The Traveling Companion & Other Plays

by Tennessee Williams

BOY: I didn’ have you las’ night.

  GIRL: No, you preferred t’ git drunk on Bourbon Street.

  BOY: —I got things in my head I got to git out . . .

  GIRL: A man’s got to choose between gittin’ drunk an’—

  BOY: I been ordered to shoot down screamin’ wimmen an’ children, and I done it, I done it!

  GIRL: —Well, you was ordered to, a soldier got to do what he’s ordered, don’t he? Besides—

  BOY: Besides?

  GIRL: —They’re like animals, ain’t they, those—those jungle people? Less’n human? Ain’t they?

  BOY: No, Christ, no, they’re human, they’re more human than you, and they’re more human than me that shot ’em down!

  GIRL: As ordered.

  BOY: Could you have done it?

  GIRL: If ordered.

  BOY: Then you go back to Waakow in five days, you take my place there! Say I—

  GIRL: I would if ordered.

  BOY: You know you won’t be ordered. —Git back in bed.

  GIRL: Not with breakfas’ ordered, wait’ll t’night.

  BOY: Come away from that window with your back to me like you hated t’ see me.

  GIRL: I don’t hate to see you, Claude. Would I of married you, sweetheart, if I hated to see you?

  BOY: Then why’re you standin’ there lookin’ out th’ window while I make love to you?

  GIRL: Feelin’ me like a melon t’ see if I’m ripe is not makin’ love t’ me, Claude. Oh, oh. Huh. They gotten out of their chairs in th’ mist off th’ river in the patio, now.

  BOY: Who? Done what?

  GIRL: Them. Out there.

  BOY: Cain’t even wait five days for me t’ be gone.

  GIRL: Huh? —Hah! . . . The woman an’ the old dawg are goin’ into the office of the hotel. The old man’s come a cropper2, fell down on the bricks an’ the woman didn’ look back to see if he had a stroke an’ th’ ole dawg jus’ barked at him. —I hope we’re never like that.

  BOY: How we are is nothin’ to brag about in my opinion.

  GIRL: Not in mine either.

  BOY: Le’s go back to bed.

  GIRL: We’re waitin’ fo’ breakfas’ an’ after that we’re goin’ sight-seein’, ain’t we? At least that’s my intention.

  BOY: That terrible headache that come on you last night, have you recovered from that or are you still sufferin’ from it?

  GIRL: I took two aspirin fo’ it.

  BOY: So you got over it. That’s the explanation?

  GIRL: What give me that awful headache was bein’ took from one noisy, indecent place to another on Bourbon Street last night. By two A.M. I couldn’t stand it no more and had to walk back here alone.

  BOY: You were two blocks from here, and it’s a well-lighted street.

  GIRL: A girl alone on that street is mistaken fo’ a whore.

  BOY: Mistaken correckly sometimes.

  GIRL: I don’t like that remark.

  BOY: If you don’t like it, shove it.

  GIRL: I don’t like that remark neither.

  BOY: Then shove it, too.

  GIRL: T’day I think I’ll go sight-seein’ alone.

  BOY: Ain’t you afraid you’d be mistook for a whore?

  GIRL: I’ll go sight-seein’ alone in th’ Garden District an’ nobody’s gonna make the mistake you mentioned.

  BOY: I got no objection to you sight-seein’ alone.

  GIRL: I’m goin’ sight-seein’ alone because of your insults to me an’ you’re gonna give me five bucks for expense.

  BOY: I’ll give you five bucks like shit.

  GIRL: Don’t talk to me in that langwidge, I don’t let nobody talk to me in that langwidge, an’ if you refuse t’ give me five dollars t’ go sight-seein’, I’ll go to th’ desk in the office of this hotel an’ say I need five dollars to go sight-seein’ an’ have it put on the bill.

  BOY: I’ll call the office of the hotel an’ tell ’em t’ give you one dime to see sights on.

  GIRL: Yeah. I bet you would.

  BOY: That’s one bet you’d win.

  GIRL: I think I’ll call up my folks in River Bay an’ tell ’em our marriage has already proved a mistake.

  BOY: They won’t say “Hurry back, honey.”

  GIRL: It was a whirl-wind marriage if ever there was one. You wanna know somethin’?

