Three Plays (5 page)

MARGARET
: And have someone catch me at it? I'm not that stupid. Oh, I might some time cheat on you with someone, since you're so insultingly eager to have me do it!—But if I do, you can be damned sure it will be in a place and a time where no one but me and the man could possibly know. Because I'm not going to give you any excuse to divorce me for being unfaithful or anything else....

BRICK
: Maggie, I wouldn't divorce you for being unfaithful or anything else. Don't you know that? Hell. I'd be relieved to know that you'd found yourself a lover.

MARGARET
: Well, I'm taking no chances. No, I'd rather stay on this hot tin roof.

BRICK
: A hot tin roof's 'n uncomfo'table place t' stay on....

[He starts to whistle softly.]

MARGARET
[through his whistle]
: Yeah, but I can stay on it just as long as I have to.

BRICK
: You could leave me, Maggie.

[He resumes whistle. She wheels about to glare at him.]

MARGARET
:
Don't want to and will not!
Besides if I did, you don't have a cent to pay for it but what you get from Big Daddy and he's dying of cancer!

[For the first time a realisation of Big Daddy's doom seems to penetrate to Brick's consciousness, visibly, and he looks at Margaret.]

BRICK
: Big Mama just said he
wasn't
, that the report was okay.

MARGARET
: That's what she thinks because she got the same story that they gave Big Daddy. And was just as taken in by it as he was, poor ole things.... But tonight they're going to tell her the truth about it. When Big Daddy goes to bed, they're going to tell her that he is dying of cancer.

[She slams the dresser drawer.]

—It's malignant and it's terminal.

BRICK
: Does Big Daddy know it?

MARGARET
: Hell, do they
ever
know it? Nobody says, 'You're dying.' You have to fool them. They have to fool
themselves
.

BRICK
: Why?

MARGARET
:
Why?
Because human beings dream of life everlasting, that's the reason! But most of them want it on earth and not in heaven.

[He gives a short, hard laugh at her touch of humor.]

Well....
[She touches up her mascara.]
That's how it is, anyhow....
[She looks about.]
Where did I put down my cigarette? Don't want to burn up the home-place, at least not with Mae and Gooper and their five monsters in it!

[She has found it and sucks at it greedily. Blows out smoke and continues:]

So this is Big Daddy's last birthday. And Mae and Gooper, they know it, oh,
they
know it, all right. They got the first information from the Ochsner Clinic. That's why they rushed down here with their no-neck monsters. Because. Do you know something? Big Daddy's made no will? Big Daddy's never made out any will in his life, and so this campaign's afoot to impress him, forcibly as possible, with the fact that you drink and I've borne no children!

[He continues to stare at her a moment, then mutters something sharp but not audible and hobbles rather rapidly out on to the long gallery in the fading, much faded, gold light.]

MARGARET
[continuing her liturgical chant]
: Y'know, I'm
fond
of Big Daddy, I am genuinely fond of that old man, I really
am
, you know——

BRICK
[faintly, vaguely]
: Yes, I know you are....

MARGARET
: I've always sort of admired him in spite of his coarseness, his four-letter words and so forth. Because Big Daddy
is
what he
is
, and he makes no bones about it. He hasn't turned gentleman farmer, he's still a Mississippi red neck, as much of a red neck as he must have been when he was just overseer here on the old Jack Straw and Peter Ochello place. But he got hold of it an' built it into th' biggest an' finest plantation in the Delta.—I've always
liked
Big Daddy....

[She crosses to the proscenium]

Well, this is Big Daddy's last birthday. I'm sorry about it. But I'm facing the facts. It takes money to take care of a drinker and that's the office that I've been elected to lately.

BRICK
: You don't have to take care of me.

MARGARET
: Yes, I do. Two people in the same boat have got to take care of each other. At least you want money to buy more Echo Spring when this supply is exhausted, or will you be satisfied with a ten-cent beer?—Mae an' Gooper are plannin' to freeze us out of Big Daddy's estate because you drink and I'm childless. But we can defeat that plan. We're
going
to defeat that plan!—
Brick, y'know, I've been so God damn disgustingly poor all my life!
—That's the
truth
, Brick!

BRICK
: I'm not sayin' it isn't.

MARGARET
: Always had to suck up to people I couldn't stand because they had money and I was poor as Job's turkey. You don't know what that's like. Well, I'll tell you, it's like you would feel a thousand miles away from Echo Spring!—And had to get back to it on that broken ankle... without a crutch!

That's how it feels to be as poor as Job's turkey and have to suck up to relatives that you hated because they had money and all you had was a bunch of hand-me-down clothes and a few old mouldy three per cent government bonds. My daddy loved his liquor, he fell in love with his liquor the way you've fallen in love with Echo Spring!—And my poor Mama, having to maintain some semblance of social position, to keep appearances up, on an income of one hundred and fifty dollars a month on those old government bonds!

When I came out, the year that I made my debut, I had just two evening dresses! One Mother made me from a pattern in
Vogue
, the other a hand-me-down from a snotty rich cousin I hated!

—The dress that I married you in was my grandmother's weddin' gown....

So that's why I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof!

[Brick is still on the gallery. Someone below calls up to him in a warm Negro voice, 'Hiya, Mistah Brick, how yuh feelin?']

BRICK
[raises his liquor glass as if that answered the question.]

