27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (18 page)

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
You see, I worked at the plant.

B
OXER:
So
?

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
I was fired, I—couldn’t handle the work! My—fingers—froze up on me! On the way home, I—something happened. They took me to the Catholic Sisters of Mercy! (
The Boxer grunts.
)
I had no idea how many weeks I was there. Observation—mental. When I got out—I wondered about my cat, and that was only this morning. I’ve—come to get her.

B
OXER
: I haven’t seen her, buddy.

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
(
desperately
)
She hasn’t—climbed in the window?

B
OXER:
No
.
If she did she wouldn’t have got a very cordial reception.

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
She hasn’t—been
around,
then? (
His voice breaks, his lips tremble. The Boxer stares at him incredulously. Suddenly he begins to laugh. Helplessly the Little
Man laughs with him, breathlessly and uncontrollably. For several moments they laugh together, then all at once the Little Man’s face puckers up. He covers his face and sobs. The Boxer grunts with amazement. This is entirely too much. He strides to the door.
)

B
OXER:
(
shouting
)
Bella! Bella! Hey, Bella! (
The Landlady answers. After a moment or two she appears in the door. Her large simplicity is gone. She has frizzed her hair and has on a tight-fitting dress and flashy jewelry. In her now is a sinister, gleaming richness.
)

L
ANDLADY:
Aw
.
YOU.
They tole me you got laid off at th’ plant. I’m sorry. The room ‘as been taken. It’s now occupied by this young gentleman here. Your stuff, your few belongings, are packed in the downstairs closet. On your way out you may as well pick them up. (
The Little Man claws in his pockets and pulls out a large dirty rag. He blows his nose on it.
)
I can’t afford to let my rooms stay vacant. I got to be practical, don’t I? I didn’t take you under false pretenses. You must remember the first conversation we had, before you even decided you’d take the room. I told you there wasn’t nothing soft in my nature. That I was a character perfectly fair and decent—but not sentimental. It’s luck in this world, plain luck—and you’ve got to buck it!

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
You—came in, nights and—sang.

B
OXER:
Huh!

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
(
wonderingly
)
Sang. . . .

L
ANDLADY:
What of it? I gave you free entertainment. But that don’t mean I was sentimental about you. (
The Little Man shakes his head.
)

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
Nothing?

L
ANDLADY:
What?

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
Nothing?

B
OXER:
(
annoyed
)
What is this? What’s this going on here? Is this my room or is it somebody else’s? (
He grabs his gloves
from the wall.
)
Return me the fin I paid you and I’ll move out!

L
ANDLADY:
Just hold your horses a minute!

B
OXER:
Mine or his?

L
ANDLADY:
Yours, horse-mouth! Take it easy!

B
OXER:
Naw, I won’t. I don’t like this kind of business! I rent a room, I want no crack-pot visitors coming an’ cryin’ over some—cat’s disappearance!

L
ANDLADY:
Easy, for God’s sake! Is this a national crisis? Mr.—Chile con carne! Whatever it is! Please go.

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
(
recovering his dignity
)
I’m going. I only wanted to ask you. Where is the cat?

L
ANDLADY:
(
grandly
)
That question I cannot answer. I turned her out.

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
When?

L
ANDLADY:
I don’t remember. Two or three weeks ago, maybe.

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
(
despairingly
)
No!

B
OXER:
Christ.

L
ITTLE
M
AN: NO,
no, no!

L
ANDLADY:
(
angrily, to them both
)
Be still! What do you think I am? The nerve a some people . . . Expeck me to play nurse-maid to a sick alley-cat? (
There is a pause.
)

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
Sick?

L
ANDLADY:
Yes! Whining! Terrific!

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
What was—the matter with her?

L
ANDLADY:
How should I know? Am I a—
vettinerry?
She cried all night and made an awful disturbance. Yes, like you’re making now! I turned her out. And when she come slinking back here, I thrown cold water on her three or four times! Finally, finally, she took no for an answer! That is all I have to say on the subjeck.

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
(
staring at her
)
Mean—ugly—fat! (
He repeats it faster.
)
Mean, ugly, fat, mean, ugly, fat! (
She slaps him
furiously in the face. The Boxer grabs his shoulders and shoves him out the door with a kick.
)

B
OXER:
Now, God damn it! A
mad
-house!

L
ANDLADY:
Ahhh! Th’—

L
ITTLE
M
AN:
(
screaming through the door
)
Where
is she? Nitchevo, Nitchevo! Where is she? Where did she go? Nitchevo, Nitchevo! Where!

