A View from the Bridge (3 page)

EDDIE: He didn't see them yet, they're still on board. But as soon as they get off he'll meet them. He figures about ten o'clock they'll be here.

BEATRICE
sits, almost weak from tension:
And they'll let them off the ship all right? That's fixed, heh?

EDDIE: Sure, they give them regular seamen papers and they walk off with the crew. Don't worry about it, B., there's nothin' to it. Couple of hours they'll be here.

BEATRICE: What happened? They wasn't supposed to be till next Thursday.

EDDIE: I don't know; they put them on any ship they can get them out on. Maybe the other ship they was supposed to take there was some danger—What you cryin' about?

BEATRICE,
astounded and afraid:
I'm—I just—I can't believe it! I didn't even buy a new tablecloth; I was gonna wash the walls—

EDDIE: Listen, they'll think it's a millionaire's house compared to the way they live. Don't worry about the walls. They'll be thankful.
To Catherine:
Whyn't you run down buy a tablecloth. Go ahead, here.
He is reaching into his pocket.

CATHERINE: There's no stores open now.

EDDIE,
to Beatrice:
You was gonna put a new cover on the chair.

BEATRICE: I know—well, I thought it was gonna be next week! I was gonna clean the walls, I was gonna wax the floors.
She stands disturbed.

CATHERINE,
pointing upward:
Maybe Mrs. Dondero upstairs—

BEATRICE,
of the tablecloth:
No, hers is worse than this one.
Suddenly:
My God, I don't even have nothin' to eat for them!
She starts for the kitchen.

EDDIE,
reaching out and grabbing her arm:
Hey, hey! Take it easy.

BEATRICE: No, I'm just nervous, that's all.
To Cath erine:
I'll make the fish.

EDDIE: You're savin' their lives, what're you worryin' about the tablecloth? They probably didn't see a tablecloth in their whole life where they come from.

BEATRICE,
looking into his eyes:
I'm just worried about you, that's all I'm worried.

EDDIE: Listen, as long as they know where they're gonna sleep.

BEATRICE: I told them in the letters. They're sleepin' on the floor.

EDDIE: Beatrice, all I'm worried about is you got such a heart that I'll end up on the floor with you, and they'll be in our bed.

BEATRICE: All right, stop it.

EDDIE: Because as soon as you see a tired relative, I end up on the floor.

BEATRICE: When did you end up on the floor?

EDDIE: When your father's house burned down I didn't end up on the floor?

BEATRICE: Well, their house burned down!

EDDIE: Yeah, but it didn't keep burnin' for two weeks!

BEATRICE: All right, look, I'll tell them to go someplace else.
She starts into the kitchen.

EDDIE: Now wait a minute. Beatrice!
She halts. He goes to her.
I just don't want you bein' pushed around, that's all. You got too big a heart.
He touches her hand.
What're you so touchy?

BEATRICE: I'm just afraid if it don't turn out good you'll be mad at me.

EDDIE: Listen, if everybody keeps his mouth shut, nothin' can happen. They'll pay for their board.

BEATRICE: Oh, I told them.

EDDIE: Then what the hell.
Pause. He moves.
It's an honor, B. I mean it. I was just thinkin' before, comin' home, suppose my father didn't come to this country, and I was starvin' like them over there ... and I had people in America could keep me a couple of months? The man would be honored to lend me a place to sleep.

BEATRICE—
there are tears in her eyes. She turns to Catherine: You see what he is? She turns and grabs Eddie's face in her hands.
Mmm! You're an angel! God'll bless you.
He is gratefully smiling.
You'll see, you'll get a blessing for this!

EDDIE,
laughing:
I'll settle for my own bed.

BEATRICE: Go, Baby, set the table.

CATHERINE : We didn't tell him about me yet.

BEATRICE: Let him eat first, then we'll tell him. Bring everything in.
She hurries Catherine out.

EDDIE,
sitting at the table:
What's all that about? Where's she goin'?

