Carson McCullers

by Carson McCullers

  PARIS: Without your baloney, Daddy, what’s this all about? Where are you going?

  PHILLIP: You’ll know when we get there.

  PARIS: But Mother?

  PHILLIP: I told you forty times she’s packing . . .

  PARIS: Packing? Tomorrow is the day I was going to try that reel and tackle. Try it out in the pond. Tomorrow—that is, today.

  PHILLIP: Suppose there are no tomorrows—that is today?

  PARIS: What are you doing?

  PHILLIP: Getting my books.

  PARIS: Why?

  PHILLIP: The ancient savage kings gathered their slave, their ship, their goblet for the voyage.

  PARIS: What voyage?

  PHILLIP: The last one.

  PARIS: You talk so creepy. Strange and downbeat, I’m scared.

  PHILLIP: Why are you scared?

  PARIS: If I knew why, I would not be so scared.

  PHILLIP: It’s almost daybreak.

  PARIS: I’m wide awake now.

  PHILLIP: It’s time to get started.

  PARIS: I can’t go anywhere like this.

  (Indicating his socks)

  The socks don’t mate. I have on one white sock and one red.

  PHILLIP: Is that the only reason you don’t want to come?

  PARIS: Not only that.

  PHILLIP: I remember the October moons of my childhood. The hound dog would be baying. When there was a ring around the moon it was a sign of coming frost. Have you ever seen frost flowers, Butch? With its cold and delicate designs that come on windowpanes—they are rose-colored and gold.

  PARIS: I never saw that.

  PHILLIP: I’m not blaming you, Son.

  PARIS: Blaming me?

  PHILLIP: No. It operates like this. In our cold house where there was no central heating, Uncle Willie used to light the kitchen stove first thing in the morning and put on the grits for breakfast—old people get up very early in the morning. And as the room would warm with the glowing kitchen stove, outside there would still be cold and wintertime. Then the frost flowers would come on the windowpanes. Jack Frost had painted them we always said.

  PARIS: This is just the time to dig for angleworms. You find them better just at dawn.

  PHILLIP: Or late twilight. I, too, have dug for angleworms.

  PARIS: Hattie and I are going to start early. Go to the pond. And if the fish aren’t biting there, we’ll go to Rockland Lake.

  PHILLIP: You won’t come with me?

  PARIS: My day is important and already planned. Some other time, Daddy.

  PHILLIP: I, too, remember sleeping between my mother and my father and having chased girls with Spanish bayonets. I have known both frost flowers and angleworms. And I have known that time when a song on the street and a voice from childhood all fitted and I was a writer and writing every day. And I was not alone then. There was love. I could love and did not struggle against being loved. It was company, anyhow. I remember everything—and at that instant will every moment be a reflection of every moment that has gone before?

  (Almost whispers)

  I can’t stand it.

  PARIS (shouts): Mother!

  PHILLIP (whispers): Now I prefer only darkness.

  (He exits. MOLLIE enters.)

  MOLLIE: What on earth, Lambie—?

  PARIS: My daddy.

  (We hear the sound of the car.)

  MOLLIE: What about Daddy? Where is he going at this hour?

  PARIS: I don’t know, Mother. I just don’t know.

  MOLLIE: (goes to window, looking after the car): Lambie, please, put down that guitar.

  THE CURTAIN FALLS

  SCENE 2

  Time: A week later.

  At Rise: HATTIE and PARIS enter from kitchen.

  HATTIE: Those funny things on the furniture. Are they for mourning?

  PARIS: It’s just dust covers because we’re leaving tomorrow.

  HATTIE: What kind of place is Brooklyn Heights?

  PARIS: It’s a neighborhood where we used to live. Crumby place, as I remember it.

  HATTIE: They are like mourning—so white and strange. Why did your daddy do it?

  PARIS: He never did it. It was an accident.

  HATTIE: But he drove the car off the road down to the pond, which is a good ways away. Everybody said it was deliberate.

  PARIS: I don’t care what everybody says. It was not deliberate. It was a defective steering wheel. John explained the whole thing to me.

  HATTIE: They say in the village it was suicide.