L
ANDLADY:
(
screaming back at him
)
Holy God, what do I care where that dirty cat went! She might’ve gone to the devil for all I care! Get out of the house and stop screaming! I’ll call the police! (
The Little Man does not answer and turns away from the door where the Boxer is blocking him.
)

B
OXER:
Huh! Yes—a
mad
-house
.

L
ANDLADY:
Out of his mind. Completely. (
She wipes her face on her sleeve and adjusts her clothes.
)
Going? Can you hear?

B
OXER:
Yeah. Going back downstairs.

L
ANDLADY:
God. I hate for people to make a scene like that. Imagine! Holding me responsible for a sick cat. (
She sniffles a little.
)
Mean, ugly, fat. . . . I guess I
am.
But who
isn’t?
(
She sinks exhaustedly on the bed. The Boxer stands at the window rolling a cigarette.
)

B
OXER:
He’s gone out back of the house.

L
ANDLADY:
What’s he doing back there?

B
OXER:
Poking around in the alley and calling the cat. (
The Little Man calls in the distance: “Nitchevo!"
)

L
ANDLADY:
Useless. He’ll never find her. (
There is a sudden burst of joyful shouting. The Boxer leans out the window and chuckles. A softer, warmer quality appears in the slanting sunlight. There is distant music.
)
Now what’s going on?

B
OXER:
A celebration.

L
ANDLADY:
Celebration of what?

B
OXER:
(
lighting his cigarette and resting a foot on the sill
)
The old crack-pot with the whiskers has found the cat.

L
ANDLADY:
Found her? Who did you say?

B
OXER:
The old man, your father-in-law.

L
ANDLADY:
The old man couldn’t have found her! (
She gets up languidly and moves to the window.
)
How could he have found her? The old man’s blind.

B
OXER
: Anyhow, he found her. And there they go. (
The Landlady gazes wonderingly out the window. The Boxer slips his arm about her waist. The light is golden, the music is faint and tender.
)

L
ANDLADY:
Well, well, well. And so they are leaving together. The funniest pair of lovers! The ghost of a man—and a cat named Nitchevo! I’m glad. . . . Goodbye! (
The music sounds louder and triumphant.
)

CURTAIN

The Long Goodbye

CHARACTERS

J
OE.

M
YRA.

M
OTHER.

S
ILVA.

B
ILL.

F
OUR
M
OVERS.

The Long Goodbye

S
CENE:
Apartment F, third floor south, in a tenement apartment situated in the washed-out middle of a large mid-western American city. Outside the trucks rumble on dull streets and children cry out at their games in the area-ways between walls of dusty-tomato-colored brick. Through the double front windows in the left wall, late afternoon sunlight streams into the shabby room. Beyond the windows is the door to the stair hall, and in the center of the back wall a large door opening on a corridor in the apartment where a telephone stand is located. A door in the right wall leads to a bedroom. The furnishings are disheveled and old as if they had witnessed the sudden withdrawal of twenty-five years of furious, desperate living among them and now awaited only the moving men to cart them away. From the apartment next door comes the sound of a radio broadcasting the baseball game from Sportsman’s Park. Joe, a young man of twenty-three, is sitting at a table by the double windows, brooding over a manuscript. In front of him is a portable typewriter with a page of the manuscript in it, and on the floor beside the table is a shabby valise. Joe wears an undershirt and wash-pants. The noise of the broadcast game annoys him and he slams down the windows, but the sound is as loud as ever. He raises them and goes out the door on the right and slams other windows. The shouting of the radio subsides and Joe comes back in lighting a cigarette, a desperate scowl on his face. Silva, an Italian youth, small, graceful and good-natured, opens the entrance door and comes in. He is about Joe’s age. By way of greeting he grins and then takes of his shirt.

J
OE:
Radios, baseball games! That’s why I write nothing but crap!

S
ILVA:
Still at it?

J
OE:
All night and all day.

S
ILVA:
How come?

J
OE:
I had a wild hair. Couldn’t sleep.

S
ILVA:
(
glancing at page in machine
)
You’re burning the candle at both ends, Kid . . . (
He moves from the table across the room.
)
And in my humble opinion the light ain’t worth it. I thought cha was moving today.

J
OE:
I am. (
He flops in table-chair and bangs out a line. Then he removes the sheet.
)
Phone the movers. They oughta been here.

S
ILVA:
Yeh? Which one?

J
OE:
Langan’s Storage.

S
ILVA:
Storin’ this stuff?

J
OE:
Yeh.

S
ILVA:
What for? Why don’t you sell it?

J
OE:
For six bits to the junk man?

S
ILVA:
Store it you gotta pay storage. Sell it you got a spot a cash to start on.

