The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays (23 page)

JANE
:
—Is
this another horror scenario of
yours—

TYE
: The Champagne Girl is dead, real dead, about as dead as dead which is totally dead so now you know why I needed a needle to get me through last night.

LADY TOURIST
[
from below
]: Lovely evening. [
The piano is heard
.]

ANOTHER LADY TOURIST
[
from below
]: What’s next on the tour or is it finished because I need a toddy?

TYE
: Fat Charlie’s lupos got her night before last in her white satin pad on Dauphine. You know what lupos are?

JANE
[
tonelessly
]: Lupos?

TYE
: Lupos are those big black Belgian shepherd dawgs that’re used for attack. Fat Charlie has three of ‘em and when he patrols his territory at night, they sit in the back seat of his Lincoln, set up there, mouths wide open on their dagger teeth and their black eyes rollin’ like dice in a nigger crapshooter’s hands. And night before last, he let ’em into the Champagne Girl’s apartment and
they—well
, they ate her. Gnawed her tits off her ribs, gnawed her sweet little ass off, and
her—female
awguns—all
! Of course the story’s diff’rent. The story is that the Champagne Girl entertained a pervert who killed her and ate her like that but Big Edna knows that it was Fat Charlie’s lupos that devoured that girl, under those ceiling mirrors and crystal chandeliers in her all white satin bedroom.
—Yep
.
—Gone
.
—The
headliner.
—Y’know
what you say when Fat Charlie wastes somebody? You got to say that he or she has “Gone to Spain.” So they tole me last night, when people ask you where’s the Champagne Girl, answer ‘em that the Champagne Girl’s gone to Spain.
—Sweet
kid from Bogalusa.

JANE
: Please
don’t—continue—the
story.

TYE
: All champagne colored without face or body make-up on her, light gold like pale champagne and not a line, a visible pore on her
body! Was she meant for dawg food? I said was she meant for dawg food? Those lupos ate that kid like she was
their—last—supper
. . .

JANE
: I try to open the doors. They’re stuck. I make retching sounds. Tye! OPEN THE DOOR!

TYE
: Why? You goin’ out naked and it ain’t dark?

JANE
: I’m going to vomit and
die—in
clean air on the gallery! [
She has moved slowly upstage to the gallery to the closed shutters, roving from one piece of furniture to another for support. Now she opens the shutter-doors violently and staggers out onto the gallery and the tourist ladies’ voices from below are raised in thrilled shock and dismay
.]

FIRST LADY
: Look at that!

SECOND LADY
: What at?

THIRD LADY
: There’s a naked whore on that gallery!

JANE
[
hysterically
]: OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT!

FIRST LADY
: Boy right behind
her—outrageous!
Above this lovely courtyard!

SECOND LADY
: The Quarter is full of degenerate people!

JANE
: OUT OF HERE, OUT I SAY!

TYE
: Babe, Babe, come back in! [
He draws her into the room
.]

JANE
:
Ahhhhh—help
me, put
me—down
. . .

TYE
: Take a hit of this Colombian grass.

JANE
: Why do you bring home these nightmare stories to me?!

TYE
[
gently
]: Babe, you brought up the subjeck, you asked me about her, I wasn’t plannin’ to tell you. Bed?

JANE
: Chair.

TYE
: Grass?

JANE
:
—Coffee
.

TYE
: Cold.

JANE
:
—Cold—coffee
.

—Why
do you stay on here?

TYE
: Babe, here’s where you are. [
She shakes her head
.]
—This
ain’t where you are?

JANE
: No more.
I—have
to dress . . . [
She dresses awkwardly, frantically. He watches in silence
.] You have to get dressed, too. I told you I was expecting a very important visitor. Did you forget that?

TYE
: Aw. The fat ass buyer, that’s right, he won’t mind me. I’ll give a pitch for your fashion designs. I’ll sell ‘em to him, Babe. I’ll say just look at these fashion designs,
elegant—like
her!

JANE
: Elegant your ass. I’m hardly able to dress. Oh, I want to die!
—That’s
a lie, too, I don’t!

TYE
: Babe, you’re in no condition to peddle fashion
designs—go
back to bed and rest.

JANE
: I have told you he isn’t a buyer of fashion designs, he’s a businessman from Brazil.

TYE
[
slow burn
]: Have you started dating businessmen on me, Babe?

JANE
: Here’s my bank account statement: overdrawn at Whitney’s. How about your bank account?

TYE
: Smokey’s giving me half of all he gets for
this—

JANE
: Not merchandise he’s stashed here?

TYE
: Soon as he finds a fence.

JANE
: You’re looking for a stretch in the clink. Tye, the situation’s turned impossible on
us—face
it.

TYE
: You’re not walkin’ out on me.

JANE
: Who have I got to appeal to except God, whose phone’s been disconnected, or
this—providential—protector
.

TYE
: From the banana republic, a greaseball. And you’d quit me for that?

JANE
: You’ve got to be mature and understanding. At least for once. Now dress. The man is due . . . . I realized your defects but you touched me like nobody else in my life had ever before or ever could again. But, Tye, I counted on you to grow up and you refused to. I took you for someone gentle caught in violence
and—degradation
that he’d escape from.

TYE
: Whatever you took me for, I took you for honest, for decent,
for—

JANE
: Don’t be
so—
“Decent?” You ridiculous
little—sorry
, no. Let’s not go
into—abuse
.
—Tye
? When we went into this it wasn’t with any long-term thing in mind, that would have been ludicrous of us both, and senseless and we’re not senseless, we’re reasonably intelligent and certainly experienced enough
to—
That’s him on the steps.

TYE
: You go in the bathroom quiet and I’ll explain without words. [
She thrusts his clothes at him. He throws them savagely about the stage
.]
—Well
?

