The Dozens

     Here's a couple paragraphs about a game we could use in 'Wiley': (source, www.louisianafolklife.org)

     "The Dozens" are an elaborate insult contest. Rather than insulting an opponent directly, a contestant derides members of the opponent's family, usually his mother. The dozens has its origins in the slave trade of New Orleans where deformed slaves--generally slaves punished with dismemberment for disobedience--were grouped in lots of a "cheap dozen" for sale to slave owners. For an slave to be sold as part of the "dozens" was the lowest blow possible.
     In an effort to toughen their hearts against the continual verbal assault inflicted on them as part of the "dozens," they practiced insulting each other indirectly by attacking the most sacred "mother" of the other. The person who loses his "cool" and comes to blows loses the contest. The person who outwits and out-insults the other while keeping a "cool" head is the winner

      I think as far as the script goes, we haven't really established what Wiley thinks of his Pappy, and if we had him play the dozens in the beginning, we could find out. Wiley asks Mammy about the things the things everyone else says about Pappy (sleeps while the weeds grow higher then the cotton, etc.), and we could integrate those lines into a game of dozens that Wiley plays with a friend.
     If Wiley really loves his Pappy, then he could get upset little by little as his opponent says all the things that Wiley asks his Mammy about, and if his opponent says something about his Pappy not being able to stand up to the Hairy Man, he could explode and lose the game.

     Just an idea!