  BOY: What?

  GIRL: —Nothin’.

  BOY: Go sight-seein’. I got a bottle here, I’ll stay here with it. The weather ain’t good and I might call up a fellow’s on leave from Waakow, too.

  GIRL: Any red-blooded boy ought to think of it as a priv’lege to serve his country in Waakow.

  BOY: You’ve never seen the color of my blood and you’ve never been to Waakow.

  GIRL: Don’t lose my respeck by complainin’ about Waakow to me all the time.

  BOY: What respeck have you got fo’ me which I could lose?

  GIRL: Would I of married a boy I coulden respeck?

  BOY: When I remind you I’m goin’ back to Waakow it’s not a complaint but a statement.

  GIRL: It’s easy fo’ me to see your indifferent attitude toward it.

  BOY: My attitude toward it is not indifferent at all.

  GIRL: What is it, then?

  BOY: Fed up and disgusted.

  GIRL: —How do I git your Army paycheck, Claude?

  BOY: You don’t git it.

  GIRL: Are you tellin’ me that you don’t intend t’ support me?

  BOY: Pracktilly all of my Army paycheck goes to my mother now that my father is in the hospital.

  GIRL: That’s a piece of shocking infawmation you should of give me befo’ our marriage, not after.

  BOY: Well, now you know, and I want to ask you a question.

  GIRL: Ask it.

  BOY: Who fucked you las’ night?

  GIRL: What a thing to ask a girl you’re married to. I won’t answer such a disgustin’ question.

  BOY: I found a rubber in the tawlet this mawnin’ when I wint in there to pee.

  GIRL: Are you suggestin’ t’ me that—

  BOY: I don’t suggest a thing I awready know is a fack.

  GIRL: You’re in no condition t’ know a fack in th’ world.

  BOY: I recognize a rubber in a tawlet, Miss Newly-Wed.

  GIRL: Mr. Newly-Wed, you wuh so drunk las’ night you wuh seein’ false sights, an’ you blame it on me.

  BOY: Just a minute.

  GIRL: Just a minute you’self.

  BOY: You had the goddamn nerve to—

  GIRL: My feet still ache from—

  BOY: You lef’ me in that—

  GIRL: Some honeymoon! Neither of us knowin’ the other one from—

  BOY: You lef’ me in that—

  GIRL: At two A.M. Worn out. You should thank your stars you married a decent girl.

  [The speeches overlap here.]

  BOY: I thank my stars for nothin’. “Claude,” you said, “I got a terrible headache, I’m goin’ home, good-night sweetheart.” —You kissed me.

  GIRL: Claude, if there was a rubber in that tawlet you put it in.

  BOY: You wanna see it? It’s still in the tawlet, I peed off the balcony so you could have a look at that condom. [He seizes her wrist.] Come on, have a look at it, an’ try to explain how it got there.

  GIRL: Don’t pull at me.

  BOY: I want you to have a look at it.

  GIRL: Leggo my wrist befo’ I hit you with somethin’.

  BOY: Lissen, Miss Newly-wed, if you ever hit me with somethin’, that would be a mistake that you would live to regret. [He releases her.]

  GIRL: You torn th’ sleeve of—I know what happened las’ night. You had one of them strippers an’ lef’ the’ rubber on yuh.

&nb
sp; BOY: I never picked up no stripper.

  GIRL: A rotten lie through your teeth. You picked up a stripper, you had relations with her, lef’ the rubber on you and—

  BOY: I never knowinly hooked up with no hooker, not even in Waakow.

  GIRL: —The mystery of the rubber has been cleared up.

  BOY: Shut up a minute. The waiter’s comin’.

  GIRL: My breakfas’ had better include two soft-boiled eggs an’ some buttered toast.

  [A colored waiter raps at the door.]

  BOY: Come on in.

  GIRL: I’m goin’ to the bathroom to fix my face for sight-seein’.

  WAITER [entering]: Where do you want your breakfasts?

  BOY: I don’t see nowhere to put ’em but on that table.

  GIRL [sticking her head out of the bathroom]: Does it?

  WAITER: Good morning. [He exits.]

  GIRL: Well, does it?

  BOY: Does it what?

  GIRL: Include my soft-boiled eggs.

