Three Plays (25 page)

AMANDA
: Where are you going?

TOM
: I'm going to the
movies!

AMANDA
: I don't believe that lie!

TOM
[crouching toward her, over-towering her tiny figure. She backs away, gasping]
: I'm going to opium dens! Yes, opium dens, dens of vice and criminals' hang-outs, Mother. I've joined the Hogan gang, I'm a hired assassin, I carry a tommy-gun in a violin case! I run a string of cat-houses in the Valley! They call me Killer, Killer Wingfield, I'm leading a double-life, a simple, honest warehouse worker by day, by night a dynamic
tsar
of the
underworld, Mother
. I go to gambling casinos, I spin away fortunes on the roulette table! I wear a patch over one eye and a false moustache, sometimes I put on green whiskers. On those occasions they call me—
El Diablo!
Oh, I could tell you things to make you sleepless! My enemies plan to dynamite this place. They're going to blow us all sky-high some night! I'll be glad, very happy, and so will you! You'll go up, up on a broomstick, over Blue Mountain with seventeen gentlemen callers! You ugly—babbling old—
witch
….
[He goes through a series of violent, clumsy movements, seizing his overcoat, lunging to do door, pulling it fiercely open. The women watch him, aghast. His arm catches in the sleeve of the coat as he struggles to pull it on. For a moment he is pinioned by the bulky garment. With an outraged groan he tears the coat of again, splitting the shoulder of it, and hurls it across the room. It strikes against the shelf of Laura's glass collection, there is a tinkle of shattering glass. Laura cries out as if wounded.]

[
MUSIC
: 'The Glass Menagerie']

LAURA
[shrilly]
:
My glass!
—menagerie....
[She covers her face and turns away.]

[But Amanda is still stunned and stupefied by the 'ugly witch' so that she barely notices this occurrence. Now she recovers her speech.]

AMANDA
[in an awful voice]
: I won't speak to you—until you apologize!
[She crosses through portières and draws them together behind her. Tom is left with Laura. Laura clings weakly to the mantel with her face averted. Tom stares at her stupidly for a moment. Then he crosses to shelf. Drops awkwardly on his knees to collect the fallen glass, glancing at Laura as if he would speak but couldn't.]

'The Glass Menagerie' steals in as

THE SCENE DIMS OUT

SCENE FOUR

[The interior is dark. Faint light in the alley.

A deep-voiced bell in a church is tolling the hour of five as the scene commences.

Tom appears at the top of the alley. After each solemn boom of the bell in the tower, he shakes a little noise-maker or rattle as if to express the tiny spasm of man in contrast to the sustained power and dignity of the Almighty. This and the unsteadiness of his advance make it evident that he has been drinking.

As he climbs the few steps to the fire-escape landing light steals up inside. Laura appears in night-dress observing Tom's empty bed in the front room.

Tom fishes in his pockets for door-key removing a motley assortment of articles in the search, including a perfect shower of movie-ticket stubs and an empty bottle. At last he finds the key, but just as he is about to insert it, it slips from his fingers. He strikes a match and crouches below the door.]

TOM
[bitterly]
: One crack—and it falls through!

[Laura opens the door.]

LAURA
: Tom! Tom, what are you doing?

TOM
: Looking for a door-key.

LAURA
: Where have you been all this time?

TOM
: I have been to the movies.

LAURA
: All this time at the movies?

TOM
: There was a very long programme. There was a Garbo picture and a Mickey Mouse and a travelogue and a newsreel and a preview of coming attractions. And there was an organ solo and a collection for the milk-fund—simultaneously—which ended up in a terrible fight between a fat lady and an usher!

LAURA
[innocently]
: Did you have to stay through everything?

TOM
: Of course! And, oh, I forgot! There was a big stage show! The headliner on this stage show was Malvolio the Magician. He performed wonderful tricks, many of them, such as pouring water back and forth between pitchers. First it turned to wine and then it turned to beer and then it turned to whisky. I knew it was whisky it finally turned into because he needed somebody to come up out of the audience to help him, and I came up - both shows! It was Kentucky Straight Bourbon. A very generous fellow, he gave souvenirs.
[He pulls from his back pocket a shimmering rainbow-coloured scarf.]
He gave me this. This is his magic scarf. You can have it, Laura. You wave it over a canary cage and you get a bowl of gold- fish. You wave it over the gold-fish bowl and they fly away canaries.... But the wonderfullest trick of all was the coffin trick. We nailed him into a coffin and he got out of the coffin without removing one nail,
[He has come inside.]
There is a trick that would come in handy for me—get me out of this 2 by 4 situation!
[Flops on to a bed and starts removing shoes.]

LAURA
: Tom—Shhh!

TOM
: What're you shushing me for?

LAURA
: You'll wake up mother.

TOM
: Goody, goody! Pay 'er back for all those 'Rise an' Shines'.
[Lies down, groaning.]
You know it don't take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?

[As if in answer, the father's grinning photograph lights up.]

[SCENE DIMS OUT.]

[Immediately following: The church bell is heard striking six. At the sixth stroke the alarm clock goes off in Amanda's room, and after a few moments we hear her calling 'Rise and Shine! Rise and Shine! Laura, go tell your brother to rise and shine!']

