The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays

  BELLA: Maybe age was the only explanation. It’s started rainin’ again. He’ll want back in as soon as he’s done his business in the yard.

  CORNELIUS: Smells to me like he’s made some business transactions in the house.

  BELLA: On the papers I spread out beside his feed-bowl in the kitchen.

  CORNELIUS: The stink of it makes me sick. [Cornelius crosses off by swinging upstage door to kitchen. Bella gasps slightly as she notices a muddy pair of boots by the fireplace.]

  BELLA: Cornelius!

  CORNELIUS [returning from kitchen with can of beer]: Now what?

  BELLA: Look at what’s by the fireplace! Charlie’s boots; he’s back!

  CORNELIUS: Been fired again, I guess.

  BELLA: This late he must be asleep. I’ll call him but not loud. [Goes panting up to landing and calls softly.] Charlie? Charlie?

  CORNELIUS: Bella, you’ve been warned to move slow. Now you run up those stairs like a mountain goat.

  CHARLIE’S VOICE ABOVE: —Yeh, Mom, are you back?

  CORNELIUS: Hears you call him and asks if you are back.

  BELLA: Sweetheart, come down here, baby!

  [Two voices, one male and one female, are heard above.]

  CORNELIUS: He’s got him a woman up there, brought some hooker here with him.

  BELLA: Cornelius, be nice, he didn’t expect us this early.

  CORNELIUS: This early is late, twelve twenty-five.

  [After a slight pause their younger son Charlie, about twenty-five, appears on the landing in shorts.]

  BELLA: Baby, baby, seen your boots by the fire, I knew you were home! [She embraces him, sobbing.]

  CORNELIUS: What’s detaining your lady-friend upstairs?

  CHARLIE [detaching himself from Bella]: —Aw, yeh, her, Stacey, my steady from Yazoo City. Come down an’ meet my folks.

  STACEY [from above]: Just a minute, hon.

  CORNELIUS: Gettin’ into her clo’se?

  CHARLIE: Both of us was so tired we went straight to bed.

  CORNELIUS: I bet.

  CHARLIE: How was the funeral, Mom? Did it go off all right?

  CORNELIUS: Yeh, perfect. Grave dug. Body interred.

  BELLA: We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I can’t discuss it tonight. —You all had supper? Want me to fix you some food? How about an om’lette? Haven’t checked the ice-box but think there’s eggs.

  CORNELIUS: Still calls the fridge an ice-box.

  CHARLIE: That would be wonderful, Mom.

  BELLA [crossing upstage to kitchen door]: With cheese and tomatoes an’ bacon. [She exits to kitchen.]

  CORNELIUS: So you lost another job, huh?

  CHARLIE: That job was misrepresented to me completely.

  CORNELIUS: You mean you found out it involved some work?

  CHARLIE: I don’t object to work.

  CORNELIUS: As long as you don’t have to do it.

  CHARLIE: —Y’look tired, Pop. How’re you feeling?

  CORNELIUS: Tired.

  [Stacey, Charlie’s girl, appears on the landing, silently, unnoticed. She is obviously pregnant but her face has a childish appeal. She appears to be still engaged in dressing. Charlie notices her and gives her a warning signal to remain out of sight till more completely appareled. Cornelius lumbers to easy chair and flops exhaustedly into it, massaging his belly, still oblivious of Stacey who has retreated into shadow on landing.]

  CHARLIE [with a nervous cough]: You all had a long trip? Seem to be sorta done in.

  CORNELIUS: Wouldn’t think it possible you could spend six hours getting from here on the Gulf Coast up the river to Memphis but the actual flyin’ time was about two hours or one and a half and the rest was settin’ on our asses in the New Awleuns airport. [Warming up.] They announced three delays on that plane. Each time one was announced your Mom says, “Well, I reckon I’ll have some more coffee.”

  CHARLIE: That’s a good deal of coffee with her heart condition an’ pressure.

  CORNELIUS: It was less coffee than food. I looked through the window at her and the first time she had her a double-deck sandwich, the next time a couple of choc’late covered cupcakes. So when they announced the third delay I went to the lunch counter with her and she ordered a coffee and a sweet roll, but I said to the waitress, “Fawget the sweet roll.” The waitress ignored me, set down the sweet roll with the coffee. I said to the bitch, “Can you look at the size of this woman, the fat that she’s got on her, and set a sweet roll before her?” The bitch glared at me, and said, “I can since that’s what she ordered.” Well, I grabbed the sweet roll off the saucer and thrown it back of the counter. That’s when your Mom started cryin’ out loud, up till then it was just snifflin’ but then it turned to bawling. Public bawling. Embarrassed me so I wouldn’t set next to the woman. Blowin’ her nose? Sounded like a goose honkin’. “Cornelius, I run out of Kleenex, goin’ back an’ git me some paper napkins.” Pretended not to hear her but followed her to the lunch counter and sure enuff I was right. She got her another sweet roll with coffee. —Another sweet roll with coffee, impossible to believe it but she did, I seen it.

