27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays

  What was clear?

  RANCHER: Nothing was clear.

  THE JUDGE: What was straight?

  RANCHER: Nothing was straight.

  THE JUDGE: How did the light come through?

  RANCHER: Through the crookedest entrance, the narrowest area-way!

  THE JUDGE: And where you walked—what was it you walked among?

  RANCHER: A pile of my own dead bones—like discarded lumber.

  THE JUDGE: The day was still.

  RANCHER: Oppressively still.

  THE JUDGE:

  Noon—breathless. The sky was vacant.

  White—plague-like—exhausted.

  RANCHER:

  Once it disgorged a turbulent swarm of locusts.

  Heat made wave-like motions over the terrible desert statement of distance.

  Giants came down, invisibly, pounding huge—huge—drums!

  THE WOMEN: (softly)

  Rojo—rojo

  rojo de sangre es el sol!

  (A low drumming)

  RANCHER:

  Drummers!

  Drummers!

  Go back under my skull.

  There is a time for nightmare’s reality later!

  Ahhh—ahhh—with disgust.

  With fur on the tongue,

  with mucous-inflamed eyeballs,

  fever enlarging the horrible chamber at night!

  THE WOMEN:

  Rojo—rojo

  rojo de sangre es el sol!

  RANCHER:

  Now do you wonder

  that with no divining rod excepting my thirst

  I looked for coolness of springs in the woman’s body?

  That finding none,

  or finding it being cut off—drained away

  at the source—by the least suspected,

  I struck?

  And struck?

  And tore the false rock open?

  THE WOMEN: Rojo—rojo.

  RANCHER:

  I own my guilt.

  I own it before you ranchers, before you women.

  I say that I struck with an axe at the wife’s false body and would have struck him, too, but my strength went from me.

  I found the two together and clove them apart with that—the axe.

  No more,

  there is no more.

  THE WOMEN:

  Rojo de sangre es el sol!

  Rojo—rojo.

  Rojo de sangre es el sol!

  (The Rancher sinks to the bench. The Son rises. A cloud again passes over the sky. There is a glimmer of lightning and the fretful murmur of wind. A dimness replaces the glare that was in the room. The women murmur and draw their shawls about them.)

  SON: (facing The Rancher)

  You shall not defame her,

  nor shall you defile her,

  this quicksilver girl,

  this skyward diver,

  this searcher after pearls,

  terrestrial striver!

  Blue—

  Blue—

  Immortally blue

  is space at last . . .

  I think she always knew that she would be lost in it.

  Lost in it? Where!

  In which if any direction!

  Player, with music lead us!

  Lead us—Where?

  (The Guitar Player, with an assenting smile, rises by the door.)

  SON: (with gestures of infinite longing)

  O stallion lover the night is your raped white mare!

  The meadow grasses continued entirely too far beyond where the gate—is broken in several places.

  Cling to it, dark child, till it carries you further than ever.

  O make it swing out to the wildest and openest places!

  The most—indestructible places!

  For nothing contains you now,

  no, nothing contains you, lost little girl, my sister,

  not even those—little—blue veins

  that carried the light to your temples,

  O springtime jets

  so torrential they burst their vessels and spattered the sky!

  (Bells toll softly once more and the girl reappears in the doorway. It is the first vision again—Elena of the Springs. The Son stumbles toward her.)

  SON: Elena.

  (She shakes her head with a sorrowful smile.)

  Elena!

  (He whips a knife from his belt and holds it above him.)

  Witness—in this thrust—our purification!

  (He plunges the knife into his breast. Everyone rises with a soft intake of breath. The Guitar Player stands and sweeps back his crimson cape. He accompanies the speech and action with delicate chords.)

  MOTHER: (unbearably) My son!

  SON: Elena . . .

  (The vision retreats smiling, transcendent. The Son drops the knife and leans in the open doorway. The sky darkens and there is a rumble of thunder. A voice in the distance cries “Rain!")

  SON: (looking out with a smile)

  Peeto, our pony, catches the scent in his nostrils of thunderstorms coming . . .

  (A delicate chord on the guitar.)

