Authors: Tennessee Williams

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (9 page)

BOOK: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

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Brick, this stuff burns me!—

—Yes, boy. I'll tell you something that you might not
guess. I still have desire for women and this is my sixty-fifth birthday.

BRICK:

I think that's mighty remarkable, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY:

Remarkable?

BRICK:

Admirable,
Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY:

You're damn right it is, remarkable and admirable both. I realize now that I
never had me enough. I let many chances slip by because of scruples about it,
scruples, convention—crap . . . . All that stuff is bull, bull,
bull!—It took the shadow of death to make me see it. Now that
shadow's lifted, I'm going to cut loose and have, what is it they call
it, have me a—ball!

BRICK:

A ball, huh?

BIG DADDY:

That's right, a ball, a ball! Hell!—I slept with Big Mama
till, let's see, five years ago, till I was sixty and she was
fifty-eight, and never even liked her, never did!

[
The phone has been ringing down the hall.
Big Mama enters, exclaiming:
]

BIG MAMA:

Don't you men hear that phone ring? I heard it way out on the
gall'ry.

BIG DADDY:

There's five rooms off this front gall'ry that you could go through.
Why do you go through this one?

[
Big Mama makes a playful face as she
bustles out the hall door
.]

Hunh!—Why, when Big Mama goes out of a room, I
can't remember what that woman looks like, but when Big Mama comes back into
the room, boy, then I see what she looks like, and I wish I
didn't!

[
Bends over laughing at this joke till it
hurts his guts and he straightens with a grimace. The laugh subsides to a
chuckle as he puts the liquor glass a little distrustfully down on the
table.

[
Brick has risen and hobbled to the gallery
doors.
]

Hey! Where you goin'?

BRICK:

Out for a breather.

BIG DADDY:

Not yet you ain't. Stay here till this talk is finished, young fellow.

BRICK:

I thought it was finished, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY:

It ain't even begun.

BRICK:

My mistake. Excuse me. I just wanted to feel that river breeze.

BIG DADDY:

Turn on the ceiling fan and set back down in that chair.

[
Big Mama's voice rises, carrying
down the hall
.]

BIG MAMA:

Miss Sally, you're a case! You're a caution, Miss Sally. Why
didn't you give me a chance to explain it to you?

BIG DADDY:

Jesus, she's talking to my old maid sister again.

BIG MAMA:

Well, goodbye, now, Miss Sally. You come down real soon, Big Daddy's dying to
see you! Yaisss, goodbye, Miss Sally . . . .

[
She hangs up and bellows with mirth. Big
Daddy groans and covers his ears as she approaches.

[
Bursting in:
]

Big Daddy, that was Miss Sally callin’ from Memphis again! You know
what she done, Big Daddy? She called her doctor in Memphis to git him to tell
her what that spastic thing is!
Ha-HAAAA!—And
called back to tell me how relieved
she was that—Hey! Let me in!

[
Big Daddy has been holding the door half
closed against her.
]

BIG DADDY:

Naw I ain't. I told you not to come and go through this room. You just back
out and go through those five other rooms.

BIG MAMA:

Big Daddy? Big Daddy? Oh, big Daddy!—You didn't
mean those things you said to me, did you?

[
He shuts door firmly against her but she
still calls.
]

Sweetheart? Sweetheart? Big Daddy? You
didn't mean those awful things you said to me?—I know you
didn't. I know you didn't mean those things in your heart . . . .

[
The childlike voice fades with a sob and
her heavy footsteps retreat down the hall. Brick has risen once more on his
crutches and starts for the gallery again.
]

BIG DADDY:

All I ask of that woman is that she leave me alone. But she can't admit to
herself that she makes me sick. That comes of having slept with her too many years.
Should of quit much sooner but that old woman she never got enough of it—and
I was good in bed . . . I never should of wasted so much of it on her . . . . They
say you got just so many and each one is numbered. Well, I got a few left in me, a
few, and I'm going to pick me a good one to spend ‘em on!
I'm going to pick me a choice one, I don't care how much she costs,
I'll smother her in—minks! Ha ha! I'll strip her
naked and smother her in minks and choke her with diamonds! Ha ha!
I'll strip her naked and choke her with diamonds and smother her with minks
and hump her from hell to breakfast.
Ha aha ha ha
ha!

MAE
[
gaily at
door
]:

Who's that laughin’ in there?

GOOPER:

Is Big Daddy laughin’ in there?

BIG DADDY:

Crap!—them two
—drips .
. . .

[
He goes over and touches Brick's
shoulder.
]

Yes, son. Brick,
boy.—I'm—happy!
I'm happy, son,
I'm happy!

[
He chokes a little and bites his under lip,
pressing his head quickly, shyly against his son's head and then,
coughing with embarrassment, goes uncertainly back to the table where he set
down the glass. He drinks and makes a grimace as it burns his guts. Brick sighs
and rises with effort.
]

What makes you so restless? Have you got ants in your
britches?

BRICK:

Yes, sir . . .

BIG DADDY:

Why?

BRICK:

—Something—hasn't—happened . . . .

BIG DADDY:

Yeah? What is that!

