Carson McCullers

  FRANKIE: What thumb?

  BERENICE: Now I have to tell you. There was only one small portion of Ludie Freeman which was not pretty. Every other part about him was handsome and pretty as anyone would wish. All except this right thumb. This one thumb had a mashed, chewed appearance that was not pretty. You understand?

  FRANKIE: You mean you suddenly saw Ludie’s thumb when you were praying?

  BERENICE: I mean I seen this thumb. And as I knelt there just staring at this thumb, I begun to pray in earnest. I prayed out loud! Lord, manifest! Lord, manifest!

  FRANKIE: And did He—manifest?

  BERENICE: Manifest, my foot! (spitting) You know who that thumb belonged to?

  FRANKIE: Who?

  BERENICE: Why, Jamie Beale. That big old no-good Jamie Beale. It was the first time I ever laid eyes on him.

  FRANKIE: Is that why you married him? Because he had a mashed thumb like Ludie’s?

  BERENICE: Lord only knows. I don’t. I guess I felt drawn to him on account of that thumb. And then one thing led to another. First thing I know I had married him.

  FRANKIE: Well, I think that was silly. To marry him just because of that thumb.

  BERENICE: I’m not trying to dispute with you. I’m just telling you what actually happened. And the very same thing occurred in the case of Henry Johnson.

  FRANKIE: You mean to sit there and tell me Henry Johnson had one of those mashed thumbs too?

  BERENICE: No. It was not the thumb this time. It was the coat. (FRANKIE and JOHN HENRY look at each other in amazement. After a pause BERENICE continues.) Now when Ludie died, them policy people cheated me out of fifty dollars so I pawned everything I could lay hands on, and I sold my coat and Ludie’s coat. Because I couldn’t let Ludie be put away cheap.

  FRANKIE: Oh! Then you mean Henry Johnson bought Ludie’s coat and you married him because of it?

  BERENICE: Not exactly. I was walking down the street one evening when I suddenly seen this shape appear before me. Now the shape of this boy ahead of me was so similar to Ludie through the shoulders and the back of the head that I almost dropped dead there on the sidewalk. I followed and run behind him. It was Henry Johnson. Since he lived in the country and didn’t come into town, he had chanced to buy Ludie’s coat and from the back view it looked like he was Ludie’s ghost or Ludie’s twin. But how I married him I don’t exactly know, for, to begin with, it was clear that he did not have his share of sense. But you let a boy hang around and you get fond of him. Anyway, that’s how I married Henry Johnson.

  FRANKIE: He was the one went crazy on you. Had eatin’ dreams and swallowed the corner of the sheet. (There is a pause.) But I don’t understand the point of what you was telling. I don’t see how that about Jamie Beale and Henry Johnson applies to me.

  BERENICE: Why, it applies to everybody and it is a warning.

  FRANKIE: But how?

  BERENICE: Why, Frankie, don’t you see what I was doing? I loved Ludie and he was the first man I loved. Therefore I had to go and copy myself forever afterward. What I did was to marry off little pieces of Ludie whenever I come across them. It was just my misfortune they all turned out to be the wrong pieces. My intention was to repeat me and Ludie. Now don’t you see?

  FRANKIE: I see what you’re driving at. But I don’t see how it is a warning applied to me.

  BERENICE: You don’t! Then I’ll tell you. (FRANKIE does not nod or answer. The piano tuner plays an arpeggio.) You and that wedding tomorrow. That is what I am warning about. I can see right through them two gray eyes of yours like they was glass. And what I see is the saddest piece of foolishness I ever knew.

  JOHN HENRY (in a low voice): Gray eyes is glass.

  (FRANKIE tenses her brows and looks steadily at BERENICE.)

  BERENICE: I see what you have in mind. Don’t think I don’t. You see something unheard of tomorrow, and you right in the center. You think you going to march to the preacher right in between your brother and the bride. You think you going to break into that wedding, and then Jesus knows what else.

  FRANKIE: No. I don’t see myself walking to the preacher with them.

  BERENICE: I see through them eyes. Don’t argue with me.

  JOHN HENRY (repeating softly): Gray eyes is glass.

