Three Plays

by Tennessee Williams

  [She is opening the package.]

  BRICK: Tell Big Daddy I'm crippled.

  BIG DADDY: I see you're crippled. I want to know how you got crippled.

  MARGARET [making diversionary tactics]: Oh, look, oh, look, why, it's a cashmere robe!

  [She holds the robe up for all to see.]

  MAE: You sound surprised, Maggie.

  MARGARET: I never saw one before.

  MAE: That's funny.—Hah!

  MARGARET [turning on her fiercely, with a brilliant smile]: Why is it funny? All my family ever had was family—and luxuries such as cashmere robes still surprise me!

  BIG DADDY [ominously]: Quiet!

  MAE [heedless in her fury]: I don't see how you could be so surprised when you bought it yourself at Loewenstein's in Memphis last Saturday. You know how I know?

  BIG DADDY: I said, Quiet!

  MAE: —I know because the salesgirl that sold it to you waited on me and said, Oh, Mrs Pollitt, your sister-in-law just bought a cashmere robe for your husband's father!

  MARGARET: Sister Woman! Your talents are wasted as a housewife and mother, you really ought to be with the FBI or—

  BIG DADDY: QUIET!

  [Reverend Tooker's reflexes are slower than the others'. He finishes a sentence after the bellow.]

  REVEREND TOOKER [to Doc Baugh]: —the Stork and the Reaper are running neck and neck!

  [He starts to laugh gaily when he notices the silence and Big Daddy's glare. His laugh dies falsely.]

  BIG DADDY: Preacher, I hope I'm not butting in on more talk about memorial stained-glass windows, am I, Preacher?

  [Reverend Tooker laughs feebly, then coughs dryly in the embarrassed silence.]

  Preacher?

  BIG MAMA: Now, Big Daddy, don't you pick on Preacher!

  BIG DADDY [raising his voice]: You ever hear that expression all hawk and no spit? You bring that expression to mind with that little dry cough of yours, all hawk an' no spit....

  [The pause is broken only by a short startled laugh from Margaret, the only one there who is conscious of and amused by the grotesque.]

  MAE [raising her arms and jangling her bracelets]: I wonder if the mosquitoes are active tonight?

  BIG DADDY: What's that, Little Mama? Did you make some remark?

  MAE: Yes, I said I wondered if the mosquitoes would eat us alive if we went out on the gallery for a while.

  BIG DADDY: Well, if they do, I'll have your bones pulverized for fertilizer!

  BIG MAMA [quickly]: Last week we had an airplane spraying the place and I think it done some good, at least I haven't had a—

  BIG DADDY [cutting her speech]: Brick, they tell me, if what they tell me is true, that you done some jumping last night on the high school athletic field?

  BIG MAMA: Brick, Big Daddy is talking to you, son.

  BRICK [smiling vaguely over his drink]: What was that, Big Daddy?

  BIG DADDY: They said you done some jumping on the high school track field last night.

  BRICK: That's what they told me, too.

  BIG DADDY: Was it jumping or humping that you were doing out there? What were you doing out there at three a.m., layin' a woman on that cinder track?

  BIG MAMA: Big Daddy, you are off the sick-list, now, and I'm not going to excuse you for talkin' so—

  BIG DADDY: Quiet!

  BIG MAMA: —nasty in front of Preacher and—

  BIG DADDY: QUIET!—I ast you, Brick, if you was cuttin' you'self a piece o' poon-tang last night on that cinder track? I thought maybe you were chasin' poon-tang on that track an' tripped over something in the heat of the chase—'s that it?

  [Gooper laughs, loud and false, others nervously following suit. Big Mama stamps her foot, and purses her lips, crossing to Mae and whispering something to her as Brick meets his father's hard, intent, grinning stare with a slow, vague smile that he offers all situations from behind the screen of his liquor.]

  BRICK: No, sir, I don't think so....

  MAE [at the same time, sweetly]: Reverend Tooker, let's you and I take a stroll on the widow's walk.

  [She and the preacher go out on the gallery as Big Daddy says:]

  BIG DADDY: Then what the hell were you doing out there at three o'clock in the morning?

  BRICK: Jumping the hurdles, Big Daddy, runnin' and jumpin' the hurdles, but those high hurdles have gotten too high for me, now.

