The Traveling Companion & Other Plays

by Tennessee Williams

  And o’er my grave shall warmer, sweeter be,

  And you will bend and tell me that you love me,

  Then I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

  [When he is finished, Miss Rose rises and prepares to leave.]

  MAN: Could I ask for a more precise timekeeper than the giant daisy of day and the night-blooming vine, but time, time . . .

  MISS ROSE: I know, Sir. It little concerns us when all’s said and done. Eternity does not repel me. I sometimes wonder if I don’t exist in it now.

  MAN: Ah, Miss Rose—ye know ye’ve given me all of poetry that exists in my heart . . . Sorry if that sounds maudlin, but I thought ye should know . . .

  MISS ROSE: Thank you, Sir—but I think that I did know . . .

  [Miss Rose starts to exit. The man rises and extends his arms to embrace her, but she fends off this intimacy with a delicate gesture. The wife’s snoring becomes audible again.]

  MAN: Yes . . . Look above ye, Miss Rose, and tell me if the night-blooming vine has begun to abandon its vigil . . . my eyes seem to be a bit misty.

  MISS ROSE [looking up]: Yes, Sir, I do believe that it’s gradually, as if regretfully, retiring from the little window high in the wall. —Shall I accompany its retreat with the second ballad?

  MAN: Ah, yes. “My Wild Irish Rose . . .”

  [She plays again and they sing the song.]

  THE MAN AND ROSE:

  If you listen I’ll sing you a sweet little song,

  Of a flower that’s now drooped and dead,

  Yet dearer to me, yes than all of its mates,

  Though each holds aloft its proud head.

  ’Twas given to me by a girl that I know,

  Since we’ve met, faith I’ve known no repose.

  She is dearer by far than the world’s brightest star,

  And I call her my wild Irish Rose.

  My wild Irish Rose, the sweetest flower that grows.

  You may search everywhere, but none can compare

  With my wild Irish Rose.

  My wild Irish Rose, the dearest flower that grows,

  And some day for my sake, she may let me take

  The bloom from my wild Irish Rose.

  They may sing of their roses, which by other names,

  Would smell just as sweetly, they say.

  But I know that my Rose would never consent

  To have that sweet name taken away.

  Her glances are shy when e’er I pass by

  The bower where my true love grows,

  And my one wish has been that some day I may win

  The heart of my wild Irish Rose.

  MISS ROSE [when the ballad is completed]: I’m afraid I must be off now.

  MAN [recovering from sentiment]: Nice to have three visible walls in three primary colors: yellow, blue, and red. Primary. SoHo. [He does some exercises, runs in place, etc.] Why does a man in his prime retire to a pretense of invalidism in a wheelchair in SoHo? Naturally as an expression of protest—social. Hmm. Was not my profession also a social protest?

  [He returns to the wheelchair, the wife awakens.]

  WIFE: Oh, it’s you, you fuckin’ imposter! Ow, such a nightmare I’ve had. The recollection escapes me, how long was I— LOOK! DIE CLOCK!

  [She is referring to the night-blooming vine, now receding snake-like back to where it came from.]

  MAN: So the night-bloomer is packing it up. A familiar phenomenon. It packs it up to make room for the brilliant giant daisy of day.

  WIFE: Und die kinder still outzen! I tremble! —For die fates that could have detained ’em I tremble and pray.

  MAN: Pray that they remembered the mathematical and geographical lessons the old pro give them before they made their first excursion into their—predestined vocation.

  WIFE: Yep, die night-bloomer is out and now vill enter die king-size daisy of day.

  [Demented outcries of a euphoric nature, along with the clatter of racing feet, are heard from off-stage. Die Kinder crash into the Kirche, their clothing in obvious disarray. The wife attempts speech, but only opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish.]

  MAN: Ach, die kinder!

  [Slowly, as if cranked by a rusty machine, the wife turns about to regard her twin progeny. They stand stage center, weaving in unison with inebriate smiles and simpers.]

  MAN: Well, now, show daddy y’r profits on this first excursion into the world beyond Kirche, Küche, und Kindergarten from which ye’ve been so prematurely expelled.

  WIFE [in a choked, guttural voice]: Vere iss die loot, die bread? Nein?!

  [Die Kinder laugh at her.]