  BERENICE: But what I’m warning is this. If you start out falling in love with some unheard-of thing like that, what is going to happen to you? If you take a mania like this, it won’t be the last time and of that you can be sure. So what will become of you? Will you be trying to break into weddings the rest of your days?

  FRANKIE: It makes me sick to listen to people who don’t have any sense. (She sticks her fingers in her ears and hums.)

  BERENICE: You just settin’ yourself this fancy trap to catch yourself in trouble. And you know it.

  FRANKIE: They will take me. You wait and see.

  BERENICE: Well, I been trying to reason seriously. But I see it is no use.

  FRANKIE: You are just jealous. You are just trying to deprive me of all the pleasure of leaving town.

  BERENICE: I am just trying to head this off. But I still see it is no use.

  JOHN HENRY: Gray eyes is glass.

  (The piano is played to the seventh note of the scale and this is repeated.)

  FRANKIE (singing): Do, ray, mee, fa, sol, la, tee, do. Tee. Tee. It could drive you wild. (She crosses to the screen door and slams it.) You didn’t say anything about Willis Rhodes. Did he have a mashed thumb or a coat or something? (She returns to the table and sits down.)

  BERENICE: Lord, now that really was something.

  FRANKIE: I only know he stole your furniture and was so terrible you had to call the Law on him.

  BERENICE: Well, imagine this! Imagine a cold bitter January night. And me laying all by myself in the big parlor bed. Alone in the house because everybody else had gone for the Saturday night. Me, mind you, who hates to sleep in a big empty bed all by myself at any time. Past twelve o’clock on this cold, bitter January night. Can you remember winter time, John Henry? (JOHN HENRY nods.) Imagine! Suddenly there comes a sloughing sound and a tap, tap, tap. So Miss Me . . . (She laughs uproariously and stops suddenly, putting her hand over her mouth.)

  FRANKIE: What? (leaning closer across the table and looking intently at BERENICE) What happened?

  (BERENICE looks from one to the other, shaking her head slowly. Then she speaks in a changed voice.)

  BERENICE: Why, I wish you would look yonder. I wish you would look. (FRANKIE glances quickly behind her, then turns back to BERENICE.)

  FRANKIE: What? What happened?

  BERENICE: Look at them two little pitchers and them four big ears. (BERENICE gets up suddenly from the table.) Come on, chillin, less us roll out the dough for the cookies tomorrow. (BERENICE clears the table and begins washing dishes at the sink.)

  FRANKIE: If it’s anything I mortally despise, it’s a person who starts out to tell something and works up people’s interest, and then stops.

  BERENICE (still laughing): I admit it. And I am sorry. But it was just one of them things I suddenly realized I couldn’t tell you and John Henry.

  (JOHN HENRY skips up to the sink.)

  JOHN HENRY (singing): Cookies! Cookies! Cookies!

  FRANKIE: You could have sent him out of the room and told me. But don’t think I care a particle about what happened. I just wish Willis Rhodes had come in about that time and slit your throat. (She goes out into the hall.)

  BERENICE (still chuckling): That is a ugly way to talk. You ought to be ashamed. Here, John Henry, I’ll give you a scrap of dough to make a cookie man.

  (BERENICE gives JOHN HENRY some dough. He climbs up on a chair and begins to work with it. FRANKIE enters with the evening newspaper. She stands in the doorway, then puts the newspaper on the table.)

  FRANKIE: I see in the paper where we dropped a new bomb—the biggest one dropped yet. They call it a atom bomb. I intend to take two baths tonight. One long soaking bath and scrub with a brush. I’m going to try to sc
rape this crust off my elbows. Then let out the dirty water and take a second bath.

  BERENICE: Hooray, that’s a good idea. I will be glad to see you clean.

  JOHN HENRY: I will take two baths.

  (BERENICE has picked up the paper and is sitting in a chair against the pale white light of the window. She holds the newspaper open before her and her head is twisted down to one side as she strains to see what is printed there.)

  FRANKIE: Why is it against the law to change your name?

  BERENICE: What is that on your neck? I thought it was a head you carried on that neck. Just think. Suppose I would suddenly up and call myself Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. And you would begin naming yourself Joe Louis. And John Henry here tried to pawn himself off as Henry Ford.

