to go back now, anyway.

When would you prefer? You're a very smart kid, Mark, but you're already behind. You want to get into college, don't you?

I don't see what difference college makes.

You don't?

What's the point?

The way you talk about "Hugo Boss" this and "Giorgio Armani" that, you're gonna need a reeaal good job. You better start thinking about your future.

[Laughs] I am . . .

It doesn't sound like it.

. . . but since I don't have that much time left . . .

What do you mean?

. . . before I kick.

Kick? What's that? What are you talking about?

Before I kick. You, know . . . kick the bucket. I mean what's the point of making plans and doing all this work if I'm just gonna die anyway. And I am gonna die. Let's face it. You talkin' about wasting time going to college – I'll be lucky if I make it to seventeen. I just want to have some fun while I still can.

That's not true.

I'm too old for fairy tales, Mavis.

You don't know what you're talking about.

No? I didn't watch the news today. Somebody discover a cure for AIDS?

You don't have AIDS. You have been infected with HIV. There's a difference.

I know, I know. I been to classes at the clinic too.

Well, you must not have paid any more attention then . . . than you have to this algebra. Nobody knows yet whether everyone with HIV will eventually develop AIDS.

Most of 'em do. Sooner or later. Most do. And they die.

Is that how you've been thinking all of this time?

Sure, I been thinking about it. Wouldn't you? Ain't no big thing. I just gotta be realistic, face facts.

The "fact" is that you don't know how much time you have. Nobody does. I could walk out that door tonight and get hit by a truck on my way home. I'm not going to give up on my life because that possibility exists.

Getting hit by a truck is not very likely. All you gotta do is look both ways before you cross the street. With the virus –

It could be ten, twenty –

Right.

– thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years from now.

And it could be six months from now.

You don't know that.

It's a lot more likely, though. C'mon, I seen it happen too many times before. Guys who look pumped and healthy one minute. Big niggas. Out on the basketball court, kicking ass. They drop out of sight for a couple of months and the next time you see 'em, they're down to about sixty pounds. Clothes hanging all off them like a skeleton. Walking down the street so slow you can barely tell they're moving. Before you know it, word hits the block that they're gone.

[Snaps his fingers.]

Just like that.  And that's what I got to look forward to – not college. Not "happy ever after".

So, what are you going to do? You're just going to give up on yourself, on your life? Stop trying?

All I'm sayin' –

Because, if that's the case, tell me now . . . and I won't "waste" anymore of your time.

It's no big deal.

What kind of attitude is that? Don't you know how important your mental state is to your health?

I'm not pressed. Gotta go sometime, might as well get it over with.

Don't you dare . . .don't you ever say that to me again. You sound like you want to die, and I am so tired of that fatalistic crap. If one more snot-nosed, wet-behind-the-ears, too-young-to-pee-straight kid, says "Gotta go sometime.". . . to me, I will send him or her personally. You kids talk about death like it's a joke. You talk about life like it's nothing. I've been to more funerals, seen more children die in the last five years than you'll see in a lifetime. Bright, beautiful, black boys – and girls too – killing themselves and each other over what? Sneakers? Jackets? Drug turf? Boyfriends, girlfriends, video games... wrong looks? I see them destroying their lives and their families everyday with drugs and guns and gangs and foolishness. Just mindless, unnecessary . . . bullshit. And when you try to warn them, when you try to protect them, it's always that same idiotic response. "Gotta go sometime." And then it's their teachers and their families who are left behind to deal with the devastation. If I have to see one more heartbroken, hysterical mother trying to climb into the coffin with a dead son not even old enough to shave yet, I will –

[Overcome, She pauses to regain her composure.]

Life is precious, damnit. Whatever time we have. And if you don't know that, if you're just gonna sit around watching the clock and . . .waiting to die . . . then, you don't deserve my concern. You don't know it, but you are already dead.

I don't have no family no more . . . probably won't nobody even notice when I do kick.

What do you think a family is? Dad and Mom and Dick and Jane and Spot the dog? Do you think it's the "The Brady Bunch" or "The Huxtables" where nothing bad ever happens and there's always plenty of everything? A family is the people who are in your life, who love you and care about what happens to you and accept you for who you are. And if you don't think you have anybody like that, then you haven't looked around lately. If you don't think that you have a family, dear heart. . . well . . . then you aren't as smart as I thought you were – and you don't have a clue what a family is.

[After another moment.]

I guess I could, bust a few more of these problems . . . just in case.

[Without looking around.]

Suit yourself.

[After MARK reopens the books, MAVIS returns to the table and stands over him watching.]

[Quietly, after a moment.]

I don't really want to die, Mavis.

[She strokes his hair, kisses him on the forehead.]

I know, baby. I know.