J
OE:
Start on what?

S
ILVA:
Whatever you’re going to start on.

J
OE:
I got a spot a cash. Mother’s insurance. I split it with Myra, we both got a hundred and fifty. Know where I’m going?

S
ILVA:
No
.
Where?

J
OE:
Rio. Or Buenos Aires. I took Spanish in high school.

S
ILVA:
So what?

J
OE:
I know the language. I oughta get on okay.

S
ILVA:
Working for Standard Oil?

J
OE:
Maybe. Why not? Call the movers.

S
ILVA:
(
going to the phone
)
You better stay here. Take your money outa the bank and go on the Project.

J
OE:
No
.
I’m not gonna stay here. All of this here is dead for me. The goldfish is dead. I forgot to feed it.

S
ILVA:
(
into the phone
)
Lindell 0124. . . . Langan’s Storage? This is the Bassett apartment. Why ain’t the movers come yet? . . . Aw! (
He hangs up the receiver.
)
The truck’s on the way. June is a big moving month. I guess they’re kept busy.

J
OE:
I shouldn’t have left the bowl setting right here in the sun. It probably cooked the poor bastard.

S
ILVA:
He stinks. (
Silva picks up the bowl.
)

J
OE:
What uh you do with him?

S
ILVA:
Dump ‘im into the tawlut.

J
OE:
The tawlut’s turned off.

S
ILVA:
Oh, well. (
He goes out the bedroom door.
)

J
OE:
Why is it that Jesus makes a distinction between the goldfish an’ the sparrow! (
He laughs.
)
There is no respect for dead bodies.

S
ILVA:
(
coming back in
)
You are losing your social consciousness, Joe. You should say “unless they are rich"! I read about once where a millionaire buried his dead canary in a small golden casket studded with genuine diamonds. I think it presents a beautiful picture. The saffron feathers on the white satin and the millionaire’s tears falling like diamonds in sunlight—maybe a boy’s choir singing! Like death in the movies. Which is always a beautiful thing. Even for an artist I’d say that your hair was too long. A little hip motion you’d pass for a female Imp. Cigarette?

J
OE:
Thanks. Christ!

S
ILVA:
What’s the matter?

J
OE:
How does this stuff smell to you? (
He gives him a page of the manuscript.
)

S
ILVA:
Hmm. I detect a slight odor of frying bacon.

J
OE:
Lousy?

S
ILVA:
Well, it’s not you at your best. You’d better get on the Project. We’re through with the city guide.

J
OE:
What are you going to write next?

S
ILVA:
God Bless Harry L. Hopkins 999 times. Naw . . . I got a creative assignment. I’m calling it “Ghosts in the Old Court-house.” Days when the slaves were sold there! . . . This is bad. This speech of the girl’s—"I want to get you inside of my body—not just for the time that it takes to make love on a bed between the rattle of ice in the last highball and the rattle the milk-wagons make—”

J
OE:
(
tearing the page from his hands
)
I must’ve been nuts.

S
ILVA:
You must’ve had hot britches!

J
OE
: I did. Summer and celibacy aren’t a very good mix. Buenos Aires. . . .

1ST
M
OVER:
(
from the hall outside
)
Langan’s Storage!

J
OE:
(
going to the door
)
Right here. (
He opens the door and the four burly Movers crowd in, sweating, shuffling, looking about with quick, casual eyes.
)
Take out the back stuff first, will yuh, boys?

1ST
M
OVER:
Sure.

S
ILVA:
Hot work, huh?

2ND
M
OVER:
Plenty.

3RD
M
OVER:
(
walking in hastily
)
“I got a pocketful of dreams!” What time’s it, kid?

J
OE:
Four-thirty-five.

3RD
M
OVER:
We oughta get time an’ a ha’f w’en we finish this job. How’d the ball game come out?

J
OE:
Dunno. (
He watches them, troubled.
)

2ND
M
OVER:
What’s it to you, Short Horn? Get busy! (
They laugh and go out the rear corridor. Later they are heard knocking down a bed.
)

S
ILVA:
(
noting Joe’s gloom
)
Let’s get out of this place. It’s depressing.

J
OE:
I got to look out for the stuff.

S
ILVA:
Come on get a beer. There’s a twenty-six-ounce-a-dime joint open up on Laclede.

J
OE:
Wait a while, Silva.

S
ILVA:
Okay. (
The Movers come through with parts of a bed. Joe watches them, motionless, face set.
)

J
OE:
That is the bed I was born on.

S
ILVA:
Jeez! And look how they handle it—just like it was an ordinary bed!

