JOE: But he went by fast, wouldn’t look, wouldn’t listen! The snake-fence darted away from the road and a wall of stone rose and the sun disappeared for a moment. Your face was dark, your face looked desperate, Mother, as though you were starving for something you’d seen and almost caught in your hands—but not quite. Arid then the car stopped in front of a road-side stand. “We need eggs.” A quarter, a dime—you borrowed a nickel from Dad. And the sun was low then, slanting across winter fields, and the air was cold. . . .
MOTHER: Some people think about death as being laid down in a box under earth. But I don’t. To me it’s the opposite, Joe, it’s being let out of a box. And going upwards, not down. I don’t take stock in heaven, I never did. But I do feel like there’s lots of room out there and you don’t have to pay rent on the first of each month to any old tight-fisted Dutchman who kicks about how much water you’re using. There’s freedom, Joe, and freedom’s the big thing in life. It’s funny that some of us don’t ever get it until we’re dead. But that’s how it is and so we’ve got to accept it. The hard thing to me is leaving things not straightened out. I’d like to have some assurance, some definite knowledge of what you were going to do, of how things’ll work out for you. . . . Joe!
JOE: Yes?
MOTHER: What would you do with three hundred dollars?
JOE: I’m not going to think about that.
MOTHER: I want you to, Joe. The policy’s in your name. It’s in the right hand drawer of the chiffonier, folded up under the handkerchief box and it’s got . . . (Her voice fades out and two of the Movers come in carrying a floor-lamp.)
JOE: (clearing his throat) Where’s the shade to that lamp? (Mother slips quietly out as the sunlight brightens.)
1ST MOVER: It’s comin’. (He knocks the lamp slightly against the wall.)
JOE: God damn you! Why don’t you look what you’re doing?
2ND MOVER: What’s eating you?
1ST MOVER: Lissen, buddy—
JOE: You don’t care about people’s things! Any old way is all right!
SILVA: (looking up from the magazine) Joe, take it easy. They’re not going to damage this stuff.
JOE: They’re not going to damage it—no!
1ST MOVER: Damage it? Shit! (The two Movers laugh as they go out.)
SILVA: If they break a thing you collect on it.
3RD MOVER: (entering with some cardboard boxes) What’s in these here boxes?
JOE: China. Glass things. So don’t go tossing ‘em around like—
SILVA: Joe, let’s get outa this place. I can’t concentrate on a story with all this commotion. What uh yuh stayin’ here for anyhow, screwball? It’s only—makin’ yuh feel—depressed, ain’t it?
JOE: You go on if you want. I’ve got to wait here.
4TH MOVER: (coming in with a handful of bottles) Some empty powder an’ perfume bottles offa that dresser—you want ‘em or not?
JOE: Leave ‘em here on the floor. (The 4th Mover takes up a chair from the room and goes out the door to the stair hall. Joe examines the articles on the floor. He removes the stopper from a perfume bottle and sniffs. The light in the room dims again and the front door is caught in a spotlight. Myra’s voice can be heard in the hall outside.)
MYRA: Bill, I had a swell time.
BILL: Zat all? . . . It’s dark. They’re all in bed. (Joe rises and straightens attentively.)
MYRA: (appearing in the doorway) Joe’s light’s still on.
BILL: I’ll be quiet, honey. We don’t have to make any noise. I’m a wee little mouthie!
MYRA: (kissing him) Yes, and you’ve got to go home.
BILL: C’mere closer. Unh!
MYRA: Bill!
BILL: Whatsamatter? Aren’t you the little free-style swimming an’ fancy diving champion of St. Louis?
MYRA: What if I am?
BILL: Well, I can do a swell breast-stroke, too—outa water.
MYRA: Shut up. I want to go to bed.
BILL: So do I.
MYRA: Goodnight.
BILL: Lissen!
MYRA: What?
BILL: I go out with debutantes.
MYRA: What of it?
BILL: Nothing. Except that . . .
MYRA: How should I take that remark?
BILL: Okay, I’ll tell you. I’ll take “Goodnight I’ve had a swell time” from the V.P. Queen! But when girls like you try to sell me that stuff—
JOE: (stepping into the spotlighted area) Get out!
BILL: Aw. It’s big brother. I thought you’d be out on the milk-route by now.
