FIRST LADY TOURIST [from below, very Southern]: Martha, look at the fan-lights on those windows!
THIRD LADY TOURIST [from below]: This is the sweetest court in the Quarter, I don’t like the restored ones. How old is this courtyard?
TOURIST GUIDE [from below]: Ladies, this is one of the oldest, most historic buildings in the Quarter.
SECOND LADY TOURIST: Sweet little fountain here! Fish.
JANE: Those—tourists! If I’d known when I took this place it was over a tourist attraction— [She slams the gallery doors: leans exhausted again them.]
TYE: It’s the festival, Babe, it ain’t always—festival.
JANE: Azalea—festival—ladies . . .
TYE: Gimme my cigarettes, Babe, ought to be some left in a pocket.
JANE [throwing his pants and fancy sport shirt]: Here, your clothes, get in them.
TYE: Not yet. It’s Sunday, Babe.
JANE: I know and I skipped Mass.
TYE: Won’t burn in hell for that, Babe.
JANE: I suppose I have—other things to—burn for . . .
TYE: —Where’s Beret? I like Beret to be here when I wake up.
JANE: Not even a cat will wait ten, twelve hours for you to sleep off whatever you shot last night. —How did a girl well-educated and reasonably well brought up get involved in this—oh, I’m talking to myself.
TYE: I hear you, Babe, and I see you.
JANE: Not all of me: just a remnant. You’re not talking to me.
TYE: Who else is in the room?
JANE: Me! Jane! —Do you recognize the remnant?
TYE: I see your elegance and hear your New Yawk langwidge.
JANE: Then—get up and dressed.
TYE: It’s not dark yet, Babe. Y’know I never get dressed till after dark on Sundays. It’s a—rule.
JANE: The foundations of the republic aren’t based on it and today—
TYE: It’s a rule I stuck to all my life: think it started in childhood to avoid Sunday School in—Friar’s Point—Mississippi . . .
JANE [cutting him off]: Today has to be an exception. Drink your coffee. I’m—expecting a caller, very important to me.
TYE: Fashion-designer?
JANE: No. Buyer. —To look at my designs. —I’ve looked at them myself and they’re no good, I’m no good. I just had a flair, not a talent and the flair flared out, I’m—finished, I’m—please get dressed, be decent: consider someone beside yourself for a change. It makes a difference in life, you feel better for it. —Some inconveniences make you feel better later . . .
TYE: You’re pantin’ like a hound that’s run a mile.
JANE: I know. I’m not without feelings despite the fact I’m a Yankee. —I suppose it’s the Bluegrass descent. I can still hear the voices, why do they scream like that, like tom-cats in heat!
FIRST LADY TOURIST [from downstairs, outside]: Bess! It’s a little dream! It’s like a dream.
JANE: “Like a dream”—last line of first act of Chekhov’s Seagull. —Played Nina once—“I’m a seagull”—no good translation—my performance was—praised—must have fever—still talking to myself.
TYE: I hear you, Babe. Maybe you should of stayed an actress, Babe, with your style and—voice . . .
JANE: I—thought possibly—fashion design—might be less of a Roman circus, “Babe.” And less corrupt, morally, than the stage. —No producer or agent ever laid me but—lots tried. —You probably won’t believe that I was once a moral girl with ideas and social interests, concerned with inequalities—injustice—you’ve only seen my decline into—degra—despe—ration.
TYE: Degra-desperation’s a new word, Babe.
JANE: It’s a—combo of two, much worse than one.
[A strident tourist’s drawl penetrates the closed shutters.]
TOURIST [from below]: —I can’t keep up with you girls in these tight slippers. Besides I want to skip straight through to the Ole French Market for coffee, I’ve seen too many degenerates with long hair begging for change, the change they need is a scrubbing brush and a bath in a sheep-dip, honey!
JANE [opening the doors with a gasp]: Ladies, please! This is a private residence, people live here, let them rest! —On Sunday!
FIRST LADY TOURIST: Gracious!
SECOND LADY TOURIST: Screaming at us for admiring the courtyard which is a listed attraction!
THIRD LADY TOURIST: That we bought admission to seeee!
JANE: I’m not a listed attraction, I’m a private citizen, driven—mad by your fatuous—inanities—down there! [She slams the doors shut. The guide’s voice is heard placating the outraged ladies. Jane moves, gasping, on a zigzag course to the table. It is covered with green felt on which are printed dice and other gambling devices.] —At least two degrees of—fever, nothing looks natural to me, why, I—never behaved so crazy in my life! I think it’s got in my head! These sketches are evidence of it! [She starts tearing fashion sketches off the wall.] —Would you look at these? Deco! Waistline at the hips, what an atrocity. And look at me. Bangles, jangles, beads! All taste gone! [Tears off costume jewelry.]
TYE: Babe, you’re in no shape to meet a buyer.
JANE [slowly and bitterly]: He’s no buyer of anything but me! —I tried to peddle designs at The Vogue Moderne—too advanced for introduction this season but would I be interested in modeling on the Trade Mart Roof? —Christ, I knew after one promenade round the revolving room, I’d fall into a potted palm and never get up again! [She draws a long, loud breath. Pause. He is thinking of something.]
TYE [slowly]: Babe, would you say that the Champagne Girl was intended fo’ dawg food? [This cues a pianist-singer at a bar nearby: a cadenza, then jazz.] Would you say that she was meant to feed dawgs, that young kid of sixteen?
