Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer

by Tennessee Williams

  Footsteps descending: Lady appears on the landing in a flannel robe, shivering in the cold air; she snaps her fingers impatiently for the old dog, Bella, who comes limping down beside her. She doesn’t see Val, seated on the shadowy counter, and she goes directly to the phone near the stairs. Her manner is desperate, her voice harsh and shrill.

  LADY: Ge’ me the drugstore, will you? I know the drugstore’s closed, this is Mrs. Torrance, my store’s closed, too, but I got a sick man here, just back from the hospital, yeah, yeah, an emergency, wake up Mr. Dubinsky, keep ringing till he answers, it’s an emergency! [Pause: she mutters under her breath:] —Porca la miseria! —I wish I was dead, dead, dead. . . .

  VAL [quietly]: No, you don’t, lady.

  [She gasps, turning and seeing him, without leaving the phone, she rings the cashbox open and snatches out something.]

  LADY: What’re you doin’ here? You know this store is closed!

  VAL: I seen a light was still on and the door was open so I come back to—

  LADY: You see what I got in my hand? [Raises revolver above level of counter.]

  VAL: You going to shoot me?

  LADY: You better believe it if you don’t get out of here, mister!

  VAL: That’s all right, Lady, I just come back to pick up my guitar.

  LADY: To pick up your guitar?

  [He lifts it gravely.]

  —Huh. . . .

  VAL: Mizz Talbott brought me here. I was here when you got back from Memphis, don’t you remember?

  LADY: —Aw. Aw, yeah. . . . You been here all this time?

  VAL: No. I went out and come back.

  LADY [into the phone]: I told you to keep ringing till he answers! Go on, keep ringing, keep ringing! [Then to Val:] You went out and come back?

  VAL: Yeah.

  LADY: What for?

  VAL: You know that girl that was here?

  LADY: Carol Cutrere?

  VAL: She said she had car trouble and could I fix it.

  LADY: —Did you fix it?

  VAL: She didn’t have no car trouble, that wasn’t her trouble, oh, she had trouble, all right, but that wasn’t it. . . .

  LADY: What was her trouble?

  VAL: She made a mistake about me.

  LADY: What mistake?

  VAL: She thought I had a sign “Male at Stud” hung on me.

  LADY: She thought you—? [Into phone suddenly:] Oh, Mr. Dubinsky, I’m sorry to wake you up but I just brought my husband back from the Memphis hospital and I left my box of Luminal tablets in the—I got to have some! I ain’t slep’ for three nights, I’m going to pieces, you hear me, I’m going to pieces, I ain’t slept in three nights, I got to have some tonight. Now you look here, if you want to keep my trade, you send me over some tablets. Then bring them yourself, God damn it, excuse my French! Because I’m going to pieces right this minute! [Hangs up violently.] —Mannage la miseria! —Christ. . . . I’m shivering! —It’s cold as a goddam ice plant in this store, I don’t know why, it never seems to hold heat, the ceiling’s too high or something, it don’t hold heat at all. —Now what do you want? I got to go upstairs.

  VAL: Here. Put this on you. [He removes his jacket and hands it to her. She doesn’t take it at once, stares at him questioningly and then slowly takes the jacket in her hands and examines it, running her fingers curiously over the snakeskin.]

  LADY: What is this stuff this thing’s made of? It looks like it was snakeskin.

  VAL: Yeah, well, that’s what it is.

  LADY: What’re you doing with a snakeskin jacket?

  VAL: It’s a sort of a trademark; people call me Snakeskin.

  LADY: Who calls you Snakeskin?

  VAL: Oh, in the bars, the sort of places I work in—but I’ve quit that. I’m through with that stuff now. . . .

  LADY: You’re a—entertainer?

  VAL: I sing and play the guitar.

  LADY: —Aw? [She puts the jacket on as if to explore it.] It feels warm all right.

  VAL: It’s warm from my body, I guess. . . .

  LADY: You must be a warm-blooded boy. . . .

  VAL: That’s right. . . .

  LADY: Well, what in God’s name are you lookin’ for around here?

  VAL: —Work.