JOE: Get out, you stinking—
MYRA: Joe!
JOE: Before I hang one on you! (Bill laughs weakly and goes out.)
MYRA: You were right about him. He’s no good. (Joe looks at her.) Joe, what do they mean by—'girls like me’?
JOE: (bending slowly and removing a small object from the floor) I guess they mean—this.
MYRA: (without looking) What?
JOE: Something he—dropped from his pocket.
MYRA: (dully) Oh. (raising her voice) Joe, I don’t want you to think I—
JOE: Shut up. . . . Mother’s sick.
MYRA: (excitedly) Oh, I know, I know, it’s all a rotten dirty mess! The Chase Roof, dancing under the stars! . . . And then on the way home, puking over the side of the car—puking! And then he stops in the park and tries to— Oh, Christ, I want to have a good time! You don’t think I have it sewing hooks an’ eyes on corsets down at Werber & Jacobs? Nights I wanta get out, Joe, I wanta go places, have fun! But I don’t want things like him crawling on me, worse than filthy cockroaches!
JOE: Hush up!
MOTHER: (faintly from another room) Joe—Myra . . . (She moans.)
MYRA: (frightened) What’s that?
JOE: It’s Mother, she’s sick, she’s—(Myra runs out hall door and the lights come up again.)—dead!
SILVA: What?
JOE: Nothing. You want some perfume?
SILVA: What kinda perfume?
JOE: Carnation.
SILVA: Naw. I resent the suggestion. (The Movers crowd in again.)
1ST MOVER: (to 3rd Mover) Quit horsin’ around on a job. Git them rugs.
3RD MOVER: Awright, straw boss. They should’ve put in a pinch-hitter. Meighan or Flowers.
2ND MOVER: Flowers? He couldn’t hit an elephant’s ass. Grab an end a the sofa. Hup!
4TH MOVER: Cabbage for supper nex’ door.
WOMAN: (calling mournfully from the street) May-zeeee! Oh, May-zeeee!
3RD MOVER: In that game a’ Chicago . . . (The Movers carry the sofa and other furniture out the entrance door. Joe removes a picture from wall.)
SILVA: (looking up from the magazine) Myra’s, huh?
JOE: One she had in the rotogravure, time she broke a record in the Mississippi Valley relays.
SILVA: (taking the picture) She had a sweet shape on her, huh?
JOE: Yes.
SILVA: What makes a girl go like that.
JOE: Like what?
SILVA: You know.
JOE: No, I don’t know! Why don’t you get out of here and leave me alone?
SILVA: Because I don’t want to. Because I’m reading a story. Because I think you’re nuts.
JOE: Yeah? Gimme that picture. (He bends over his suitcase to pack the photograph with his things and as he does so the lights dim a little and Myra comes in. She is appreciably cheaper and more sophisticated and wears a negligee she could not have bought with her monthly salary.)
MYRA: I wish you’d quit having that dago around the place.
JOE: (rising) Silva?
MYRA: Yeah. I don’t like the way he looks at me.
JOE: Looks at you?
MYRA: Yeh. I might as well be standing naked in front of him the way that he looks. (Joe laughs harshly.) You think it’s funny—him looking at me that way?
JOE: Yes. It is funny.
MYRA: My sense a the comical don’t quite agree with yours.
JOE: (looking at
her) You’re getting awfully skittish—objecting to guys looking at you.
MYRA: Well, that boy is repulsive.
JOE: Because he don’t live somewhere off a Ladue?
MYRA: No. Because he don’t take a bath.
JOE: That’s not true. Silva takes a shower ev’ry morning at the party headquarters.
MYRA: Party headquarters! You better try to associate with people that will do you some good instead of—radical dagoes and niggers an’—
JOE: Shut up! My God, you’re getting common. Snobbishness, that’s always the first sign. I’ve never known a snob yet that wasn’t fundamentally as common as dirt!
MYRA: Is it being a snob not to like dirty people?
JOE: Dirty people are what you run around with! Geezers in fifty dollar suits with running sores on the back of their necks. You better have your blood tested!
MYRA: You—you—you can’t insult me like that! I’m going to—call Papa—tell him to—
JOE: I used to have hopes for you, Myra. But not any more. You’re goin’ down the toboggan like a greased pig. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. Why did Silva look at you that way? Why did the newsboy whistle when you walked past him last night? Why? ‘Cause you looked like a whore—like a cheap one, Myra, one he could get for six! (Myra looks at him, stunned, but does not answer for a moment.)