J
OE:
Myra was born on that bed, too. (
The Movers go out the door.
)
Mother died on it.

S
ILVA:
Yeah? She went pretty quick for cancer. Most of ‘em hang on longer an’ suffer a hell of a lot.

J
OE:
She killed herself. I found the empty bottle that morning in a waste-basket. It wasn’t the pain, it was the doctor an’ hospital bills that she was scared of. She wanted us to have the insurance.

S
ILVA:
I didn’t know that.

J
OE:
Naw. We kept it a secret—she an’ me an’ the doctor. Myra never found out.

S
ILVA:
Where is Myra now?

J
OE:
Last I heard, in Detroit. I got a card from her. Here.

S
ILVA:
Picture of the Yacht Club. What’s she doin’—yachting?

J
OE:
(
gruffly
)
Naw, I dunno what she’s doin’. How should I know?

S
ILVA:
She don’t say? (
Joe doesn’t answer.
)
She was a real sweet kid—till all of a sudden she—

J
OE:
Yeh. Ev’rything broke up—when Mom died.

S
ILVA:
(
picking up a magazine
)
Four bit magazines! No wonder you stick up your nose at the Project. Hemingway! You know he’s got a smooth style. (
Joe stands as if entranced as the Movers pass through to the rear.
)
He’s been with the Loyalist forces in Spain. Fighting in front-line trenches, they say. And yet some a the critics say that he wears a toupee on his chest! Reactionaries! (
Silva begins to read. Myra comes quietly into
the room
—
young, radiant, vibrant with the glamor that memory gives.
)

J
OE:
You got a date tonight, Myra?

M
YRA:
Uh-huh.

J
OE:
Who with?

M
YRA:
Bill.

J
OE:
Who’s Bill?

M
YRA:
Fellow I met at the swimming meet out at Bellerive Country Club.

J
OE:
I don’t think a swimming pool’s the best place in the world to pick up your boy-friends, Myra.

M
YRA:
Sure it is. If you look good in a Jantzen. (
She slips of her kimono.
)
Get my white summer formal. No, I better. You got sweaty hands. (
She goes out the bedroom door.
)

J
OE:
What happened to Dave and Hugh White and that—that K. City boy?

M
YRA:
(
coming back with a white evening dress on
)
Who? Them? My God, I don’t know. Here. Hook this for me.

J
OE:
I guess what you’ve got in your heart’s a revolving door.

M
YRA:
You know it. The radio’s a great institution, huh, Joe? (
rapidly brushing her hair
)
I get so tired of it. Pop’s got it on all the time. He gripes my soul. Just setting there, setting there, setting there! Never says nothing no more.

J
OE:
You oughta watch your English. It’s awful.

M
YRA:
Hell, I’m not a book-worm. How’s it look?

J
OE:
Smooth. Where you going?

M
YRA:
Chase Roof. Bill is no piker. His folks have got lotsa mazooma. They live out in Huntleigh—offa Ladue. Christ, it’s—whew! Open that window! Cloudy?

J
OE:
No
.
Clear as a bell.

M
YRA:
That’s good. Dancing under the stars! (
The doorbell rings.
)
That’s him. Get the door. (
Joe faces the door as Bill enters.
)

J
OE:
Why go to Switzerland, huh?

B
ILL:
What? (
He laughs indifferently.
)
Oh, yeah. She ready?

J
OE:
Sit down. She’ll be right out.

B
ILL:
Good.

J
OE:
(
sweeping papers off the sofa
)
You see we read the papers. Keep up with events of the day. Sport sheet?

B
ILL:
No, thanks.

J
OE:
The Cards won a double-header. Joe Medwick hit a home-run with two men on in the second. Comics?

B
ILL:
No, thanks. I’ve seen the papers.

J
OE:
Oh. I thought you might’ve missed ‘em because it’s so early.

B
ILL:
It’s eight-forty-five.

J
OE:
It’s funny, isn’t it?

B
ILL:
What?

J
OE:
The chandelier. I thought you were looking at it.

B
ILL:
I hadn’t noticed—particularly.

J
OE:
It always reminds me a little of mushroom soup. (
Bill regards him without amusement.
)
Myra says that you live in Huntleigh Village.

B
ILL:
Yes?

J
OE:
It must be very nice out there. In summer.

B
ILL:
We like it. (
He stands up.
)
Say, could you give your little sister a third-alarm—or whatever it takes?

J
OE:
She’ll be out when she’s ready.

B
ILL:
That’s what I’m afraid of.

J
OE:
Is this your first date, Bill?

B
ILL:
How do you mean?