  MAN: Now having gone forth on your first professional venture, my dears, your mother and me are naturally a bit concerned concerning the extent of your profits.

  [The simpering incomprehension of Die Kinder continues.]

  MAN: I mean the amount of the remuneration that you have received in the public rooms and the private suites of the great hotels uptown where you was directed.

  WIFE: Ach shmitzen, address ’em in words of a single syllable only!

  MAN: I never seen a more cock-simple look on human faces since I first removed my jeans before a Lutheran minister’s daughter and also before a gentleman-patron of the arts at the Hotel Plaza!

  WIFE [with revived animation]: Turn the boy’s pocket’s inside out, vile I look into die grab-all bag of die kleine Fräulein, mein Gretchen!

  [The examination is conducted rapidly; no profits are discovered. The man and the wife exchange glances.]

  WIFE: So!

  MAN: Ho!

  WIFE: NEIN, NADA, NIENTE? DIE PROFITS, DIE LOOT, DIE BREAD? Iss Diss die tragic outcome ye’ve delivered us mit, worsen die report card and die expellsion from kindergarten? —Or have you concealed it privately somewhere about! Ja?

  DAUGHTER: WE

  SON: GIVE IT

  DAUGHTER: AWAY, LIKE FOR NOTHING, BUT LOVE!

  SON [sheepishly]: —in SoHo . . .

  MAN [observing his wife’s swaying motion]: Put some pillows back of your mutter, I think she’s about to drop dead.

  [The man tosses his wheelchair cusions to die Kinder, who place them under the wife just as she falls. She sits up immediately.]

  WIFE [groggily, without inflection]: —Hello.

  [On this cue, die Kinder burst into song, sweetly as songbirds at daybreak. The trap-door reopens and an angel appears for the duration of their song.]

  DAUGHTER AND SON [singing]:

  Love came down from hea-venn

  To dwell with us on earth!

  L-O-V-E, LOVE, L-O-V-E, LOVE!

  Love, Love—Love, Love,

  L-O-V-E, LOVE!

  MAN: Miss Rose, Miss Rose!

  [Miss Rose enters as the Angel disappears. The wife does not see or hear her. Die Kinder drift off into sleep after their song.]

  MAN: Miss Rose, I regret to say that there’s been another bit of a domestic crisis here, desecrating the holiness of the Kirche. However, be that as it may, and indeed it is—Let us now get on with our much-delayed Vesper Service.

  MISS ROSE: I am afraid, Sir, the delay has been too protracted for the service, if there is now to be one, to qualify time-wise with Evensong—or Vespers . . .

  MAN: Nevertheless, would you please seat yourself at the organ.

  MISS ROSE [crossing to her seat at the organ]: And what will be the opening selection?

  MAN: Give me a few moments to gather me wits, Miss Rose; still somewhat shattered and scattered by the profitless return of die kinder from their first professional excursion into areas occupied by the haute-bourgeoisie.

  MISS ROSE: Perhaps if I played very softly—

  MAN: Ah, yes, softly, softly . . .

  [Miss Rose plays “Danny Boy.”]

&n
bsp; MAN: The verb to endure . . . The verb to survive . . . I have endured—I have survived. It appears that I must now face and accept the old male responsibility and prerogative of providing a living for himself and household. [Over his shoulder to the wife.] Madam, hand me the brass-studded belt to fasten about my jeans.

  WIFE: So you’re up to it again, about to display your self once more on the park benches facing the grand Hotel Plaza, now owned and operated by the corporation Gulf-Western!

  MAN: Ah, yes, the Plaza. Correct me if I don’t remember correctly the telephone number.

  WIFE: —What telephone? Ve got no telephone here, it’s been removed for non-payment these past ten years.

  MAN: Removed from your sight, only, but still here and in service. [He produces the phone.]

  WIFE: What a fraud, veritably a fraud, a fraud of a fraud!

