Three Plays (8 page)

BRICK! HEY, BRICK!

[He stands over his flaming birthday cake. | After some moments, Brick hobbles in on his crutch, holding his glass. Margaret follows him with a bright, anxious smile.]

I didn't call you, Maggie. I called Brick.

MARGARET
: I'm just delivering him to you.

[She kisses Brick on the mouth which he immediately wipes with the back of his hand. She flies girlishly back out. Brick and his father are alone.]

BIG DADDY
: Why did you do that?

BRICK
: Do what, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY
: Wipe her kiss off your mouth like she'd spit on you.

BRICK
: I don't know. I wasn't conscious of it.

BIG DADDY
: That woman of yours has a better shape on her than Gooper's but somehow or other they got the same look about them.

BRICK
: What sort of look is that, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY
: I don't know how to describe it but it's the same look.

BRICK
: They don't look peaceful, do they?

BIG DADDY
: No, they sure in hell don't.

BRICK
: They look nervous as cats?

BIG DADDY
: That's right, they look nervous as cats.

BRICK
: Nervous as a couple of cats on a hot tin roof?

BIG DADDY
: That's right, boy, they look like a couple of cats on a hot tin roof. It's funny that you and Gooper being so different would pick out the same type of woman.

BRICK
: Both of us married into society, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY
: Crap... I wonder what gives them both that look?

BRICK
: Well. They're sittin' in the middle of a big piece of land, Big Daddy, twenty-eight thousand acres is a pretty big piece of land and so they're squaring off on it, each determined to knock off a bigger piece of it than the other whenever you let it go.

BIG DADDY
: I got a surprise for those women. I'm not gonna let it go for a long time yet if that's what they're waiting for.

BRICK
: That's right, Big Daddy. You just sit tight and let them scratch each other's eyes out....

BIG DADDY
: You bet your life I'm going to sit tight on it and let those sons of bitches scratch their eyes out, ha ha ha.... But Gooper's wife's a good breeder, you got to admit she's fertile. Hell, at supper tonight she had them all at the table and they had to put a couple of extra leafs in the table to make room for them, she's got five head of them, now, and another one's comin'.

BRICK
: Yep, number six is comin'....

BIG DADDY
: Brick, you know, I swear to God, I don't know the way it happens?

BRICK
: The way what happens, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY
: You git you a piece of land, by hook or crook, an' things start growin' on it, things accumulate on it, and the first thing you know it's completely out of hand, completely out of hand!

BRICK
: Well, they say nature hates a vacuum, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY
: That's what they say, but sometimes I think that a vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. Is someone out there by that door?

BRICK
: Yep.

BIG DADDY
: Who?

[He has lowered his voice.]

BRICK
: Someone int'rested in what we say to each other.

BIG DADDY
: Gooper?—
GOOPER!

[After a discreet pause, Mae appears in the gallery door.]

MAE
: Did you call Gooper, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY
: Aw, it was you.

MAE
: Do you want Gooper, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY
: No, and I don't want you. I want some privacy here, while I'm having a confidential talk with my son Brick. Now it's too hot in here to close them doors, but if I have to close those rutten doors in order to have a private talk with my son Brick, just let me know and I'll close 'em. Because I hate eavesdroppers, I don't like any kind of sneakin' an' spyin'.

MAE
: Why, Big Daddy—

BIG DADDY
: You stood on the wrong side of the moon, it threw your shadow!

MAE
: I was just—

BIG DADDY
: You was just nothing but
spyin'
an' you
know
it!

MAE
[begins to sniff and sob]
: Oh, Big Daddy, you're so unkind for some reason to those that really love you!

BIG DADDY
: Shut up, shut up, shut up! I'm going to move you and Gooper out of that room next to this! It's none of your goddam business what goes on in here at night between Brick an' Maggie. You listen at night like a couple of rutten peek-hole spies and go and give a report on what you hear to Big Mama an' she comes to me and says they say such and such and so and so about what they heard goin' on between Brick an' Maggie, and Jesus, it makes me sick. I'm goin' to move you an' Gooper out of that room, I can't stand sneakin' an' spyin', it makes me sick....

[Mae throws back her head and rolls her eyes heavenward and extends her arms as if invoking God's pity for this unjust martyrdom; then she presses a handkerchief to her nose and flies from the room with a loud swish of skirts.]

BRICK
[now at the liquor cabinet]
: They listen, do they?

BIG DADDY
: Yeah. They listen and give reports to Big Mama on what goes on in here between you and Maggie. They say that—

[He stops as if embarrassed.]

—You won't sleep with her, that you sleep on the sofa. Is that true or not true? If you don't like Maggie, get rid of Maggie!—What are you doin' there now?

BRICK
: Fresh'nin' up my drink.

BIG DADDY
: Son, you know you got a real liquor problem?

BRICK
: Yes, sir, yes, I know.

BIG DADDY
: Is that why you quit sports-announcing, because of this liquor problem?

BRICK
: Yes, sir, yes, sir, I guess so.

[He smiles vaguely and amiably at his father across his replenished drink.]

