Baby Doll & Tiger Tail (14 page)

BABY DOLL
[
after a slight pause
]: Want some coffee?

SILVA
: No, just a cool drink of water, thank you ma’am.

BABY DOLL
: The kitchen water runs warm, but if you got the energy to handle an old-fashioned pump, you can get you a real cool drink from that cistern over there. . .

SILVA
: I got energy to burn.

[
Silva strides through the tall seeding grass to an old cistern with a hand pump. He looks about contemptuously as he crouches to the cistern
.]

Dump their garbage in the yard, phew! IGNORANCE and INDULGENCE and STINK!

AUNT ROSE
: Sometimes water comes and sometimes it don’t.

[
The water comes pouring from the rusty spout
.]

SILVA
: This time it did. . .

BABY DOLL
: Bring me a dipper of that nice cool well water, please.

AUNT ROSE
: I don’t have the strength anymore in my arm that I used to, to draw water out of that pump.

[
She approaches, smoothing her ancient apron. Vacarro is touched by her aged grace
.]

SILVA
: Would you care for a drink?

AUNT ROSE
: How do you do? I’m Aunt Rose Comfort McCorkle. My brother was Baby Doll’s daddy, Mr. T. C. McCorkle. I’ve been visiting her since. . . since. . .

[
She knits her brow, unable to recall precisely when the long visit started
.]

SILVA
: I hope you don’t mind drinking out of a. . .

AUNT ROSE
: SCUSE ME PLEASE! That ole hen, Fussy, has just gone back in my kitchen!

[
She runs crazily to the house. Baby Doll has wandered back to the cistern as if unconsciously drawn by the magnetism of the young Italian male
.]

BABY DOLL
: They’s such a difference in water! You wouldn’t think so, but there certainly is.

[
Silva brings up more water, then strips off his shirt and empties the brimming dipper over his head
.]

I wouldn’t dare to expose myself like that. I take such a terrible sunburn.

SILVA
: I like the feel of a hot sun on my body.

BABY DOLL
: Yes, well, it looks to me like you are natcherally dark.

SILVA
: Yep, like you are naturally white, as white as cotton.

BABY DOLL
: I’m certainly not colored, nobody could accuse me of havin’ colored blood in me.

SILVA
: Have I been accused of that?

BABY DOLL
: I reckon with such dark skin some folks that don’t like foreigners might suspicion you of havin’ some colored blood in you.

SILVA
: You know any folks that have expressed this opinion?

BABY DOLL
: Well, if I did, I wouldn’t repeat it, I’m not a person that tattles. Anyhow you got greenish eyes and, well, I heard you tell a nigger best by the color his gums and the roots of his finger-nails.

SILVA
: Would you like to examine my gums and the roots of my finger-nails?

BABY DOLL
: The subject doesn’t in’trest me a-tall.

SILVA
: What does interest you? Particularly, Mrs. Meighan?

BABY DOLL
: Oh, I like a good movie, and I like movie magazines and I—

SILVA
: Does that exhaust the number of your interests?

BABY DOLL
: I’m not gonna stand out here in this hot yard and give a complete list of all my interests in life.

[
She crosses to a shade tree
.]

SILVA
: But if you stood in the shade and made out a complete list of those interests in your life, I suppose that Mr. Meighan would be head of the list?

BABY DOLL
: That man would be at the opposite end of the list.

SILVA
: I don’t want to ask embarrassing questions but I don’t understand why you have married this man at the opposite end of the list.

BABY DOLL
: There was—special circumstances.

SILVA
: Such as? —If I may ask?

BABY DOLL
: My daddy was a sick man for a long time and everything but his insurance money had gone on doctor an’ hospital expenses and, well, he and Archie Lee was Lodge Brothers. You know. Masons.

SILVA
: Engaged together in the mason’s trade?

BABY DOLL
: In what?

SILVA
: Masonry, a form of construction?

BABY DOLL
: No, no, Masons is a club, it’s not—constructive or nothin’.

