Baby Doll Tiger Tail: A Screenplay and Play by Tennessee Williams

by Tennessee Williams

  ARCHIE: Why do you say “my” stove. Why is everything “my.”

  BABY DOLL: Archie Lee, I believe you’ve been drinkin’!

  ARCHIE: You keep out of this! Set down, here, Aunt Rose.

  AUNT ROSE: Why don’t I just light up my stove an’ cook you up some eggs Birmingham. I won’t have my men-folks unsatisfied with their supper. Won’t have it. Won’t stand for it!

  SILVA: What is eggs Birmingham, Miss McCorkle?

  AUNT ROSE: Why, eggs Birmingham was Baby Doll’s daddy’s pet dish.

  SILVA: Now that doesn’t answer my question.

  AUNT ROSE [as though confiding a secret]: I’ll tell you how to prepare them.

  BABY DOLL: He don’t care how you prepare them, Aunt Rose, jes’ what they are!

  AUNT ROSE: Well, honey, I can’t say what they are without telling how to prepare them. You cut some bread slices and take the centers out of them. You put the bread slices in a skillet with butter. Then into each cut-out center you drop one egg and on top of the eggs you put the cut-out centers.

  ARCHIE [sarcastically]: Do you build a fire in th’ stove?

  BABY DOLL: No, you forget to do that. That’s why they call them eggs Birmingham, I suppose.

  [She laughs at her own wit, and Silva follows with a good laugh.]

  ARCHIE: Aunt Rose! Set down! I want to ask you a question.

  [Aunt Rose Comfort sits down slowly and stiffly, all atremble.]

  What sort of—plans have you made?

  AUNT ROSE: Plans, Archie Lee? What sort of plans do you mean?

  ARCHIE: Plans for the future!

  BABY DOLL: I don’t think this kind of discussion is necessary in front of company.

  SILVA: Mr. Meighan, when a man is feeling uncomfortable over something, it often happens that he takes it out on some completely innocent person just because he has to make somebody suffer.

  ARCHIE: You keep out of this too. I’m askin’ Aunt Rose a perfectly sensible question. Now, Aunt Rose. You been here since August and that’s a mighty long stay. Now, it’s my honest opinion that you’re in need of a rest. You been cookin’ around here and cookin’ around there for how long now? How long you been cookin’ around people’s houses?

  AUNT ROSE [barely able to speak]: I’ve helped out my—relatives—folks—whenever they—needed me to! I was always—invited! Sometimes begged to come! When babies were expected or when somebody was sick, they called for Aunt Rose, and Aunt Rose was always—ready. . . . Nobody ever had to—put-me-out! —If you—gentlemen will excuse me from the table—I will pack my things! If I hurry I’ll catch the nine o’clock bus to—

  [She can’t think “where to.”]

  SILVA [rising]: Miss Rose Comfort. Wait. I’ll drive you home.

  AUNT ROSE: —I don’t!—have nowhere to!—go. . .

  SILVA [crossing to her]: Yes, you do. I need someone to cook for me at my place. I’m tired of my own cooking and I am anxious to try those eggs Birmingham you mentioned. Is it a deal?

  AUNT ROSE: —Why, I—

  BABY DOLL: Sure it’s a deal. Mr. Vacarro will be good to you, Aunt Rose Comfort, and he will even pay you, and maybe—well y’never can tell about things in the future. . .

  AUNT ROSE: I’ll run pack my things!

  [She resumes a reedy hymn in a breathless cracked voice as she goes upstairs.]

  ARCHIE: Anything else around here you wanta take with yuh, Vacarro?

  [Silva looks around coolly as if considering the question. Baby Doll utters a high, childish giggle.]

  Well, is they? Anything else around here you wanta take away with yuh?

  BABY DOLL [raising gaily]: Why, yaiss, Archie Lee. Mr. Vacarro noticed the house was overloaded with furniture and he would like us to loan him five complete sets of it to—

  ARCHIE [seizing the jug of liquor]: YOU SHUDDUP! I will git to you later.

  BABY DOLL: If you ever git to me it sure is going to be later, ha ha, much later, ha ha.