BIG DADDY
: Son, don't guess about it, it's too important.

BRICK
[vaguely]
: Yes, sir.

BIG DADDY
: And listen to me, don't look at the damn chandelier....

[Pause. Big Daddy's voice is husky.]

—Somethin' else we picked up at th' big fire sale in Europe.

[Another pause.]

Life is important. There's nothing else to hold on to. A man that drinks is throwing his life away. Don't do it, hold on to your life. There's nothing else to hold on to.... Sit down over here so we don't have to raise our voices, the walls have ears in this place.

BRICK
[hobbling over to sit on the sofa beside him]
: All right, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY
: Quit!—how'd that come about? Some disappointment?

BRICK
: I don't know. Do you?

BIG DADDY
: I'm askin' you, God damn it! How in hell would I know if you don't?

BRICK
: I just got out there and found that I had a mouth full of cotton. I was always two or three beats behind what was goin' on on the field and so I—

BIG DADDY
: Quit!

BRICK
[amiably]
: Yes, quit.

BIG DADDY
: Son?

BRICK
: Huh?

BIG DADDY
[inhales loudly and deeply from his cigar; then bends suddenly a little forward, exhaling loudly and raising a hand to his forehead]
: —Whew!—ha ha!—I took in too much smoke, it made me a little light-headed....

[The mantel clock chimes.]

Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?

BRICK
: Yeah....

[The clock goes on sweetly chiming till it has completed the stroke of ten.]

—Nice peaceful-soundin' clock, I like to hear it all night....

[He slides low and comfortable on the sofa; Big Daddy sits up straight and rigid with some unspoken anxiety. All his gestures are tense and jerky as he talks. He wheezes and pants and sniffs through his nervous speech, glancing quickly, shyly, from time to time, at his son.]

BIG DADDY
: We got that dock the summer we wint to Europe, me an' Big Mama on that damn Cook's Tour, never had such an awful time in my life, I'm tellin' you, son, those gooks over there, they gouge your eyeballs out in their grand hotels. And Big Mama bought more stuff than you could haul in a couple of boxcars, that's no crap. Everywhere she wint on this whirlwind tour, she bought, bought, bought. Why, half that stuff she bought is still crated up in the cellar, under water last spring!

[He laughs.]

That Europe is nothin' on earth but a great big auction, that's all it is, that bunch of old worn-out places, it's just a big fire-sale, the whole rutten thing, an' Big Mama wint wild in it, why, you couldn't hold that woman with a mule's harness! Bought, bought, bought!—lucky I'm a rich man, yes siree, Bob, an' half that stuff is mildewin' in th' basement. It's lucky I'm a rich man, it sure is lucky, well, I'm a rich man, Brick, yep, I'm a mighty rich man.

[His eyes light up for a moment.]

Y'know how much I'm worth? Guess, Brick! Guess how much I'm worth!

[Brick smiles vaguely over his drink.]

Close on ten million in cash an' blue chip stocks, outside, mind you, of twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile!

[A puff and crackle and the night sky blooms with an eerie greenish glow. Children shriek on the gallery.]

But a man can't buy his life with it, he can't buy back his life with it when his life has been spent, that's one thing not offered in the Europe fire-sale or in the American markets or any markets on earth, a man can't buy his life with it, he can't buy back his life when his life is finished.... That's a sobering thought, a very sobering thought, and that's a thought that I was turning over in my head, over and over and over—until today.... I'm wiser and sadder, Brick, for this experience which I just gone through. They's one thing else that I remember in Europe.

BRICK
: What is that, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY
: The hills around Barcelona in the country of Spain and the children running over those bare hills in their bare skins beggin' like starvin' dogs with howls and screeches, and how fat the priests are on the streets of Barcelona, so many of them and so fat and so pleasant, ha ha!—Y'know I could feed that country? I got money enough to feed that goddam country, but the human animal is a selfish beast and I don't reckon the money I passed out there to those howling children in the hills around Barcelona would more than upholster one of the chairs in this room, I mean pay to put a new cover on this chair! Hell, I threw them money like you'd scatter feed corn for chickens, I threw money at them just to get rid of them long enough to climb back into th' car and—drive away....

And then in Morocco, them Arabs, why, prostitution begins at four or five, that's no exaggeration, why, I remember one day in Marrakech that old walled Arab city, I set on a broken-down wall to have a cigar, it was fearful hot there and this Arab woman stood in the road and looked at me till I was embarrassed, she stood stock still in the dusty hot road and looked at me till I was embarrassed. But listen to this. She had a naked child with her, a little naked girl with her, barely able to toddle, and after a while she set this child on the ground and give her a push and whispered something to her. This child come toward me, barely able t' walk, come toddling up to me and—Jesus, it makes you sick t' remember a thing like this! It stuck out its hand and tried to unbutton my trousers! That child was not yet five! Can you believe me? Or do you think that I am making this up? I wint back to the hotel and said to Big Mama, Git packed! We're clearing out of this country....

BRICK
: Big Daddy, you're on a talkin' jag tonight.