  MAN: That’s your good fortune, Madam, as well as mine. [He dials.] Seven, five, nine, three, oh, oh . . . oh. How do you do, Operator? —I wish to enquire if the esteemed Professor Emeritus Hotlicker, patron of the humanities and the arts, is still living and resident there. Oh. Ho. And still in the tenth floor suite that looks out by telescope onto the park? He was into duck-watching, you know, the ducks on the lakes of the park, as well as into the subsidy of great poets composing immortal odes upon the benches facing his way. Destiny, yes. It beckons artist to patron, immemorially so. —So? He is? Still living? And duck-watching by telescope? Oh? So? And now and then still dispensing the Hotlicker Prize for excellence in the art of rhyme? Ho. So. Destiny, the inscrutable, has provided it so. No, don’t disturb him before he’s up for room-service. I shall be there to serve him, butter his toast, crack his three-minute eggs, and then, and then—contend once more for the great Hotlicker Award . . . [He hangs up, the final notes of “Danny Boy” fading away. He puts on his brass-studded belt.]

  WIFE: And is it your intention, do you intend, to grace us once more with the abominations of your presence? Again?

  [The music segues into a rousing march.]

  MAN: Ah, love. Trust in habitude as you trust in the God of your Lutheran father.

  WIFE: A piece of doubtfully brilliant advice, comin’ after his visit to me this day . . .

  MAN [turning to her]: And so, Madam, I leave ye now—pro tem—to the profligate progeny of your Protestant loins, and to your kidneys sautéed in margarine and chab-liss, yes, I go now and will not return empty-handed. I leave that simple but impractical practice to die kinder. Purity cannot be desecrated, if ever true . . .

  [As the music crescendos and ends, the man crosses right through that fourth “invisible” wall and exits through the house. The light narrows in the on the wife, who addresses the audience.]

  WIFE: And so? A happy ending? If it’s not provided by life, what’s wrong with so believing? That it was and it is, over a coffee mit cruller? Be our guests. Who is not the guest of life for a while? I said who isn’t, I said the guest, I said of life, I said for a while. The punctuation mark was the mark of a question. I leave you to ponder those questions . . .

  [Die Kinder pop up and flank her. ]

  WIFE: . . . for a while.

  [Die Kinder sing a soft, eerie reprise of their “Love Song,” staring straight out and getting softer and softer, becoming inaudible as the lights fade.]

  CURTAIN

  GREEN EYES

  or

  NO SIGHT WOULD BE WORTH SEEING

  Green Eyes was first performed at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival on September 25, 2008. It was directed by Jef Hall-Flavin; the set and lighting designs were by Megan Tracey; the costume design was by Clare Brauch; the sound design was by Katharine Horowitz; and the production stage manager was A.J. Stevenson. The cast was as follows:

  GIRL: Jaimi Paige

  BOY: Mike Rasmussen

  WAITER: Latez Crawley

  A boy and girl, about twenty years old, are rising from a double bed in a New Orleans hotel room. They are both from the rural South and are honeymooning in this French Quarter hotel. The room is silvery dim‚ as if the river mist had entered it. The boy has slept in his shorts but the girl is nude, and there are conspicuous abrasions on her body. Phonetic spelling of their speech is not invariably used after it has been established.

  GIRL: I’m gittin’ up.

  BOY: So’m I.

  GIRL: Call fo’ breakfas’. [He ignores the suggestion.] Well, call for breakfas’, will yuh.

  BOY: You call fo’ breakfas’.

  GIRL: Ok. I’ll call fo’ breakfas’. You just sit there smokin’ an’— [She takes the phone off the hook.] —Room service. This is Mrs. Claude Dunphy. We checked in here yestiddy an’ we’d like some breakfas’ now. I want two soft-boiled eggs, not fried, soft boiled, coffee, two pieces of buttered toast. Claude? What do you want?

  BOY: I want a explanation.

  GIRL: Continental? What’s that consist of? —Oh? What’s a cwasong? —Ain’t you got a colored boy on the place that could run out for a couple of eggs? We’re goin’ sight-seein’ in New Awleuns t’day so I need a substantial breakfas’ in me. Hmm. Well, send two of them continental breakfasts out here quick as you kin. [She hangs up.] That abnawmal boy, he told me they wouldn’ send out fo’ two eggs. —Git off my panties.

  BOY: I want a explanation. You got tooth an’ claw marks on yuh like yuh been t’ bed with a wildcat.

  GIRL: You squeezed an’ bit me las’ night in yuh sleep.

  BOY: I didn’ sleep. I stepped over you las’ night an’ turned my face to the wall.

  GIRL: Thin how come I got all these bruises?