  [Baby Doll crosses to the kitchen sink, arranging her kiss-me-quicks in the soap-splashed mirror, also regarding the two men behind her with bland satisfaction. She hums away. Archie Lee stands by the table, breathing heavy as a walrus in labor. He looks from one to the other. Silva coolly picks up a big kitchen knife and lops off a hunk of bread, then tosses the kitchen knife out of Archie Lee’s reach and dips the bread in the pot of greens.]

  SILVA: Colored folks call this pot liquor.

  BABY DOLL: I love pot liquor.

  SILVA: Me, too.

  BABY DOLL [dreamily]: —Crazy ’bout pot liquor. . .

  [She turns around and rests her hips against sink. Archie Lee’s breathing is loud as a cotton gin, his face fiery. He takes swallow after swallow from the jug. Vacarro devours the bread.]

  SILVA: Mm-UMMM!

  BABY DOLL: Good?

  SILVA: Yes! —Good!

  BABY DOLL: —That’s good. . .

  [Old Fussy makes a slow stately entrance, pushing the door open wider with her fat hips and squawking peevishly at this slight inconvenience. Archie Lee wheels about violently and hurls something at her. She flaps and squawks back out.

  [Baby Doll giggles.]

  Law! Ole Fussy mighty near made it that time! Why, that old hen was comin’ in like she had been invited t’ supper.

  [Her giggly voice expires as Archie Lee wheels back around and bellows. Archie Lee explodes volcanically. His violence should give him a Dostoevskian stature. It builds steadily through the scene as a virtual lunacy possesses him with the realization of his hopeless position.]

  ARCHIE: OH HO HO HO HO! Now you all listen to me! Quit giving looks back and forth an’ listen to me! Y’think I’m deaf, dumb an’ blind or somethin’, do yuh? You’re mistook, Oh, brother, but you’re much, much—mistook! Ohhhhh, I knooooow! —I guess I look like a—I guess I look like a—

  [Panting, puffing pause; he reels a little, clutching a chair back.]

  BABY DOLL [with an insolently childish lisp]: What d’you guess you look like, Archie Lee? Yo’ was about t’ tell us an’ then yuh quit fo’ some—

  ARCHIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah! Some little innocent Baby Doll of a wife not yet ready fo’ marriage, oh no, not yet ready for marriage but plenty ready t’— Oh, I see how it’s funny, I can see how it’s funny, I see the funny side of it. Oh ho ho ho ho! Yes it sure is comic, comic as hell! But there’s one little teeny-eensy little—thing that you—overlooked! I! Got position! Yeah, yeah, I got position! Here in this county. Where I was bo’n an’ brought up! I hold a respectable position, lifelong!—member of—Wait! Wait! Baby Doll. . .

  [Baby Doll has started to cross past him; he seizes her wrist. Vacarro stirs and tenses slightly but doesn’t rise or change his cool smile.]

  ARCHIE: On my side’re friends, long standin’ bus’ness associates, an’ social! See what I mean? You ain’t got that advantage, have yuh, mister? Huh, mister? Ain’t you a dago, or something, excuse me, I mean Eyetalian or something, here in Tiger Tail County?

  SILVA: Meighan, I’m not a doctor, but I was a medical corpsman in the Navy and you’ve got a very unhealthy looking flush on your face right now—almost as purple as a—

  [He was going to say “baboon’s ass.”]

  ARCHIE [bellowing out]: ALL I GOT TO DO IS GIT ON THAT PHONE IN THE HALL!

  SILVA: And call an ambulance from the county hospital?

  ARCHIE: Hell, I don’t even need t’ make a phone call! I can handle this situation m’self!—with legal protection that no one could—

  SILVA [still coolly]: What situation do you mean, Meighan?

  ARCHIE: Situation which I come home to find here under my roof! Oh, I’m not such a marble-missing old fool! I couldn’t size it up! —I sized it up the moment I seen you was still on this place and her!—with that sly smile on her!

  [He takes a great swallow of liquor from the fresh jug.]

  And you with yours on you! I know how to wipe off both of those sly—!

  [He crosses to the closet door. Baby Do
ll utters a gasp and signals to Vacarro to watch out. Vacarro rises calmly.]

  SILVA: Meighan?

  [He speaks coolly almost with a note of sympathy.]