  BOY: The soft-boiled eggs rolled off the tray on the way.

  GIRL: What’s there to that continental breakfas’?

  BOY: Come outa the bathroom an’ see.

  GIRL [emerging from the bathroom]: Coffee an’ fruit juice. Is this piece of curved bread the cwasong?

  BOY: Yais, I reckon it is.

  GIRL: Well, maybe it’ll provide me with strength to git out on the street.

  BOY: That’s a thought.

  [The girl dips her croissant in her coffee and eats it dreamily.]

  GIRL: Mmm. Not good, not bad. [Pause.] So I don’t git your army paycheck?

  BOY: Nope. It goes to mother like I tole you.

  GIRL: Um-Hmm. Like you tole me. —You wanna know the truth about las’ night?

  BOY: Yeah, let’s hear it.

  GIRL: I’ll tell you the truth about anything, now that I know you don’t intend to support me. A man did follow me here and I never known or will know another man like him. We done it five times together. He had green eyes.

  BOY: People with green eyes have nigguh blood in ’em.

  GIRL: Nothin’ nigger about him and he had enawmus green eyes. Said a hello to me when I turned off Bourbon to the hotel. Caught hold of my wrist, drug me between two buildings, befo’ I could holler, put his hands on me. Then it was too late to holler. The hugest hands a man has ever put on me an’ hot as blazes. They practicly burnt through my clothes before he got my clothes off me, and there was the first time we done it. And he wasn’t ready to quit and neither was I, me neither. “Jesus,” he ast me, “don’t you stay somewhere?” I said, “Jesus, yais, I do, in a hotel two doors away.” “Git me in there,” he said, “and I’ll ball you all night.” “I cain’t git you in the front entrance, but there’s a back one,” I told him, an’ how to git in the back way.

  BOY [facing her with clenched fists]: Go on with the story. You’ll know it’s finished when I knock your teeth in, you whore!

  GIRL: Whores take money, I took no money off him.

  BOY: You took disease off him to rot with!

  GIRL: That green-eyed man had just got off a boat and was clean as the sea and worth twenty of you, thirty, fifty, a hundred. Hurry, he said. He shoved me. I staggered into the hotel like I was drunk, fell down in the hall an’ couldn’t remember the number of this room. “I hope you didn’ hurt you’self,” said that abnawmal boy at the desk. “Never, never felt better in my existence. What’s my room-number? Give me the key to it quick!” And it seemed forever to me before that enawmus green-eyed fire of a man come through the courtyard door. Here, up here, I called him and up he run and he burned the room runnin’ in like it caught fire. I tell you it’s a wonder I’m not burned black.

  BOY: A whore fucked by a nigguh is burned black!

  GIRL: Wait, now, lemme finish this life story of mine befo’ you blow your haid. Lissen. He started to put a rubber on, it didn’t fit him, it split, I said: “Don’t mess with that.” And he thrown it in the tawlet.

  BOY: You didn’t know I’d find it?

  GIRL: Hell, you didn’t exist in here last night, obliva, obliter, gone, gone back to Waakow! Lissen! To be in deeper, he put the flats of his feet on the wall and I swear that I bit the pillow not to scream!

  BOY: I’m done with you.

  [The following speeches overlap.]

  GIRL: It’s you that’s been done with by me!

  BOY [overlapping, seizing her arm]: A whore that brags to her husband—

  GIRL: To a lyin’ cheatin’ jerk, go an’ jerk off in a—

  BOY: That she’s been fucked by a—

  GIRL: Foxhole!

  BOY: Not in a fox’s, in yours!

  GIRL: In my nothing! [She tears herself free.] He had enawmus green eyes! But’s in the Merchant Marine an’ ships out t’day! [Sobbing and catching her breath.] “Ain’t there no place fo’ me on the boat?” I ast him, yaiss, begged him!

  BOY: Begged this—?

  GIRL: Yais!

  BOY: Nigguh?

  GIRL: That broke me in two with his—!

  [He seizes her.]

  GIRL: You lemme go, you goddamn nowhere—

  BOY: Shit, baby, I’m somewhere an’ you’re—

  GIRL: Where, where? I cain’t see you!

  BOY: Green eyes blinded you?

  GIRL: Yais, blazed at an’ blinded me, set me on fire that you will never put out!