TOM
[sitting up slowly]
: I'll rise—but I won't shine…

[The light increases.]

AMANDA
: Laura, tell your brother his coffee is ready.

[Laura slips into front room.]

LAURA
: Tom!—It's nearly seven. Don't make mother nervous.
[He stares at her stupidly. Beseechingly.]
Tom, speak to mother this morning. Make up with her, apologize, speak to her!

TOM
: She won't to me. It's her that started not speaking.

LAURA
: If you just say you're sorry she'll start speaking.

TOM
: Her not speaking—is that such a tragedy?

LAURA
: Please—please!

AMANDA
[calling from kitchenette]
: Laura, are you going to do what I asked you to do, or do I have to get dressed and go out myself?

LAURA
: Going, going—soon as I get on my coat!
[She pulls on a shapeless felt hat with nervous, jerky movement, pleadingly glancing at Tom. Rushes awkwardly for coat. The coat is one of Amanda’s, inaccurately made-over the sleeves too short for Laura.]
Butter and what else?

AMANDA
[entering upstage]
: Just butter. Tell them to charge it.

LAURA
: Mother, they make such faces when I do that

AMANDA
: Sticks and stones can break our bones, but the expression on Mr. Garfinkel's face won't harm us! Tell him your coffee is getting cold.

LAURA
[at door]
: Do what I asked you, will you, will you, Tom?

[He looks sullenly away.]

AMANDA
: Laura, go now or just don't go at all!

LAURA
[rushing out]
: Going—going!
[A second later she cries out. Tom springs up and crosses to door. Amanda rushes anxiously in. Tom opens the door.]

TOM
: Laura?

LAURA
: I'm all right. I slipped, but I'm all right.

AMANDA
[peering anxiously after her]
: If anyone breaks a leg on those fire-escape steps, the landlord ought to be sued for every cent he possesses!
[She shuts door. Remembers she isn't speaking and returns to other room.]

[As Tom enters listlessly for his coffee she turns her back to him and stands rigidly facing the window on the gloomy gray vault of the areaway. Its light on her face with its aged but childish features is cruelly sharp, satirical as a Daumier print.

MUSIC UNDER
: 'AVE MARIA'.

Tom glances sheepishly but sullenly at her averted figure and slumps at the table. The coffee is scalding hot; he sips it and gasps and spits it back in the cup. At his gasp, Amanda catches her breath and half turns. Then catches herself and turns back to window.

Tom blows on his coffee, glancing sidewise at his mother. She clears her throat. Tom clears his. He starts to rise. Sinks back down again, scratches his head, clears his throat again. Amanda coughs. Tom raises his cup in both hands to blow on it, his eyes staring over the rim of it at his mother for several moments. Then he slowly sets the cup down and awkwardly and hesitantly rises from the chair.]

TOM
[hoarsely]
: Mother! I—I apologize, Mother.
[Amanda draws a quick, shuddering breath. Her face works grotesquely. She breaks into childlike tears.]
I'm sorry for what I said, for everything that I said; I didn't mean it.

AMANDA
[sobbingly]
: My devotion has made me a witch and so I make myself hateful to my children!

TOM
:
No
, you
don't
.

AMANDA
: I worry so much, don't sleep, it makes me nervous!

TOM
[gently]
: I understand that.

AMANDA
: I've had to put up a solitary battle all these years. But you're my right-hand bower! Don't fall down, don't fail!

TOM
[gently]
: I try, Mother.

AMANDA
[with great enthusiasm]
: Try and you will SUCCEED!
[The notion makes her breathless]
Why, you—you're just
full
of natural endowments! Both of my children—they're
unusual
children! Don't you think I know it? I'm so—
proud!
Happy and—feel I've—so much to be thankful for but—Promise me one thing, Son!

TOM
: What, Mother?

AMANDA
: Promise, Son, you'll—never be a drunkard!

TOM
[turns to her grinning]
: I will never be a drunkard, Mother.

AMANDA
: That's what frightened me so, that you'd be drinking! Eat a bowl of Purina!

TOM
: Just coffee, Mother.

AMANDA
: Shredded wheat biscuit?

TOM
: No. No, Mother, just coffee.

AMANDA
: You can't put in a day's work on an empty stomach. You've got ten minutes—don't gulp! Drinking too hot liquids makes cancer of the stomach… Put cream in.

TOM
: No, thank you.

AMANDA
: To cool it.

TOM:
No! No, thank you, I want it black.

AMANDA
: I know, but it's not good for you. We have to do all that we can to build ourselves up. In these trying times we live in, all that we have to cling to is—each other.... That's why it's so important to—Tom, I—I sent out your sister so I could discuss something with you. If you hadn't spoken I would have spoken to you.
[Sits down.]

TOM
[gently]
: What is it, Mother, that you want to discuss?

AMANDA
:
Laura!

[Tom puts his cup down slowly.

MUSIC
: 'THE GLASS MENAGERIE']

TOM
: —Oh.—Laura...

AMANDA
[touching his sleeve]
:
You know how Laura is. So quiet but—still water runs deep! She notices things and I think she—broods about them.
[Tom looks up.]
A few days ago I came in and she was crying.

TOM
: What about?

AMANDA
: You.

TOM
: Me?

AMANDA
: She has an idea that you're not happy here.