  FRANKIE: Don’t talk childish; that is not the kind of changing I mean. I mean from a name that doesn’t suit you to a name you prefer. Like I changed from Frankie to F. Jasmine.

  BERENICE: But it would be a confusion. Suppose we all suddenly change to entirely different names. Nobody would ever know who anybody was talking about. The whole world would go crazy.

  FRANKIE: I don’t see what that has to do with it.

  BERENICE: Because things accumulate around your name. You have a name and one thing after another happens to you and things have accumulated around the name.

  FRANKIE: But what has accumulated around my old name? (BERENICE does not reply.) Nothing! See! My name just didn’t mean anything. Nothing ever happened to me.

  BERENICE: But it will. Things will happen.

  FRANKIE: What?

  BERENICE: You pin me down like that and I can’t tell you truthfully. If I could, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this kitchen right now, but making a fine living on Wall Street as a wizard. All I can say is that things will happen. Just what, I don’t know.

  FRANKIE: Until yesterday, nothing ever happened to me.

  (JOHN HENRY crosses to the door and puts on BERENICE’s hat and shoes, takes her pocketbook and walks around the table twice.)

  BERENICE: John Henry, take off my hat and my shoes and put up my pocketbook. Thank you very much. (JOHN HENRY does so.)

  FRANKIE: Listen, Berenice. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that I am I and you are you? Like when you are walking down a street and you meet somebody. And you are you. And he is him. Yet when you look at each other, the eyes make a connection. Then you go off one way. And he goes off another way. You go off into different parts of town, and maybe you never see each other again. Not in your whole life. Do you see what I mean?

  BERENICE: Not exactly.

  FRANKIE: That’s not what I meant to say anyway. There are all these people here in town I don’t even know by sight or name. And we pass alongside each other and don’t have any connection. And they don’t know me and I don’t know them. And now I’m leaving town and there are all these people I will never know.

  BERENICE: But who do you want to know?

  FRANKIE: Everybody. Everybody in the world.

  BERENICE: Why, I wish you would listen to that. How about people like Willis Rhodes? How about them Germans? How about them Japanese?

  (FRANKIE knocks her head against the door jamb and looks up at the ceiling.)

  FRANKIE: That’s not what I mean. That’s not what I’m talking about.

  BERENICE: Well, what is you talking about?

  (A child’s voice is heard outside, calling: “Batter up! Batter up!”)

  JOHN HENRY (in a low voice): Less play out, Frankie.

  FRANKIE: No. You go. (after a pause) This is what I mean.

  (BERENICE waits, and when FRANKIE does not speak again, says:)

  BERENICE: What on earth is wrong with you?

  FRANKIE (after a long pause, then suddenly, with hysteria): Boyoman! Manoboy! When we leave Winter Hill we’re going to more places than you ever thought about or even knew existed. Just where we will go first I don’t know, and it don’t matter. Because after we go to that place we’re going on to another. Alaska, China, Iceland, South America. Travelling on trains. Letting her rip on motorcycles. Flying around all over the world in airplanes. Here today and gone tomorrow. All over the world. It’s the damn truth. Boyoman! (She runs around the table.)

  BERENICE: Frankie!

  FRANKIE: And talking of things happening. Things will happen so fast we won’t hardly have time to realize them. Captain Jarvis Addams wins highest medals and is decorated by the President. Miss F. Jasmine Addams breaks all records. Mrs. Janice Addams elected Miss United Nations in beauty contest. One thing after another happening so fast we don’t hardly notice them.

  BERENICE: Hold still, fool.

  FRANKIE (her excitement growing more and more intense): And we will meet them. Everybody. We will just walk up to people and know them right away. We will be walking down a dark road and see a lighted house and knock on the door and strangers will rush to meet us and say: “Come in! Come in!” We will know decorated aviators and New York people and movie stars. We will have thousands and thousands of friends. And we will belong to so many clubs that we can’t even keep track of all of them. We will be members of the whole world. Boyoman! Manoboy!

  (FRANKIE has been running round and round the table in wild excitement and when she passes the next time BERENICE catches her slip so quickly that she is caught up with a jerk.)