  PARIS: Suicide. It’s weak to commit suicide. And my father was a strong man. He once lifted two hundred pounds as though they were dummy weights.

  HATTIE: Where?

  PARIS: At a fair he took me to one time. My father loved fairs and festivals, commotions.

  HATTIE: I was always afraid of your father.

  PARIS: Here is a problem. If in the middle of a forest, a tree falls and nobody is there, not a soul in the world for miles around—would there be the sound of a crash?

  HATTIE: Well, somebody might have heard.

  PARIS: But if nobody, nobody was there, and I mean nobody in the world—would the crash be heard?

  HATTIE: Maybe a little animal or a mole or something would hear.

  PARIS: A little animal? Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  HATTIE: Why are you so strange?

  PARIS: I’m not strange, but I saw my father in the coffin at the funeral home.

  HATTIE: I wouldn’t look at a dead person if you gave me a hundred dollars. Mother says it’s morbid to look at dead coffins. How is your mother?

  PARIS: She just sits there huddled in Daddy’s room—as if she were terribly, terribly cold. Granny wants her to break down. Granny breaks down and cries and cries—but Mother just sits there huddled and looking cold. Auntie Sister looks like she’s waiting for something.

  HATTIE: I don’t think they open coffins at the Episcopal ceremony. Paris, don’t act so strange this last afternoon. Aren’t we going to kiss goodbye?

  PARIS: You’re not supposed to smooch with girls on account of their self-respect.

  HATTIE: You mentioned you were going to give me a present. What is it?

  PARIS: Old costumes and things like that. And my sled. I won’t have use for those things in Brooklyn Heights. It’s down in the cellar. Let’s go down.

  HATTIE: Aren’t you really going to kiss me before you go?

  PARIS: I reckon so. But if a tree falls in this absolutely silent forest with no human beings anywhere in the world and no animals . . .

  (PARIS and HATTIE exit outside to cellar. MOTHER LOVEJOY and SISTER come downstairs with assorted suitcases.)

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Poor Mollie. She hasn’t eaten a thing all week, while I have to stuff myself. Grief does that to me.

  SISTER: I noticed, Mother.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: The same way when Mr. Lovejoy left. I got stout from so much grief-eating. I made fudge, spludge, divinity and every candy known to man.

  SISTER: I just eat normally.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: But then you never loved your brother like we did.

  SISTER: What are you saying, Mother?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: You were jealous of him always.

  SISTER: But isn’t that natural?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Life is over for us. Mollie just sits there in Phillip’s room and she can never love again. Mollie and I are very much alike.

  SISTER: I never noticed it.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: When we love, we love once. One man for a lifetime.

  SISTER: After a while Mollie will get over it. She is going to get a job and live in New York.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: What kind of job?

  SISTER: In a cosmetologist parlor.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Remember her last job as a cosmetologist, when Phillip left her? Poor woman, bald as an egg.

  SISTER: That woman and Mollie are good friends now. They correspond frequently.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Just the same. Getting a job and living in
New York is one thing but having loved a genius is another.

  SISTER: What is a genius?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Genius is, I suppose, something light and dark and lovable and failing, all at the same time.

  SISTER: That doesn’t make sense.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Genius is written in the newspapers.

  SISTER: So was Al Capone.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Now that your brother is dead, can’t you stop being jealous?

  SISTER: Don’t you understand, I was never jealous. I would just think about Phillip writing and how he never had to bother about libraries and index cards and books that were overdue. And he never had to keep quiet in the Children’s Section. But I was never jealous. I just wanted to be like Phillip was.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: The hired limousine will be here soon.

  SISTER: Why did you hire a limousine?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: In a limousine you can weep all the way to the station. Taxi drivers might wonder and question.

  SISTER: I like taxi drivers.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Let’s hurry.

  SISTER: We still have hours.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: I have to be at the station in plenty of time.

  SISTER: Tell me, Mother, have you ever missed a train?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Mercy no. But then I have always been on time. When I was a young girl I dreamed that I was going to the station to get on a train, and when I looked down I didn’t have any clothes on. I was so embarrassed. Standing there, naked. In the dream, of course.