BRICK
[
sadly
]:

—the click . . . .

BIG DADDY:

Did you say click?

BRICK
;

Yes, click.

BIG DADDY:

What click?

BRICK:

A dick that I get in my head that makes me peaceful.

BIG DADDY:

I sure in hell don't know what you're talking about, but it disturbs
me.

BRICK:

It's just a mechanical thing.

BIG DADDY:

What is a mechanical thing?

BRICK:

This click that I get in my head that makes me peaceful I got to drink till I get it.
It's just a mechanical thing, something like a—like a—like
a—

BIG DADDY:

Like a—

BRICK:

Switch clicking off in my head, turning the hot light off and the cool night on
and—

[
He
looks up, smiling sadly.
]

—all of a sudden there's—peace!

BIG DADDY
[
whistles long and soft with astonishment; he goes back to Brick and clasps his
son's two shoulders
]:

Jesus! I didn't know it had gotten that bad with you. Why,
boy,
you're—alcoholic!

BRICK:

That's the truth, Big Daddy. I'm alcoholic.

BIG DADDY:

This shows how I—let things go!

BRICK:

I have to hear that little click in my head that makes me peaceful. Usually I hear it
sooner than this, sometimes as early as—noon, but—

—Today it's—dilatory . . . .

—I just haven't got the right level of alcohol in my
blood-stream yet!

[
This
last statement is made with energy as he freshens his
drink.
]

BIG DADDY:

Uh—huh. Expecting death made me blind. I didn't have no idea that a son
of mine was turning into a drunkard under my nose.

BRICK
[
gently
]:

Well, now you do, Big Daddy, the news has penetrated.

BIG DADDY:

UH-huh, yes, now I do, the news has—penetrated . . . .

BRICK:

And so if you'll excuse me—

BIG DADDY:

No, I won't excuse you.

BRICK:

—I'd better sit by myself till I hear that click in my head,
it's just a mechanical thing but it don't happen except when
I'm alone or talking to no one . . . .

BIG DADDY:

You got a long, long time to sit still, boy, and talk to no one, but now
you're talkin’ to me. At least I'm talking to you. And you set
there and listen until I tell you the conversation is over!

BRICK:

But this talk is like all the others we've ever had together in our
lives! It's nowhere,
nowhere!—it's—it's
painful,
Big Daddy . . . .

BIG DADDY:

All right, then let it be painful, but don't you move from that
chair!—I'm going to remove that crutch. . . .

[
He seizes the crutch and tosses it across
room.
]

BRICK:

I can hop on one foot, and if I fall, I can crawl!

BIG DADDY:

If you ain't careful you're gonna crawl off this plantation and then,
by Jesus, you'll have to hustle your drinks along Skid Row!

BRICK:

That'll come, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY:

Naw, it won't. You're my son and I'm going to straighten you
out; now that
I'm
straightened out, I'm
going to straighten out you!

BRICK:

Yeah?

BIG DADDY:

Today the report come in from Ochsner Clinic. Y'know what they told
me?

[
His face glows with
triumph.
]

The only thing that they could detect with all the instruments of
science in that great hospital is a little spastic condition of the colon!
And nerves torn to pieces by all that worry about it.

[
A little girl bursts into room with a
sparkler
clutched in each fist, hops and shrieks like a monkey gone mad
and rushes back out again as Big Daddy strikes at her.

[
Silence. The two men stare at each other. A
woman laughs gaily outside.
]

I want you to know I breathed a sigh of relief almost as powerful as the
Vicksburg tornado!

BRICK:

You weren't ready to go?

BIG DADDY:

GO WHERE?—crap . . . .

—When you are gone from here, boy, you are long gone and no
where! The human machine is not no different from the animal machine or the
fish machine or the bird machine or the reptile machine or the insect
machine! It's just a whole God damn lot more complicated and
consequently more trouble to keep together. Yep. I thought I had it. The earth shook
under my foot, the sky come down like the black lid of a kettle and I
couldn't breathe!—Today!!—that lid was
lifted, I drew my first free breath in—how many years?—
God.—three .
. . .

[There is laughter outside, running
footsteps, the soft, plushy sound and light of exploding rockets.

[
Brick stares at him soberly for a long
moment; then makes a sort of startled sound in his nostrils and springs up on
one foot and hops across the room to grab his crutch, swinging on the furniture
for support. He gets the crutch and flees as if in horror for the gallery. His
father seizes him by the sleeve of his white silk pajamas.
]

Stay here, you son of a bitch!—till I say go!

BRICK:

I can't.

BIG DADDY:

You sure in hell will, God damn it.

BRICK:

No, I can't. We talk, you talk, in—circles! We get no where, no
where! It's always the same, you say you want to talk to me and
don't have a ruttin’ thing to say to me!

BIG DADDY:

Nothin’ to say when I'm tellin’ you I'm going to live
when I thought I was dying?!

BRICK:

Oh—that!—
Is that what you have to
say to me?

BIG DADDY:

Why, you son of a bitch! Ain't that, ain't
that—important?!

BRICK:

Well, you said that, that's said, and now I

BIG DADDY:

Now you set back down.

BRICK:

You're all balled up, you—