Scene 12, Lilies Elton Jennings

Racism was still alive and well in 1930. Just ask Elton Jennings. He had been working on the line for the ford motor company for almost two years, longer than most of the white folks he worked along side. Yet somehow he caught wind of the fact that most have them had been hired on at a significantly higher wage than he, and some were making more than he currently was.
Although the frustration overwhelmed him, he said nothing. Sadly, he had learned to keep his mouth shut, a lesson he longed to not have to teach his two boys. Bolt after mindless bolt, he silently worked the line.
Two years back, he had come to the plant in response to an add in the paper. They were hiring an accountant, and he happen to be a numbers man. An understatement really, he had graduated from Indiana University class of ‘26’ with a bachelor’s degree in economics. He had always loved literature, but was told that, "a degree in liturature was far too impractical for a Negro man to trouble himself with."
But in retrospect, even the economics degree didn’t seem to do him much good. He was hardly considered for the accounting position. Having been told he was “under qualified”, they offered him a position on the line fascinating bolts.
Upon taking the position, he asked if there was a possibility for future consideration in the finance department. They agreed and he set to the mundane task he was hired on to do. He worked harder and faster than most. He had hoped to stand out by being efficient; he was troubled by the idea of becoming anonymous, fearing that the powers that be would soon forget him and their commitment to consider him for employment in accounting. After six months on the line, he went into his supervisor to discuss the matter.
“The problem is, Elton…” His supervisor Mac Mullen began, “You’re just a damn good worker! You set the standard. I don’t want to loose a guy like you down there. In fact, I’m going to give you a ten percent raise…starting today!”
With a handshake, the conversation was over. It was a good tactic, Elton thought. Flattery.
After that, Mac seemed to have made a point to forget Elton’s name. Elton had now become anonymous; it was a dangerous place to be, especially since the plant had recently started laying people off.

Scene 11 Lilies, Jack Legrand

Ironically,Jack Legrand was a small man. He owned a movie theatre in downtown Seattle. Though he was always well dresses, his features were non descript and common. He had lost nearly all the hair on the top of his head causing people to refer to him as "The balding fellow who runs the Theatre."
Sitting next to his movie projector, nervously running numbers, it had been an especially long day for Legrand. Below the dark projector booth were a sparse number of patrons. The movie in the reel was Animal Crackers, a zany Marx brother’s film that normally would have monopolized Legrands full attention. He had loved the theatre with a boyish kind of enthusiasm. He seldom tired of watching the same films over and over, even if he didn’t care for them. He would watch them all the same, memorize the dialogue and absorb mannerisms and voice inflections. He thought, if a film wasn’t good enough to watch a hundred times, it wasn’t good enough to watch once and he would stop showing it altogether. He preferred comedies. Chaplin, Benny, Keaton and the Marx brothers were among his favorites. But tonight, tie loose and sleeves folded up, he nervously fumbled through papers, while running the projector to a nearly empty house.

His wife and three children were most likely in bed, or at least, they would be by the time he arrived home. The thought of slipping into bed without conversation calmed him…a bit. He would avoid questions like, “How was your day?” and “How are things at the theater?” He was a bad liar and his wife knew it. Any answer he gave was sure to be met by a thorough cross-examination. As much as Jack Legrand loved film, he was no kind of actor and even if he was, he was sure that not even Emil Jennings himself could act his way thorough the kind of pickle he was in.

Although he didn’t want to blame his wife for their misfortune, the truth was that she loved “things”. He had tried to keep up. He loved her, he really did, but she was insatiable.
He couldn’t really say what happened. Even he was dumbfounded. In order to keep up with the lifestyle that his wife had wanted he had used the equity that he had on his theatre, his one and only asset. Essentially, the theatre was no longer his, at least in the banks eyes, and that was all that counted.

Recalling the massive loss made him cringe. More than cinema tragedy, there was no escaping this drama.
On Monday morning of October 28th 1929 he had deposited a large sum of money into the bank. He normally waited until the 31st to do deposits for the Theatre but knowing he would be very busy on Thursday and Friday preparing for a reel switch, he made the deposit on Monday.
By Friday it was official, with newspaper headlines reading “STOCK MARKET CRASH”, Jack Legrande had lost everything; stocks, savings and even the deposit he had made so diligently the day before.
He was on borrowed time now and he was the only one who knew it.

Scene 10, lilies, The Dixons

In the Skagit valley, a hundred miles north of Seattle, things were much worse than they were in the city. On top of a failing economy, it had been a dangerously dry fall and winter.
The barley seed that Timothy Dixon had laid earlier that fall for soil amendment had not germinated properly due to lack of moisture. This was bad news for his spring crops, which he would have to plant in a field that was almost completely leached of all it’s nutrients from being worked so hard the year before.
Walking the length of the field, he shook his head, thinking to himself “It’s all wrong”
Bending down to feel the barren earth roll between his fingers, a dry wind blew by. It seemed warmer than what remembered early spring ought to feel like in the Pacific Northwest. So far the season was off to a bad start, Timothy shuddered to think of what might happen if his crops were sparse this year.
He had lost his savings in the market crashed last year. In previous years, it was his savings that spared he and his family from loosing their farm in bad years like this.
But this year he was left like a lamb to the slaughter, just like all the other farmers in the valley.
Determined to try, he would turn the earth and lay the seeds just as he had every year. But he couldn’t make the rain fall, nor keep the wind from whipping through the dry valley, scattering weed seeds all over his crop and leaving his field in disarray.

Timothy had always been a praying man. He believed that it was his faithfulness to God that had kept he and his family safe from harm. Being a faithful man he looked to the sky as he spoke out loud, “I’m expecting good things from you lord, good things”. Then he turned on his heels to walk the length of the field, back home to his wife and family who had by now finished preparing the evening meal, judging by the aroma of roasted chicken that hung on the warm wind.