Carson McCullers

by Carson McCullers

  BERENICE: What of it? I got a date with T. T. and he’s supposed to pick me up here. I wish him and Honey would come on. You make me nervous.

  (FRANKIE sits miserably, her shoulders hunched. Then with a sudden gesture she bangs her forehead on the table. Her fists are clenched and she is sobbing.)

  BERENICE: Come on. Don’t act like that.

  FRANKIE (her voice muffled): They were so pretty. They must have such a good time. And they went away and left me.

  BERENICE: Sit up. Behave yourself.

  FRANKIE: They came and went away, and left me with this feeling.

  BERENICE: Hosee! I bet I know something. (She begins tapping with her heel: one, two, three—bang! After a pause, in which the rhythm is established, she begins singing.) Frankie’s got a crush! Frankie’s got a crush! Frankie’s got a crush on the wedding!

  FRANKIE: Quit!

  BERENICE: Frankie’s got a crush! Frankie’s got a crush!

  FRANKIE: You better quit! (She rises suddenly and snatches up the carving knife.)

  BERENICE: You lay down that knife.

  FRANKIE: Make me. (She bends the blade slowly.)

  BERENICE: Lay it down, Devil. (There is a silence.) Just throw it! You just!

  (After a pause FRANKIE aims the knife carefully at the closed door leading to the bedroom and throws it. The knife does not stick in the wall.)

  FRANKIE: I used to be the best knife thrower in this town.

  BERENICE: Frances Addams, you goin’ to try that stunt once too often.

  FRANKIE: I warned you to quit pickin’ with me.

  BERENICE: You are not fit to live in a house.

  FRANKIE: I won’t be living in this one much longer; I’m going to run away from home.

  BERENICE: And a good riddance to a big old bag of rubbage.

  FRANKIE: You wait and see. I’m leaving town.

  BERENICE: And where do you think you are going?

  FRANKIE (gazing around the walls): I don’t know.

  BERENICE: You’re going crazy. That’s where you going.

  FRANKIE: No. (solemnly) This coming Sunday after the wedding, I’m leaving town. And I swear to Jesus by my two eyes I’m never coming back here any more.

  BERENICE (going to FRANKIE and pushing her damp bangs back from her forehead): Sugar? You serious?

  FRANKIE (exasperated): Of course! Do you think I would stand here and say that swear and tell a story? Sometimes, Berenice, I think it takes you longer to realize a fact than it does anybody who ever lived.

  BERENICE: But you say you don’t know where you going. You going, but you don’t know where. That don’t make no sense to me.

  FRANKIE (after a long pause in which she again gazes around the walls of the room): I feel just exactly like somebody has peeled all the skin off me. I wish I had some good cold peach ice cream. (BERENICE takes her by the shoulders.)

  (During the last speech, T. T. WILLIAMS and HONEY CAMDEN BROWN have been approaching through the back yard. T. T. is a large and pompous-looking Negro man of about fifty. He is dressed like a church deacon, in a black suit with a red emblem in the lapel. His manner is timid and over-polite. HONEY is a slender, limber Negro boy of about twenty. He is quite light in color and he wears loud-colored, snappy clothes. He is brusque and there is about him an odd mixture of hostility and playfulness. He is very high-strung and volatile. They are trailed by JOHN HENRY. JOHN HENRY is dressed for afternoon in a clean white linen suit, white shoes and socks. HONEY carries a horn. They cross the back yard and knock at the back door. HONEY holds his hand to his head.)

  FRANKIE: But every word I told you was the solemn truth. I’m leaving here after the wedding.

  BERENICE (taking her hands from FRANKIE’s shoulders and answering the door): Hello, Honey and T. T. I didn’t hear you coming.

  T. T.: You and Frankie too busy discussing something. Well, your foster-brother, Honey, got into a ruckus standing on the sidewalk in front of the Blue Moon Café. Police cracked him on the haid.

  BERENICE (turning on the kitchen light): What! (She examines HONEY’s head.) Why, it’s a welt the size of a small egg.

  HONEY: Times like this I feel like I got to bust loose or die.

  BERENICE: What were you doing?

  HONEY: Nothing. I was just passing along the street minding my own business when this drunk soldier came out of the Blue Moon Café and ran into me. I looked at him and he gave me a push. I pushed him back and he raised a ruckus. This white M.P. came up and slammed me with his stick.