  SISTER: Well, you’re dressed now.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Did you pack the lunch?

  SISTER: We’re having turkey sandwiches.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: I hope you put plenty of mayonnaise on mine. I like them squelchy.

  SISTER: I made them squelchy.

  (Car is heard driving up. MOLLIE enters from upstairs.)

  MOLLIE: The limousine is coming up the drive.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Don’t cry, Mollie. There’s a time for tearin’ and a time for mendin’ and a time for weepin’, and a time for . . . and so forth.

  MOLLIE: I’m not crying.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: What was that man doing at the services?

  MOLLIE: Which man?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Your former tenant in the barn.

  MOLLIE: John? John Tucker? I don’t know.

  (She turns away.)

  MOTHER LOVEJOY (only to MOLLIE): Practically a total stranger. And he didn’t cry at all. Such bad manners.

  (A pause)

  My son was a great genius. Forever I will speak of my son, in stores and trains and public conveyances and you will too, Mollie.

  MOLLIE: Goodbye, Sister. I love you.

  SISTER: On my August vacation, I’ll come up and stay with you.

  MOLLIE: My home is always your home. Although I don’t know where it is now.

  (PARIS re-enters.)

  Paris, come say goodbye to Granny and Sister.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: I’m going to make you my beneficiary, Paris.

  PARIS: What’s that?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: I am going to leave you all my money, except for annuities. Your Auntie Sister should have something to look forward to.

  PARIS: You mean I will be rich?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Never say “rich.” Say well-heeled, or comfortable circumstances. But never say “rich,” that’s vulgar.

  PARIS: I am already in comfortable circumstances. How much money is it?

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: Paris, they all want to find that out. All the town wants to know. Your mother and aunt ask careful, delicate questions, but I head them off. Well, let’s not be sentimental.

  PARIS: O.K. Granny.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: And Mollie, although I can’t support you in the grandest style, you can always come home to Society City.

  MOLLIE: I won’t ever come back to Society City.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: If you are crippled or sick or something, it’s a comfort to know.

  MOLLIE: I just hope I never will be crippled or sick.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: We’re going to stay at a hotel in New York tonight. What is that hotel across from the Grand Central Station?

  SISTER: The Commodore.

  MOTHER LOVEJOY: The Commodore. I adore naval people. Goodbye. Goodbye everybody.

  (MOTHER LOVEJOY and SISTER exit.)

  PARIS: Mother, don’t cry. Don’t be sad, please. What can I do for you, Mother? It makes me sad to see you cry.

  MOLLIE: Recite or sing something, Lambie. It always soothes me.

  PARIS: You know I can’t sing. My voice is changing.

  MOLLIE: Say something that suits my nerves and the occasion.

  PARIS: What, Mother?

  MOLLIE: Recite “The Woman Was Old and Ragged and Gray.”

  PARIS: Not that poem, Mother.

  MOLLIE: And bent with the chill on a winter’s day.

  PARIS: It’s so sad, so blue.

  MOLLIE: I’m sad. Desolate, in fact. And old and withered and gray.

  PARIS: You only have nine gray hairs, Mother. Nine’s not much.

  MOLLIE: Bent by the chill. I’m cold. I’m ragged and gray and cold.

  PARIS: You are not ragged, Mother or that old, Mother.

  MOLLIE: Paris, we need some cord for the boxes.

  PARIS: I’ll get it.

  MOLLIE (alone): No, I will never be able to speak of Phillip, in stores, in trains, in public conveyances.

  (JOHN is seen standing in the open door.)

  MOLLIE: Why did you come back?

  JOHN: To get you and Paris.

  MOLLIE: We’re not going with you.

  JOHN: Why, Mollie?

  MOLLIE: Because I was responsible.

  JOHN: Responsible for what?

  MOLLIE: Phillip’s death.

  JOHN: How were you responsible?

  MOLLIE: Because I loved you, Phillip died.

  JOHN: Don’t say that.

  MOLLIE: I loved you, and he died.

  JOHN: Don’t even think it.

  MOLLIE: I saw him, John.

