Three Plays of Tennessee Williams

by Tennessee Williams

  BIG DADDY: We got that dock the summer we wint to Europe, me an' Big Mama on that damn Cook's Tour, never had such an awful time in my life, I'm tellin' you, son, those gooks over there, they gouge your eyeballs out in their grand hotels. And Big Mama bought more stuff than you could haul in a couple of boxcars, that's no crap. Everywhere she wint on this whirlwind tour, she bought, bought, bought. Why, half that stuff she bought is still crated up in the cellar, under water last spring!

  [He laughs.]

  That Europe is nothin' on earth but a great big auction, that's all it is, that bunch of old worn-out places, it's just a big fire-sale, the whole rutten thing, an' Big Mama wint wild in it, why, you couldn't hold that woman with a mule's harness! Bought, bought, bought!—lucky I'm a rich man, yes siree, Bob, an' half that stuff is mildewin' in th' basement. It's lucky I'm a rich man, it sure is lucky, well, I'm a rich man, Brick, yep, I'm a mighty rich man.

  [His eyes light up for a moment.]

  Y'know how much I'm worth? Guess, Brick! Guess how much I'm worth!

  [Brick smiles vaguely over his drink.]

  Close on ten million in cash an' blue chip stocks, outside, mind you, of twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile!

  [A puff and crackle and the night sky blooms with an eerie greenish glow. Children shriek on the gallery.]

  But a man can't buy his life with it, he can't buy back his life with it when his life has been spent, that's one thing not offered in the Europe fire-sale or in the American markets or any markets on earth, a man can't buy his life with it, he can't buy back his life when his life is finished.... That's a sobering thought, a very sobering thought, and that's a thought that I was turning over in my head, over and over and over—until today.... I'm wiser and sadder, Brick, for this experience which I just gone through. They's one thing else that I remember in Europe.

  BRICK: What is that, Big Daddy?

  BIG DADDY: The hills around Barcelona in the country of Spain and the children running over those bare hills in their bare skins beggin' like starvin' dogs with howls and screeches, and how fat the priests are on the streets of Barcelona, so many of them and so fat and so pleasant, ha ha!—Y'know I could feed that country? I got money enough to feed that goddam country, but the human animal is a selfish beast and I don't reckon the money I passed out there to those howling children in the hills around Barcelona would more than upholster one of the chairs in this room, I mean pay to put a new cover on this chair! Hell, I threw them money like you'd scatter feed corn for chickens, I threw money at them just to get rid of them long enough to climb back into th' car and—drive away....

  And then in Morocco, them Arabs, why, prostitution begins at four or five, that's no exaggeration, why, I remember one day in Marrakech that old walled Arab city, I set on a broken-down wall to have a cigar, it was fearful hot there and this Arab woman stood in the road and looked at me till I was embarrassed, she stood stock still in the dusty hot road and looked at me till I was embarrassed. But listen to this. She had a naked child with her, a little naked girl with her, barely able to toddle, and after a while she set this child on the ground and give her a push and whispered something to her. This child come toward me, barely able t' walk, come toddling up to me and—Jesus, it makes you sick t' remember a thing like this! It stuck out its hand and tried to unbutton my trousers! That child was not yet five! Can you believe me? Or do you think that I am making this up? I wint back to the hotel and said to Big Mama, Git packed! We're clearing out of this country....

  BRICK: Big Daddy, you're on a talkin' jag tonight.

  BIG DADDY [ignoring this remark]: Yes, sir, that's how it is, the human animal is a beast that dies but the fact that he's dying don't give him pity for others, no, sir, it——Did you say something?

  BRICK: Yes.

  BIG DADDY: What?

  BRICK: Hand me over that crutch so I can get up.

  BIG DADDY: Where you goin'?

  BRICK: I'm takin' a little short trip to Echo Spring.

  BIG DADDY: To where?

  BRICK: Liquor cabinet....

  BIG DADDY: Yes, sir, boy—

  [He hands Brick the crutch.]