  T. T.: It was one of those accidents can happen to any colored person.

  JOHN HENRY (reaching for the horn): Toot some on your horn, Honey.

  FRANKIE: Please blow.

  HONEY (to JOHN HENRY, who has taken the horn): Now, don’t bother my horn, Butch.

  JOHN HENRY: I want to toot it some.

  (JOHN HENRY takes the horn, tries to blow it, but only succeeds in slobbering in it. He holds the horn away from his mouth and sings: “Too-ty-toot, too-ty-toot.” HONEY snatches the horn away from him and puts it on the sewing table.)

  HONEY: I told you not to touch my horn. You got it full of slobber inside and out. It’s ruined! (He loses his temper, grabs JOHN HENRY by the shoulders and shakes him hard.)

  BERENICE (slapping HONEY): Satan! Don’t you dare touch that little boy! I’m going to stomp out your brains!

  HONEY: You ain’t mad because John Henry is a little boy. It’s because he’s a white boy. John Henry knows he needs a good shake. Don’t you, Butch?

  BERENICE: Ornery—no good!

  (HONEY lifts JOHN HENRY and swings him, then reaches in his pocket and brings out some coins.)

  HONEY: John Henry, which would you rather have—the nigger money or the white money?

  JOHN HENRY: I rather have the dime. (He takes it.) Much obliged. (He goes out and crosses the yard to his house.)

  BERENICE: You troubled and beat down and try to take it out on a little boy. You and Frankie just alike. The club girls don’t elect her and she turns on John Henry too. When folks are lonesome and left out, they turn so mean. T. T. do you wish a small little quickie before we start?

  T. T. (looking at Frankie and pointing toward her): Frankie ain’t no tattle-tale. Is you? (BERENICE pours a drink for T. T.)

  FRANKIE: (disdaining his question): That sure is a cute suit you got on, Honey. Today I heard somebody speak of you as Lightfoot Brown. I think that’s such a grand nickname. It’s on account of your travelling—to Harlem, and all the different places where you have run away, and your dancing. Lightfoot! I wish somebody would call me Lightfoot Addams.

  BERENICE: It would suit me better if Honey Camden had brick feets. As it is, he keeps me so anxious-worried. C’mon, Honey and T. T. Let’s go! (HONEY and T. T. go out.)

  FRANKIE: I’ll go out into the yard.

  (FRANKIE, feeling excluded, goes out into the yard. Throughout the act the light in the yard has been darkening steadily. Now the light in the kitchen is throwing a yellow rectangle in the yard.)

  BERENICE: Now Frankie, you forget all that foolishness we were discussing. And if Mr. Addams don’t come home by good dark, you go over to the Wests’. Go play with John Henry.

  HONEY and T. T. (from outside): So long!

  FRANKIE: So long, you all. Since when have I been scared of the dark? I’ll invite John Henry to spend the night with me.

  BERENICE: I thought you were sick and tired of him.

  FRANKIE: I am.

  BERENICE (kissing FRANKIE): Good night, Sugar!

  FRANKIE: Seems like everybody goes off and leaves me. (She walks towards the Wests’ yard, calling, with cupped hands.) John Henry. John Henry.

  JOHN HENRY’S VOICE: What do you want, Frankie?

  FRANKIE: Come over and spend the night with me.

  JOHN HENRY’S VOICE: I can’t.

  FRANKIE: Why?

  JOHN HENRY: Just because.

  FRANKIE: Because why? (JOHN HENRY does not answer.) I thought maybe me and you could put
up my Indian tepee and sleep out here in the yard. And have a good time. (There is still no answer.) Sure enough. Why don’t you stay and spend the night?

  JOHN HENRY (quite loudly): Because, Frankie. I don’t want to.

  FRANKIE (angrily): Fool Jackass! Suit yourself! I only asked you because you looked so ugly and so lonesome.

  JOHN HENRY (skipping toward the arbor): Why, I’m not a bit lonesome.

  FRANKIE (looking at the house): I wonder when that Papa of mine is coming home. He always comes home by dark. I don’t want to go into that empty, ugly house all by myself.

  JOHN HENRY: Me neither.

  FRANKIE (standing with outstretched arms, and looking around her): I think something is wrong. It is too quiet. I have a peculiar warning in my bones. I bet you a hundred dollars it’s going to storm.

  JOHN HENRY: I don’t want to spend the night with you.

  FRANKIE: A terrible, terrible dog-day storm. Or maybe even a cyclone.

