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—
[Fade in piano playing “Seems Like Old Times.” Tye begins to sing softly with the piano.]
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.
TYE [whispering to her]: Downstage, in the light. [She shakes her head slightly.]
JANE: Sorry. I don’t remember the name of it, some—blood thing—progressive, rather fast at my age, and no cure. —I think I had a remission when I met you. [This is to Tye.] A definite remission. My God, what a pair, you, me. —Here. —Like the world stopped and turned backward or like it entered another universe: —months! [She moves convulsively, he grips her shoulders.] —Then . . . it . . . I . . .
TYE: Us?
JANE: That unnatural tiredness started in again. I went to Ochsners and it turned out that the blood count was the worse, it was close to—collapse . . . [Pause.] —Those are the clinical details. —Are you satisfied with them? [She stares at him, he averts his face. She moves around him to look at his face. He averts it. She claps it between her hands. Compels him to look at her with his tears.] —Honestly? [He looks down. A scratching sound is heard from the shutter doors.] —That’s Beret, let her in. —Isn’t nice how cats go away and come back and—you don’t have a worry about them. So unlike human beings. [He opens the doors. An invisible cat enters, mewing.] Give her—supper, give her a can of Puss ’n Boots—mackerel flavored’s her choice . . . [He opens a can of cat food and sets it on the floor; strokes the invisible cat a moment, then crosses to his clothes, collecting them from the floor.]
TYE [gently]: Jane, it’s after dark, I got to get dressed, now, Babe.
JANE: I know, I know.
TYE: Only four grades of school and no—respectable background.
JANE: I know.
TYE: No training for—nothing but—
JANE: He does dress now—quickly, guiltily, without a glance at me, as if I’d caught him at some shameful thing.
TYE [wrestling himself rapidly into his clothes]: I’m—trying to think. She’s thrown an awful lot at this country mighty quick . . .
JANE: I should have told you nothing, just slipped away. These Brazilians are sentimental, you know. I could have told him at once that I was dying and he would have put me in a suite at the best hospital to do it. —Among fresh flowers daily. You’d have visiting privileges. I’d introduce you to him as my kid brother from Friars Point, Miss!—he’s a gullible bastard. [A little hysterical laugh.] —He’d comfort you with a 22-karat, eighteen jewel, Swiss movement wristwatch.
TYE: Babe—cut some slack, will you, huh? We all got to cut some slack. Listen. You know you don’t have to sweat it.
JANE: —So?
TYE: Not with me.
JANE: Oh. —Can you give me another remission, one that lasts? And if it doesn’t last long, can you put me in the—astronomical hospital suite reserved for VIP’s?
TYE: —‘Sthat what you want? the Astronomical Hospital suite or me here and the skylight?
JANE: Or you there with the strippers . . .
TYE: Babe, cut some slack. And don’t sweat it. It’s late, after dark, I’m dressed.
JANE: Zip your fly up unless you’re now in the show.
[Pause. He suddenly moves to her and kisses her intensely, draws back and looks into her eyes. She smiles and zips up his fly and touches his face and throat wit
h trembling fingers.]
TYE: —Love . . .
JANE: Lovely old word, love, it’s travelled a long way, Tye.
TYE: Still has a long way to go. —Well, I—hate to leave you alone.
JANE: I’m not alone. The cat’s here. She’s a—very comforting presence in a room with a skylight. —This city is under sea level. At night those fleecy gray white clouds come so close over the roofs of the Quarter that if you’re slightly smashed and have a gallery you feel like you could touch them and little bits of them would come off your fingers like tufts of—cotton candy . . .
TYE: Yeah, yeh. I’ll tell you. I’ll get Kewpie to take over for me at midnight and I’ll come back with pizzas and a bottle of vino. We’ll have a—quiet celebration with—candles? Huh? —Now rest.
JANE: But TYE!
TYE: What, Babe?
JANE: How presumptuous of me, how—conceited of me to think that I, Jane, out of everybody living isn’t scared of—can’t even speak the word!
PLAYWRIGHT: Downstage.
[She moves quickly forward.]
JANE: —Death.
[Tye starts out the door. The playwright is lighted in his aisle seat.]
