When the audience is seated, and the moving men have removed all of the furniture, the house lights in the theatre dim out. In the dark we hear someone dialing the telephone. A tight spot hits Baby Doll on the phone, her packed bags beside her.
BABY DOLL: Kotton King Hotel? This is Mrs. Meighan, I want to reserve a room for tomorrow mornin’ and I want to register under my maiden name, which is Baby Doll McCorkle. Actually, my marriage is in name only, because of an agreement Archie Lee made with my Daddy that when I was twenty years old Archie and me could be man and wife in more than just name only, well, I won’t be twenty till November the seventh which is the day after tomorrow! Now, the Ideal Pay As You Go Plan Furniture Company has removed all five complete sets of furniture and I don’t want to sit in the same house with a man that would make me live in a house without no furniture. My daddy would turn over in his grave if he knew, he’d turn in his grave. My daddy is T. C. McCorkle who died last summer when I got married and he is a very close personal friend of the manager of the Kotton King Hotel—you know—what’s his name. . .
[Explosion and fire at the Syndicate Plantation!
[Aunt Rose Comfort screams. The purple night is illuminated by the garish glow of light from a huge nearby conflagration. As Baby Doll rushes out onto the porch, Ruby Lightfoot enters from the wings with Two Bits, a small boy, carrying a gallon jug of Ruby’s personally distilled liquor. She is a splendid apparition, her glossy black hair, coarse as a horse’s mane, piled high upon her handsome angular head. Her tight-fitting dress is of a shimmering material that catches the fiery reflections in the yard.]
AUNT ROSE [wildly]: Baby Do-oll! Baby Doll, Baby Doll!
[Hounds are howling, birds screeching, all the wild life about Tiger Tail Bayou except possibly the crocodiles, if any, are sounding off in alarm. Baby Doll descends cautiously into the crazily flickering yard.]
AUNT ROSE [screaming above the noise from porch]: Explosion and fire at the Syndicate Plantation! Stay back, stay back, honey, you’re in your nightie, folks can see right through it!
BABY DOLL: What folks, where?
AUNT ROSE: Somebody’s in the yard.
RUBY: Just me, Ruby Lightfoot. I got a call while ago from Archie Lee sayin’ his credit was about to be restored all through Tiger Tail County and now I see why plain as day. Two Bits, set this jug on the po’ch, an’ let’s go see the show!
[The small boy, Two Bits, runs up to the porch with the jug. He and Ruby rush off: motor heard starting, offstage.]
AUNT ROSE: Oh, Baby Doll, that woman’s delivered a jug of moonshine for Archie Lee and set it right on the porch.
BABY DOLL: Wha’s Archie Lee?
AUNT ROSE: He drove off in the Chevy about ha’f an hour ago.
BABY DOLL: And ain’t come back? And left us stranded here to watch the fire from this distance?
AUNT ROSE: I don’t want to be closer!
[Sound of cars and voices shouting as other residents of the community get into their cars and race off to witness the conflagration.
[Baby Doll bursts into childish sobs. Gradually the noise in the immediate vicinity subsides so that Baby Doll’s complaints can be heard above it.]
BABY DOLL: I’m through with that fat ole son of bitch fo’ good!
AUNT ROSE: Now don’t use langwidge like that.
BABY DOLL: A man that would leave me to live in a house without a stick of furniture in it except th’ crih that I have to go to bed in! Well, I’ll tell you something, Aunt Rose, he ain’t gonna find me here when he comes back in the Chevy, no Ma’am, I’ll be downtown, checked into the Kotton King Hotel. I’m gittin’ into my clo’se right now an’ callin’ me a Yella cab.
AUNT ROSE: Honey, you’d have to pay the hotel for a room there.
BABY DOLL: I will git me a job. The manager of the Kotton King carried my daddy’s coffin, he’ll give me work.
AUNT ROSE: What sort of work, Baby Doll?
BABY DOLL: I could—I could curl hair in a beauty parlor or polish nails in a barbershop—or I could be hostess at the Kotton King tea-room, just smile and pass out menus to customers coming in. There’s plenty of decent employment I could find. I could be a cashier!
AUNT ROSE: Honey, you can’t count change.
