Three Plays (40 page)

BLANCHE
: Yes, you are, your fix is worse than mine is! Only you're not being sensible about it. I'm going to
do
something. Get hold of myself and make myself a new life!

STELLA
: Yes?

BLANCHE
: But you've given in. And that isn't right, you're not old! You can get out.

STELLA
[slowly and emphatically]
: I'm not in anything I want to get out of.

BLANCHE
[incredulously]
: What—Stella?

STELLA
: I said I am not in anything that I have a desire to get out of. Look at the mess in this room! And those empty bottles! They went through two cases last night! He promised this morning that he was going to quit having these poker parties, but you know how long such a promise is going to keep. Oh, well, it's his pleasure, like mine is movies and bridge. People have got to tolerate each other's habits, I guess.

BLANCHE
: I don't understand you.

[Stella turns toward her]

I don't understand your indifference. Is this a Chinese philosophy you've—cultivated?

STELLA
: Is what—what?

BLANCHE
: This—shuffling about and mumbling—"One tube smashed—beer bottles—mess in the kitchen."—as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened!

[Stella laughs uncertainly and picking up the broom, twirls it in her hands.]

BLANCHE
: Are you deliberately shaking that thing in my face?

STELLA
: No.

BLANCHE
: Stop it. Let go of that broom. I won't have you cleaning up for him!

STELLA
: Then who's going to do it? Are you?

BLANCHE
: I? I!

STELLA
: No, I didn't think so.

BLANCHE
: Oh, let me think, if only my mind would function! We've got to get hold of some money, that's the way out!

STELLA
: I guess that money is always nice to get hold of.

BLANCHE
: Listen to me. I have an idea of some kind.

[Shakily she twists a cigarette into her holder]

Do you remember Shep Huntleigh?

[Stella shakes her head.]

Of course you remember Shep Huntleigh. I went out with him at college and wore his pin for a while. Well—

STELLA
.: Well?

BLANCHE
: I ran into him last winter. You know I went to Miami during the Christmas holidays?

STELLA
: No.

BLANCHE
: Well, I did. I took the trip as an investment, thinking I'd meet someone with a million dollars.

STELLA
: Did you?

BLANCHE
: Yes. I ran into Shep Huntleigh—I ran into him on Biscayne Boulevard, on Christmas Eve, about dusk... getting into his car—Cadillac convertible; must have been a block long!

STELLA
: I should think it would have been—inconvenient in traffic!

BLANCHE
: You've heard of oil-wells?

STELLA
: Yes—remotely.

BLANCHE
: He has them, all over Texas. Texas is literally spouting gold in his pockets.

STELLA
: My, my.

BLANCHE
: Y'know how indifferent I am to money. I think of money in terms of what it does for you. But he could do it, he could certainly do it!

STELLA
: Do what, Blanche?

BLANCHE
: Why—set us up in a—shop!

STELLA
: What kind of a shop?

BLANCHE
: Oh, a—shop of some kind! He could do it with half what his wife throws away at the races.

STELLA
: He's married?

BLANCHE
: Honey, would I be here if the man weren't married?

[Stella laughs a little. Blanche suddenly springs up and crosses to phone. She speaks shrilly]

How do I get Western Union?—Operator! Western Union!

STELLA
: That's a dial phone, honey.

BLANCHE
: I can't dial, I'm too—

STELLA
: Just dial 0.

BLANCHE
: 0?

STELLA
: Yes, "0" for Operator!

[Blanche considers a moment; then she puts the phone down.]

BLANCHE
: Give me a pencil. Where is a slip of paper? I've got to write it down first—the message, I mean...

[She goes to the dressing table, and grabs up a sheet of Kleenex and an eyebrow pencil for writing equipment.]

Let me see now...

[She bites the pencil]

"Darling Shep. Sister and I in desperate situation."

STELLA
: I beg your pardon!

BLANCHE
: "Sister and I in desperate situation. Will explain details later. Would you be interested in—?"

[She bites the pencil again]

"Would you be—interested—in..."

[She smashes the pencil on the table and springs up]

You never get anywhere with direct appeals!

STELLA
[with a laugh]
: Don't be so ridiculous, darling!

BLANCHE
: But I'll think of something, I've
got
to think of—
some
thing! Don't, don't laugh at me, Stella! Please, please don't—I—I want you to look at the contents of my purse! Here's what's in it!

[She snatches her purse open]

Sixty-five measly cents in coin of the realm!

STELLA
[crossing to bureau]
: Stanley doesn't give me a regular allowance, he likes to pay bills himself, but—this morning he gave me ten dollars to smooth things over. You take five of it, Blanche, and I'll keep the rest.