BEATRICE: Noplace. It's very good news, Eddie. I want you to be happy.

EDDIE: What's goin' on?

BEATRICE: She's got a job.

EDDIE: What job? She's gonna finish school.

CATHERINE: Eddie, you won't believe it—

EDDIE: No—no, you gonna finish school. What kinda job, what do you mean? All of a sudden you—

CATHERINE: Listen a minute, it's wonderful.

EDDIE: It's not wonderful. You'll never get nowheres unless you finish school. You can't take no job. Why didn't you ask me before you take a job?

BEATRICE: She's askin' you now, she didn't take nothin' yet.

CATHERINE: Listen a minute! I came to school this morning and the principal called me out of the class, see? To go to his office.

EDDIE: Yeah?

CATHERINE: So I went in and he says to me he's got my records, y'know? And there's a company wants a girl right away. It ain't exactly a secretary, it's a stenographer first, but pretty soon you get to be secretary. And he says to me that I'm the best student in the whole class—

BEATRICE: You hear that?

EDDIE: Well why not? Sure she's the best.

CATHERINE: I'm the best student, he says, and if I want, I should take the job and the end of the year he'll let me take the examination and he'll give me the certificate. So I'll save practically a year!

EDDIE,
strangely nervous:
Where's the job? What company?

CATHERINE: It's a big plumbing company over Nostrand Avenue.

EDDIE: Nostrand Avenue and where?

CATHERINE: It's someplace by the Navy Yard.

BEATRICE: Fifty dollars a week, Eddie.

EDDIE,
to Catherine, surprised:
Fifty?

CATHERINE: I swear.

EDDIE: What about all the stuff you wouldn't learn this year, though?

CATHERINE: There's nothin' more to learn, Eddie, I just gotta practice from now on. I know all the symbols and I know the keyboard. I'll just get faster, that's all. And when I'm workin' I'll keep gettin' better and better, you see?

BEATRICE: Work is the best practice anyway.

EDDIE: That ain't what I wanted, though.

CATHERINE: Why! It's a great big company—

EDDIE: I don't like that neighborhood over there.

CATHERINE: It's a block and half from the subway, he says.

EDDIE: Near the Navy Yard plenty can happen in a block and a half. And a plumbin' company! That's one step over the water front. They're practically longshoremen.

BEATRICE : Yeah, but she'll be in the office, Eddie.

EDDIE: I know she'll be in the office, but that ain't what I had in mind.

BEATRICE: Listen, she's gotta go to work sometime.

EDDIE: Listen, B., she'll be with a lotta plumbers? And sailors up and down the street? So what did she go to school for?

CATHERINE: But it's fifty a week, Eddie.

EDDIE: Look, did I ask you for money? I supported you this long I support you a little more. Please, do me a favor, will ya? I want you to be with different kind of people. I want you to be in a nice office. Maybe a lawyer's office someplace in New York in one of them nice buildings. I mean if you're gonna get outa here then get out; don't go practically in the same kind of neighborhood.

BEATRICE: Go, Baby, bring in the supper.
Catherine goes out.
Think about it a little bit, Eddie. Please. She's crazy to start work. It's not a little shop, it's a big company. Some day she could be a secretary. They picked her out of the whole class.
He is silent, staring down at the tablecloth, fingering the pattern.
What are you worried about? She could take care of herself. She'll get out of the subway and be in the office in two minutes.

EDDIE,
somehow sickened:
I know that neighborhood, B., I don't like it.

BEATRICE: Listen, if nothin' happened to her in this neighborhood it ain't gonna happen noplace else.
She turns his face to her.
Look, you gotta get used to it, she's no baby no more. Tell her to take it.
He turns his head away.
You hear me?
She is angering.
I don't understand you; she's seventeen years old, you gonna keep her in the house all her life?

EDDIE,
insulted:
What kinda remark is that?