  LADY: Boys like you don’t work.

  VAL: What d’you mean by boys like me?

  LADY: Ones that play th’ guitar and go around talkin’ about how warm they are. . . .

  VAL: That happens t’ be the truth. My temperature’s always a couple degrees above normal the same as a dog’s, it’s normal for me the same as it is for a dog, that’s the truth. . . .

  LADY: —Huh!

  VAL: You don’t believe me?

  LADY: I have no reason to doubt you, but what about it?

  VAL: —Why—nothing. . . .

  [Lady laughs softly and suddenly; Val smiles slowly and warmly.]

  LADY: You’re a peculiar somebody all right, you sure are! How did you get around here?

  VAL: I was driving through here last night and an axle broke on my car, that stopped me here, and I went to the county jail for a place to sleep out of the rain. Mizz Talbott took me in and give me a cot in the lockup and said if I hung around till you got back that you might give me a job in the store to help out since your husband was tooken sick.

  LADY: —Uh-huh. Well—she was wrong about that. . . . If I took on help here it would have to be local help, I couldn’t hire no stranger with a—snakeskin jacket and a guitar . . . and that runs a temperature as high as a dog’s! [Throws back her head in another soft, sudden laugh and starts to take off the jacket.]

  VAL: Keep it on.

  LADY: No, I got to go up now and you had better be going . . .

  VAL: I got nowhere to go.

  LADY: Well, everyone’s got a problem and that’s yours.

  VAL: —What nationality are you?

  LADY: Why do you ask me that?

  VAL: You seem to be like a foreigner.

  LADY: I’m the daughter of a Wop bootlegger burned to death in his orchard! —Take your jacket. . . .

  VAL: What was that you said about your father?

  LADY: Why?

  VAL: —A “Wop bootlegger”?

  LADY: —They burned him to death in his orchard! What about it? The story’s well known around here. [Jabe knocks on ceiling.] I got to go up, I’m being called for.

  [She turns out light over counter and at the same moment he begins to sing softly with his guitar: “Heavenly Grass.” He suddenly stops short and says abruptly:]

  VAL: I do electric repairs. [Lady stares at him softly.] I can do all kinds of odd jobs. Lady, I’m thirty today and I’m through with the life that I’ve been leading. [Pause. Dog bays in distance.] I lived in corruption but I’m not corrupted. Here is why. [Picks up his guitar.] My life’s companion! It washes me clean like water when anything unclean has touched me. . . . [Plays softly, with a slow smile.]

  LADY: What’s all that writing on it?

  VAL: Autographs of musicians I run into here and there.

  LADY: Can I see it?

  VAL: Turn on that light above you.

  [She switches on green-shaded bulb over counter. Val holds the instrument tenderly between them as if it were a child; his voice is soft, intimate, tender.]

  See this name? Leadbelly?

  LADY: Leadbelly?

  VAL: Greatest man ever lived on the twelve-string guitar! Played it so good he broke the stone heart of a Texas governor with it and won himself a pardon out of jail. . . . And see this name Oliver? King Oliver? That name is immortal, Lady. Greatest man since Gabriel on a horn. . . .

  LADY: What’s this name?

  VAL: Oh. That name? That name is also immortal. The name Bessie Smith is written in the stars! —Jim Crow killed h
er, John Barleycorn and Jim Crow killed Bessie Smith but that’s another story. . . . See this name here? That’s another immortal!

  LADY: Fats Waller? Is his name written in the stars, too?

  VAL: Yes, his name is written in the stars, too. . . .

  [Her voice is also intimate and soft: a spell of softness between them, their bodies almost touching, only divided by the guitar.]

  LADY: You had any sales experience?

  VAL: All my life I been selling something to someone.

  LADY: So’s everybody. You got any character reference on you?

  VAL: I have this—letter. [Removes a worn, folded letter from a wallet, dropping a lot of snapshots and cards of various kinds on the floor. He passes the letter to her gravely and crouches to collect the dropped articles while she peruses the character reference.]