MYRA: (quietly) You never would have said a thing to me like that—when Mother was living.
JOE: No. When Mother was living, you wouldn’t have been like this. And stayed on here in the house.
MYRA: The house? This isn’t a house. It’s five rooms and a bath and I’m getting out as quick as I can and I mean it! I’m not going to hang around here with a bunch of long-haired lunatics with eyes that strip the clothes off you, and then be called—dirty names!
JOE: If my sister was clean . . . I’d kill any fellow that dared to look at her that way!
MYRA: You got a swell right—you that just loaf around all day writing crap that nobody reads. You never do nothing, nothing, you don’t make a cent! If I was Papa—I’d kick you out of this place so fast it would— Ahhhhh! (She turns away in disgust.)
JOE: Maybe that won’t be necessary.
MYRA: Oh, no? You been saying that a long time. They’ll move every stick a furniture out a this place before they do you! (She laughs and goes out. The lights come up.)
JOE: (to himself) Yeah. . . . (The 1st and 2nd Movers come back and start rolling the carpet. Joe watches them and then speaks aloud.) Every stick a furniture out—before me! (He laughs.)
SILVA: What?
JOE: I got a card from her last week.
SILVA: Who?
JOE: Myra.
SILVA: Yeah. You told me that. (He throws the magazine aside.) I wonder where your old man is.
JOE: Christ. I don’t know.
SILVA: Funny an old bloke like him just quittin’ his job and lamming out to God knows where—after fifty—or fifty-five years of livin’ a regular middle-class life.
JOE: I guess he got tired of living a regular middle-class life.
SILVA: I used to wonder what he was thinking about nights—sitting in that big overstuffed chair. (The 3rd and 4th Movers have come back and now they remove the big chair. Joe takes his shirt from the chair as they pass and slowly puts it on.)
JOE: So did I. I’m still wondering. He never said a damn thing.
SILVA: Naw?
JOE: Just sat there, sat there, night after night after night. Well, he’s gone now, they’re all gone.
SILVA: (with a change of tone) You’d better go, too.
JOE: Why don’t you go on ahead an’ wait for me, Silva. I’ll be along in a while.
SILVA: Because I don’t like the way you’re acting and for some goddam reason I feel—responsible for you. You might take a notion to do a Steve Brody out one a them windows.
JOE: (laughing shortly) For Chrissakes what would I do that for?
SILVA: Because your state of mind is abnormal. I’ve been lookin’ at you. You’re starin’ off into space like something’s come loose in your head. I know what you’re doing. You’re taking a morbid pleasure in watchin’ this junk hauled off like some dopes get in mooning around a bone-orchard after somebody’s laid under. This place is done for, Joe. You can’t help it. (Far down at the end of the block an organ grinder has started winding out an old blues tune of ten or fifteen years ago. It approaches gradually with a melancholy gaiety throughout rest of play.) Write about it some day. Call it “An Elegy for an Empty Flat.” But right now my advice is to get out of here and get drunk! ‘Cause the world goes on. And you’ve got to keep going on with it.
JOE: But not so fast that you can’t even say goodbye.
SILVA: Goodbye? ‘S not in my vocabulary! Hello’s the word nowadays.
JOE: You’re kidding yourself. You’re saying goodbye all the time, every minute you live. Because that’s what life is, just a long, long goodbye! (with almost sobbing intensity) To one thing after another! Till you get to the last one, Silva, and that’s—goodbye to yourself! (He turns sharply to the window.) Get out of here now, get out and leave me alone!
SILVA: Okay. But I think you’re weeping like Jesus and it makes me sick. (He begins to put on his shirt.) I’ll see you over at Weston’s if I can still see. (grinning wryly) Remember, kid, what Socrates said. “Hemlock’s a damn bad substitute for a twenty-six-ounce glass a beer!” (He laughs and puts on his hat.) So long. (Silva goes out the door, leaving Joe in the bare room. The yellow stains on the walls, the torn peeling paper with its monotonous design, the fantastically hideous chandelier now show up in cruel relief. The sunlight through the double windows is clear and faded as weak lemon water and a fly is heard buzzing during a pause in the organ-grinder’s music. The tune begins again and is drowned in the starting roar of the moving van which ebbs rapidly away. Joe walks slowly to the windows.)