  —The human animal is a beast that dies and if he's got money he buys and buys and buys and I think the reason he buys everything he can buy is that in the back of his mind he has the crazy hope that one of his purchases will be life everlasting!—Which it never can be—The human animal is a beast that—

  BRICK [at the liquor cabinet]: Big Daddy, you sure are shootin' th' breeze here tonight.

  [There is a pause and voices are heard outside.]

  BIG DADDY: I been quiet here lately, spoke not a word, just sat and stared into space. I had something heavy weighing on my mind but tonight that load was took off me. That's why I'm talking.—The sky looks diff'rent to me....

  BRICK: You know what I like to hear most?

  BIG DADDY: What?

  BRICK: Solid quiet. Perfect unbroken quiet.

  BIG DADDY: Why?

  BRICK: Because it's more peaceful.

  BIG DADDY: Man, you'll hear a lot of that in the grave.

  [He chuckles agreeably.]

  BRICK: Are you through talkin' to me?

  BIG DADDY: Why are you so anxious to shut me up?

  BRICK: Well, sir, ever so often you say to me, Brick, I want to have a talk with you, but when we talk, it never materializes. Nothing is said. You sit in a chair and gas about this and that and I look like I listen. I try to look like I listen, but I don't listen, not much. Communication is—awful hard between people an'—somehow between you and me, it just don't—

  BIG DADDY: Have you ever been scared? I mean have you ever felt downright terror of something?

  [He gets up.]

  Just one moment. I'm going to close these doors....

  [He closes doors on gallery as if he were going to tell an important secret.]

  BRICK: What?

  BIG DADDY: Brick?

  BRICK: Huh?

  BIG DADDY: Son, I thought I had it!

  BRICK: Had what? Had what, Big Daddy?

  BIG DADDY: Cancer!

  BRICK: Oh...

  BIG DADDY: I thought the old man made out of bones had laid his cold and heavy hand on my shoulder!

  BRICK: Well, Big Daddy, you kept a tight mouth about it.

  BIG DADDY: A pig squeals. A man keeps a tight mouth about it, in spite of a man not having a pig's advantage.

  BRICK: What advantage is that?

  BIG DADDY: Ignorance—of mortality—is a comfort. A man don't have that comfort, he's the only living thing that conceives of death, that knows what it is. The others go without knowing, which is the way that anything living should go, go without knowing, without any knowledge of it, and yet a pig squeals, but a man sometimes, he can keep a tight mouth about it. Sometimes he—

  [There is a deep, smouldering ferocity in the old man.]

  —can keep a tight mouth about it. I wonder if—

  BRICK: What, Big Daddy?

  BIG DADDY: A whisky highball would injure this spastic condition?

  BRICK: No, sir, it might do it good.

  BIG DADDY [grins suddenly, wolfishly]: Jesus, I can't tell you! The sky is open! Christ, it's open again! It's open, boy, it's open!

  [Brick looks down at his drink.]

  BRICK: You feel better, Big Daddy?

  BIG DADDY: Better? Hell! I can breathe!—All of my life I been like a doubled up fist....

  [He pours a drink.]

  Poundin', smashin', drivin' I—now I'm going to loosen these doubled up hands and touch things easy with them....

  [He spreads his hands as if caressing the air.]

  You know what I'm contemplating?

  BRICK [vaguely]: No, sir. What are you contemplating?

  BIG DADDY: Ha ha!—Pleasure!—pleasure with women!

  [Brick's smile fades a little but lingers.]

  Brick, this stuff burns me!——Yes, boy. I'll tell you something t
hat you might not guess. I still have desire for women and this is my sixty-fifth birthday.

  BRICK: I think that's mighty remarkable, Big Daddy.

  BIG DADDY: Remarkable?

  BRICK: Admirable, Big Daddy.

