Still, I must say for him that he's doing his level best to oblige. But what with him trying to remember to keep the eyes rolling and the lips smacking, and the director yelling at him through that megaphome to do the next step this-a-way or that-a-way, he's presently so muddled up in his mind that it seems like he can't get nothing at all accomplished. It makes me feel actually sorry for him; but I ain't sorry for the director. One of 'em is ignorant and willing to admit it; the other one is ignorant but is trying to cover it up by behaving bossified and making loud sounds and laying the blame on somebody else. Leastwise, that's how I figures it out. I says to myself, I says:
"It's all wrong frum who laid the rail. Yas suh, I'll tell the waitin' world they don't neither one of 'em onderstan' the leas' particle 'bout nigger actions an' nigger depotemint."
I must've said it out loud without thinking, because right alongside me somebody speaks up and says:
I turns my head and looks, and it's that there quiet little man with the big glasses on, name of Mr. Simons.
"I don't know nothin' 'bout this yere bus'ness, but I does know somethin' 'bout bein' cullid, seein' ez I is one myse'f."
He sort of squints up his eyes like he's got an idea. He says:
"Could you take the director's place there and show that man how to get through with his scene?"
"Who, boss, me?" I says. "No suit! I mebbe mout could tek his place pervidin' w'ite folkses didn't mind havin' me th'owin' awders at 'em, but even so, I couldn't never plant the right idees in 'at other gen'elman's mind."
"'Cause it's plain to me," I says, "'at in the fust place he ain't got no notion ez to how a black boy would carry hisse'f whilst waitin' on a table. 'Scuse me fur sayin' so ef he's a friend of yours, but tha's the facts of the case, boss--the feelin's ain't thar."
"All right," he says, "then could you play the waiter's part yourself?"
"Well suh," I says, "mebbe I could ef they wouldn't 'spect me to act lak a actor but just 'lowed me to act lak a human bein'. I ain't never done no actin'," I says, "but I been a human bein' fur ez fur back ez I kin remember."
"You've got it!" he says. "What this business needs in it is fewer people trying to act and more people willing to behave like human beings. How would you like to put on the jacket and the apron that man is wearing and see if you could get away with the job he's trying to do?"