  BERENICE: Is you gone raving wild? (She pulls FRANKIE closer and puts her arm around her waist.) Sit here in my lap and rest a minute. (Frankie sits in BERENICE’s lap. JOHN HENRY comes close and jealously pinches FRANKIE.) Leave Frankie alone. She ain’t bothered you.

  JOHN HENRY: I’m sick.

  BERENICE: Now no, you ain’t. Be quiet and don’t grudge your cousin a little bit love.

  JOHN HENRY (hitting FRANKIE): Old mean bossy Frankie.

  BERENICE: What she doing so mean right now? She just laying here wore out. (They continue sitting. FRANKIE is relaxed now.)

  FRANKIE: Today I went to the Blue Moon—this place that all the soldiers are so fond of and I met a soldier—a red-headed boy.

  BERENICE: What is all this talk about the Blue Moon and soldiers?

  FRANKIE: Berenice, you treat me like a child. When I see all these soldiers milling around town I always wonder where they came from and where they are going.

  BERENICE: They were born and they going to die.

  FRANKIE: There are so many things about the world I do not understand.

  BERENICE: If you did understand you would be God. Didn’t you know that?

  FRANKIE: Maybe so. (She stares and stretches herself on BERENICE’s lap, her long legs sprawled out beneath the kitchen table.) Anyway, after the wedding I won’t have to worry about things any more.

  BERENICE: You don’t have to now. Nobody requires you to solve the riddles of the world.

  FRANKIE (looking at newspaper): The paper says this new atom bomb is worth twenty thousand tons of T.N.T.

  BERENICE: Twenty thousand tons? And there ain’t but two tons of coal in the coal house—all that coal.

  FRANKIE: The paper says the bomb is a very important science discovery.

  BERENICE: The figures these days have got too high for me. Read in the paper about ten million peoples killed. I can’t crowd that many peoples in my mind’s eye.

  JOHN HENRY: Berenice, is the glass eye your mind’s eye?

  (JOHN HENRY has climbed up on the back rungs of BERENICE’s chair and has been hugging her head. He is now holding her ears.)

  BERENICE: Don’t yank my head back like that, Candy. Me and Frankie ain’t going to float up through the ceiling and leave you.

  FRANKIE: I wonder if you have ever thought about this? Here we are—right now. This very minute. Now. But while we’re talking right now, this minute is passing. And it will never come again. Never in all the world. When it is gone, it is gone. No power on earth could bring it back again.

  JOHN HENRY (beginning to sing):

  I sing because I’m happy,

  I sing because I’m free,
>
  For His eye is on the sparrow,

  And I know He watches me.

  BERENICE (singing):

  Why should I feel discouraged?

  Why should the shadows come?

  Why should my heart be lonely,

  Away from heaven and home?

  For Jesus is my portion,

  My constant friend is He,

  For His eye is on the sparrow,

  And I know He watches me.

  So, I sing because I’m happy.

  (JOHN HENRY and FRANKIE join on the last three lines.)

  I sing because I’m happy,

  I sing because I’m free,

  For His eye is on the sparrow,

  And I know He watches . . .

  BERENICE: Frankie, you got the sharpest set of human bones I ever felt.

  THE CURTAIN FALLS

  ACT THREE

  SCENE 1

  The scene is the same: the kitchen. It is the day of the wedding. When the curtain rises BERENICE, in her apron, and T. T. WILLIAMS in a white coat have just finished preparations for the wedding refreshments. BERENICE has been watching the ceremony through the half-open door leading into the hall. There are sounds of congratulations offstage, the wedding ceremony having just finished.

  BERENICE (to T. T. WILLIAMS): Can’t see much from this door. But I can see Frankie. And her face is a study. And John Henry’s chewing away at the bubble gum that Jarvis bought him. Well, sounds like it’s all over. They crowding in now to kiss the bride. We better take this cloth off the sandwiches. Frankie said she would help you serve.

  T. T.: From the way she’s been acting, I don’t think we can count much on her.

  BERENICE: I wish Honey was here. I’m so worried about him since what you told me. It’s going to storm. It’s a mercy they didn’t decide to have the wedding in the back yard like they first planned.