  BELLA [calling out of kitchen]: There’s seven eggs left. Cornelius, you want—?

  CORNELIUS: Nothin! [Lowers his voice.] While I was in Memphis, burying y’r brother, I wint to a clinic about this chronic digestive trouble of mine. This time I got a genuine diagnosis. It’s something called pancreatitis.

  CHARLIE: They give you anything for it?

  CORNELIUS: They give me a bottle of big green pills called— [Cornelius pulls bottle from pocket. Charlie squints at it.]

  CHARLIE: C-O-T-A-zyme? Never heard a that.

  CORNELIUS: Three before each meal. Offered me some relief but the expense is awful. When a man’s got to live off pills in the quantity at the price, extortionary, with only temporary relief at best, why, I say it’s time to quit hangin’ on, it’s time for a man to let go.

  CHARLIE: If you feel that way about it, why that’s your decision, huh, Pop?

  CORNELIUS: Damn right it is. And no concern of nobody but mine.

  CHARLIE: —Under these circumstances, Pop, I hope it ain’t true that you allowed your insurance to run out.

  CORNELIUS: With inflation completely out of control, I refuse to pay the new rates. People in this country have got to learn to refuse to pay more and more for ev’ry commodity or service which they purchase, including insurance rates.

  CHARLIE: You’ve got Mom to think of.

  CORNELIUS: You think a woman that pants louder’n an ole yard dog is going to outlive me? Doctor tole me privately that if she’d quit stuffin’ an bring down her weight, she could go on a year longer, but she won’t, no way, no way.

  CHARLIE: You got no concern for her, then?

  CORNELIUS: There’s cases in which continued existence is not desirable, Charlie. I mean when the mind is gone.

  CHARLIE: I don’t think that’s true of Mom.

  STACEY [quietly]: Lawd.

  CORNELIUS: You haven’t observed her lately. A woman in her condition is not responsible for peculiar behavior and so you can’t blame her for it. I don’t, rarely do, no matter how peculiar it gets and it can get mighty peculiar. Don’t hear half what’s said to her anymore and imagines things not said to her. Now, Charlie, excuse me for discussin’ your mother’s folks which is half yours, too, but a good deal of this is hereditary with Bella. I mean, you know the Dancies. Ev’ryone on the Gulf Coast knows about the Dancies. Lunacy runs rampant among them, son. Was you old enough to remember that time your mother’s sister walked naked out of the house at high noon with just a hat on and the hat was a man’s? Sex confusion existed among them, Charlie, never among the McCorkles. Your just buried brother did not take after me, pathetic creature, typical of the Dancies.

  CHARLIE: Not so loud, Pop, Mom’s in the dinin’ room, list’nin’.

  CORNELIUS [sadly]: List’nin’ to her blood-pressure, son. She complains it roars in her ears like a stawm sometimes.

&nbs
p; CHARLIE: She’s leanin’ against the table in the dinin’ room.

  CORNELIUS: Never mind, she heard nothin’. Speak to her. You’ll see.

  CHARLIE: —Mom? Are you all right in there, Mom?

  BELLA: I grated some onions for the om’lette. I’ll bring it out as soon as— Om’lette’s got to be watched—excuse me, won’t take long. [She starts back toward kitchen but staggers dizzily against wall.]

  CORNELIUS: Help her, seems to be—

  [Charlie enters the dim dining room area]

  CHARLIE: Mom?

  BELLA: —Chips?

  CHARLIE: No, no, Mom, I’m Charlie.

  BELLA: Sorry—Yes, you’re Charlie.

  CHARLIE: Go in front, set with Pop, he’s not well. I’ll take care of the om’lette.

  BELLA: I cook for my men folks and will till I die, Son.

  CHARLIE: I know Mom, but tonight, I think you oughta go in front with Pop. He seems tired and depressed about something. So just go make yourself comfortable on the sofa and sympathize with Pop about—he’s got new medical problems. Can you make it? [Slowly, ceremonially, Charlie conducts Bella into the living room. Gently releases hold on her before sofa. She falls onto it as if struck dead.]