  You know, and I know, and I know that you know that I know! —That you set fire to my cotton gin last night. You burnt down the Syndicate Gin and I got a confession and a witness whose testimony will hold up even in the law courts of Tiger Tail County! —That’s all I come here for and that’s all I got. . . whatever else you suspect—well!—you’re mistaken. . . . Isn’t that so, Mrs. Meighan? Isn’t your husband mistaken in thinking that I got anything out of this place but proof, which was the purpose of my all-afternoon call?

  [She looks at him, angry, hurt. Archie Lee wheels about, panting.]

  Yes, I’m foreign but I’m not revengeful, Meighan, at least not more than is rightful.

  [He smiles sweetly.]

  —I think we got a workable good neighbor policy between us. It might work out, anyhow I think it deserves a try. Now as to the other side of the situation, which I don’t have to mention. Well, all I can say is, a certain attraction—exists! Mutually, I believe! I took a nap in the nursery crib and I have a faint recollection of being sung to by someone—a lullaby song that was—sweet. . .

  [His voice is low, caressing.]

  —and the touch of—cool fingers.

  ARCHIE: Y’think I’m gonna put up with this—?

  SILVA: Situation? You went to a whole lot of risk an’ trouble to get my business back. Now don’t you want it? It’s up to you, Meighan, it’s—

  ARCHIE: COOL! Yeah, cool, very cool!

  SILVA: The heat of the fire’s died down. . .

  ARCHIE: UH HUH! YOU’VE FIXED YOUR WAGON! WITH THIS SMART TALK, YOU JUST NOW FIXED YOUR WAGON! I’M GONNA MAKE A PHONE CALL THAT’LL WIPE THE GRIN OFF YOUR GREASY WOP FACE FOR GOOD!

  [He charges into the hall and seizes the phone.]

  SILVA [crossing to Baby Doll at the kitchen sink]: Is my wop face greasy, Mrs. Meighan?

  [She remains at the mirror but her childish smile fades. Her face goes vacant and blind: she suddenly tilts her head back against the bare throat of the man standing behind her. Her eyes are clenched shut. . . . His eyelids flutter as his body presses against all the mindless virgin softness of her abundant young flesh. We can’t see their hands, but hers are stretched behind her, his before him.]

  ARCHIE [in the hall, bellowing like a steer]: I WANT SPOT, MIZZ HOPKINS, WHE’ IS SPOT!?

  BABY DOLL [to Vacarro]: I think you better go ’way. . .

  SILVA: I’m just waiting to take you girls away with me. . .

  BABY DOLL [softly as if in a dream]: Yeah. I’m goin’ too. I’ll check in at the Kotton King Hotel and— now I better go pack. . .

  [She releases herself regretfully from the embrace and crosses into the hall.

  [Silva looks after her. As she passes Archie Lee she utters a sharp outcry as Archie Lee strikes at her.]

  BABY DOLL: You ole son of a bitch, you’re gonna be sorry for ev’ry time you laid your ugly ole hands on me, you stinking stinker, stinkerrrrrr!

  [He has drawn back his hand to smack her again, but quick as lightning she snatches his thick-lensed glasses from his prominent nose and tosses them over her head.]

  BABY DOLL: There now! How’s your eye-sight?

  ARCHIE: Bitch! Bitch! Gimme back my glasses!

  BABY DOLL: Colleck ’em in hell!

  [Archie Lee stumbles dizzily about when he hears the screen door slamming on Silva’s exit. He starts crashing into chairs, the table, etc. Baby Doll watches with silent laughter from the hall. Archie has trouble locating the kitchen closet. While he is fumbling for it, Baby Doll dashes past the closet to the phone area and snatches the phone from the bare floor.]

  BABY DOLL [in a tense whisper]: Operator, git me the police chief of Tiger Tail, yais, the chief, not just the police. Quick, a crazy man’s in the house tryin’ t’ grab me! Aw! Chief! This is Baby Doll McCorkle, the ex-Mrs. Meighan out in the haunted house on Tiger Tail Road! You heah that commotion? That’s my ex-husband, Archie Lee Meighan, tryin’ to git his shotgun out of the closet. Oh my God, he’s got the gun-closet open, he’s—

  [Archie Lee seizes a broom then discovers his mistake with a howl of rage. He crashes against the wall. His nose is bloodied, but now he has his shotgun. Vacarro gives Baby Doll a soft whistle as she darts into the yard. He stands by the pecan tree, clutches a lower branch and swings up into a wide fork of the tree then leans over to lift Baby Doll up beside him. The fork is almost free of foliage so they are clearly visible.]