  JOHN HENRY: Huh.

  FRANKIE: I bet Jarvis and Janice are now at Winter Hill. I see them just plain as I see you. Plainer. Something is wrong. It is too quiet.

  (A clear horn begins to play a blues tune in the distance.)

  JOHN HENRY: Frankie?

  FRANKIE: Hush! It sounds like Honey.

  (The horn music becomes jazzy and spangling, then the first blues tune is repeated. Suddenly, while still unfinished, the music stops. FRANKIE waits tensely.)

  FRANKIE: He has stopped to bang the spit out of his horn. In a second he will finish. (after a wait) Please, Honey, go on finish!

  JOHN HENRY (softly): He done quit now.

  FRANKIE (moving restlessly): I told Berenice that I was leavin’ town for good and she did not believe me. Sometimes I honestly think she is the biggest fool that ever drew breath. You try to impress something on a big fool like that, and it’s just like talking to a block of cement. I kept on telling and telling and telling her. I told her I had to leave this town for good because it is inevitable. Inevitable.

  (MR. ADDAMS enters the kitchen from the house, calling: “Frankie, Frankie.”)

  MR. ADDAMS (calling from the kitchen door): Frankie, Frankie.

  FRANKIE: Yes, Papa.

  MR. ADDAMS (opening the back door): You had supper?

  FRANKIE: I’m not hungry.

  MR. ADDAMS: Was a little later than I intended, fixing a timepiece for a railroad man. (He goes back through the kitchen and into the hall, calling: “Don’t leave the yard!”)

  JOHN HENRY: You want me to get the weekend bag?

  FRANKIE: Don’t bother me, John Henry. I’m thinking.

  JOHN HENRY: What you thinking about?

  FRANKIE: About the wedding. About my brother and the bride. Everything’s been so sudden today. I never believed before about the fact that the earth turns at the rate of about a thousand miles a day. I didn’t understand why it was that if you jumped up in the air you wouldn’t land in Selma or Fairview or somewhere else instead of the same back yard. But now it seems to me I feel the world going around very fast. (FRANKIE begins turning around in circles with arms outstretched. JOHN HENRY copies her. They both turn.) I feel it turning and it makes me dizzy.

  JOHN HENRY: I’ll stay and spend the night with you.

  FRANKIE (suddenly stopping her turning): No. I just now thought of something.

  JOHN HENRY: You just a little while ago was begging me.

  FRANKIE: I know where I’m going.

  (There are sounds of children playing in the distance.)

  JOHN HENRY: Let’s go play with the children, Frankie.

  FRANKIE: I tell you I know where I’m going. It’s like I’ve known it all my life. Tomorrow I will tell everybody.

  JOHN HENRY: Where?

  FRANKIE (dreamily): After the wedding I’m going with them to Winter Hill. I’m going off with them after the wedding.

  JOHN HENRY: You serious?

  FRANKIE: Shush, just now I realized something. The trouble with me is that for a long time I have been just an “I” person. All other people can say “we.” When Berenice says “we” she means her lodge and church and colored people. Soldiers can say “we” and mean the army. All people belong to a “we” except me.

  JOHN HENRY: What are we going to do?

  FRANKIE: Not to belong to a “we” makes you too lonesome. Until this afternoon I didn’t have a “we,” but now after seeing Janice and Jarvis I suddenly realize something.

  JOHN HENRY: What?

  FRANKIE: I know that the bride and my brother are the “we” of me. So I’m going with them, and joining with the wedding. This coming Sunday when my brother and the bride leave this town, I’m going with the two of them to Winter Hill. And after that to whatever place that they will ever go. (There is a pause.) I love the two of them so much and we belong to be together. I love the two of them so much because they are the we of me.

  THE CURTAIN FALLS

  ACT TWO

  The scene is the same: the kitchen of the Addams home. BERENICE is cooking. JOHN HENRY sits on the stool, blowing soap bubbles with a spool. It is the afternoon of the next day.

  (The front door slams and FRANKIE enters from the hall.)

  BERENICE: I been phoning all over town trying to locate you. Where on earth have you been?

  FRANKIE: Everywhere. All over town.

  BERENICE: I been so worried I got a good mind to be seriously mad with you. Your Papa came home to dinner today. He was mad when you didn’t show up. He’s taking a nap now in his room.

  FRANKIE: I walked up and down Main Street and stopped in almost every store. Bought my wedding dress and silver shoes. Went around by the mills. Went all over the complete town and talked to nearly everybody in it.