BABY DOLL: Whe’ is my white kid purse? Oh, shoot, I left my white kid purse in the Chevy he’s gone off in so I couldn’t pay cab-fare downtown!
AUNT ROSE: Well, the fire’s dyin’ down, Archie Lee oughta be back befo’ long.
BABY DOLL: He won’t find me waitin’ here for him when he hauls his ole ass back.
AUNT ROSE: Now stop that common talk. You just set on the swing and—keep you’self cool. Awful hot.
BABY DOLL: A Co-Cola sure would be refreshin’. [Drops, theatrically exhausted, onto porch steps.] Would ja get me one outa the ice-box? Please?
AUNT ROSE: Honey, you had the last bottle of coke ’fore the fire broke out.
BABY DOLL: Well! —I got to have me another an’ I know where to git one, too!
AUNT ROSE: Now, you can exist without another cola till Archie Lee takes you downtown fo’ one.
BABY DOLL: In your opinion, not mine! I know where to get me a coke without Archie Lee and it ain’t downtown.
AUNT ROSE: No place I know of, Precious.
BABY DOLL: Ruby Lightfoot has colas an’ that’s where I’ll git me one by myself, on foot!
AUNT ROSE: Lawd, lawd, no! You at a good-time house? Unescorted?
BABY DOLL: Don’t worry, Aunt Rose. Archie Lee gimme this pistol in the—
[She rushes inside: sound of drawer slamming.]
AUNT ROSE: No, no, no! Not in your condition, it might go off accidental!
BABY DOLL [emerging from house]: Don’t you worry, I’ll be right back!
AUNT ROSE: Wait here, I’ll go with you, soon as I get my hat on! I’ll go in fo’ it, you stay out—outside— A woman my age is—whew!—less likely to be molested.
[Baby Doll has already run down the road. Gun shot. Both women scream. In a few moments she runs back, gasping with horror.]
AUNT ROSE [continuing, hand to her chest]: Baby Doll! What’s happened? What’re you shootin’ at?!
BABY DOLL [wild-eyed, aghast]: A man!
AUNT ROSE: A man?
BABY DOLL: Jumped outa the bushes and stood right square in the road and he—he SHOWED himself to me, third time this month! I would of shot him daid if he’d moved at me! I scaired him silly with my pistol!
AUNT ROSE: Set down, now, honey, breathe quiet. You could a just imagined it, out of—excitement.
BABY DOLL: Plain as day I seen it in the full moon on the road! A man! I’m gonna report it to the Sheriff. You phone him!
AUNT ROSE: He would only laugh at an old woman like me.
BABY DOLL: I’ll phone him m’self soon as I catch my breath.
AUNT ROSE: Honey, it would get in the paper again and you don’t want that. I think maybe I got some paregoric to calm your nerves—yes, I’ll fetch it right now.
[Starting back in, she sways dizzily, clutching the door handle for support.]
BABY DOLL: Aunt Rose! Are you all right?
AUNT ROSE: It’s just been too much all at once, this experience you say happened—the fire, all that excitement—give me a dizzy spell.
BABY DOLL: Then you go right in to bed.
[Baby Doll supports the old woman inside: the hall is lighted dimly.]
AUNT ROSE: Child, child, be careful! I’m terrified of the future. Don’t know what it holds—except death. —Promise me you’ll give me a Christian burial, child, and when I’m gone, you won’t disappoint my brother, bless his—
[Their voices fade out. A moment later Baby Doll returns to the porch with paregoric and teaspoon: she leans against the screen door and pours it somewhat inaccurately into the spoon, tastes it. Baby Doll sits in swing, pouting. . . waiting. Archie Lee’s car is heard turning into the drive. Archie scuttles on stage carrying an empty gallon can of coal oil and pitches it under the co
rner of the front porch. He walks downstage to peer at the dim glow from the Syndicate blaze. He turns to face the porch as a dog barks at him in the distance.]
ARCHIE: What are you doin’ out here this time a-the night? Dressed like that?
BABY DOLL: I ain’t talkin’ to you. . .
ARCHIE: I said, what are you doing out here?
BABY DOLL: Because in the first place, I didn’t have the money to pay for a hotel room, because you don’t gimme any money, because you don’t have any money ever since Syndicate started ginnin’ all the cotton around here, and secondly, even if I had the money I couldn’t have had no way of getting there because you went off in the Chevy, and left me no way of getting there or anywhere, including to the Syndicate fire which I wanted to see just like everyone else in Tiger Tail Bayou. . .