MARGARET
: You can be young without money but you can't be old without it. You've got to be old
with
money because to be old without it is just too awful, you've got to be one or the other, either
young
or
with money
, you can't be old and
without
it.—That's the truth, Brick....

[Brick whistles softly, vaguely.]

Well, now I'm dressed, I'm all dressed, there's nothing else for me to do.

[Forlornly, almost fearfully.]

I'm dressed, all dressed, nothing else for me to do....

[She moves about restlessly, aimlessly, and speaks, as if to herself.]

I know when I made my mistake.—What am I—? Oh!—my bracelets....

[She starts working a collection of bracelets over her hands on to her wrists, about six on each, as she talks.]

I've thought a whole lot about it and now I know when I made my mistake. Yes, I made my mistake when I told you the truth about that thing with Skipper. Never should have confessed it, a fatal error, tellin' you about that thing with Skipper.

BRICK
: Maggie, shut up about Skipper. I mean it, Maggie; you got to shut up about Skipper.

MARGARET
: You ought to understand that Skipper and I—

BRICK
: You don't think I'm serious, Maggie? You're fooled by the fact that I am saying this quiet? Look, Maggie. What you're doing is a dangerous thing to do. You're—you're—you're—foolin' with something that—nobody ought to fool with.

MARGARET
: This time I'm going to finish what I have to say to you. Skipper and I made love, if love you could call it, because it made both of us feel a little bit closer to you. You see, you son of a bitch, you asked too much of people, of me, of him, of all the unlucky poor damned sons of bitches that happen to love you, and there was a whole pack of them, yes, there was a pack of them besides me and Skipper, you asked too goddam much of people that loved you, you—superior creature!—you godlike being!—And so we made love to each other to dream it was you, both of us! Yes, yes, yes! Truth, truth! What's so awful about it? I like it, I think the truth is—yeah! I shouldn't have told you....

BRICK
[holding his head unnaturally still and uptilted a bit]
: It was Skipper that told me about it. Not you, Maggie.

MARGARET
: I told you!

BRICK
: After he told me!

MARGARET
: What does it matter who—?

[Brick turns suddenly out upon the gallery and calls:]

BRICK
: Little girl! Hey, little girl!

GIRL
[at a distance]
: What, Uncle Brick?

BRICK
: Tell the folks to come up!—Bring everybody upstairs!

MARGARET
: I can't stop myself! I'd go on telling you this in front of them all, if I had to!

BRICK
: Little girl! Go on, go on, will you? Do what I told you, call them!

MARGARET
: Because it's got to be told and you, you!—you never let me!

[She sobs, then controls herself, and continues almost calmly.]

It was one of those beautiful, ideal things they tell about in the Greek legends, it couldn't be anything else, you being you, and that's what made it so sad, that's what made it so awful, because it was love that never could be carried through to anything satisfying or even talked about plainly. Brick, I tell you, you got to believe me, Brick, I
do
understand all about it! I—I think it was—
noble!
Can't you tell I'm sincere when I say I respect it? My only point, the only point that I'm making, is life has got to be allowed to continue even after the
dream
of life is—all—over....

[Brick is without his crutch, leaning on furniture, he crosses to pick it up as she continues as if possessed by a will outside herself:]

Why I remember when we double-dated at college, Gladys Fitzgerald and I and you and Skipper, it was more like a date between you and Skipper. Gladys and I were just sort of tagging along as if it was necessary to chaperone you!—to make a good public impression—

BRICK
[turns to face her, half lifting his crutch]
: Maggie, you want me to hit you with this crutch? Don't you know I could kill you with this crutch?

MARGARET
: Good Lord, man, d' you think I'd care if you did?

BRICK
: One man has one great good true thing in his life. One great good thing which is true!—I had friendship with Skipper.—You are naming it dirty!

MARGARET
: I'm not naming it dirty! I am naming it clean.

BRICK
: Not love with you, Maggie, but friendship with Skipper was that one great true thing, and you are naming it dirty!

MARGARET
: Then you haven't been listenin', not understood what I'm saying! I'm naming it so damn clean that it killed poor Skipper!—You two had something that had to be kept on ice, yes, incorruptible, yes!—and death was the only icebox where you could keep it....

BRICK
: I married you, Maggie. Why would I marry you, Maggie, if I was—?

MARGARET
: Brick, don't brain me yet, let me finish!—I know, believe me I know, that it was only Skipper that harbored even any
unconscious
desire for anything not perfectly pure between you two!—Now let me skip a little. You married me early that summer we graduated out of Ole Miss, and we were happy, weren't we, we were blissful, yes, hit heaven together ev'ry time that we loved! But that fall you an' Skipper turned down wonderful offers of jobs in order to keep on bein' football heroes—pro-football heroes. You organized the Dixie Stars that fall, so you could keep on bein' team-mates for ever! But somethin' was not right with it!—
Me included!
—between you. Skipper began hittin' the bottle... you got a spinal injury—couldn't play the Thanksgivin' game in Chicago, watched it on TV from a traction bed in Toledo. I joined Skipper. The Dixie Stars lost because poor Skipper was drunk. We drank together that night all night in the bar of the Blackstone and when cold day was comin' up over the Lake an' we were comin' out drunk to take a dizzy look at it, I said, 'SKIPPER! STOP LOVIN' MY HUSBAND OR TELL HIM HE'S GOT TO LET YOU ADMIT IT TO HIM!'-one way or another!