JANE: —So I—declined, I—felt weak—went into the Blue Lantern for a shot of Metaxas to help me onto the street. There he was when I entered. He must of taken me for a hooker, probably rightly. Came over to me and pulled me to his table and presented his—camerados. Señorita this is Señor and Señor and Señor—have champagne. —Why not? On top of Metaxas, a French seventy-five informed me he had the Presidential Suite at The Royal Orleans, had never felt such attraction, muy, muy bonita. —Tried to force a hundred dollar bill in my hand, and like a fool I refused it—accepted his business address, though, like a rational person. —At noon today called him.
TYE: Who’re you talkin’ about?
JANE: My expected caller, a responsible businessman from Brazil—sincerely interested in my—bankrupt state . . .
TYE: Responsible man? From banana republic? Forget it, come back to bed and I’ll undress you, Babe, you need rest.
JANE: The bed bit is finished between us. You don’t believe we’re moving out today? [Tye slowly stumbles up, crosses to the table, gulps coffee, then grasps her arm and draws her to the bed.] No, no, no, no, no, no!
TYE: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
[He throws her on the bed and starts to strip her. She resists. He prevails. As the lights very gradually dim for the interval, a negro singer-pianist at a nearby bar fades in: “Fly a-way! Sweet Kentucky Baby-bay. Fly, away . . .”]
[There is a brief interval.]
[Scene: Jane is sobbing naked on the bed. Tye is rolling a joint, seated on the table. The skylight has faded toward early dusk but is still blue. Tye regards Jane, puzzled. The black singer-pianist is heard faintly: “I’ve stayed around and played around this old town too long/And I reckon I better travel on.”]
TYE: Want a hit, Babe? [She ignores the question.] —Christ, what’re you cryin’ about? Didn’t I just give you one helluva Sunday afternoon ball? And you’re cryin’ about it like your mother died.
JANE [brokenly]: You forced me, you little—sexist pig, you did, you forced me.
TYE: You wanted it.
JANE: I did NOT.
TYE: Sure you did. You come.
JANE [sitting up slowly]: That’s automatic, even when I’m—
TYE: Aw, no, I’ve ha
d chicks I might as well’ve been screwin’ a slab of liver, no shit.
JANE: —Beautiful—image . . .
LADY TOURIST [from below]: Honey, I wouldn’t have missed this courtyard for the world. Would you? Sweetes’ little thaaing. —Oh. Where’s Ella?
ANOTHER LADY TOURIST [from below]: Ella dropped in a bar.
LADY TOURIST [from below]: Alone? In the Quarter? Which bar!
ANOTHER LADY TOURIST [from below]: Right across the way there.
LADY TOURIST [from below]: The Unisex! ELLA! For heaven’s sake get her, there’s fairies in there. [Voices fade out. Piano comes in.]
TYE: [softer]: You know what I mean, action but no action. [He crosses toward her.] Honey, you got shadows under your eyes.
JANE: Blackbirds kissed me last night. Isn’t that what they say about shadows under the eyes? Blackbirds kissed her last night? [He sits beside her on the bed and gently pulls the cover over her bare breasts, bends to kiss her eyes.] Tye, I’m not a whore. Oh, I’m not the most ravishing courtesan of Paris with—bad cough and you’re not Armand, but—I am the Northern equivalent of a lady! A tramp but still a lady, not a whore.
TYE: Whores get paid for it, Babe, I never paid. [Grins.] In fack, sometimes got paid.
JANE: You little—prick! Now I’m talkin’ your jive, how do you like it? —Does she talk like that when she’s smearing you with lipstick, when you ball her, which I know that you do, repeatedly, between shows, to keep her energy and her silicone up?
TYE: —Who’re you talkin’ about?
JANE: That headliner at the strip show, the Champagne Girl.
[Pause. Singer: “I’ve hung around and sung around/This ole town too long . . .”]
TYE [gravely]: She’s—not with the show anymore.
JANE: The headliner’s quit the show?
TYE: Yeh, honey, the Champagne Girl is dead an’ so she’s left the show.
JANE: Do you mean literally dead or—not such a hot attraction?
TYE: Don’t be funny about it, it ain’t funny.
JANE: You mean she’s actually—
TYE: Yes. Ackchally. Dead.
JANE: —Oh. —Sorry.
TYE [wriggling into his shorts]: I didn’t have her, the Mob did, I mean Fat Charlie and Fat Charlie’s lupos. Y’know the show is syndicate owned, Babe. I’ve spoke of Fat Charlie to you, the local boss-man. Well, he got her night befo’ last. —Seems it happened this way. The Champagne Girl was a femme type of Lesbo, hung up on Big Edna, six-foot bull-dyke, walks a villain wrestler. Operated a fancy massage parlor on Esplanade. And kept the Champagne Girl in a pad on Dauphine, all white silk and satin. Well. Big Edna’s parlor was raided sev’ral times at the request of Fat Charlie, socialites got caught there with their pants down and the pay-off went to Fat Charlie not to Big Edna so Big Edna said, fuck this, and decided to open a parlor in San Fran. And the Champagne Girl was going out there with her. Fat Charlie said no but the Champagne Girl said yes like she didn’t know you don’t say no to Fat Charlie without sayin’ yes the next minute. And so it appears like now if she’s going to that West Coast massage parlor with Big Edna, it’ll be packed in ice.
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 . . .
[Another piano tune is heard from the bar nearby.]
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.
[Tye pours her a cup and puts it in her violently trembling hand. He holds the hand and lifts the cup to her lips, standing behind her. He lets his hand fall to her breast. She sobs and removes his hand. The singer-pianist is heard.]
—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. Ty
e, 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 appears from the wings.]
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?