Carson McCullers

by Carson McCullers

  SISTER: I told you not to take it so hard.

  PHILLIP: In the old days I used to admire writers. Now the more writers I know, the less I respect them . . . Three-quarters are homosexuals and the others are rotten in one way or another. They would steal a blind man’s stick for a prize or the cover of Time magazine—jealous, trivial, trying to shape their work so that it might go over best and agree with the Code.

  SISTER: What code?

  PHILLIP: The code of silence. The code of gold.

  SISTER: How can you talk that way about writers?

  PHILLIP: Because I am a writer and I know. But I used to be a good person. When I was young I used to like it when my friends succeeded. I’d clip out the good reviews and the bad reviews I didn’t even notice. But now, after these times of fallowness and failure, the only thing that really heartens me is to read of someone else’s gut-tearing failure. I feed on the failures of others because I can no longer succeed. The first thing I read in the newspapers each morning are the obituaries. My talent is gone.

  SISTER: Where has it gone?

  PHILLIP: Where did it come from in the first place? Not from the brain . . .

  SISTER: Then where, Phillip?

  PHILLIP: From some strange little motor in the soul. And now the motor has stopped.

  SISTER: It will start again.

  PHILLIP: I’ve tried to work. Lying up, standing down. I even worked standing at the refrigerator.

  SISTER: What for?

  PHILLIP: Because Thomas Wolfe did.

  SISTER: Did it work?

  PHILLIP: No. I just kept opening the refrigerator door and eating. If I had only died the day The Chinaberry Tree had come out.

  SISTER: That should have been the greatest day of your life.

  PHILLIP: If I had suddenly that day been struck by polio or lightning or something out of my control . . .

  SISTER: How can you say that, Phillip?

  PHILLIP: If I had been suddenly crippled so I was not responsible for the years that lay ahead, but I was responsible for all those years, the slow ruin, the failure. It was I who did it myself, although it happened so slowly, I didn’t realize it myself. Only I am responsible for my failure. I and only I.

  (MOLLIE enters.)

  MOLLIE: I want to speak to you, Phillip.

  PHILLIP: Speak ahead.

  MOLLIE: There’s something I want to say.

  PHILLIP: Then say it.

  SISTER: I’ll go upstairs and pacify Mother.

  (Exits up.)

  MOLLIE: I’m going to leave you, Phillip.

  PHILLIP: Why?

  MOLLIE: Because of John.

  PHILLIP: That house builder! You’d be bored with him in twenty-four hours.

  MOLLIE: I’d never be bored with him. John and I love each other, and John was going to build us a beautiful house with hot-water pipes running across the floor.

  PHILLIP: You would break your neck.

  MOLLIE: Not running across the floor. Underneath the floor, I mean. A beautiful house, all new, all shining.

  PHILLIP: I need you. You need me. It’s as simple as that.

  MOLLIE: It’s not that simple.

  PHILLIP: Do you want me to die?

  MOLLIE: No, Phillip, no.

  PHILLIP: Well, without you I will die. Don’t you understand that?

  MOLLIE: No.

  PHILLIP: Remember the Stratford Arms Motel when we made love from dawn to noon?

  MOLLIE: Stop.

  PHILLIP: And you were lying on the bed, buck naked.

  MOLLIE: Please, for God’s sakes, Phillip.

  PHILLIP: And I was standing naked in the open doorway. Suddenly, you cried out—and said, Paris. The name is—

  MOLLIE (passionately): In the name of decency and kindness, keep Paris out of this.

  PHILLIP: What in the name of Christ does decency have to do with us?

  MOLLIE: Let me go.

  PHILLIP: I am weak and you are suddenly strong. Why?

  MOLLIE: Because I love again.

  PHILLIP: You can’t leave me. You have to love me.

  MOLLIE: When I was a child I could still live with you. You could beat me and I could still love you the next day. We have been like children, Phillip, primitive like children. Sexy, sure, but primitive like children.

  PHILLIP: Remember the Peach Festival.

  MOLLIE: I don’t want to.

  PHILLIP: But you must.

  MOLLIE: No.

  PHILLIP: The pulse of the festival. The drums and the trumpets. The desire.

  MOLLIE: I don’t. I don’t want to remember.

  PHILLIP: Remember the briar patch.

  MOLLIE: No, Phillip, no.