  When Peeto was born he stood on his four legs at once, and accepted the world.

  He was wiser than I.

  When Peeto was one year old, he was wiser than God!

  A VOICE: (nearer) The rain! The rain! The rain!

  SON: (with a faint smile, glancing up)

  Peeto! Peeto!

  The Indian boys call after . . .

  VOICE: (still nearer) the rain!

  SON:

  . . . trying to stop him, trying to stop—the wind . . .

  (He lurches forward and falls to the floor. An Indian Youth in a wet blue shirt and sombrero bursts in the doorway, shouting.)

  YOUTH: The rain! The rain! The . . .

  (He tears off his sombrero and flings the rain from the brim across the court-room. Then he suddenly observes the body on the floor. He falls respectfully silent and bows his head. Outside is heard the faint and haunting musk of guitars, accompanied by the wordless singing of women. Rain can be heard falling steadily and gently on the roof.)

  MOTHER: (quietly, rising from her knees, facing The Rancher)

  Pass him the knife.

  RANCHER:

  I thank you, Señora.

  This generous offer, however, is unrequired.

  (He removes from his belt a silver knife.)

  I also came prepared for—purification.

  (He turns to the Indian.)

  What did you say?—The rain?

  As one who has suffered over-long from drought I’d like the cooling taste of rain on my lips.

  (He bows.)

  Señoras—Señores . . .

  Follow me if you will—I go outside.

  (He moves to the door.)

  LUISA: Stop him!

  (She faces the chorus pleadingly but all are motionless. With a sob, she tries to rush outside with The Rancher. Indians at either side of the door clutch her arms and hold her pinioned in the archway. She writhes between them. The Guitar Player strikes a somber chord.)

  THE JUDGE:

  It needs no witness.

  (He crosses in front of the table.)

  Here on this plain, between these mountain ranges, we seem to have bred some feeling of honor amongst us, deeper than law.

  That is good.

  It is good that we keep it bright against the time

  when lesser breeds than we,

  invaders!—honorless thieves and killers without any conscience,

  come—as they someday will to try that honor.

  If men keep honor, the rest can be arranged.

  The rest will arrange itself—in the course of time.

  (Outside an alarum of trumpets. Luisa screams. The Guitar Player tosses his hat in the middle of the floor.)

  THE JUDGE: (turning and bowing to the audience) Mañana es otro dio.

  The play is done!

  (The Guitar Player sweeps his strings as the curtain falls slo
wly.)

  CURTAIN

  The Lady of Larkspur Lotion*

  * Larkspur Lotion is a common treatment for body vermin.

  CHARACTERS

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE.

  MRS. WIRE.

  THE WRITER.

  The Lady of Larkspur Lotion

  SCENE: A wretchedly furnished room in the French Quarter of New Orleans. There are no windows, the room being a cubicle partitioned off from several others by imitation walls. A small slanting skylight admits the late and unencouraging day. There is a tall, black armoire, whose doors contain cracked mirrors, a swinging electric bulb, a black and graceless dresser, an awful picture of a Roman Saint and over the bed a coat-of-arms in a frame.

  Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore, a dyed-blonde woman of forty, is seated passively on the edge of the bed as though she could think of nothing better to do.

  There is a rap at the door.

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (in a sharp, affected tone) Who is at the door, please?

  MRS. WIRE: (from outside, bluntly) Me! (Her face expressing a momentary panic, Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore rises stiffly.)

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: Oh. . . . Mrs. Wire. Come in. (The landlady enters, a heavy, slovenly woman of fifty.) I was just going to drop in your room to speak to you about something.

  MRS. WIRE: Yeah? What about?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (humorously, but rather painfully smiling) Mrs. Wire, I’m sorry to say that I just don’t consider these cockroaches to be the most desirable kind of roommates—do you?