  LADY [reading slowly aloud]: “This boy worked for me three months in my auto repair shop and is a real hard worker and is good and honest but is a peculiar talker and that is the reason I got to let him go but would like to— [Holds letter closer to light.] —would like to—keep him. Yours truly.” [Val stares at her gravely, blinking a little.] Huh! —Some reference!

  VAL: —Is that what it says?

  LADY: Didn’t you know what it said?

  VAL: No. —The man sealed the envelope on it.

  LADY: Well, that’s not the sort of character reference that will do you much good, boy.

  VAL: Naw. I guess it ain’t.

  LADY: —However. . . .

  VAL: —What?

  LADY: What people say about you don’t mean much. Can you read shoe sizes?

  VAL: I guess so.

  LADY: What does 75 David mean? [Val stares at her, shakes head slowly.] 75 means seven and one half long and David mean “D” wide. You know how to make change?

  VAL: Yeah, I could make change in a store.

  LADY: Change for better or worse? Ha ha! —Well— [Pause.] Well—you see that other room there, through that arch there? That’s the confectionery; it’s closed now but it’s going to be reopened in a short while and I’m going to compete for the night life in this county, the after-the-movies trade. I’m going to serve setups in there and I’m going to redecorate. I got it all planned. [She is talking eagerly now, as if to herself.] Artificial branches of fruit trees in flower on the walls and ceilings! —It’s going to be like an orchard in the spring! —My father, he had an orchard on Moon Lake. He made a wine garden of it. We had fifteen little white arbors with tables in them and they were covered with—grapevines and—we sold Dago red wine an’ bootleg whiskey and beer. —They burned it up! My father was burned up in it. . . .

  [Jabe knocks above more loudly and a hoarse voice shouts “Lady!” Figure appears at the door and calls: “Mrs. Torrance?”]

  Oh, that’s the sandman with my sleeping tablets. [Crosses to door.] Thanks, Mr. Dubinsky, sorry I had to disturb you, sorry I— [Man mutters something and goes. She closes the door.] Well, go to hell, then, old bastard. . . . [Returns with package.] —You ever have trouble sleeping?

  VAL: I can sleep or not sleep as long or short as I want to.

  LADY: Is that right?

  VAL: I can sleep on a concrete floor or go without sleeping, without even feeling sleepy, for forty-eight hours. And I can hold my breath three minutes without blacking out; I made ten dollars betting I could do it and I did it! And I can go a whole day without passing water.

  LADY [startled]: Is that a fact?

  VAL [very simply as if he’d made an ordinary remark]: That’s a fact. I served time on a chain gang for vagrancy once and they tied me to a post all day and I stood there all day without passing water to show the sons of bitches that I could do it.

  LADY: —I see what that auto repair man was talking about when he said this boy is a peculiar talker! Well—what else can you do? Tell me some more about your self-control!

  VAL [grinning]: Well, they say that a woman can burn a man down. But I can burn down a woman.

  LADY: Which woman?

  VAL: Any two-footed woman.

  LADY [throws back her head in sudden friendly laughter as he grins at her with the simple candor of a child]: —Well, there’s lots of two-footed women round here that might be willin’ to test the truth of that statement.

  VAL: I’m saying I could. I’m not saying I would.

  LADY: Don’t worry, boy. I’m one two-footed woman that you don’t have to convince of your perfect controls.

  VAL: No, I’m done with all that.

  LADY: What’s the matter? Have they tired you out?

  VAL: I’m not tired. I’m disgusted.

  LADY: Aw, you’re disgusted, huh?

  VAL: I’m telling you, Lady, there’s people bought and sold in this world like carcasses of hogs in butcher shops!

  LADY: You ain’t tellin’ me nothin’ I don’t know.

  VAL: You might think there’s many and many kinds of people in this world but, Lady, there’s just two kinds of people, the ones that are bought and the buyers! No!—there’s one other kind . . .

  LADY: What kind’s that?

  VAL: The kind that’s never been branded.

  LADY: You will be, man.

  VAL: They got to catch me first.

  LADY: Well, then, you better not settle down in this county.