  PHILLIP: And the bed of moss I made for us after.

  MOLLIE: I remember everything. I remember the dead confetti, the thrown-away tin horns. The dawn of the morning after the festival. My rhinestone tiara was broken. My dress torn.

  PHILLIP: It was our wedding day.

  MOLLIE: A long time ago—when I was still a child.

  PHILLIP: How you bawled and kicked before I married you.

  MOLLIE (looks hard at PHILLIP): I remember the festival and everything. I remember every time you beat me, every time I cried.

  PHILLIP: That was our love, Mollie, the long desire—the romps and tickles—

  MOLLIE: I remember everything. But now it’s finished.

  PHILLIP: You’re not going away from me. You love me, Mollie, and I’ve got to have you.

  (PHILLIP tries to take MOLLIE. Rips her blouse.)

  MOLLIE: Let me go, Phillip, let me go.

  PHILLIP: This is the showdown—

  (He grabs her. MOLLIE picks up knife from dinner table. SISTER enters unnoticed.)

  Go on, Mollie. You’re trembling.

  MOLLIE: You’re mad, Phillip.

  PHILLIP: It was you who picked up the knife.

  (MOLLIE hands him the knife.)

  SISTER: Brother—come with me.

  PHILLIP: Button your dress, Mollie.

  SISTER: Come back, Brother.

  PHILLIP: Come back where?

  SISTER: Back home. And you can write in the summerhouse.

  PHILLIP: Back where I started?

  SISTER: Remember the June bugs we flew with strings? The shadows in the summerhouse?

  PHILLIP: Once we thought there was a ghost in the summerhouse. Our ghost.

  SISTER: Yes. The ghost who made ghost tea parties for us. Mud pies and honeysuckle stew.

  PHILLIP: Dandelion sandwiches.

  SISTER: And we would dress up in Mother’s shoes and hats, and I would put rouge on both of us. Remember the Spanish shawl we always quarreled about?

  PHILLIP: And the duets we played. The “Turkish March” and the “Dead March” from Saul.

  SISTER: And the summer at the shore when we gave a concert.

  PHILLIP: We shivered the gizzards of all musicians and made the audience feel queer.

  SISTER: Tinny and terrible.

  PHILLIP: Ocean pianos are always going out of tune.

  SISTER: You were a tranquil child those years.

  PHILLIP: But when I grew up and went away, something happened, something shattered.

  SISTER: I know.

  PHILLIP: Was it alcohol—was it sex that shattered me?

  SISTER: Come back with me. Come back to the summerhouse and the shadowed afternoons. You’re sick.

  PHILLIP: I’m not coming home. You go back with Mother, Sister. And if you can’t stand it, drink darling. Just drink in the summerhouse.

  (SISTER exits.)

  Let me stay, Mollie. You can be in love with him, that’s all right, but stay in love with me! Let me stay and I will write again.

  MOLLIE: I never understood your writing, Phillip.

  PHILLIP: It doesn’t matter.

  MOLLIE: But not understanding it, I loved it even more.

  PHILLIP: Don’t understand my writing. Understand me.

  MOLLIE: It’s the same thing.

  PHI
LLIP: Don’t you understand, I need you and I can write again. Let me stay.

  MOLLIE: No, Phillip.

  PHILLIP: We’ve lived together half our lifetime.

  MOLLIE: Since I was fifteen.

  PHILLIP: What have I been doing all that time?

  MOLLIE: You wrote two books and a play.

  PHILLIP: What have you been doing, Mollie?

  MOLLIE: Taking care of you, Paris—

  PHILLIP: Take care of me now. You have always loved me. Deny that you loved me.

  MOLLIE: I don’t deny it. I loved you but now it’s over.

  PHILLIP: There is my old friend again.

  MOLLIE: What are you talking about?

  PHILLIP: The grandfather, grandfather, grandfather clock. Listen to its tick. Tick-tock, tick-tock. If you leave me, what will happen to all that time?

  MOLLIE: What do you mean?

  PHILLIP: Don’t you know, Mollie, that every moment is a reflection of every moment that has gone before? Without you, there is nothing.

  MOLLIE: Please, Phillip.

  PHILLIP: And nothing resembles nothing. But nothing is not blank. It is configured hell.

  MOLLIE: Let me pass.