  BIG DADDY: You're damn right it is, remarkable and admirable both. I realize now that I never had me enough. I let many chances slip by because of scruples about it, scruples, convention—crap.... All that stuff is bull, bull, bull!—It took the shadow of death to make me see it. Now that shadow's lifted, I'm going to cut loose and have, what is it they call it, have me a—ball!

  BRICK: A ball, huh?

  BIG DADDY: That's right, a ball, a ball! Hell!—I slept with Big Mama till, let's see, five years ago, till I was sixty and she was fifty-eight, and never even liked her, never did!

  [The phone has been ringing down the hall. Big Mama enters, exclaiming:]

  BIG MAMA: Don't you men hear that phone ring? I heard it way out on the gall'ry.

  BIG DADDY: There's five rooms off this front gall'ry that you could go through. Why do you go through this one?

  [Big Mama makes a playful face as she bustles out the hall door.]

  Huh!—Why, when Big Mama goes out of a room, I can't remember what that woman looks like, but when Big Mama comes back into the room, boy, then I see what she looks like, and I wish I didn't!

  [Bends over laughing at this joke till it hurts his guts and he straightens with a grimace. The laugh subsides to a chuckle as he puts the liquor glass a little distrustfully down on the table. | Brick has risen and hobbled to the gallery doors.]

  Hey! Where you goin'?

  BRICK: Out for a breather.

  BIG DADDY: Not yet you ain't. Stay here till this talk is finished, young fellow.

  BRICK: I thought it was finished, Big Daddy.

  BIG DADDY: It ain't even begun.

  BRICK: My mistake. Excuse me. I just wanted to feel that river breeze.

  BIG DADDY: Turn on the ceiling fan and set back down in that chair.

  [Big Mama's voice rises, carrying down the hall.]

  BIG MAMA: Miss Sally, you're a case! You're a caution, Miss Sally. Why didn't you give me a chance to explain it to you?

  BIG DADDY: Jesus, she's talking to my old maid sister again.

  BIG MAMA: Well, goodbye, now, Miss Sally. You come down real soon, Big Daddy's dying to see you! Yaisss, goodbye, Miss Sally....

  [She hangs up and bellows with mirth. Big Daddy groans and covers his ears as she approaches. Bursting in:]

  Big Daddy, that was Miss Sally callin' from Memphis again! You know what she done, Big Daddy? She called her doctor in Memphis to git him to tell her what that spastic thing is!! Ha-HAAAA!—And called back to tell me how relieved she was that—Hey! Let me in!

  [Big Daddy has been holding the door half closed against her.]

  BIG DADDY: Naw I ain't. I told you not to come and go through this room. You just back out and go through those five other rooms.

  BIG MAMA: Big Daddy? Big Daddy? Oh, Big Daddy!—You didn't meant those things you said to me, did you?

  [He shuts door firmly against her but she still calls.]

  Sweetheart? Sweetheart? Big Daddy? You didn't mean those awful things you said to me?—I know you didn't. I know you didn't mean those things in your heart....

  [The childlike voice fades with a sob and her heavy footsteps retreat down the hall. Brick has risen once more on his crutch and starts for the gallery again.]

  BIG DADDY: All I ask of that woman is that she leave me alone. But she can't admit to herself that she makes me sick. That comes of having slept with her too many years. Should of quit much sooner but that old woman she never got enough of it—and I was good in bed... I never should of wasted so much of it on her.... They say you got just so many and each one is numbered. Well, I got a few left in me, a few, and I'm going to pick me a good one to spend 'em on! I'm going to pick me a choice one, I don't care how much she costs, I'll smother her in—minks! Ha ha! I'll strip her naked and smother her in minks and choke her with diamonds! Ha ha! I'll strip her naked and choke her with diamonds and smother her with minks and hump her from hell to breakfast. Ha ha ha ha ha!

  MAE [gaily at door]: Who's that laughin' in there?

  GOOPER: Is Big Daddy laughin' in there?

  BIG DADDY: Crap!—them two—drips....

  [He goes over and touches brick's shoulder.]