  BERENICE: What for, pray tell me?

  FRANKIE: I was telling everybody about the wedding and my plans. (She takes off her dress and remains barefooted in her slip.)

  BERENICE: You mean just people on the street? (She is creaming butter and sugar for cookies.)

  FRANKIE: Everybody. Storekeepers. The monkey and monkey-man. A soldier. Everybody. And you know the soldier wanted to join with me and asked me for a date this evening. I wonder what you do on dates.

  BERENICE: Frankie, I honestly believe you have turned crazy on us. Walking all over town and telling total strangers this big tale. You know in your soul this mania of yours is pure foolishness.

  FRANKIE: Please call me F. Jasmine. I don’t wish to have to remind you any more. Everything good of mine has got to be washed and ironed so I can pack them in the suitcase. (She brings in a suitcase and opens it.) Everybody in town believes that I’m going. All except Papa. He’s stubborn as an old mule. No use arguing with people like that.

  BERENICE: Me and Mr. Addams has some sense.

  FRANKIE: Papa was bent over working on a watch when I went by the store. I asked him could I buy the wedding clothes and he said charge them at MacDougals. But he wouldn’t listen to any of my plans. Just sat there with his nose to the grindstone and answered with—kind of grunts. He never listens to what I say. (There is a pause.) Sometimes I wonder if Papa loves me or not.

  BERENICE: Course he loves you. He is just a busy widowman—set in his ways.

  FRANKIE: Now I wonder if I can find some tissue paper to line this suitcase.

  BERENICE: Truly, Frankie, what makes you think they want you taggin’ along with them? Two is company and three is a crowd. And that’s the main thing about a wedding. Two is company and three is a crowd.

  FRANKIE: You wait and see.

  BERENICE: Remember back to the time of the flood. Remember Noah and the Ark.

  FRANKIE: And what has that got to do with it?

  BERENICE: Remember the way he admitted them creatures.

  FRANKIE: Oh, shut up your big old mouth!

  BERENICE: Two by two. He admitted them creatures two by two.

  FRANKIE (after a pause): That’s all right. But you wait and see. They will take me.

  BERENICE: And if they
don’t?

  FRANKIE (turning suddenly from washing her hands at the sink): If they don’t, I will kill myself.

  BERENICE: Kill yourself, how?

  FRANKIE: I will shoot myself in the side of the head with the pistol that Papa keeps under his handkerchiefs with Mother’s picture in the bureau drawer.

  BERENICE: You heard what Mr. Addams said about playing with that pistol. I’ll just put this cookie dough in the icebox. Set the table and your dinner is ready. Set John Henry a plate and one for me. (BERENICE puts the dough in the icebox. FRANKIE hurriedly sets the table. BERENICE takes dishes from the stove and ties a napkin around JOHN HENRY’s neck.) I have heard of many a peculiar thing. I have knew men to fall in love with girls so ugly that you wonder if their eyes is straight.

  JOHN HENRY: Who?

  BERENICE: I have knew women to love veritable satans and thank Jesus when they put their split hooves over the threshold. I have knew boys to take it into their heads to fall in love with other boys. You know Lily Mae Jenkins?

  FRANKIE: I’m not sure. I know a lot of people.

  BERENICE: Well, you either know him or you don’t know him. He prisses around in a girl’s blouse with one arm akimbo. Now this Lily Mae Jenkins fell in love with a man name Juney Jones. A man, mind you. And Lily Mae turned into a girl. He changed his nature and his sex and turned into a girl.

  FRANKIE: What?

  BERENICE: He did. To all intents and purposes. (BERENICE is sitting in the center chair at the table. She says grace.) Lord, make us thankful for what we are about to receive to nourish our bodies. Amen.

  FRANKIE: It’s funny I can’t think who you are talking about. I used to think I knew so many people.

  BERENICE: Well, you don’t need to know Lily Mae Jenkins. You can live without knowing him.

  FRANKIE: Anyway, I don’t believe you.

  BERENICE: I ain’t arguing with you. What was we speaking about?

  FRANKIE: About peculiar things.

  BERENICE: Oh, yes. As I was just now telling you I have seen many a peculiar thing in my day. But one thing I never knew and never heard tell about. No, siree. I never in all my days heard of anybody falling in love with a wedding. (There is a pause.) And thinking it all over I have come to a conclusion.