  PHILLIP: Hell with figures. Don’t you see?

  MOLLIE: Let me out.

  PHILLIP: Noticed clocks on twilight afternoons . . .

  MOLLIE: You’re drunk, Phillip.

  PHILLIP: No. I’m lost. And when you’re lost, there is only terror.

  MOLLIE: I’m terrified when you talk like this.

  PHILLIP: Save me.

  MOLLIE: How, Phillip?

  PHILLIP: I don’t know, but you saved me so many times before.

  MOLLIE: I don’t know any more.

  PHILLIP: This terror, is it of losing you?

  MOLLIE: Are you talking about me and you, Phillip? Don’t.

  PHILLIP: Is it of space? Of time? Or the joined trickery between the two?

  MOLLIE: Stop.

  PHILLIP: To the lost, all that is in between is agony immobilized.

  MOLLIE (calls): Sister!

  PHILLIP: While time, that endless idiot goes screaming around the world.

  (MOLLIE is silent.)

  After all this time. You’re not going to leave me.

  (Clock chimes. He looks at MOLLIE. She is silent. In a fury, he cries out.)

  After all this time . . .

  (He smashes the clock with both hands. He and MOLLIE face each other. Both are frightened as clock chimes on and . . .)

  THE CURTAIN FALLS

  ACT THREE

  SCENE I

  Time: Just before dawn the following day.

  At Rise: There is no sound. PHILLIP descends the staircase, slowly, and stands looking at PARIS, who is asleep on the sofa. The following scene is oblique. Neither PHILLIP nor PARIS knows fully what is happening and the intentions of both father and son are veiled, obscure, until PARIS is aware of life and the threat to life.

  PHILLIP: Butch—

  PARIS: What?

  PHILLIP: Wake up, Butch.

  PARIS: What time is it?

  PHILLIP: Just before dawn. And your mother has packed during the night. She thinks she can leave us.

  PARIS: Leave us?

  PHILLIP: Yes. Leave me and you.

  PARIS: I don’t believe you. Why did you wake me?

  PHILLIP: Because I need you.

  PARIS: How?

  PHILLIP: When I was big and you were little you needed me. Don’t you remember?

  PARIS: I guess so. When I was a baby I would come in and sleep between you and mother. Scared maybe, or I just wanted to. There was a swing somewhere in the neighborhood.

  PHILLIP: Where was that?

  PARIS: On Cranberry Street. That’s as far back as I can remember. How far back can you remember, Daddy?

  PHILLIP: I can remember sleeping between my mother and father too.

  PARIS: Is that as far back as your memory goes?

  PHILLIP: Before that there was only darkness.

  PARIS: Darkness?

  PHILLIP: Then, years later, there were blazing Georgia afternoons. Like burning glass, they were.

  PARIS: Georgia’s hot.

  PHILLIP: Hot. Blazing and cruel. July was hot and August longer.

  PARIS: Granny has an air-conditioner in her bedroom.

  PHILLIP: In those days there were no air-conditioners.

  PARIS: What did you do?

  PHILLIP: We stewed in the heat.

  PARIS: Stewed?

  PHILLIP: We squatted in the back yard poking in those doodle-bug holes. Although I poked at those holes, year in, year out, I never once saw a doodle bug.

  PARIS: What’s in those holes?

  PHILLIP: That’s the mystery. You can squat with a broomstraw all summer long and never find out.

  PARIS: That’s no fun.

  PHILLIP: I remember as a child picking Spanish bayonets. Remember that bush down South that has sharp spikes, like swords at the end?

  PARIS: I had a great time chasing girls with those Spanish bayonets. The girls run and holler. The boys run and chase. Not that you ever jab a girl. They’re sharp.

  PHILLIP: I jabbed a girl once. Not a hard jab—just a light touch on the behind to make her know I meant business.

  PARIS: What did you do after that?

  PHILLIP: It was the end of the game.

  PARIS: What time is it?

  PHILLIP: Time for us to leave.

  PARIS: But Mother?

  PHILLIP: I told you she’s been packing in the night. Silk stockings, brassières, and all that crap.

  PARIS: I hate you when you talk like that about Mother.

  PHILLIP: What did I say wrong? I love her. I can’t live without her. I have done everything to bring her back to us. I crawled on the floor like Dostoyevski.