  CORNELIUS: Bella? Bella? [Scene freezes a moment or two.] Can you hear me, Bella?

  [A soft, involuntary wail from Stacey in the shadow on the landing.]

  BELLA: —Such a loud stawm tonight. Chips—preparin’ om’lette.

  CORNELIUS: Neither of us is in good health here lately. Both have medical problems. Requiring attention and care. —Can you hear me, Bella?

  BELLA [dreamily]: Chips insisted I let him prepare the om’lette.

  CORNELIUS: Chips insisted! You hear that?

  BELLA: Always such a sweet boy. [Picks up a large, leather framed, hand-tinted photo of Chips, hair blond in ringlets, long neck, wide baby-blue eyes.] Remember how he was voted the handsomest boy at Pascagoola High?

  CORNELIUS: I remember how he was voted the prettiest girl at Pascagoola High. That I remember clearly.

  CHARLIE: Pop, you know the, the—editor of the class-annual just, he—got it mixed up, a—accidental mix-up.

  CORNELIUS: A very peculiar and embarrassing mix-up and—

  CHARLIE: I spoke to the editor of that fifteen year ago class-annual, Pop. He assured me it was a terrible mix-up, completely accidental, and he apologized to me for it. Oh, I was pretty pissed off, kicked his ass an’ blacked both eyes and he apologized for it, swore it was just a mix-up.

  BELLA: What’s that, Chips? I didn’ unnerstand that.

  CORNELIUS [slowly and loudly]: Bella, do you realize you’re talkin’ to Charlie, not Chips whose funeral we attended a day ago in Memphis? [Slight pause.]

  BELLA: Charlie? Not Chips? —Tragedy, long trip.

  CHARLIE: Confused you a little, Mom.

  BELLA: I only know I got two wonderful sons to thank God faw. Oh, the om’lette could scawch!

  CHARLIE: Lemme take care of it, Mama.

  BELLA [staggering up from sofa]: Not sure I put all ingredients in it. Onions, yais, but not the bacon an’ cheese—an’ should have some ketchup on it. Om’lette’s got to be watched—scawch quick—not sure if—

  CORNELIUS: Charlie, you reckon you could get her back to the kitchen where she seems to be headed? —Did you hear me, Charlie?

  CHARLIE: You know I think we need somebody to help her out, a—a able-bodied young woman to—

  CORNELIUS: What people need and what people can afford are two diff’rent things.

  CHARLIE: Well, if I got married, for instance—

  CORNELIUS: Unemployed? —First get you a job you can hold, then think about matrimony.

  [Low wail from Stacey in shadow on the landing. Charlie lifts a warning hand.]

  CHARLIE: Pop, I know your retirement pay was adequate when you received it, but hasn’t kept pace with this run-away inflation.

  CORNELIUS: Shit, what could keep pace with it except a hawss that won the Kentucky Derby by ten lengths?

  CHARLIE: Some people think we’re haided into depression. ’Sthat your opinion?

  CORNELIUS: Opinion, no, conviction, yais. It’s not the President’s fault but the fault of the system which don’t adjust to the population increase, here and world-over, too many stomachs to feed. Why, I read somewhere that by the year 2030 which you might survive to enjoy, world population will have doubled. Starvation, pestilence, war after war after war, that’s what you’ll live to enjoy. I’m glad I’ll be departed. Oh, they tole me when I run for Mayor of Pascagoola on the independent ticket, I hadn’t the chance of a fart in a wind-stawm with a radical opinion such as that but I don’t compromise with principles and convictions and so got only ten votes out of two hundred at the Moose Lodge, why, even your Mom said she couldn’t git to the polls though offered transportation and still in reasonable health.

  CHARLIE: Ten votes only for Mayor of Pascagoola? Sorry about that, Pop.

  CORNELIUS: I don’t regret it. Who needs political office in times like this? Only crooks that line their pockets with bribes.

  CHARLIE: Might of been profitable to you. However this house is a piece of Gulf property, Pop.

  CORNELIUS: This house is held up, why it’s literally supported by termites!

  CHARLIE: House, maybe, but not the grounds. What would it be worth if we was obliged to sell it when you, if you ever—after you’ve—

  CORNELIUS: Departed?—Why are you so int’rested in my value as a cadaver?

  CHARLIE: You misunderstand me completely. It just seems to me—

  CORNELIUS [cutting in sharply]: —What are your plans for employment?

  CHARLIE: Why, anything good that comes up.