  BIG DADDY: 'Cause you was drunk?

  BRICK [his vague smile fading a little]: Sober I wouldn't have tried to jump the low ones....

  BIG MAMA [quickly]: Big Daddy, blow out the candles on your birthday cake!

  MARGARET [at the same time]: I want to propose a toast to Big Daddy Pollitt on his sixty-fifth birthday, the biggest cotton-planter in—

  BIG DADDY [bellowing with fury and disgust]: I told you to stop it, now stop it, quit this—!

  BIG MAMA [coming in front of Big Daddy with the cake]: Big Daddy, I will not allow you to talk that way, not even on your birthday, I—

  BIG DADDY: I'll talk like I want to on my birthday, Ida, or any other goddam day of the year and anybody here that don't like it knows what they can do!

  BIG MAMA: You don't mean that!

  BIG DADDY: What makes you think I don't mean it?

  [Meanwhile various discreet signals have been exchanged and Gooper has also gone out on the gallery.]

  BIG MAMA: I just know you don't mean it.

  BIG DADDY: You don't know a goddam thing and you never did!

  BIG MAMA: Big Daddy, you don't mean that.

  BIG DADDY: Oh, yes, I do, oh, yes, I do, I mean it! I put up with a whole lot of crap around here because I thought I was dying. And you thought I was dying and you started taking over, well, you can stop taking over now, Ida, because I'm not gonna die, you can just stop now this business of taking over because you're not taking over because I'm not dying, I went through the laboratory and the goddam exploratory operation and there's nothing wrong with me but a spastic colon. And I'm not dying of cancer which you thought I was dying of. Ain't that so? Didn't you think that I was dying of cancer, Ida?

  [Almost everybody is out on the gallery but the two old people glaring at each other across the blaming cake. Big Mama's chest heaves and she presses a fat fist to her mouth. Big Daddy continues, hoarsely:]

  Ain't that so, Ida? Didn't you have an idea I was dying of cancer and now you could take control of this place and everything on it? I got that impression, I seemed to get that impression. Your loud voice everywhere, your fat old body butting in here and there!

  BIG MAMA: Hush! The Preacher!

  BIG DADDY: Rut the goddam preacher!

  [Big Mama gasps loudly and sits down on the sofa which is almost too small for her.]

  Did you hear what I said? I said rut the goddam preacher!

  [Somebody closes the gallery doors from outside just as there is a burst of fireworks and excited cries from the children.]

  BIG MAMA: I never seen you act like this before and I can't think what's got in you!

  BIG DADDY: I went through all that laboratory and operation and all just so I would know if you or me was boss here! Well, now it turns out that I am and you ain't—and that's my birthday present—and my cake and champagne!—because for three years now you been gradually taking over. Bossing. Talking. Sashaying your fat old body around the place I made! I made this place! I was overseer on it! I was the overseer on the old Straw and Ochello plantation. I quit school at ten! I quit school at ten years old and went to work like a nigger in the fields. And I rose to be overseer of the Straw and Ochello plantation. And old Straw died and I was Ochello's partner and the place got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger! I did all that myself with no goddam help from you, and now you think you're just about to take over. Well, I am just about to tell you that you are not just about to take over, you are not just about to take over a God damn thing. Is that clear to you, Ida? Is that very plain to you, now? Is that understood completely? I been through the laboratory
from A to Z. I've had the goddam exploratory operation, and nothing is wrong with me but a spastic colon—made spastic, I guess, by disgust! By all the goddam lies and liars that I have had to put up with, and all the goddam hypocrisy that I lived with all these forty years that we been livin' together!—Hey! Ida! Blow out the candles on the birthday cake! Purse up your lips and draw a deep breath and blow out the goddam candles on the cake!

  BIG MAMA: Oh, Big Daddy, oh, oh, oh, Big Daddy!

  BIG DADDY: What's the matter with you?

  BIG MAMA: In all these years you never believed that I loved you??

  BIG DADDY: Huh?

  BIG MAMA: And I did, I did so much, I did love you!—I even loved your hate and your hardness, Big Daddy! [She sobs and rushes awkwardly out on to the gallery.]

  BIG DADDY [to himself]: Wouldn't it be funny if that was true….

  [A pause is followed by a burst of light in the sky from the fireworks.]

  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 d
amn 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.]