PLAYWRIGHT: Hold it, please. [Jane and Tye exchange cryptic glances.] I’m afraid we’ve lost our director. [Hilary appears from the wings.]
HILARY [in his costume-drama voice]: Mr. Leigh-Bowes has to catch the one-ten to East Hampton.
PLAYWRIGHT: Yes, that’s one way to put it.
HILARY [rushing downstage]: I think you’re the most—
JANE [crying out]: Please!
HILARY: I have got to say it. I’m going to say it. This old derelict pretends he can’t see well because he’s blind drunk and he has the insolence to—
JANE: I’ve just played a very emotional scene and— [She weeps on the actor’s shoulder.]
PLAYWRIGHT: I know. Take a minute. Now, Hilary, you can say it without shouting it.
HILARY [still shouting]: Mr. Leigh-Bowes tells me you consider me incompetent as a stage-manager. I happen to have made a rather distinguished career as an actor. I have worked with Mr. Leigh-Bowes in six productions and he does not want me to quit this one but I shall have to turn in my resignation if you go on attempting to undermine my reputation by your, your—stupid, sodden—slanders about my . . .
JANE: Make them stop it.
PLAYWRIGHT: Honey, let him hang it all out. Now, Hilary, I know I’m not always discreet as I should be, but—what slanders do you mean?
HILARY: That as an actor I merely carried a spear in a couple of Katharine Cornell productions, that for one. It happens to be that I supported Miss Cornell in three productions, including her Cleopatra, and it also happens that I received the Clarence Derwent Award, the first one given, as Mr. Browning in Barretts. Standby yes, but I gave twenty-six performances.
PLAYWRIGHT: That’s—that’s very impressive but—
HILARY: Are you calling me a liar, you old—derelict?
PLAYWRIGHT: I’m calling you nothing at all in spite of much provocation because I have notes to give and this hysteria of yours is holding us up.
JANE [to Tye]: Can’t you make them stop this?
TYE: Notes, he says, he’s got notes to give us. —Christ . . . .
HILARY: Mr. Leigh-Bowes left notes for you, his chauffeur came in the stage door and left this page of notes. [He throws it in the playwright’s face as the latter carefully mounts the steps over the orchestra pit onto the stage.]
PLAYWRIGHT: I hate to be bitchy, but—
HILARY: Can you HELP it?
PLAYWRIGHT: No. You may be Mr. Leigh-Bowes’ asshole buddy from public school in England but still you look to me and you act to me like an outpatient from Bellevue that ought to be back in. Now get the fuck off the stage while I exercise my right to give the performance notes.
HILARY: —You—despicable—!—old—
PLAYWRIGHT: That’s your curtain line, baby, so use it and get off!
JANE: —I play a scene like that and then am exposed to one like this and . . .
PLAYWRIGHT: It’s just show-business, honey. Now about that curtain. Let’s discuss that curtain. —Hilary, I’m sorry but I do say things so—go take a breather at Sardi’s. [Hilary goes off.] —About that curtain, it may be effective, it could be, but it’s just a curtain and we can’t settle for that. Can we? Jane? Are you listening to me?
JANE: —Yes. [She separates herself from Tye’s perfunctory comfort.]
PLAYWRIGHT: A play’s not stopped by a curtain, I mean if it’s a true thing it continues after the curtain the way life does after sleep. It comes out of the night stop and goes into the next day. And maybe it goes on in the minds and hearts of the audience after, so look— [Turns to Tye.] You’re an incorrigible delinquent, she’s bright enough to know that. You’re weak, purposeless. Addictive. Right? [Tye nods, expressionless.] Oh, attractive, appealing, a cut above what you do or she wouldn’t have had you with her. But you’re employed by a gangster that’s ripped off the show head-liner because she defied him, and hell, you might go next because you’ve heard about it and know she’s not in Spain. You’re holding goods, hot goods, for your buddy, Smokey. You said you’ll be back at midnight with pizzas and vino, oh, that’s his immediate impulse, but Tye’s impulsive and his impulses don’t always stick. An accident brought you together, you’re attracted strongly, by his—innocent delinquency, his—boyish appeal, but—are you listening, Tye? [No answer.]
JANE: He is.