  MRS. WIRE: Cockroaches, huh?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: Yes. Precisely. Now I have had very little experience with cockroaches in my life but the few that I’ve seen before have been the pedestrian kind, the kind that walk. These, Mrs. Wire, appear to be flying cockroaches! I was shocked, in fact I was literally stunned, when one of them took off the floor and started to whiz through the air, around and around in a circle, just missing my face by barely a couple of inches. Mrs. Wire, I sat down on the edge of this bed and wept, I was just so shocked and disgusted! Imagine! Flying cockroaches, something I never dreamed to be in existence, whizzing around and around and around in front of my face! Why, Mrs. Wire, I want you to know—

  MRS. WIRE: (interrupting) Flying cockroaches are nothing to be surprised at. They have them all over, even uptown they have them. But that ain’t what I wanted to—

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (interrupting) That may be true, Mrs. Wire, but I may as well tell you that I have a horror of roaches, even the plain old-fashioned, pedestrian kind, and as for this type that flies—! If I’m going to stay on here these flying cockroaches have got to be gotten rid of and gotten rid of at once!

  MRS. WIRE: Now how’m I going to stop them flying cockroaches from coming in through the windows? But that, however, is not what I—

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (interrupting) I don’t know how, Mrs. Wire, but there certainly must be a method. All I know is they must be gotten rid of before I will sleep here one more night, Mrs. Wire. Why, if I woke up in the night and found one on my bed, I’d have a convulsion, I swear to goodness I’d simply die of convulsions!

  MRS. WIRE: If you’ll excuse me for sayin’ so, Mrs. Hardshell-Moore, you’re much more likely to die from over-drinkin’ than cockroach convulsions! (She seizes a bottle from the dresser.) What’s this here? Larkspur Lotion! Well!

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (flushing) I use it to take the old polish off my nails.

  MRS. WIRE: Very fastidious, yes!

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: What do you mean?

  MRS. WIRE: There ain’t an old house in the Quarter that don’t have roaches.

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: But not in such enormous quantities, do they? I tell you this place is actually crawling with them!

  MRS. WIRE: It ain’t as bad as all that. And by the way, you ain’t yet paid me the rest of this week’s rent. I don’t want to get you off the subjeck of roaches, but, nevertheless, I want to colleck that money.

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: I’ll pay you the rest of the rent as soon as you’ve exterminated these roaches!

  MRS. WIRE: You’ll have to pay me the rent right away or get out.

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: I intend to get out unless these roaches get out!

  MRS. WIRE: Then get out then and quit just talking about it!

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: You must be out of your mind, I can’t get out right now!

  MRS. WIRE: Then what did you mean about roaches?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: I meant what I said about roaches, they are not, in my opinion, the most desirable room-mates!

  MRS. WIRE: Okay! Don’t room with them! Pack your stuff and move where they don’t have roaches!

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: You mean that you insist upon having the roaches?

  MRS. WIRE: No, I mean I insist upon having the rent you owe me.

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: Right at the moment that is out of the question.

  MRS. WIRE: Out of the question, is it?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: Yes, and I’ll tell you why! The quarterly payments I receive from the man who is taking care of the rubber plantation have not been forwarded yet. I’ve been expecting them to come in for several weeks now but in the letter that I received this morning it seems there has been some little misunderstanding about the last year’s taxes and—

  MRS. WIRE: Oh, now stop it, I’ve heard enough of that goddam rubber plantation! The Brazilian rubber plantation! You think I’ve been in this business seventeen years without learning nothing about your kind of women?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (stiffly) What is the implication in that remark?

  MRS. WIRE: I suppose the men that you have in here nights come in to discuss the Brazilian rubber plantation?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: You must be crazy to say such a thing as that!

  MRS. WIRE: I hear what I hear an’ I know what’s going on!

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: I know you spy, I know you listen at doors!

  MRS. WIRE: I never spy and I never listen at doors! The first thing a landlady in the French Quarter learns is not to see and not to hear but only collect your money! As long as that comes in—okay, I’m blind, I’m deaf, I’m dumb! But soon as it stops, I recover my hearing and also my sight and also the use of my voice. If necessary I go to the phone and call up the chief of police who happens to be an in-law of my sister’s! I heard last night that argument over money.

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: What argument? What money?