  BOY: That’s what I’d like explanation of.

  GIRL: You come in drunk near mawnin’, bit an’ bruised me, that’s the explanation.

  BOY: That ain’t the explanation. Lies ain’t explanations.

  GIRL: You’re one of them people that do things in their sleep.

  BOY: I tole you I didn’ sleep.

  GIRL: A man dead drunk is practicly asleep. At least his memory is. —Gimme a cigarette.

  BOY: Take one. The pack’s right by you.

  [She takes a cigarette from a pack on the night table.]

  GIRL: Light it fo’ me.

  BOY: Light it fo’ you’self. Don’t train you’self t’ be helpless. Five days from now I’m flyin’ back to Waakow1.

  GIRL: You keep sayin’ that to me. “I’m flyin’ back to Waakow, I’m flyin’ back to Waakow.”

  BOY: What’s the explanation?

  GIRL: Of you goin’ back to Waakow?

  BOY: No. Of the tooth an’ claw marks on your body.

  GIRL: Your sex-starvation, I reckon. I kep’ sayin’ ouch, ouch, but you wouldn’t stop.

  BOY: A fuckin’ lie.

  GIRL: Well, if you’re gonna call me a liar it’s no good talkin’ to you. Git into yuh clothes befo’ they come out here with breakfas’.

  BOY: I want a explanation of what wint on here las’ night.

  GIRL: I give you the explanation an’ I’m not gonna repeat it since your memory’s blank.

  BOY: Um-hmm. No explanation.

  [The girl has gotten into a rayon wrapper. The boy remains in shorts on the edge of the bed, gloomily reflecting.]

  BOY: I don’t see how you’d have the nerve to, not knowin’ whin I’d come back.

  GIRL: Claude, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.

  BOY: You know goddamn well what I’m talkin’ about.

  GIRL: I! Do! Not! Knowwwwww!

  BOY: Well, I guess a fool has it comin’ to him. [He extinguishes one cigarette and lights another.]

  GIRL: Slow.

  BOY: What?

  GIRL: Room service.

  BOY: Speed it up.

  GIRL: You cain’t speed up slow room service.

  BOY: I got a mind to beat the shit out of you
.

  GIRL: I can take care of myself.

  BOY: Some day a man is gonna beat the fuckin’—

  GIRL: You ain’t the man that’ll do it. —I bet you run backward in Waakow.

  BOY: What’re you doin’ at the window?

  GIRL: I wish you would look at that!

  BOY: Look at what?

  GIRL: That ole middle-age couple out there in the yard.

  BOY: That ain’t a yard, that’s a patio.

  GIRL: Well, they’re sittin’ out there in the patio havin’ breakfas’ in the rain.

  BOY: That ain’t rain, that’s mist off the river out there.

  GIRL: Awright, it’s not a yard, it’s a patio, it’s not rain, it’s mist off the river, but you’d never catch me havin’ rolls an’ coffee out there.

  BOY: What bus’ness is it of yours?

  GIRL: You sure do seem to be in a contrary humor this mawnin’.

  BOY: A middle-age couple like that, they make the best they can out of what’s still possible fo’ them. They’ll send out postcards to their relations an’ friends sayin’ “This mawnin’ we had breakfast in the patio of our New Awleuns French Quarter hotel.”

  GIRL: If that was the limit of what I could put on a postcard, I woulden bother to write it or to mail it.

  BOY: I don’t think you’d have any trouble thinkin’ of more to put on a postcard but you’d have t’ be careful who you mailed it to. In fack, I doubt that it would go through the mail unless you put that postcard in a mighty thick envelope. [He reaches out and feels her buttocks.]

  GIRL: At least you still seem to appreciate my body.

  BOY: It looks like I’m standin’ in line to appreciate it.

  GIRL: You jus’ got up on the wrong side of the bed.

  BOY: They’s only one side to git up on.

  GIRL: They got a ole dawg with ’em that’s turned its back to ’em.

  BOY: Soft.

  GIRL: I only like a man to feel me at night.

  BOY: The man you’re married to can feel you whenever he wants to.

  GIRL: Feel me but don’t bruise me or bite me.

  BOY: —Soft. Plushy. Made fo’ the purpose of—

  GIRL: Claude, you cain’t have me anytime you want, day or night.