Three Plays (4 page)

[He breaks away from her and seizes the small boudoir chair and raises it like a lion-tamer facing a big circus cat. | Count five. She stares at him with her fist pressed to her mouth, then bursts into shrill, almost hysterical laughter. | He remains grave for a moment, then grins and puts the chair down. Big Mama calls through closed door:]

BIG MAMA
: Son? Son? Son?

BRICK
: What is it, Big Mama?

BIG MAMA
[outside]
: Oh, son! We got the most wonderful news about Big Daddy. I just had t' run up an' tell you right this—

[She rattles the knob.]

—
What's this door doin', locked, faw? You all think there's robbers in the house?

MARGARET
: Big Mama, Brick is dressin', he's not dressed yet.

BIG MAMA
: That's all right, it won't be the first time I've seen Brick not dressed. Come on, open this door!

[Margaret, with a grimace, goes to unlock and open the hall door, as Brick hobbles rapidly to the bathroom and kicks the door shut. Big Mama has disappeared from the hall.]

MARGARET
: Big Mama?

[Big Mama appears through the opposite gallery doors behind Margaret, huffing and puffing like an old bulldog. She is a short, stout woman; her sixty years and 170 pounds have left her somewhat breathless most of the time; she's always tensed like a boxer, or rather, a Japanese wrestler. Her 'family' was maybe a little superior to Big Daddy's, but not much. She wears a black or silver lace dress and at least half a million in flashy gems. She is very sincere.]

BIG MAMA
[loudly, startling Margaret]
: Here—I come through Gooper's and Mae's gall'ry door. Where's Brick?
Brick
—Hurry on out of there, son. I just have a second and want to give you the news about Big Daddy.—I hate locked doors in a house....

MARGARET
[with affected lightness]
: I've noticed you do, Big Mama, but people have got to have
some
moments of privacy, don't they?

BIG MAMA
: No, ma'am, not in
my
house.
[Without pause]
Whacha took off you' dress faw? I thought that little lace dress was so sweet on yuh, honey.

MARGARET
: I thought it looked sweet on me, too, but one of m' cute little table-partners used it for a napkin so!

BIG MAMA
[picking up stockings on floor]
: What?

MARGARET
: You know, Big Mama, Mae and Gooper's so touchy about those children—thanks, Big Mama...

[Big Mama has thrust the picked-up stockings in Margaret's hand with a grunt.]

—
that you just don't dare to suggest there's any room for improvement in their—

BIG MAMA
: Brick, hurry out!—Shoot, Maggie, you just don't like children.

MARGARET
: I do SO like children! Adore them!—well brought up!

BIG MAMA
[gentle—loving]
: Well, why don't you have some and bring them up well, then, instead of all the time pickin' on Gooper's an' Mae's?

GOOPER
[shouting up the stairs]
: Hey, hey, Big Mama, Betsy an' Hugh got to go, waitin' t' tell yuh g'by!

BIG MAMA
: Tell 'em to hold their hawses, I'll be right down in a jiffy!

[She turns to the bathroom door and calls out.]

Son? Can you hear me in there?

[There is a muffled answer.]

We just got the full report from the laboratory at the Ochsner Clinic, completely negative, son, ev'rything negative, right on down the line! Nothin' a-tall's wrong with him but some little functional thing called a spastic colon. Can you hear me, son?

MARGARET
: He can hear you, Big Mama.

BIG MAMA
: Then why don't he say something? God Almighty, a piece of news like that should make him shout. It made
me
shout, I can tell you. I shouted and sobbed and fell right down on my knees!—Look!

[She pulls up her skirt.]

See the bruises where I hit my kneecaps? Took both doctors to haul me back on my feet!

[She laughs—she always laughs like hell at herself]

Big Daddy was furious with me! But ain't that wonderful news?

[Facing bathroom again, she continues:]

After all the anxiety we been through to git a report like that on Big Daddy's birthday? Big Daddy tried to hide how much of a load that news took off his mind, but didn't fool
me
. He was mighty close to crying about it
himself!

[Goodbyes are shouted downstairs, and she rushes to door.]

Hold those people down there, don't let them go!
—Now, git dressed, we're all comin' up to this room fo' Big Daddy's birthday party because of your ankle.—How's his ankle, Maggie?

MARGARET
: Well, he broke it, Big Mama.

BIG MAMA
: I know he broke it.

[A phone is ringing in hall. A Negro voice answers: 'Mistuh Polly's res'dence.']

I mean does it hurt him much still.

MARGARET
: I'm afraid I can't give you that information, Big Mama. You'll have to ask Brick if it hurts much still or not.

SOOKEY
[
in the hall
]: It's Memphis, Mizz Polly, it's Miss Sally in Memphis.

BIG MAMA
: Awright, Sookey.

[Big Mama rushes into the hall and is heard shouting on the phone:]

Hello, Miss Sally. How are you, Miss Sally?—Yes, well, I was just gonna call you about it.
Shoot!—

[She raises her voice to a bellow.]

Miss Sally? Don't ever call me from the Gayoso Lobby, too much talk goes on in that hotel lobby, no wonder you can't hear me!
Now listen, Miss Sally. They's nothin' serious wrong with Big Daddy. We got the report just now, they's nothin' wrong but a thing called a—spastic!
SPASTIC!
—colon...

[She appears at the hall door and calls to Margaret.]

—
Maggie, come out here and talk to that fool on the phone. I'm shouted breathless!