  MRS. WIRE: He shouted so loud I had to shut the front window to keep the noise from carrying out on the streets! I heard no mention of any Brazilian plantation! But plenty of other things were plainly referred to in that little midnight conversation you had! Larkspur Lotion—to take the polish off nails! Am I in my infancy, am I? That’s on a par with the wonderful rubber plantation! (The door is thrown open. The Writer, wearing an ancient purple bathrobe, enters.)

  WRITER: Stop!

  MRS. WIRE: Oh! It’s you!

  WRITER: Stop persecuting this woman!

  MRS. WIRE: The second Mr. Shakespeare enters the scene!

  WRITER: I heard your demon howling in my sleep!

  MRS. WIRE: Sleep? Ho-ho! I think that what you mean is your drunken stupor!

  WRITER: I rest because of my illness! Have I no right—

  MRS. WIRE: (interrupting) Illness—alcoholic! Don’t try to pull that beautiful wool over my eyes. I’m glad you come in now. Now I repeat for your benefit what I just said to this woman. I’m done with dead beats! Now is that plain to yuh? Completely fed-up with all you Quarter rats, half-breeds, drunkards, degenerates, who try to get by on promises, lies, delusions!

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (covering her ears) Oh, please, please, please stop shrieking! It’s not necessary!

  MRS. WIRE: (turning on Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore) You with your Brazilian rubber plantation. That coat-of-arms on the wall that you got from the junk-shop—the woman who sold it told me! One of the Hapsburgs! Yes! A titled lady! The Lady of Larkspur Lotion! There’s your ti
tle! (Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore cries out wildly and flings herself face down on the sagging bed.)

  WRITER: (with a pitying gesture) Stop badgering this unfortunate little woman! Is there no mercy left in the world anymore? What has become of compassion and understanding? Where have they all gone to? Where’s God? Where’s Christ? (He leans trembling against the armoire.) What if there is no Brazilian rubber plantation?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (sitting passionately erect) I tell you there is, there is! (Her throat is taut with conviction, her head thrown back.)

  WRITER: What if there is no rubber king in her life! There ought to be rubber kings in her life! Is she to be blamed because it is necessary for her to compensate for the cruel deficiencies of reality by the exercise of a little—what shall I say?—God-given—imagination?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (throwing herself face down on the bed once more) No, no, no, no, it isn’t—imagination!

  MRS. WIRE: I’ll ask you to please stop spitting me in the face those high-flown speeches! You with your 780-page masterpiece—right on a par with the Lady of Larkspur Lotion as far as the use of imagination’s concerned!

  WRITER: (in a tired voice) Ah, well, now, what if I am? Suppose there is no 780-page masterpiece in existence. (He closes his eyes and touches his forehead.) Supposing there is in existence no masterpiece whatsoever! What of that, Mrs. Wire? But only a few, a very few—vain scribblings—in my old trunk-bottom. . . . Suppose I wanted to be a great artist but lacked the force and the power! Suppose my books fell short of the final chapter, even my verses languished uncompleted! Suppose the curtains of my exalted fancy rose on magnificent dramas—but the house-lights darkened before the curtain fell! Suppose all of these unfortunate things are true! And suppose that I—stumbling from bar to bar, from drink to drink, till I sprawl at last on the lice-infested mattress of this brothel—suppose that I, to make this nightmare bearable for as long as I must continue to be the helpless protagonist of it—suppose that I ornament, illuminate—glorify it! With dreams and fictions and fancies! Such as the existence of a 780-page masterpiece—impending Broadway productions—marvelous volumes of verse in the hands of publishers only waiting for signatures to release them! Suppose that I live in this world of pitiful fiction! What satisfaction can it give you, good woman, to tear it to pieces, to crush it—call it a lie? I tell you this—now listen! There are no lies but the lies that are stuffed in the mouth by the hard-knuckled hand of need, the cold iron fist of necessity, Mrs. Wire! So I am a liar, yes! But your world is built on a lie, your world is a hideous fabrication of lies! Lies! Lies! . . . Now I’m tired and I’ve said my say and I have no money to give you so get away and leave this woman in peace! Leave her alone. Go on, get out, get away! (He shoves her firmly out the door.)