BEATRICE,
with sympathy but insistent force:
Well, I don't understand when it ends. First it was gonna be when she graduated high school, so she graduated high school. Then it was gonna be when she learned stenographer, so she learned stenographer. So what're we gonna wait for now? I mean it, Eddie, sometimes I don't understand you; they picked her out of the whole class, it's an honor for her.

EDDIE: With your hair that way you look like a madonna, you know that? You're the madonna type.
She doesn't look at him, but continues ladling out food onto the plates.
You wanna go to work, heh, Madonna?

CATHERINE,
softly:
Yeah.

EDDIE,
with a sense of her childhood, her babyhood, and the years:
All right, go
to work. She looks at him, then rushes and hugs him.
Hey, hey! Take it easy!
He holds her face away from him to look at her.
What're you cryin' about?
He is affected by her, but smiles his emotion away.

CATHERINE,
sitting at her place:
I just—
Bursting out:
I'm gonna buy all new dishes with my first pay!
They laugh warmly.
I mean it. I'll fix up the whole house! I'll buy a rug!

EDDIE: And then you'll move away.

CATHERINE: No, Eddie!

EDDIE,
grinning:
Why not? That's life. And you'll come visit on Sundays, then once a month, then Christmas and New Year's, finally.

CATHERINE,
grasping his arm to reassure him and to erase the accusation:
No, please!

EDDIE,
smiling but hurt:
I only ask you one thing—don't trust nobody. You got a good aunt but she's got too big a heart, you learned bad from her. Believe me.

BEATRICE: Be the way you are, Katie, don't listen to him.

EDDIE,
to Beatrice—strangely and quickly resentful:
You lived in a house all your life, what do you know about it? You never worked in your life.

BEATRICE: She likes people. What's wrong with that?

EDDIE: Because most people ain't people. She's goin' to work; plumbers; they'll chew her to pieces if she don't watch out.
To Catherine:
Believe me, Katie, the less you trust, the less you be sorry.

CATHERINE: First thing I'll buy is a rug, heh, B.?

BEATRICE: I don't mind.
To Eddie:
I smelled coffee all day today. You unloadin' coffee today?

EDDIE : Yeah, a Brazil ship.

CATHERINE: I smelled it too. It smelled all over the neighborhood.

EDDIE: That's one time, boy, to be a longshoreman is a pleasure. I could work coffee ships twenty hours a day. You go down in the hold, y'know? It's like flowers, that smell. We'll bust a bag tomorrow, I'll bring you some.

BEATRICE: Just be sure there's no spiders in it, will ya? I mean it.
She directs this to Catherine, rolling her eyes upward.
I still remember that spider coming out of that bag he brung home. I nearly died.

EDDIE: You call that a spider? You oughta see what comes outa the bananas sometimes.

BEATRICE: Don't talk about it!

EDDIE: I seen spiders could stop a Buick.

BEATRICE,
clapping her hands over her ears:
All right, shut up!

EDDIE,
laughing and taking a watch out of his pocket:
Well, who started with spiders?

BEATRICE: All right, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Just don't bring none home again. What time is it?

EDDIE: Quarter nine.
Puts watch back in his pocket.

CATHERINE: He's bringin' them ten o'clock, Tony?

EDDIE: Around, yeah.
He eats.

CATHERINE: Eddie, suppose somebody asks if they're livin' here.
He looks at her as though already she had divulged something publicly. Defensively:
I mean if they ask.

EDDIE: Now look, Baby, I can see we're gettin' mixed up again here.

CATHERINE: No, I just mean ... people'll see them goin' in and out.

EDDIE: I don't care who sees them goin' in and out as long as you don't see them goin' in and out. And this goes for you too, B. You don't see nothin' and you don't know nothin'.

BEATRICE: What do you mean? I understand.

EDDIE: You don't understand; you still think you can talk about this to somebody just a little bit. Now lemme say it once and for all, because you're makin' me nervous again, both of you. I don't care if somebody comes in the house and sees them sleepin' on the floor, it never comes out of your mouth who they are or what they're doin' here.