Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (8 page)

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
rotten peekhole 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 onto. A man that
drinks is throwing his life away. Don't do it, hold onto your life.
There's nothing else to hold onto . . . .

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 lightheaded . . . .

[
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 clock the summer we went 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 wine 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 rotten 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.

BIG DADDY
[
ignoring this remark
]:

Yes, sir, that's how it is, the human animal is a beast that dies but the fact
that he's dying don't give him pity for others, no, sir,
it—

—Did you say something?

BRICK:

Yes.

BIG DADDY:

What?

BRICK:

Hand me over that crutch so I can get up.

BIG DADDY:

Where you goin'?

BRICK:

I'm takin’ a little short trip to Echo Spring.

BIG DADDY:

To where?

BRICK:

Liquor cabinet . . . .

BIG DADDY:

Yes, sir, boy—

[
He hands Brick the
crutch.
]

—the human animal is a beast that dies and if he's got
money he buys and buys and buys and I think the reason he buys everything he can buy
is that in the back of his mind he has the crazy hope that one of his purchases will
be life everlasting!— Which it never can be . . . . The human animal
is a beast that—

BRICK
[
at the
liquor cabinet
]:

Big Daddy, you sure are shootin’ th’ breeze here
tonight.

[
There is a pause and voices are heard
outside.
]

BIG DADDY:

I been quiet here lately, spoke not a word, just sat and stared into space. I had
something heavy weighing on my mind but tonight that load was took off me.
That's why I'm talking. The sky looks diff'rent to me . . .
.

BRICK:

You know what I like to hear most?

BIG DADDY:

What?

BRICK:

Solid quiet. Perfect unbroken quiet.

BIG DADDY:

Why?

BRICK:

Because it's more peaceful.

BIG DADDY:

Man, you'll hear a lot of that in the grave.

[
He chuckles agreeably.
]

BRICK:

Are you through talkin’ to me?

BIG DADDY:

Why are you so anxious to shut me up?

BRICK:

Well, sir, ever so often you say to me, Brick, I want to have a talk with you, but
when we talk, it never materializes. Nothing is said. You sit in a chair and gas
about this and that and I look like I listen. I try to look like I listen, but I
don't listen, not much. Communication is—awful hard between people
an'—somehow between you and me, it just don't—

BIG DADDY:

Have you ever been scared? I mean have you ever felt downright terror of
something?

[
He
gets up.
]

Just one moment. I'm going to close these doors . . . .

[
He closes doors on gallery as if he were
going to tell an important secret.
]

BRICK:

What?

BIG DADDY:

Brick?

BRICK:

Huh?

BIG DADDY:

Son, I thought I had it!

BRICK:

Had what? Had what, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

Cancer!

BRICK:

Oh . . . .

BIG DADDY:

I thought the old man made out of bones had laid his cold and heavy hand on my
shoulder!

BRICK:

Well, Big Daddy, you kept a tight mouth about it.

BIG DADDY:

A pig squeals. A man keeps a tight mouth about it, in spite of a man not having a
pig's advantage.

BRICK:

What advantage is that?

BIG DADDY:

Ignorance—of mortality—is a comfort. A man don't have that
comfort, he's the only living thing that conceives of death, that knows what
it is. The others go without knowing which is the way that anything living should
go, go without knowing, without any knowledge of it, and yet a pig squeals,
but a man sometimes, he can keep a tight mouth about it.
Sometimes he—

[
There is a deep, smoldering ferocity in the
old man.
]

—can keep a tight mouth about it. I wonder if—

BRICK:

What, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

A
whiskey highball would injure this spastic
condition?

BRICK:

No, sir, it might do it good.

BIG DADDY
[
grins
suddenly, wolfishly
]:

Jesus, I can't tell you! The sky is open!
Christ, it's open again! It's open, boy, it's
open!

[
Brick looks down at his
drink.
]

BRICK:

You feel better, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

Better? Hell! I can breathe!—All of my life I been like a
doubled up fist . . . .

[
He pours a drink.
]

—Poundin’, smashin’,
drivin'!—now I'm going to loosen these doubled-up
hands and touch things
easy
with them . . . .

[
He spreads his hands as if caressing the
air.
]

You know what I'm contemplating?

BRICK
[
vaguely
]:

No, sir. What are you contemplating?

BIG DADDY:

Ha ha!—
Pleasure!
—pleasure
with
women!

[
Brick's smile fades a little but
lingers.
]