  JOHN: How?

  MOLLIE: I had packed in the night, and he saw me packing. When one person leaves another person after fifteen years, and he sees them packing . . . Don’t you see how I was responsible?

  JOHN: No.

  MOLLIE: But I saw him. I came down because Paris called me. It was dawn. The sky was pale blue like a water color that had just been painted and is not yet dry. At that moment I heard the car and watched from the kitchen window as Phillip drove down the road. He stopped and veered the car sideways, catty-cornered in the open fields. And there he stopped the car. I wondered. He must have been sitting there wondering too.

  JOHN: What were you wondering?

  MOLLIE: I was grieving.

  JOHN: What were you grieving about?

  MOLLIE: Don’t make me tell you now.

  JOHN: Tell me.

  MOLLIE: The apple blossoms were still against that pale blue sky.

  JOHN: What were you grieving about Mollie?

  MOLLIE: I was missing you. At that moment before he died, I was missing you. Then Phillip suddenly started the car and, as I was watching, drove into that green summer pond. It was as though he knew what I was thinking. Then I was screaming in the road and nobody heard me, it was so silent. Why couldn’t I have helped him?

  JOHN: You did help him. For half your lifetime you helped him.

  MOLLIE: If I had truly helped him, he would be alive today. But I was responsible and so were you. I nursed him, I lived with him, I loved him, for fifteen years, so let me alone, leave me to my grief.

  JOHN: What can I say?

  MOLLIE: Nothing.

  JOHN: All right. You were responsible. You were responsible for keeping life in a man who no longer wanted to live.

  (Enters PARIS carrying his space suits.)

  MOLLIE: Phillip was a poet, a wizard of words and sometimes I did not even pay attention to him. You can’t say anything, so go.

  PARIS: Yes, Daddy could talk. That’s how I�
��ll always remember him. Blarney! He woke me up that early morning and he was talking about frost flowers and Africa and heaven and hell.

  MOLLIE: Frost flowers? How strange!

  (To JOHN)

  Why, do you suppose?

  PARIS: Oh he wanted me to come with him.

  MOLLIE (horrified): To come with him!

  (To JOHN)

  Oh Phillip couldn’t. Could he?

  JOHN: I don’t know.

  MOLLIE (hugs PARIS): I don’t think so. I don’t think any father could. But why did he want Paris to come? What plan did he have?

  JOHN: Maybe none.

  MOLLIE: No I’m sure. If he had wanted to take anybody with him that way it would have been me.

  (To PARIS)

  But Lambie, I don’t want to age you before your time. Look at these lovely apple branches and the sunlight. I wonder if the Salvation Army takes space suits. I have lots of clothes that are just right for the Salvation Army.

  JOHN: Mollie, when I was in the Navy, a boy fell overboard and I jumped in and tried to save him. But I could not. In the struggle he kept pulling me down. He kept hitting me until I finally had to let go.

  MOLLIE: John come and look at these lovely apple branches and the sunlight.

  (A moment together looking at the apple blossoms and at each other.)

  JOHN: Mollie. How many times do a man and a woman love each other? I mean times from now on? How many times do they see exactly like these apple blossoms and the May morning and the green sky? How many times . . . how many times?

  MOLLIE: I guess sometimes you’ve got to leave some things to God.

  JOHN: You are damn well right. You have to leave something to God. Paris, one of these days I am going to marry your mother!

  PARIS: Soon. I hope.

  JOHN: And I am going to build that house, I told you about.

  PARIS: When you were describing it, it sounded wonderful; the square root of it in fact. I will just mosey off now, and read the funny papers.

  MOLLIE: John. You must know, I loved Phillip.

  JOHN: I know.

  MOLLIE: If you hang me by my hair, and twist my elbow, I will still say I once loved him.

  JOHN: I guess you would, under the circumstances.

  MOLLIE: I loved him in the halcyon years when we were young. Is halcyon a word?

  JOHN: A word in books.

  MOLLIE: I can’t write in books about my love for Phillip, but if in the middle of the night you, John Tucker, give me the tiniest meanest little pinch to find out, I would still say I once loved him.