ARCHIE: What fire you talking about?
BABY DOLL: What fire am I talking about?
ARCHIE: I don’t know about no fire.
BABY DOLL: You must be crazy or think I’m crazy. You mean to tell me you don’t know the cotton gin burned down at the Syndicate Plantation right after you left the house.
ARCHIE [seizing her arm]: Hush up. I never left this house.
BABY DOLL: Ow!! You certainly did leave this house. OW!!
ARCHIE: Look here!! Listen to what I tell you. I never left this house.
BABY DOLL: You certainly did and left me here without a coke on the place. [He seizes her wrist roughly.] OWWW! Cut it out! I told you at supper I had a headache comin’ on and we was runnin’ out dopes, an’ you said, “Yeah, git into your things an’ we’ll drive in town for some.” But, I cain’t find my white kid purse. Then I membered I left it on th’ front seat of th’ Chevy. An’ when I come out here t’ get it. Where was you? Gone off, without a word. And do you know what happened—the awful experience I had? On the road fo’ Ruby Lightfoot’s?
ARCHIE: Ruby’s? Not possible, don’t believe it!
BABY DOLL: Me desperate for a dope an’ without no transportation?! On that very road. . . a man jumped outa the bushes on the road and, and—he showed himself to me!
ARCHIE: You recognize this man? Identify this man an’ I’ll blow his degen’rate haid off with my shotgun!
BABY DOLL: Recognized nothin’ but what he done! Screamed and run back to the house! This house which ain’t even fit to live in! What kinda man would make me live in a house with no furniture.
ARCHIE: Aw, hell. . . . Honey, the old furniture just needs to be spread out a little. . .
BABY DOLL: My daddy would turn in his grave if he knew, he’d turn in his grave.
ARCHIE: Baby Doll, if your daddy turned in his grave as often as you say he’d turn in his grave, that old man would plow up the graveyard.
BABY DOLL: God, oh, God, what a night! First the big explosion an’ fire! Then that shockin’ experience on the road—feel my heart!
[Taking this literally, be extends a hand toward her bosom and she slaps it away.]
—Take my word! It’s poundin’ like a hammer!
ARCHIE [sharply]: Shut up!
[He pushes her head roughly.]
BABY DOLL: Archie! What did you do that fo’?
ARCHIE: I don’t like how you holler! Holler everything you say!
BABY DOLL: What’s the matter with you?
ARCHIE: Nothing’s the matter with me.
BABY DOLL: WELL, WHY DID YOU GO OFF??
ARCHIE: I didn’ go off!
BABY DOLL: You certainly did go off! Try an’ tell me that you never went off when I just now seen an’ heard you drivin’ back in the Chevy? What uh you take me faw? No sense a-tall?
ARCHIE: If you got sense keep your big mouth shut!
BABY DOLL: Don’t talk to me like that!
ARCHIE: Get on inside.
BABY DOLL: I won’t. Selfish an’ inconsiderate, that’s what you are! I told you at supper. There’s not a bottle of Co-Cola left on th’ place. You said, Okay, right after supper we’ll drive on over to the White Star Drugstore an’ lay in a good supply. When I come out of th’ house—
ARCHIE [standing in front of her and gripping her neck with both hands]: Look here! Listen to what I tell you!
BABY DOLL: HEY!! OWW Cut it out!!
ARCHIE: Listen to what I tell you. I went up to bed with my bottle after supper—
BABY DOLL: What bed! OW!
ARCHIE: And passed out dead to the world. You got that in your head?? Will you remember that now?
BABY DOLL: Let go!
ARCHIE: What did I do after supper?
BABY DOLL: You know what you did. You jumped in the Chevy an’ disappeared after supper and didn’t get back till just—OWWWWWWW!! Will you quit. . .
ARCHIE: I’m trying to wake you up. You’re asleep, you’re dreaming! What did I do after supper?
BABY DOLL: I don’t know. OW! Went to bed! Leggo! Went to bed. Leggo! Leggo!
ARCHIE: That’s right. Make sure you remember. I went to bed after supper and didn’t wake up until I heard the fire whistle blow and I was too drunk to git up and drive the car. Now, go on inside and go to bed.