PLAYWRIGHT: He’s employed by gangsters, the mob, that’s ripped of the show’s head-liner because she defied Fat Charlie’s orders, and how do you know that Tye mightn’t go next since he’s heard about it and knows she’s not in Spain. He’s holding hot goods for his buddy, comes home noon, falls stoned across the floor, needle-mark on his arm, smeared all over with lipstick.
TYE: I think we’ve got the picture.
PLAYWRIGHT [to Tye]: You tell her not to sweat dying with you, that you’ll be home at midnight with vino and pizza. And you’ll celebrate. What? Death? Hers? Coming soon?
TYE: Dig.
PLAYWRIGHT: The skylight’s not blue, now, it’s turned black as the piano-man singing. So. How certain are you that his immediate impulse will hold despite his weak, purposeless pattern? [Jane shakes her head with a concentrated gravity.] —What are you now?
JANE: I am? —Alone.
PLAYWRIGHT: No, you’re with the cat, as you said. An animal is a comforting presence sometimes! —So what do you do?
JANE: —This. [She bends slowly and gathers the invisible cat in her arms.]
PLAYWRIGHT: And say?
JANE: Beret . . .
PLAYWRIGHT: And look up at the black skylight with a question, then straight out into the house, your eyes dark as—
JANE: —The skylight?
PLAYWRIGHT: Yes, that’s the true curtain. [Starts back across the narrow steps.] I think this bridge was erected with homicidal intentions . . .
[He falls into the orchestra pit. Jane gasps and rushes down stage. The Playwright climbs out of the pit saying—]
Old cats know how to fall . . .
CURTAIN
SOME PROBLEMS FOR THE MOOSE LODGE
Some Problems for the Moose Lodge was first performed on November 8, 1980, as part of an evening of three short Williams plays titled. Tennessee Laughs, at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. It was directed by Gary Tucker; the set design was by Joseph Nieminski; the costume design was by Ellen Ryba; the lighting design was by Robert Christian; and the sound design was by Michael Schweppe. The cast, in order of appearance, was as follows:
CORNELIUS MCCORKLE Les Podewell
BELLA MCCORKLE Marji Bank
CHARLIE MCCORKLE Scott Jaeck
EMERSON SYKES Nathan Davis
STACEY Cynthia Baker
JESSIE SYKES Rachel Stephens
DR. CRANE Leonard Kraft
The curtain rises upon an empty living room with a staircase that ascends to a landing
where it proceeds in another direction to an unseen story above.
It is a living room that has been lived in by at least two generations. The standing floor lamp with its faded silk shade, dingily fringed, establishes the period in which the room was first furnished for living.
A mantle clock ticks rather loudly for half a minute before there is the sound of persons about to enter the house: the sounds are not vocal but mechanical. An old dog is roused from slumber by these sounds and approaches the door. It swings open to admit Cornelius and Bella McCorkle. They are a middle-class, late-middle-aged couple. He is thin with wispy hairs. She is clumsily gone to fat with an apologetic air; they are very used to each other, with the usual attritions of feelings.
Cornelius sets down the luggage with an exhausted grunt and an indignant glance at Bella whose cardiac asthma has incapacitated her for carrying anything much beside her excess weight. She appears to be dazed until approached by the old dog who licks at her hand.
CORNELIUS: Come on Bella before it starts raining again.
BELLA [to the dog]: Hello, Sweet Boy. Want out in the yard?
CORNELIUS [exhaustedly]: He oughta stay out in the yard. I been tellin’ you for years that dog is a yard dog, Bella, he’s full of ticks and fleas, infests the furniture with ’em.
BELLA [also exhausted]: Sweet Boy is been with us for years. He’s family to me.
CORNELIUS: All right, if you want to claim relations with a flea-bitten ole mongrel, you do that. But I’ll be damned if I’ll acknowledge him as an in-law if you do.
BELLA [sniffling]: This is no kind of conversation to have when we just git back from Memphis where we buried our first-born child.
CORNELIUS [softening with exhaustion or possibly even pity]: Bella, the dog is at the door to go out like you sensibly suggested, so why don’t you let him go do it? [Bella lets Sweet Boy out.] Now shut the door, a sharp wind’s blowin’ in, not good for arthritis. What’s the diff’rence between osteo-arthritis, as the Memphis specialist called it, and regular arthritis? I ast him. He didn’t explain.