BLANCHE
: Oh, no. No, Stella.

STELLA
[insisting]
: I know how it helps your morale just having a little pocket-money on you.

BLANCHE
: No, thank you—I'll take to the streets!

STELLA
: Talk sense! How did you happen to get so low on funds?

BLANCHE
: Money just goes—it goes places.

[She rubs her forehead]

Sometime today I've got to get hold of a bromo!

STELLA
: I'll fix you one now.

BLANCHE
: Not yet—I've got to keep thinking!

STELLA
: I wish you'd just let things go, at least for a—while....

BLANCHE
: Stella, I can't live with him! You can, he's your husband. But how could I stay here with him, after last night, with, just those curtains between us?

STELLA
: Blanche, you saw him at his worst last night.

BLANCHE
: On the contrary, I saw him at his best! What such a man has to offer is animal force and he gave a wonderful exhibition of that! But the only way to live with such a man is to—go to bed with him! And that's your job—not mine!

STELLA
: After you've rested a little, you'll see it's going to work out. You don't have to worry about anything while you're here. I mean—expenses...

BLANCHE
: I have to plan for us both, to get us both—out!

STELLA
: You take it for granted that I am in something that I want to get out of.

BLANCHE
: I take it for granted that you still have sufficient memory of Belle Reve to find this place and these poker players impossible to live with.

STELLA
: Well, you're taking entirely too much for granted.

BLANCHE
: I can't believe you're in earnest!

STELLA
: No?

BLANCHE
: I understand how it happened—a little. You saw him in uniform, an officer, not here but—

STELLA
: I'm not sure it would have made any difference where I saw him.

BLANCHE
: Now don't say it was one of those mysterious electric things between people! If you do I'll laugh in your face.

STELLA
: I am not going to say anything more at all about it!

BLANCHE
: All right, then, don't!

STELLA
: But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark—that sort of make everything else seem—unimportant…

[Pause.]

BLANCHE
: What you are talking about is brutal desire—just—Desire!—the name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another....

STELLA
: Haven't you ever ridden on that streetcar?

BLANCHE
: It brought me here.—Where I'm not wanted and where I'm ashamed to be....

STELLA
: Then don't you think your superior attitude is a bit out of place?

BLANCHE
: I am not being or feeling at all superior, Stella. Believe me I'm not! It's just this. This is how I look at it. A man like that is someone to go out with—once—twice—three times when the devil is in you. But live with? Have a child by?

STELLA
: I have told you I love him.

BLANCHE
: Then I
tremble
for you! I just—
tremble
for you....

STELLA
: I can't help your trembling if you insist on trembling!

[There is a pause.]

BLANCHE
: May I—speak—
plainly?

STELLA
: Yes, do. Go ahead. As plainly as you want to.

[Outside, a train approaches. They are silent till the noise subsides. They are both in the bedroom.

Under cover of the train's noise Stanley enters from outside. He stands unseen by the women, holding some packages in his arms, and overhears their following conversation. He wears an undershirt and grease-stained seersucker pants.]

BLANCHE
: Well—if you'll forgive me—he's
common!

STELLA
: Why, yes, I suppose he is.

BLANCHE
: Suppose! You can't have forgotten that much of our bringing up, Stella, that you just
suppose
that any part of a gentleman's in his nature!
Not one particle, no!
Oh, if he was just—
ordinary!
Just
plain
—but good and wholesome, but—
no
. There's something downright—
bestial
—about him! You're hating me saying this, aren't you?

STELLA
[coldly]
: Go on and say it all, Blanche.

BLANCHE
: He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's even something—sub-human—something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something—ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in—anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is—Stanley Kowalski—survivor of the stone age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you—
you
here—
waiting
for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and the other apes gather! There in the front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night!—you call it—this party of apes! Somebody growls—some creature snatches at something—the fight is on!
God!
Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stella—my sister—there has been
some
progress since then! Such things as art—as poetry and music—such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make
grow!
And
cling
to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march toward whatever it is we're approaching....
Don't—don't hang back with the brutes!

[Another train passes outside. Stanley hesitates, licking his lips. Then suddenly he turns stealthily about and withdraws through front door. The women are still unaware of his presence. When the train has passed he calls through the closed front door.]

STANLEY
: Hey! Hey, Stella!

STELLA
[who has listened gravely to Blanche]
: Stanley!

BLANCHE
: Stell, I

[But Stella has gone to the front door. Stanley enters casually with his packages.]

STANLEY
: Hiyuh, Stella. Blanche back?

STELLA
: Yes, she's back.

STANLEY
: Hiyuh, Blanche.