Three Plays (10 page)

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 told 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?

BIG DADDY
: GO WHERE?—crap....

—When you are gone from here, boy, you are long gone and nowhere! The human machine is not so different from the animal machine or the fish machine or the bird machine or the reptile machine; or the insect machine! It's just a whole God damn lot more complicated and consequently more trouble to keep together. Yep. I thought I had it. The earth shook under my foot, the sky come down like the black lid of a kettle and I couldn't breathe!—Today!!—that lid was lifted, I drew my first free breath in—how many years?—
God!—three....

[There is laughter outside, running footsteps, the soft, plushy sound and light of exploding rockets. Brick stares at him soberly for a long moment; then makes a sort of startled sound in his nostrils and springs up on one foot and bops across the room to grab his crutch, swinging on the furniture for support. He gets the crutch and flees as if in horror for the gallery. His father seizes him by the sleeve of his white silk pyjamas.]

Stay here, you son of a bitch!—till I say go!

BRICK
: I can't.

BIG DADDY
: You sure in hell will, God damn it.

BRICK
: No, I can't. We talk, you talk, in—circles! We get nowhere, nowhere! It's always the same, you say you want to talk to me and don't have a ruttin' thing to say to me!

BIG DADDY
: Nothin' to say when I'm tellin' you I'm going to live when I thought I was dying?!

BRICK
: Oh—
that!
—Is that what you have to say to me?

BIG DADDY
: Why, you son of a bitch! Ain't that, ain't that—
important?!

BRICK
: Well, you said that, that's said, and now I—

BIG DADDY
: Now you set back down.

BRICK
: You're all balled up, you—

BIG DADDY
: I ain't balled up!

BRICK
: You are, you're all balled up!

BIG DADDY
: Don't tell me what I am, you drunken whelp! I'm going to tear this coat sleeve off if you don't set down!

BRICK
: Big Daddy—

BIG DADDY
: Do what I tell you! I'm the boss here, now! I want you to know I'm back in the driver's seat now!

[Big Mama rushes in, clutching her great heaving bosom.]

What in hell do you want in here, Big Mama?

BIG MAMA
: Oh, Big Daddy! Why are you shouting like that? I just cain't
stainnnnnnnd
—it....

BIG DADDY
[raising the back of his hand above his head]
: GIT!—outa here.

[She rushes back out, sobbing.]

BRICK
[softly, sadly]
: Christ...

BIG DADDY
[fiercely]
: Yeah! Christ!—is right....

[Brick breaks loose and hobbles toward the gallery. | Big Daddy Jerks his crutch from under Brick so he steps with the injured ankle. He utters a hissing cry of anguish, clutches a chair and pulls it over on top of him on the floor.]

Son of a—tub of—hog fat....

BRICK
: Big Daddy! Give me my crutch.

[Big Daddy throws the crutch out of reach.]

Give me that crutch, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY
: Why do you drink?

BRICK
: Don't know, give me my crutch!

BIG DADDY
: You better think why you drink or give up drinking!

BRICK
: Will you please give me my crutch so I can get up off this floor?

BIG DADDY
: First you answer my question. Why do you drink? Why are you throwing your life away, boy, like somethin' disgusting you picked up on the street?

BRICK
[getting on to his knees]
: Big Daddy, I'm in pain, I stepped on that foot.

BIG DADDY
: Good! I'm glad you're not too numb with the liquor in you to feel some pain!

BRICK
: You—spilled my—drink....

BIG DADDY
: I'll make a bargain with you. You tell me why you drink and I'll hand you one. I'll pour you the liquor myself and hand it to you.

BRICK
: Why do I drink?

BIG DADDY
: Yeah! Why?

BRICK
: Give me a drink and I'll tell you.

BIG DADDY
: Tell me first!

BRICK
: I'll tell you in one word.

BIG DADDY
: What word?

BRICK
: DISGUST!

[The clock chimes softly, sweetly. Big Daddy gives it a short, outraged glance.]

Now how about that drink?

BIG DADDY
: What are you disgusted with? You got to tell me that, first. Otherwise being disgusted don't make no sense!

BRICK
: Give me my crutch.

BIG DADDY
: You heard me, you got to tell me what I asked you first.

BRICK
: I told you, I said to kill my disgust!

BIG DADDY
: DISGUST WITH WHAT!

BRICK
: You strike a hard bargain.

BIG DADDY
: What are you disgusted with?—an' I'll pass you the liquor.

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

BIG DADDY
: You want liquor that bad?

BRICK
[dragging himself up, clinging to bedstead]
: Yeah, I want it that bad.

BIG DADDY
: If I give you a drink, will you tell me what it is you're disgusted with, Brick?

BRICK
: Yes, sir, I will try to.

[The old man pours him a drink and solemnly passes it to him. There is silence as Brick drinks.]

Have you ever heard the word 'mendacity'?

BIG DADDY
: Sure. Mendacity is one of them five-dollar words that cheap politicians throw back and forth at each other.

BRICK
: You know what it means?

BIG DADDY
: Don't it mean lying and liars?

BRICK
: Yes, sir, lying and liars.

BIG DADDY
: Has someone been lying to you?

CHILDREN
[chanting in chorus offstage]
: We want Big Dad-dee! We want Big Dad-dee!

[Gooper appears in the gallery door.]

GOOPER
: Big Daddy, the kiddies are shouting for you out there.

BIG DADDY
[fiercely]
: Keep out, Gooper!

GOOPER
: 'Scuse me!

[Big Daddy slams the doors after Gooper.]

BIG DADDY
: Who's been lying to you, has Margaret been lying to you, has your wife been lying to you about something, Brick?

BRICK
: Not her. That wouldn't matter.

BIG DADDY
: Then who's been lying to you, and what about?

BRICK
: No one single person and no one lie....

BIG DADDY
: Then what, what then, for Christ's sake?

BRICK
: —The whole, the whole—thing....

BIG DADDY
: Why are you rubbing your head? You got a headache?

BRICK
: No, I'm tryin' to—

BIG DADDY
: —Concentrate, but you can't because your brain's all soaked with liquor, is that the trouble? Wet brain!

[He snatches the glass from Brick's hand.]

What do you know about this mendacity thing? Hell! I could write a book on it! Don't you know that? I could write a book on it and still not cover the subject? Well, I could, I could write a goddam book on it and still not cover the subject anywhere near enough!!—Think of all the lies I got to put up with!—Pretences! Ain't that mendacity? Having to pretend stuff you don't think or feel or have any idea of? Having for instance to act like I care for Big Mama!—I haven't been able to stand the sight, sound, or smell of that woman for forty years now!—even when I
laid
her!—regular as a piston.... Pretend to love that son of a bitch of a Gooper and his wife Mae and those five same screechers out there like parrots in a jungle? Jesus I Can't stand to look at 'em! Church!—it bores the Bejesus out of me but I go!—I go an' sit there and listen to the fool preacher! Clubs!—Elks! Masons! Rotary!—
crap!

[A spasm of pain makes him clutch his belly. He sinks into a chair and his voice is softer and hoarser.]

You
I
do
like for some reason, did always have some kind of real feeling for—affection—respect—yes, always.... You and being a success as a planter is all I ever had any devotion to in my whole life!—and that's the truth.... I don't know why, but it is!
I've
lived with mendacity!—Why can't
you
live with it? Hell, you
got
to live with it, there's nothing
else
to
live
with except mendacity, is there?

BRICK
: Yes, sir. Yes, sir, there is something else that you can live with!