  BOY: Yeh, you’re still hot with that fire!

  GIRL: That’s right, I am, by God, still blazing in it!

  [He slides down her body to his knees.]

  BOY [frenzied]: Burn me in it, yeah, you’re blazin’ hot, burn me!

  GIRL [sobbing]: No, no, I’m—goin’—sight! seein! [She is struggling to free herself from his grasp, which is now inescapable.]

  BOY: No sight would be worth seein’!

  GIRL [collapsing]: No, none! —After green eyes . . .

  [He tears open her flimsy wrapper.]

  INSTANT BLACKOUT

  1Their slang for Vietnam—probably derived from “whacked out” or “whacko.” (ed.)

  2Slang meaning “to fall on one’s behind.” (ed.)

  THE PARADE

  or

  APPROACHING THE END OF A SUMMER

  The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer, was first performed by Shakespeare on the Cape on October 1, 2006 at the First Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. It was directed by Jef Hall-Flavin and Eric Powell Holm; the set design was by George Lloyd III; the costume design was by Clare Brauch and Scott Coffey; the lighting design was by Megan Tracy; the sound design was by Katharine Horowitz; and the production stage manager was Tessa K. Bry. The cast, in order of appearance, was as follows:

  DICK: Elliott Yingling Eustis

  DON: Ben Griessmeyer

  MIRIAM: Vanessa Caye Wasche

  WANDA: Megan Bartle

  POSTMAN: David Landon

  Provincetown, Massachusetts, August, 1940. Scene: a brilliant blue and gold expanse of sand dunes, sky, and sea on the New England coast. The white tower of a coast guard station rises to the left with several red and white pennants. In the foreground is a wooden platform, used to catch the airmail.

  DICK [indicating platform]: —You see? A perfect dance floor, all it needs is mirrors.

  DON: Are mirrors necessary?

  DICK: For ballet practice, sure. Very necessary.

  DON: What’s this platform for, why’s it out here on the dunes?

  DICK: To catch the bag of airmail, the helicopter flies right over it and drops a canvas bag of mail on it. I noticed it yesterday and I thought to myself, there’s my dance-floor.

  DON: You’d better what out for the helicopter, son.

  DICK: You watch out for it for me— Why do you call me �
��son’?

  DON: I feel fatherly toward you . . . sort of incestuously fatherly.

  DICK: Don’t say queer things like that.

  [Don grins and squints in the sun.]

  DICK: It’s funny you call me son because when I was a child what everyone called me was Sonny.

  DON: Sonny’s even better than “son,” I’ll call you Sonny. OK?

  DICK: My hair was yellow as butter.

  DON: Now it’s gold as your body.

  DICK: Sun-bleached. In winter it’s darker.

  DON: Everything’s darker in winter but winter’s still far off.

  DICK: That goddamn Wanda. She promised to meet me here with her portable Victrola.

  DON: She will. People can’t always be right where you want them at precisely the moment you want them, Sonny. You’re grown up enough to know that.

  DICK: Are they really going to do your play in New York or is that just a hopeful fantasy of yours?

  DON: You saw the announcement of it in the Sunday Times drama section.

  DICK: I saw it listed as a play that the Guild was considering for next season, but there’s many a slip between considering doing and doing.

  DON: Don’t I know.

  DICK: You ought to. I’m grown up enough to know that and I’m seven years younger than you. But if they really do it, and it’s a hit, remember Sonny needs a wealthy patron. [Pause.]

  DON: How would ‘Sonny’ reward this ‘wealthy patron’?

  DICK: That’s the question.

  DON: You’ve got the answer to it, nobody else.

  DICK: I could have had five wealthy patrons last year in New York if I wanted somebody to keep me.

  DON: You’re very contradictory, just a minute ago you asked me to remember you needed a patron if my play was successful.

  DICK: That was a joke, and the play won’t be successful even if they produce it, which I doubt.

  DON: But say they did and by some miracle, it turned out to be a hit—?

  DICK: A penthouse apartment on the East River and a big room walled with mirrors and no demands that I wouldn’t want to meet.

  DON: What demands would you be willing to meet?

  DICK: No demands at all. You don’t listen to me, you look at me all the time with those crazy green eyes of yours but don’t understand what I say.