SILVA
: Oh. A social club. I see. Tennis, golfing, all that.

BABY DOLL
: Drinkin’ mostly, I’d say. You could never get in it, bein’ foreign an’ probably—Cath’lic?

SILVA
: Not sure I’d want to be in it. Prejudices like that seem—narrow-minded these days.

[
He moves closer with a slightly sensual smile
.]

BABY DOLL
[
flustered
]: What was I—Oh, yes, how I got married, the circumstances. Well. Archie Lee’s cotton gin was doin’ good business,
then
, befo’ you built
yours
and put his outa business practickly.

SILVA
: I hope you don’t blame me for that circumstance contributing to your—disappointment in marriage.

BABY DOLL
: No, no, but life has—

SILVA
: Reversals of fortune in it.

BABY DOLL
: That’s fo’ sure.

SILVA
: Now he’s got a gin doing business, and I’ve got
what?

BABY DOLL
: You’re young and—you got your health anyhow. —My daddy, he wasn’t real old but his health give out. Got sicker an’ sicker. He only had one liver left.

SILVA
: That’s the usual number of livers, Mrs. Meighan.

BABY DOLL
: Kidney! I meant one kidney which was also affected! So, well, Archie Lee told Daddy he knew of this New York doctor that could take a kidney out of some kind of an ape and put this ape kidney—you shouldn’t of brought up this subject. I don’t want to go on with it. [
Sniffles
.] Such a—awful— heat spell. . .

SILVA
: But even if it is painful to continue the subject, it would be better than not to.

[
He is very close to her, now, and her agitation increases
.]

BABY DOLL
: Why? Better how?

SILVA
: I am sympathetic to your story and could offer you some advice.

BABY DOLL
: Well, the long and short of it is, that Archie Lee offered to fly this doctor and the ape down here for this, this—

SILVA
: Operation. I think I’ve heard of such an operation performed somewhere, but it was the kidney of a chimpanzee.

BABY DOLL
: Yeah? Well, whatever. I think Archie Lee fooled Daddy so he could get hold of me in marriage. You see, Archie Lee did not bring down the doctor like he promised and I don’t think he even brought down the chim—chim—

SILVA
: Panzee?

BABY DOLL
: That’s my suspicion. I think he just put Daddy in the Veterans’ Hospital upstate and pretended the rest.

SILVA
: The rest being what, Mrs. Meighan?

BABY DOLL
[
sniffling
]:The rest being Daddy just—died there. . .

SILVA
: Now let’s consider this fairly, giving Mr. Meighan the benefit of some doubt. Isn’t it just possible that the chimpanzee refused to sign this paper permitting the transplant?

BABY DOLL
[
slow, indignant take
]: —Mr. Vacarro, I believe that you are mistaking me for a fool!

SILVA
: No, no, no, I just wanted to cheer you up.

BABY DOLL
: By pretending you think I don’t know a chimpanzee can’t read or write!

SILVA
: I’ve seen many remarkable things in my life!

BABY DOLL
: Not monkeys signin’ papers, you ain’t! But my Daddy did sign a paper! Under false pretenses! And he give me to Archie Lee in marriage before the doctor and the chimpanzee got down here! My daddy, he didn’t want to but in the face of death—

SILVA
: I know. Compromises are made—when you’re influenced—by terror. . .

BABY DOLL
: —I tole you this long, awful story because you said you could offer advice. What is the advice? None? You got none to offer?

SILVA
: I’ve got advice to offer but it takes some consideration and—Hey!

[
He indicates a derelict Pierce Arrow in the yard
]

Is this limousine retired from service?

BABY DOLL
: That old automobile belonged to the widow lady that owned this place till she died and they say she still haunts it now. Sometimes I like to set in the back seat and pretend I’m a young widow and my
show
fer drives me wherever I want.

SILVA
: Why don’t we play that game, games can be fun, get in, Madam, be seated.

[
She smiles shyly and seats herself on the rear seat. He climbs in beside her
.]