MARGARET
[goes out and is heard sweetly at phone]
: Miss Sally? This is Brick's wife, Maggie. So nice to hear your voice. Can you hear
mine?
Well,
good!
—Big Mama just wanted you to know that they've got the report from the Ochsner Clinic and what Big Daddy has is a spastic colon. Yes. Spastic colon, Miss Sally. That's right, spastic colon.
G'bye Miss Sally, hope I'll see you real soon!

[Hangs up a little before Miss Sally was probably ready to terminate the talk. She returns through the hall door.]

She heard me perfectly. I've discovered with deaf people the thing to do is not shout at them but just enunciate clearly. My rich old Aunt Cornelia was deaf as the dead but I could make her hear me just by sayin' each word slowly, distinctly, close to her ear. I read her the
Commercial Appeal
ev'ry night, read her the classified ads in it, even, she never missed a word of it. But was she a mean ole thing! Know what I got when she died? Her unexpired subscriptions to five magazines and the Book-of-the-Month Club and a LIBRARY full of ev'ry dull book ever written! All else went to her hellcat of a sister... meaner than she was, even!

[Big Mama has been straightening things up in the room during this speech.]

BIG MAMA
[closing closet door on discarded clothes]
:
Miss Sally sure is a case!
Big Daddy says she's always got her hand out fo' something. He's not mistaken. That poor ole thing always has her hand out fo' somethin'. I don't think Big Daddy gives her as much as he should.

[Somebody shouts for her downstairs and she shouts:] I'm comin'!

[She starts out. At the hall door, turns and jerks a forefinger, first towards the bathroom door, then towards the liquor cabinet, meaning: 'Has Brick been drinking?' Margaret pretends not to understand, cocks her head and raises her brows as if the pantomimic performance was completely mystifying to her. Big Mama rushes back to Margaret.]

Shoot! Stop playin' so dumb!—
I mean has he been drinkin' that stuff much yet?

MARGARET
[with a little laugh]
: Oh! I think he had a highball after supper.

BIG MAMA
: Don't laugh about it!—Some single men stop drinkin' when they git married and others start! Brick never touched liquor before he
—
!

MARGARET
[crying out]
:
THAT'S NOT FAIR!

BIG MAMA
: Fair or not fair I want to ask you a question, one question—D'you make Brick happy in bed?

MARGARET
: Why don't you ask if he makes
me
happy in bed?

BIG MAMA
: Because I know that—

MARGARET
:
It works both ways!

BIG MAMA
: Something's not right! You're childless and my son drinks!

[Someone has called her downstairs and she has rushed to the door on the line above. She turns at the door and points at the bed.]

—
When a marriage goes on the rocks, the rocks are
there
, right
there!

MARGARET
:
That's—

[Big Mama has swept out of the room and slammed the door.]

—
not—
fair...

[Margaret is alone, completely alone, and she feels it. She draws in, hunches her shoulders, raises her arms with fists clenched, shuts her eyes tight as a child about to be stabbed with a vaccination needle. When she opens her eyes again, what she sees is the long oval mirror and she rushes straight to it, stares into it with a grimace and says:
'Who are you?'
—Then she crouches a little and answers herself in a different voice which is high, thin, mocking: 'I am Maggie the Cat!'—Straightens quickly as bathroom door opens a little and Brick calls out to her.]

BRICK
: Has Big Mama gone?

MARGARET
: She's gone.

[He opens the bathroom door and hobbles out, with his liquor glass now empty, straight to the liquor cabinet. He is whistling softly. Margaret's head pivots on her long, slender throat to watch him. | She raises a hand uncertainly to the base of her throat, as if it was difficult for her to swallow, before she speaks:]

You know, our sex life didn't just peter out in the usual way, it was cut off short, long before the natural time for it to, and it's going to revive again, just as sudden as that. I'm confident of it. That's what I'm keeping myself attractive for. For the time when you'll see me again like other men see me. Yes, like other men see me. They still see me, Brick, and they like what they see. Uh-huh. Some of them would give their—Look, Brick!

[She stands before the long oval mirror, touches her breast and then her hips with her two hands.]

How high my body stays on me!—Nothing has fallen on me—not a fraction—

[Her voice is soft and trembling—a pleading child's. At this moment as he turns to glance at her—a look which is like a player passing a ball to another player, third down and goal to go—she has to capture the audience in a grip so tight that she can hold it till the first intermission without any lapse of attention.]

Other men still want me. My face looks strained, sometimes, but I've kept my figure as well as you've kept yours, and men admire it. I still turn heads on the street. Why, last week in Memphis everywhere that I went men's eyes burned holes in my clothes, at the country club and in restaurants and department stores, there wasn't a man I met or walked by that didn't just eat me up with his eyes and turn around when I passed him and look back at me. Why, at Alice's party for her New York cousins, the best lookin' man in the crowd—followed me upstairs and tried to force his way in the powder room with me, followed me to the door and tried to force his way in!

BRICK
: Why didn't you let him, Maggie?

MARGARET
: Because I'm not that common, for one thing. Not that I wasn't almost tempted to. You like to know who it was? It was Sonny Boy Maxwell, that's who!

BRICK
: Oh, yeah, Sonny Boy Maxwell, he was a good end-runner but had a little injury to his back and had to quit.

MARGARET
: He has no injury now and has no wife and still has a lech for me!

BRICK
: I see no reason to lock him out of a powder room in that case.