  VAL: You know they’s a kind of bird that don’t have legs so it can’t light on nothing but has to stay all its life on its wings in the sky? That’s true. I seen one once, it had died and fallen to earth and it was light-blue colored and its body was tiny as your little finger, that’s the truth, it had a body as tiny as your little finger and so light on the palm of your hand it didn’t weigh more than a feather, but its wings spread out this wide but they was transparent, the color of the sky and you could see through them. That’s what they call protection coloring. Camouflage, they call it. You can’t tell those birds from the sky and that’s why the hawks don’t catch them, don’t see them up there in the high blue sky near the sun!

  LADY: How about in gray weather?

  VAL: They fly so high in gray weather the goddam hawks would get dizzy. But those little birds, they don’t have no legs at all and they live their whole lives on the wing, and they sleep on the wind, that’s how they sleep at night, they just spread their wings and go to sleep on the wind like other birds fold their wings and go to sleep on a tree. . . . [Music fades in.] —They sleep on the wind and . . . [His eyes grow soft and vague and he lifts his guitar and accompanies the very faint music.] —never light on this earth but one time when they die!

  LADY: —I’d like to be one of those birds.

  VAL: So’d I like to be one of those birds; they’s lots of people would like to be one of those birds and never be—corrupted!

  LADY: If one of those birds ever dies and falls on the ground and you happen to find it, I wish you would show it to me because I think maybe you just imagine there is a bird of that kind in existence. Because I don’t think nothing living has ever been that free, not even nearly. Show me one of them birds and I’ll say, Yes, God’s made one perfect creature! —I sure would give this mercantile store and every bit of stock in it to be that tiny bird the color of the sky . . . for one night to sleep on the wind and—float!—around under th’—stars . . . [Jabe knocks on floor, Lady’s eyes return to Val.] —Because I sleep with a son of a bitch who bought me at a fire sale, and not in fifteen years have I had a single good dream, not one—oh! —Shit . . . I don’t know why I’m—telling a stranger—this. . . . [She rings the cashbox open.] Take this dollar and go eat at the Al-Nite on the highway and come back here in the morning and I’ll put you to work. I’ll break you in clerking here and when the new confectionery opens, well, maybe I can use you in there. —That door locks when you close it! —But let’s get one thing straight.

  VAL: What thing?

/>   LADY: I’m not interested in your perfect functions, in fact you don’t interest me no more than the air that you stand in. If that’s understood we’ll have a good working relation, but otherwise trouble! —Of course I know you’re crazy, but they’s lots of crazier people than you are still running loose and some of them in high positions, too. Just remember. No monkey business with me. Now go. Go eat, you’re hungry.

  VAL: Mind if I leave this here? My life’s companion? [He means his guitar.]

  LADY: Leave it here if you want to.

  VAL: Thanks, Lady.

  LADY: Don’t mention it.

  [He crosses toward the door as a dog barks with passionate clarity in the distance. He turns to smile back at her and says:]

  VAL: I don’t know nothing about you except you’re nice but you are just about the nicest person that I have ever run into! And I’m going to be steady and honest and hardworking to please you and any time you have any more trouble sleeping, I know how to fix that for you. A lady osteopath taught me how to make little adjustments in the neck and spine that give you sound, natural sleep. Well, g’night, now.

  [He goes out. Count five. Then she throws back her head and laughs as lightly and gaily as a young girl. Then she turns and wonderingly picks up and runs her hands tenderly over his guitar as the curtain falls.]

  ACT TWO

  The store, afternoon, a few weeks later. The table and chair are back in the confectionery. Lady is hanging up the phone. Val is standing just outside the door. He turns and enters. Outside on the highway a mule team is laboring to pull a big truck back on the icy pavement. A Negro’s voice shouts: “Hyyyyyyyyy-up.”

  VAL [moving to right window]: One a them big Diamond T trucks an’ trailors gone off the highway last night and a six-mule team is tryin’ t’ pull it back on. . . . [He looks out window.]

  LADY [coming from behind to right of counter]: Mister, we just now gotten a big fat complaint about you from a woman that says if she wasn’t a widow her husband would come in here and beat the tar out of you.