  SILVA: Climb higher so Meighan can’t see us!

  BABY DOLL [laughing]: He won’t be able to see an elephant’s ass, jus’ look!

  SILVA: Shhh!

  [Archie Lee has staggered onto the porch with shotgun. He collides with a column then shoots wildly at a shadow swaying in the wind. Aunt Rose screams. Archie Lee falls off the porch.]

  ARCHIE: WOP, WOP, YELLA-BELLY, WHERE ARE YUH?

  [He careens dizzily around the yard, fires at a chicken coop, then into the wheelless and topless chassis of the derelict automobile, then here, then there. He exits around the side of the house.]

  BABY DOLL: How long we gonna be possums up this tree?

  SILVA: Shhh! Police will be here soon.

  [The wind is loud, shadows are swaying crazily in the yard. Aunt Rose scuttles out of the front door onto the porch, weighed down by her ancient suitcase, roped together. We hear the shotgun again.]

  AUNT ROSE: E-E-EEE! Baby Doll, honey? Baby Doll, honey?

  SILVA: Don’t answer yet!

  [THERE IS A SHOTGUN BLAST FROM THE BACK OF THE HOUSE.]

  AUNT ROSE: Terrible thunder-stawm’s struck! Heaven have mercy, I hope it’s not a cyclone!

  [She drops her suitcase, backs against wall, hand to her thin chest. Sound: fade in police siren approaching. Light: circular and blue pattern of the police car light behind the house. Archie Lee screams: “Baby Doll! Baby Doll!”]

  BABY DOLL: Poor ol’ Aunt Rose Comfort, she don’t know where to go or what to do.

  SILVA: Does anyone know where to go or what to do, Bambina?

  [He draws her tight into his arms.

  [Archie stumbles maniacally into view.]

  ARCHIE: Baby Doll, my baby! Yella son of a—

  [He staggers over a crate and sprawls onto ground among the litter of uncollected garbage. The police appear and pick him up.]

  Wha’s this, who’s you?

  SHERIFF: This here is Sheriff Coglan and that there’s Deputy Tufts, Archie Lee, and right around here is the wagon. Got a call on you, boy!

  [They support his limping figure upstage.]

  ARCHIE: Is something wrong, what is it, what’re you doin’?

  SHERIFF: Takin’ you into town, boy.

  ARCHIE: Not without my Baby Doll, not without my baby! BABY DOLL!

  DEPUTY: Hell, she don’t need you, she don’t need nobody tonight. Ha Ha!

  [They disappear back of the house. A motor starts, then rapidly fades out.]

  AUNT ROSE [in a tremulous voice]: “Rock of ages, cleft for me,

  Let me hide my self in thee!”

  [Night sounds—musical, peaceful. Aunt Rose rocks on the front porch and sings. The lovers remain in the tree as the lights fade to a single blue light on the lovers that eventually goes out as if the moon passed behind a cloud.]

  END OF PLAY

  The following is the lyric for Ruby to sing at the beginning of Act II, Scene 2:

  RUBY [singing and moving sensually]:

  Many white gents respected high

  are respected higher when they die.

  Oh, we miss ’em but we know

  they gone to where white gents all go.

  Maybe so and maybe no

  but when I turn the red lights low

  and when I turn the music slow,

  a doubt will creep into my mind,

  a wonder that I can’t deny,

  would they ruth
er climb the sky

  than the stairs at Ruby’s place

  with girls in satin underlace!?

  Brown satin girls, dressed in lace,

  —at Ruby’s place.

  By TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

  PLAYS

  Baby Doll & Tiger Tail

  Camino Real

  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

  Clothes for a Summer Hotel

  Dragon Country

  The Glass Menagerie

  A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

  The Red Devil Battery Sign

  Small Craft Warnings

  Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays

  A Streetcar Named Desire

  Sweet Bird of Youth

  THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME I

  Battle of Angels, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie

  THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME II

  The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real

  THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME III

  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Suddenly Last Summer

  THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME IV

  Sweet Bird of Youth, Period of Adjustment, The Night of the Iguana

  THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME V

  The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle), Small Craft Warnings, The Two-Character Play

  THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VI

  27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Short Plays