Three Plays (2 page)

BRICK
: I'm not in the movies.

MARGARET
: No, and you don't take dope. Otherwise you're a perfect candidate for Rainbow Hill, Baby, and that's where they aim to ship you—over my dead body! Yep, over my dead body they'll ship you there, but nothing would please them better. Then Brother Man could get a-hold of the purse strings and dole out remittances to us, maybe get power-of-attorney and sign checks for us and cut off our credit wherever, whenever he wanted! Son-of-a-bitch!—How'd you like that, Baby?—Well, you've been doin' just about ev'rything in your power to bring it about, you've just been doin' ev'rything you can think of to aid and abet them in this scheme of theirs! Quittin' work, devoting yourself to the occupation of drinkin'!—Breakin' your ankle last night on the high school athletic field—doin' what? Jumpin' hurdles? At two or three in the morning? Just fantastic! Got in the paper.
Clarksdale Register
carried a nice little item about it, human interest story about a well-known former athlete stagin' a one-man track meet on the Glorious Hill High School athletic field last night, but was slightly out of condition and didn't clear the first hurdle! Brother Man Gooper claims he exercised his influence t' keep it from goin' out over AP or UP or every goddam' P'.

But, Brick? You still have one big advantage!

[During the above swift flood of words, Brick has reclined with contrapuntal leisure on the snowy surface of the bed and has rolled over carefully on his side or belly.]

BRICK
[wryly]
: Did you
say
something, Maggie?

MARGARET
: Big Daddy dotes on you, honey. And he can't stand Brother Man and Brother Man's wife, that monster of fertility, Mae; she's downright odious to him! Know how I know? By little expressions that flicker over his face when that woman is holding fo'th on one of her choice topics such as—how she refused twilight sleep!—when the twins were delivered! Because she feels motherhood's an experience that a woman ought to experience fully!—in order to fully appreciate the wonder and beauty of it! HAH!

[This loud 'HAH!' is accompanied by a violent action such as slamming a drawer shut.]

—and how she made Brother Man come in an' stand beside her in the delivery room so he would not miss out on the 'wonder and beauty' of it either!—producin' those no-neck monsters....

[A speech of this kind would be antipathetic from almost anybody but Margaret; she makes it oddly funny, because her eyes constantly twinkle and her voice shakes with laughter which is basically indulgent]

—Big Daddy shares my attitude toward those two! As for me, well—I give him a laugh now and then and he tolerates me. In fact!—I sometimes suspect that Big Daddy harbors a little unconscious 'lech' fo' me....

BRICK
: What makes you think that Big Daddy has a lech for you, Maggie?

MARGARET
: Way he always drops his eyes down my body when I'm talkin' to him, drops his eyes to my boobs an' licks his old chops! Ha ha!

BRICK
: That kind of talk is disgusting.

MARGARET
: Did anyone ever tell you that you're an ass-aching Puritan, Brick? I think it's mighty fine that that ole fellow, on the doorstep of death, still takes in my shape with what I think is deserved appreciation! And you wanta know something else? Big Daddy didn't know how many little Maes and Goopers had been produced! 'How many kids have you got?' he asked at the table, just like Brother Man and his wife were new acquaintances to him! Big Mama said he was jokin', but that ole boy wasn't jokin', Lord, no! And when they infawmed him that they had five already and were turning out number six!—The news seemed to come as a sort of unpleasant surprise...

[Children yell below.]

Scream, monsters!

[Turns to Brick with a sudden, gay, charming smile which fades as she notices that be is not looking at her but into fading gold space with a troubled expression. It is constant rejection that makes her humor 'bitchy'.]

Yes, you should of been at that supper-table, Baby.

[Whenever she calls him 'baby' the word is a soft caress...]

Y'know, Big Daddy, bless his ole sweet soul, he's the dearest ole thing in the world, but he does hunch over his food as if he preferred not to notice anything else. Well, Mae an' Gooper were side by side at the table, direckly across from Big Daddy, watchin' his face like hawks while they jawed an' jabbered about the cuteness an' brilliance of th' no-neck monsters!

[She giggles with a hand fluttering at her throat and her breast and her long throat arched. She comes downstage and recreates the scene with voice and gesture.]

And the no-neck monsters were ranged around the table, some in high chairs and some on th'
Books of Knowledge
, all in fancy little paper caps in honour of Big Daddy's birthday, and all through dinner, well, I want you to know that Brother Man an' his partner never once, for one moment, stopped exchanging pokes an' pinches an' kicks an' signs an' signals I—Why, they were like a couple of cardsharps fleecing a sucker.—Even Big Mama, bless her ole sweet soul, she isn't th' quickest an' brightest thing in the world, she finally noticed, at last, an' said to Gooper, 'Gooper, what are you an' Mae makin' all these signs at each other about?'—I swear t' goodness, I nearly choked on my chicken!

[Margaret, back at the dressing-table, still doesn't see Brick. | He is watching her with a look that is not quite definable—Amused? shocked? contemptuous?—part of those and part of something else.]

Y'know—your brother Gooper still cherishes the illusion he took a giant step up on the social ladder when he married Miss Mae Flynn of the Memphis Flynns.

[Margaret moves about the room as she talks, stops before the mirror, moves on.]