DIRECTOR
: Sound: footsteps on stairs.

TYE
: That sounds like the steps of a responsible man.
—Hey
isn’t that bit cast and we preview Monday?

DIRECTOR
: Mr. Marshall feels it can be handled by the stage-manager.

TYE
:
—Funeral
baked meats!

PLAYWRIGHT
[
rousing
]: I have a more interesting suggestion.
—Stay
in character and describe the action.

HILARY
: Have I been admitted? For my bit?

PLAYWRIGHT
: No.
—Omitted
. Off, please.

TYE
: This
is—amateur
night in Dixie!

JANE
: Let’s give it a try. Will there be script or do we improvise?

PLAYWRIGHT
: Just tell it like it happens.

DIRECTOR
[
leaving
]:
Bye!

JANE
: Do I say that he knocks at the door?

PLAYWRIGHT
[
rising
]: He knocks at the door and knocks and pounds at the door.

JANE
[
getting into it
]: I try to stop Tye but Tye lets him in
and—Tye
?

TYE
[
shrugging
]: Yeah, I let him in and he does a slow take and then
he—

JANE
: Calls
me—

TYE
: “Puta!”
—I
know it’s Spanish for whore and I punch him in his belly. He says “Hah,” expelling breath. I punch him again and he says “Hah” again and goes backwards, he descends the stairs backwards on his fat ass. She tries to run after the greaseball to see if he’s injured in the backward descent but I hold her in and I shut the door and lock it and there’s a big commotion on the street.

JANE
: He shouts “
Policia!
”

PLAYWRIGHT
: And you sit calmly down on the table and roll a joint as if nothing at all had occurred.

TYE
: Why would I do that?

PLAYWRIGHT
: You wouldn’t but he would. Occurrences like this are practically nothing in the Vieux Carré. Why, after midnight the police sirens and ambulance sirens are a continual serenade.

JANE
: And I?

PLAYWRIGHT
: Take it less calmly.

JANE
: I don’t want to cry again.

PLAYWRIGHT
: Don’t. You keep
Metaxas—have
a hit of Metaxas while he’s rolling a joint.

JANE
: Oh. [
Pours from the bottle
.]

TYE
:
—Dig
.
—Still
no props for this bit. [
He makes the gestures of rolling a joint
.] All very Pirandello.

PLAYWRIGHT
: Stay in character. You forgot to shout.

TYE
[
back in character
]: I holler out the window: “Viva Che!”

JANE
: Why, Tye!

TYE
: Viva Che Guevara! And this banana man, sorry, this coffee man from Brazil shouts back from the street, “Muerto, muerto, chinga su madre!” And I holler down, “Naw, vive, viva, muerto your ass, greaseball”
—Then
act again like nothing has occurred?

PLAYWRIGHT
: Yes, you would: he
would—smoking
the joint . . .

JANE
: And I’m sort
of—thunderstruck
because—I
never would have suspected that Tye knew the name of Che Guevara or that Che had ever existed. You see, in New York, I was into the Movement a little, on the fringes of it till the Cathedral thing that opened my eyes to it.

TYE
: Babe, there’s lots about me that you never knew.

JANE
: I guess
that’s—

TYE
[
with homely lyricism
]: You reckon that’s right you’re right. I never asked many questions and neither did you, we just accepted each other until this particular Sunday when Chicken Little was right and the sky fell in. Well, the police didn’t come. It’s getting dim in the room, it’s getting almost
dark—and
we don’t talk. I smoke my joint. I offer it to her. She takes a hit and coughs. I look at her steady in the room getting dark and I see her clear. She turns her face away and I walk around that way and look at her from that side and she turns her face to the other and she’s crying without a sound and a black man’s playing piano at the Four Deuces round the corner, an oldie, right the atmosphere of this
bit—something
like—

JANE
:
Don’t
. [
He stops the soft singing but continues to stare at her
.] DON’T! [
Pause
.]

TYE
: Jane, you’re thinner, ain’t you?

JANE
: Why?

TYE
: How much thinner are you?

JANE
:
I—don’t
know
or—

TYE
: Sometimes you walk a block and can’t go any further. [
Pause
.]

JANE
: I guess I’m a yellow cab girl. With
limousine—aspirations
which you’ve blasted.

TYE
: Cut the smart talk, Babe.
Let’s—level
about it. [
Pause. She extends her hand
.] Another hit? [
Jane nods and takes a hit off his cigarette
.] Huh?

JANE
: It doesn’t seem likely now that my checking account or savings account are likely to be noticeably increased by the Brazilian. How about yours? Say in case of heavy, prolonged hospital expenses without Blue Cross or whatever, both of us
being—free-lancers—drifters
.
—Could
you afford heavy prolonged hospital expenses since I can’t?

TYE
: Tell me, Jane. Whose hospital expenses?

JANE
: Well, after all, why not, if you’re interested in it. It hasn’t been just lately I’ve lost weight and energy but for more a year in New York. I went to this fatherly old doctor who gave me routine tests, blood
chemistry—but
no convincing diagnosis, you know. You know, I think they don’t until you really demand and then sometimes they will if they’re sure you’re not pretending. Evasions. I got fed up with evasions and pick-up injections. I was going abroad to see the new fashion trends in Rome and Paris, you know. So I said to this fatherly old doctor, no more foolishness, please. Take a piece of paper and this ball-point pen and you write it down, spell it out in black and white what’s wrong that I don’t know, in case I take sick abroad and am completely ignorant
of—he
stared at me a moment or
two—or
more—and
I stared back without blinking and he knew that I meant it, I did, and then he smiled, professionally
but—sadly
,
and—wrote
it out on the paper with the pen I’d stuck in his hand.