CHILD: (calling in the street) Olly—olly—oxen-free! Olly—olly—oxen-free! (Joe looks slowly about him. His whole body contracts in a spasm of nostalgic pain. Then he grins wryly, picks up his suitcase and goes over to the door. He slips a hand to his forehead in a mocking salute to the empty room, then thrusts the hand in his pocket and goes slowly out.) Olly—olly—oxen-free! (Scattered shouting and laughter floats up to the room. The music is now fading.)
SLOW CURTAIN
Hello from Bertha
CHARACTERS
GOLDIE.
BERTHA.
LENA.
GIRL.
Hello from Bertha
SCENE: A bedroom in “the valley"—a notorious red-light section along the river-flats of East St. Louis. In the center is a massive brass bed with tumbled pillows and covers on which Bertha, a large blonde prostitute, is lying restlessly. A heavy old-fashioned dresser with gilt knobs, gaudy silk cover and two large kewpie dolls stands against the right wall. Beside the bed is a low table with empty gin bottles. An assortment of lurid magazines is scattered carelessly about the floor. The wall-paper is grotesquely brilliant—covered with vivid magnified roses—and is torn and peeling in some places. On the ceiling are large yellow stains. An old-fashioned chandelier, fringed with red glass pendants, hangs from the center. Goldie comes in at the door in the left wall. She wears a soiled double-piece dress of white and black satin, fitted closely to her almost fleshless body. She stands in the doorway, smoking a cigarette, and stares impatiently at Bertha’s prostrate figure.
GOLDIE: Well, Bertha, what are you going to do? (For a moment there is no answer.)
BERTHA: (with faint groan) I dunno.
GOLDIE: You’ve got to decide, Bertha.
BERTHA: I can’t decide nothing.
GOLDIE: Why can’t you?
BERTHA: I’m too tired.
GOLDIE: That’s no answer.
BERTHA: (tossing fretfully) Well, it’s the only answer I know. I just want to lay here and think things over.
GOLDIE: You been layin’ here thinkin’ or somethin’ for the past two week
s. (Bertha makes an indistinguishable reply.) You got to come to some decision. The girls need this room.
BERTHA: (with hoarse laugh) Let ‘em have it!
GOLDIE: They can’t with you layin’ here.
BERTHA: (slapping her hand on bed) Oh, God!
GOLDIE: Pull yourself together, now, Bertha. (Bertha tosses again and groans.)
BERTHA: What’s the matter with me?
GOLDIE: You’re sick.
BERTHA: I got a sick headache. Who slipped me that Mickey Finn last night?
GOLDIE: Nobody give you no Mickey Finn. You been layin’ here two solid weeks talkin’ out of your head. Now, the sensible thing for you to do, Bertha, is to go back home or—
BERTHA: Go back nowhere!—I’m stayin’ right here till I get on my feet. (She stubbornly averts her face.)
GOLDIE: The valley’s no place for a girl in your condition. Besides we need this room.
BERTHA: Leave me be, Goldie. I wanta get in some rest before I start workin’.
GOLDIE: Bertha, you’ve got to decide! (The command hangs heavily upon the room’s florid atmosphere for several long moments. Bertha slowly turns her head to Goldie.)
BERTHA: (faintly) What is it I got to decide?
GOLDIE: Where you’re going from here? (Bertha looks at her silently for a few seconds.)
BERTHA: Nowhere. Now leave me be, Goldie. I’ve got to get in my rest.
GOLDIE: If I let you be, you’d just lay here doin’ nothin’ from now till the crack of doom! (Bertha’s reply is indistinguishable.) Lissen here! If you don’t make up your mind right away, I’m gonna call the ambulance squad to come get you! So you better decide right this minute.
BERTHA: (Her body has stiffened slightly at this threat.) I can’t decide nothing. I’m too tired—worn out.
GOLDIE: All right! (She snaps her purse open.) I’ll take this nickel and I’ll make the call right now. I’ll tell ‘em we got a sick girl over here who can’t talk sense.
BERTHA: (thickly) Go ahead. I don’t care what happens to me now.