  Yes, son. Brick, boy.—I'm—happy! I'm happy, son, I'm happy!

  [He chokes a little and bites his under lip, pressing his head quickly, shyly against his son's head and then, coughing with embarrassment, goes uncertainly back to the table where he set down the glass. He drinks and makes a grimace as it burns his guts. Brick sighs and rises with effort.]

  What makes you so restless? Have you got ants in your britches?

  BRICK: Yes, sir...

  BIG DADDY: Why?

  BRICK: —Something—hasn't—happened....

  BIG DADDY: Yeah? What is that!

  BRICK [sadly]: —the click....

  BIG DADDY: Did you say click?

  BRICK: Yes, click.

  BIG DADDY: What click?

  BRICK: A click that I get in my head that makes me peaceful.

  BIG DADDY: I sure in hell don't know what you're talking about, but it disturbs me.

  BRICK: It's just a mechanical thing.

  BIG DADDY: What is a mechanical thing?

  BRICK: This click that I get in my head that makes me peaceful. I got to drink till I get it. It's just a mechanical thing, something like a—like a—like a—

  BIG DADDY: Like a—

  BRICK: Switch clicking off in my head, turning the hot light off and the cool night on and—

  [He looks up, smiling sadly.] —all of a sudden there's—peace!

  BIG DADDY [whistles long and soft with astonishment; he goes back to Brick and clasps his son's two shoulders]: Jesus! I didn't know it had gotten that bad with you. Why, boy, you're—alcoholic!

  BRICK: That's the truth, Big Daddy. I'm alcoholic.

  BIG DADDY: This shows how I—let things go!

  BRICK: I have to hear that little click in my head that makes me peaceful. Usually I hear it sooner than this, sometimes as early as—noon, but——Today it's—dilatory.... I just haven't got the right level of alcohol in my bloodstream yet!

  [This last statement is made with energy as he freshens his drink.]

  BIG DADDY: Uh—huh. Expecting death made me blind. I didn't have no idea that a son of mine was turning into a drunkard under my nose.

  BRICK [gently]: Well, now you do, Big Daddy, the news has penetrated.

  BIG DADDY: Uh-huh, yes, now I do, the news has—penetrated....

  BRICK: And so if you'll excuse me—

  BIG DADDY: No, I won't excuse you.

  BRICK: —I'd better sit by myself till I hear that click in my head, it's just a mechanical thing but it don't happen except when I'm alone or talking to no one....

  BIG DADDY: You got a long, long time to sit still, boy, and talk to no one, but now you're talkin' to me. At least I'm talking to you. And you set there and listen until I tell you the conversation is over!

  BRICK: But this talk is like all the others we've ever had together in our lives! It's nowhere, nowhere!—it's—it's painful, Big Daddy....

  BIG DADDY: All right, then let it be painful, but don't you move from that chair!—I'm going to remove that crutch....

  [He seizes the crutch and tosses it across room.]

  BRICK: I can hop on one foot, and if I fall, I can crawl!

  BIG DADDY: If you ain't careful you're gonna crawl off this plantation and then, by Jesus, you'll have to hustle your drinks along Skid Row!

  BRICK: That'll come, Big Daddy.

  BIG DADDY: Naw, it won't. You're my son, and I'm going to straighten you out; now that I'm straightened out, I'm going to straighten out you!

  BRICK: Yeah?

  BIG DADDY: Today the report come in from Ochsner Clinic. Y'know what they t
old me?

  [His face glows with triumph.]

  The only thing that they could detect with all the instruments of science in that great hospital is a little spastic condition of the colon! And nerves torn to pieces by all that worry about it.

  [A little girl bursts into room with a sparkler clutched in each fist, bops and shrieks like a monkey gone mad and rushes back out again as Big Daddy strikes at her. Silence. The two men stare at each other. A woman laughs gaily outside.]

  I want you to know I breathed a sigh of relief almost as powerful as the Vicksburg tornado!

  BRICK: You weren't ready to go?