BABY DOLL: Go to what bed? I ain’t got no bed to go to!
ARCHIE: You will tomorrow. The furniture is coming back tomorrow.
[Baby Doll whimpers.]
Did I hurt my little baby’s arm?
BABY DOLL: Yais.
ARCHIE: Where I hurt little baby’s arm?
BABY DOLL: Here. . .
ARCHIE [putting a big wet kiss on her arm]: Feel better?
BABY DOLL: No. . .
ARCHIE [another kiss—this travelling up her arm]: Oh, now, Baby Doll! My sweet baby doll. My sweet little baby doll.
BABY DOLL [sleepily]: You hurt. . . MMMmmmmmmmmm! Hurt.
ARCHIE: Hurt?
BABY DOLL: Mmmm!
ARCHIE: Kiss?
BABY DOLL: MMMMMMMMMMMM.
ARCHIE: Baby sleepy?
BABY DOLL: Mmmmmmmmmm.
ARCHIE: Kiss good. . .?
BABY DOLL: Mmmmmmmmm. . .
ARCHIE: Make little room. . . good. . .
BABY DOLL: Too hot.
ARCHIE: Make a little room, go on. . .
BABY DOLL: Mmmmm.
ARCHIE: Whose baby? Big sweet. . . whose baby?
BABY DOLL: You hurt me. . . . Mmmmmmm. . .
ARCHIE: Kiss. . .
[He lifts her wrist to his lips and makes a gobbling sound. We get an idea of what their courtship—such as it was—was like. Also how passionately he craves her, willing to take her under any conditions, including fast asleep.]
BABY DOLL: Stop it. . . . Silly. . . . Mmmmmm. . .
ARCHIE: What would I do if you was a big piece of cake?
BABY DOLL: Silly.
ARCHIE: Gobble! Gobble!
BABY DOLL: Oh you. . .
ARCHIE: What would I do if you was angel food cake? Big white piece with lots of nice thick icin’?
BABY DOLL [giggling now, in spite of herself, also sleepy]: Quit.
ARCHIE [as close as he’s ever been to having her]: Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!
BABY DOLL: Archie!
ARCHIE: Hmmmmmmmm. . .
[He’s working on her arm.]
Skrunch, gobble, ghrumpt. . . etc.
BABY DOLL: YOU tickle. . .
ARCHIE: Answer little question. . .
BABY DOLL: What?
ARCHIE [into her arm]: Where I been since supper?
BABY DOLL: Off in the Chevy—
[Instantly he seizes her wrist again. She shrieks. The romance is over.]
ARCHIE: Where I been since supper?
BABY DOLL: Upstairs. . . Upstairs!
ARCHIE: Doing what?
BABY DOLL: With your bottle. Archie, leggo. . .
ARCHIE: And what else. . .
BABY DOLL: Asleep. Leggo. . . asleep! ASLEEP!
ARCHIE [letting go]: Now you know where I been and what I been doing since supper. In case anybody asks. An’ you was aw’fly surprised w’en the Syndicate fire broke out!
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BABY DOLL: Okay.
ARCHIE: Now take your things into that house and go on to bed. . .
BABY DOLL: Okay!
[She goes inside.]
ARCHIE: Furniture’s comin’ back tomorrow.
BABY DOLL: O-kay!
[She climbs stairs punctuating each step with whimpered “Okay!” She curls up in crib and sucks her thumb.]
ARCHIE: Okay.
[Archie Lee stands on the front porch. He listens and hears only the cicadas and nighthawk.]
ARCHIE [sings]: “My baby don’ care fo’ rings
Or other expensive things—
My baby just cares—fo’—me!”
[As lights begin to fade. . .]
Nice quiet night. Real nice and quiet.
FADE OUT
SCENE TWO
The sky is the color of the satin bows on the window curtains—a translucent, innocent blue. Heat devils are shimmering over the flat Delta country and the white front of the house is like a shrill exclamation. Baby Doll dresses in the nursery; her radio is playing, “Shame, Shame, Shame” through its tinny speaker. Aunt Rose putters about the kitchen singing. Archie Lee lumbers from back of house, semi-dressed. He stops in the hall and bellows up the stairs.