  CORNELIUS: That don’t require any effort? —Emerson Sykes, at the Moose Lodge, my closest friend among ’em, is branchin’ out.

  CHARLIE: Which way?

  CORNELIUS: Tole me las’ week he was openin’ a small motel in Gulfport. You reckon you could pass out room keys in a motel and put money in a cashbox when they check out? Would that be too complicated and require too much effort? Huh?

  CHARLIE: How definite is it? This offer?

  [Stacey makes a shadowy appearance on the stair landing, remains in silence to listen.]

  CORNELIUS: —Not yet been offered. —I could get you the job, Emerson bein’ my closest friend at the Lodge. —But could you keep it? —Charlie?

  [There is a knock at door.]

  CHARLIE: Huh?

  CORNELIUS: Go answer the door. Ev’ry move I make is—

  [Cornelius eyes fall shut. Charlie exchanges signals with Stacey, advising her to remain in obscurity yet a while. The door, which was left ajar by the dog, swings open on Emerson Sykes. He is in hip length boots and hunting clothes]

  CORNELIUS [struggling painfully out of chair]: Well, if it ain’t Em!

  EMERSON: Yeah, Corney. It’s me.

  CORNELIUS: I’d just mentioned your name! Been huntin’ in this weather?

  EMERSON: Naw, naw, naw. Used it as a pretext to—y’know. Stag movies at the Lodge tonight. [Winks.] So. I just got back when I noticed the lights over here and figured you must be home. Jessie’s takin’ a sitz-bath or she’d come over, too.

  CORNELIUS: Takin’ a what kinda bath?

  EMERSON: Sitz bath is a hot bath that relieves her hemorrhoids, a— [Shakes his head with assumed air of commiseration.] —temporary relief since the hemorrhoids is just a local sign of a more serious condition in the intestine.

  CORNELIUS: I know, Em, you tole me.

  EMERSON: She hollered out the bathroom door to be sure and express the sympathies for us both. Could you share me some of that beer?

  CORNELIUS: Sure, sure. First why don’t you remove them wet boots.

  EMERSON: Aw. Sorry. Yeh.

  CORNELIUS: Charlie, give Em a hand with the boots. HEY, CHARLIE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?

  CHARLIE: For Chrissake, yeah, I’m right here in the room, ain’t I?

  CORNELIUS: Well, in that case,
take a chair over to Em and help him pull his boots off.

  [Charlie starts to haul over big chair.]

  Not that over-stuff chair. A light dining-room chair. [He gestures toward dining room. There is the business of getting to the chair, getting off the boot.]

  EMERSON: It must of been a terrible shock for you folks.

  CORNELIUS [somewhat cheered]: Naw, naw, it was expected.

  CHARLIE: Wow!

  [Charlie sprawls on floor removing boots for Sykes. Both men chuckle.]

  CORNELIUS: If a fool’s hell bent on destruction, no reason to regret his making it, Em.

  CHARLIE: Pop, let up on Chips now that he’s daid, huh?

  CORNELIUS: —This is the younger one, Charlie.

  EMERSON: Sure, sure. I recognized Charlie, ain’t been that long a time—

  CORNELIUS: Just time enough for him to make out with some female he’s got upstairs and—

  EMERSON: Ow, ’s that right, unnerstandable, boys will be boys, huh, Corn?

  CORNELIUS: Except when they will be girls!

  CHARLIE: Pop, I said to let Chips lie in rest! Goddam it, can’t you even lay off his mem’ry now that he’s daid?

  CORNELIUS: Em Sykes knows all about it. We’ve discussed your brother’s conduct when I was at my wit’s end how to deal with it and it was Em that said, Git him somewhere outa the New Awleuns influence. However it was good advice wasted. Apparently that influence is extended up the river, least as far as Memphis if not—

  BELLA [opens kitchen door to call out]: Lucky I discovered more eggs in the icebox since I burnt the first batch. Is that Emerson Sykes in there?

  EMERSON: Bella, Jessie coudn’t come over but ast me to express—

  BELLA: Scuse me, got eggs frying, I’ll call her later. [She returns to kitchen.]

  EMERSON: —sympathies of us both . . .

  CORNELIUS: Probably devoured that first om’lette herself. You hungry, Em?

  EMERSON: Naw, naw, had a big barbecue supper, I could use a beer though.

  CORNELIUS: Charlie, go get a coupla cold beers from the fridge.

  [Charlie glances up at Stacey motionless in shadow on landing; then crosses in a deliberate manner to kitchen door.]