But I have a piece of Spanish news for Gooper. The Flynns never had a thing in this world but money and they lost that, they were nothing at all but fairly successful climbers. Of course, Mae Flynn came out in Memphis eight years before I made my debut in Nashville, but I had friends at Ward-Belmont who came from Memphis and they used to come to see me and I used to go to see them for Christmas and spring vacations, and so I know who rates an' who doesn't rate in Memphis society. Why, y'know ole Papa Flynn, he barely escaped doing time in the Federal pen for shady manipulations on th' stock market when his chain stores crashed, and as for Mae having been a cotton carnival queen, as they remind us so often, lest we forget, well, that's one honour that I don't envy her for!—Sit on a brass throne on a tacky float an' ride down Main Street, smilin', bowin', and blowin' kisses to all the trash on the street—

[She picks out a pair of jewelled sandals and rushes to the dressing-table.]

Why, year before last, when Susan McPheeters was singled out fo' that honour, y'know what happened to her? Y'know what happened to poor little Susie McPheeters?

BRICK
[absently]
: No. What happened to little Susie McPheeters?

MARGARET
: Somebody spit tobacco juice in her face.

BRICK
[dreamily]
: Somebody spit tobacco juice in her face?

MARGARET
: That's right, some old drunk leaned out of a window in the Hotel Gayoso and yelled, 'Hey, Queen, hey, hey there, Queenie!' Poor Susie looked up and flashed him a radiant smile and he shot out a squirt of tobacco juice right in poor Susie's face.

BRICK
: Well, what d'you know about that.

MARGARET
[gaily]
: What do I know about it? I was there, I saw it!

BRICK
[absently]
: Must have been kind of funny.

MARGARET
: Susie didn't think so. Had hysterics. Screamed like a banshee. They had to stop th' parade an' remove her from her throne an' go on with—

[She catches sight of him in the mirror, gasps slightly, wheels about to face him. Count ten.]

Why are you looking at me like that?

BRICK
[whistling softly, now]
: Like what, Maggie?

MARGARET
[intensely, fearfully]
: The way y' were lookin' at me just now, befo' I caught your eye in the mirror and you started t' whistle! I don't know how t' describe it but it froze my blood!—I've caught you lookin' at me like that so often lately. What are you thinkin' of when you look at me like that?

BRICK
: I wasn't conscious of lookin' at you, Maggie.

MARGARET
: Well, I was conscious of it! What were you thinkin'?

BRICK
: I don't remember thinking of anything, Maggie.

MARGARET
: Don't you think I know that—? Don't you—?—Think I know that—?

BRICK
[coolly]
: Know
what
, Maggie?

MARGARET
[struggling for expression]
: That I've gone through this—
hideous!—transformation
, become—
hard! Frantic!

[Then she adds, almost tenderly:]

—cruel!!

That's what you've been observing in me lately. How could y' help but observe it? That's all right. I'm not—thin-skinned any more, can't afford t' be thin-skinned any more.

[She is now recovering her power.]

—But Brick? Brick?

BRICK
: Did you say something?

MARGARET
: I was
goin'
t' say something—that I get—lonely. Very!

BRICK
: Ev'rybody gets that...

MARGARET
: Living with someone you love can be lonelier—than living entirely alone!—if the one that y' love doesn't love you....

[There is a pause. Brick hobbles downstage and asks, without looking at her:]

BRICK
: Would you like to live alone, Maggie?

[Another pause: then—after she has caught a quick, hurt breath:]

MARGARET
:
No!—God!—I wouldn't!

[Another gasping breath. She forcibly controls what must have been an impulse to cry out. We see her deliberately, very forcibly going all the way back to the world in which you can talk about ordinary matters.]

Did you have a nice shower?

BRICK
: Uh-huh.

MARGARET
: Was the water cool?

BRICK
: No.

MARGARET
: But it made y' feel fresh, huh?

BRICK
: Fresher....

MARGARET
: I know something would make y' feel
much
fresher!

BRICK
: What?

MARGARET
: An alcohol rub. Or cologne, a rub with cologne!

BRICK
: That's good after a workout but I haven't been workin' out, Maggie.

MARGARET
: You've kept in good shape, though.

BRICK
[indifferently]
: You think so, Maggie?

MARGARET
: I always thought drinkin' men lost their looks, but I was plainly mistaken.

BRICK
[wryly]
: Why, thanks, Maggie.

MARGARET
: You're the only drinkin' man I know that it never seems t' put fat on.

BRICK
: I'm gettin' softer, Maggie.

MARGARET
: Well, sooner or later it's bound to soften you up. It was just beginning to soften up Skipper when—

[She stops short.]

I'm sorry. I never could keep my fingers off a sore—I wish you would lose your looks. If you did it would make the martyrdom of Saint Maggie a little more bearable. But no such goddam luck. I actually believe you've gotten better looking since you've gone on the bottle. Yeah, a person who didn't know you would think you'd never had a tense nerve in your body or a strained muscle.

[There are sounds of croquet on the lawn below | the click of mallets, light voices, near and distant.]

Of course, you always had that detached quality as if you were playing a game without much concern over whether you won or lost, and now that you've lost the game, not lost but just quit playing, you have that rare sort of charm that usually only happens in very old or hopelessly sick people, the charm of the defeated.—You look so cool, so cool, so enviably cool.

[Music is heard.]

They're playing croquet. The moon has appeared and it's white, just beginning to turn a little bit yellow.... You were a wonderful lover.... Such a wonderful person to go to bed with, and I think mostly because you were really indifferent to it. Isn't that right? Never had any anxiety about it, did it naturally, easily, slowly, with absolute confidence and perfect calm, more like opening a door for a lady or seating her at a table than giving expression to any longing for her. Your indifference made you wonderful at lovemaking—
strange?
—but true.... You know, if I thought you would never, never,
never
make love to me again—I would go downstairs to the kitchen and pick out the longest and sharpest knife I could find and stick it straight into my heart, I swear that I would!