BABY DOLL
[
ambiguously discomfited by his proximity
]: Why don’t you set in the front seat an’ play
show-
fer?

SILVA
: I’d rather play your escort. You give me directions where you want to be driven and I’ll give them to the
sbow-
fer.

BABY DOLL
: Tell him to drive us along the levee to cach the breeze off the river, fast as he can drive to cool us off.

[
She fans herself rapidly, then averting her face, sneezes
.]

—’Scuse me! The air is so full of cotton lint.

[
She sniffles
.]

—You’re grinning at me like I tole you a joke!

SILVA
: Not grinning, just smiling because I noticed your bracelet with all of these gold bangles.

BABY DOLL
: That’s what’s called a charm bracelet. My daddy give it to me. There’s a charm for each birthday.

SILVA
: How many charming birthdays have you had?

BABY DOLL
: As many as I got charms hanging on this bracelet. . .

SILVA
: Mind if I count them?

[
He moves in—slowly and sensuously
.]

. . .11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. . . and. . .

BABY DOLL
: That’s all! I don’t want another birthday charm on that bracelet.

SILVA
: You wish to end your existence at the age of nineteen.

BABY DOLL
: Better than—keepin’ the bargain with Archie Lee. You see, we married with the agreement that he would not—that he would leave me alone—till I was twenty. And I’ll be twenty tomorrow. I don’t wanna be twenty. . . ever.

SILVA
: Understandable. —Don’t you have garbage collectors on Tiger Tail Road?

BABY DOLL
: It costs a little bit extra to git them to come out here and Archie Lee Meighan claimed it was highway robbery! Refused to pay! Now the place is swarming with flies an’ mosquitoes and—oh, I don’t know, I almost give up sometimes.

SILVA
: And did I understand you to say that you’ve got a bunch of unfurnished rooms in the house?

BABY DOLL
: Five complete sets of furniture hauled away! By the Ideal Pay As You Go Plan Furniture Company.

SILVA
: When did this misfortune—fall upon you?

BABY DOLL
: Why yestiddy! Ain’t that awful?

SILVA
: Both of us had misfortunes on the same day.

BABY DOLL
: Huh?

SILVA
: You lost your furniture. My cotton gin burned down.

BABY DOLL
[
not quite with it
]: Oh.

SILVA
: Quite a coincidence!

BABY DOLL
: Huh?

SILVA
: I said it was a coincidence of misfortune.

BABY DOLL
: Well, sure—after all, what can you do with a bunch of unfurnished rooms.

SILVA
: You could play hide and seek.

BABY DOLL
: Not me. I’m not the athletic type.

SILVA
: I take it you’ve not had this place long, Mrs. Meighan.

BABY DOLL
: No, we ain’t had it long.

SILVA
: When I arrived to take over the management of the Syndicate Plantation. . .

[
He chops at the grass with his crop
.]

this place was empty. I was told it was haunted. Then you all moved in.

BABY DOLL
: Yes it was haunted, and that’s why Archie Lee bought it for almost nothing.

[
She pauses in the sun as if dazed
.]

Sometimes I don’t know where to go, what to do.

SILVA
: That’s not unusual. People enter this world without instruction.

BABY DOLL
[
losing the thread again
]: Huh?

SILVA
: I said people come into this world without instructions of where to go, what to do, so they wander a little and. . . then go away. . .

[
Now, Baby Doll gives him a quick look, almost perceptive and then
. . .]

BABY DOLL
: Yah, well. . .

SILVA
: And so make room for newcomers! Old goers, new comers! Back and forth, goings and comings, rush, rush. . . Drift—for a while and then. . . VANISH. Anything living!. . . Last long enough to take it serious.

BABY DOLL
: And that’s all. . .

[
Silence. Possibly a mutual understanding
.]

SILVA
: You’re a lady to respect, Mrs. Meighan.

BABY DOLL
[
sadly and rather touchingly
]: Me? Oh, no—I never got past the fourth grade.