  PARIS: Crawled? You didn’t care when Mother cried when you left her.

  PHILLIP: I never left her. I did everything and what ever happens to me it’s her fault, and she’ll know it. But now we are going to be at peace. Where I go you and your mother will follow.

  PARIS: But where are you going?

  PHILLIP: To zones and latitudes you never imagined.

  PARIS: In the Arctic Zone the sun shines at midnight. But tell me, Daddy, where you are going!

  PHILLIP: To a place more remote than Kilimanjaro, more vacant than the moonlight in the Sahara.

  PARIS: Africa?

  PHILLIP: Not specially.

  PARIS: I always wanted to go to Africa. I adore travel and adventure.

  PHILLIP: Do you, Butch?

  PARIS: When we went to Yellowstone Park I thought it would be an adventure, but the grizzly bears ate out of your hand and slobbered. It was tame. Without your blarney, Daddy, where are you going?

  PHILLIP: Do you want me to tell you a story?

  PARIS: I feel half asleep and still dreaming.

  PHILLIP: In the Kingdom of Heaven . . .

  PARIS: What kind of a story is that?

  PHILLIP: A Bible story. In the Kingdom of Heaven a man was going to travel to a far-off country. And so he called his two servants—

  PARIS: It’s funny. The Bible always talks about servants. Mother says to me, “Never say servants, say housekeeper, cleaning maid, or anything—but never servant. Otherwise they quit!”

  PHILLIP: The master delivered to the servants his goods—

  PARIS: Why did he do that?

  PHILLIP: Because he would be gone a long time.

  PARIS: What goods did he give them?

  PHILLIP: All of his money—his talents.

  PARIS: I never thought of talents as money. To me talents mean singing and dancing.

  PHILLIP: In the Bible talents are money. It was a way of exchange. Anyway, the master gave five talents to the first servant and to the other just one. And straightway the master left for his journey. Straightway—I love that word. And the one who received five talents traded them with judgment and made ten.

  PARIS: On the stock exchange
?

  PHILLIP: Something like that. For a long time the master stayed away, and when he returned he went to the man who had five talents and the man brought forth five more. “Well done,” the master said. “You have used your talents. Enter into the joy of the Lord.”

  PARIS: You always spend your money. Granny says that if you had bought stock you would have made a fortune by now. Stocks have gone up.

  PHILLIP: Have they, Butch?

  PARIS: And you have so many talents, Daddy.

  PHILLIP: Then the master went to the servant who had received one talent and the one-talent guy said, “Master, I have hid my talent under the earth—it is still there.”

  PARIS: Hid it under the earth? Why did he do that?

  PHILLIP: Because the master was a hard master and the servant was afraid.

  PARIS: What did the master say?

  PHILLIP: The master said, “I will take your one talent and give it to the servant who has ten, for to everyone that has, shall be given. But from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he has.”

  PARIS: That’s not fair. To me the Bible is nine times out of ten unfair. In fact the Bible is awfully downbeat.

  PHILLIP: You’re right, Butch. It’s not fair.

  PARIS: Hattie Brown thinks I have talent. She claims that when I play the guitar I’m as cool as Elvis Presley. When she says that, I wiggle my hips like him—it’s nice to have talent.

  PHILLIP: It’s better to develop it.

  PARIS: When I sing like that, Hattie howls.

  PHILLIP: Does she, Butch?

  PARIS: Why did you wake me up, at this unearthly hour?

  PHILLIP: For company.

  PARIS: Do you have a hangover, Daddy?

  PHILLIP: No.

  PARIS: You look white as death.

  PHILLIP: I’ll be all right, Butch. Once I’m on the road.

  PARIS: You should not be going anywhere alone.

  (PARIS starts to dress.)

  PHILLIP: What are you doing?

  PARIS: Getting dressed. I ought to go with you.

  PHILLIP: It would be company.

  PARIS: But where are we going and why are you going? First you said it was Africa. Then you said not. Is it Mexico?

  PHILLIP: No.

  PARIS: Is it Europe?

  PHILLIP: No, Butch.

  PARIS: Mother doesn’t like Europe. They don’t have screens on the windows and you always get the trots.

  PHILLIP: It is not Africa, not Mexico, not Europe. No place your mother has ever been or me or you. She thought she could leave us but she can’t.