Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer Read online

  DOLLY: Ain’t that the truth? Ha ha.

  BEULAH: But in those days the county was dry for true, I mean bone dry except for The Wop’s wine garden. So we’d go out to The Wop’s an’ drink that Dago red wine an’ cut up an’ carry on an’ raise such Cain in those arbors! Why, I remember one Sunday old Doctor Tooker, Methodist minister then, he bust a blood vessel denouncing The Wop in the pulpit!

  DOLLY: Lawd have mercy!

  BEULAH: Yes, ma’am! —Each of those white wooden arbors had a lamp in it, and one by one, here and there, the lamps would go out as the couples begun to make love . . .

  DOLLY: Oh—oh . . .

  BEULAH: What strange noises you could hear if you listened, calls, cries, whispers, moans—giggles. . . . [Her voice is soft with recollection.] —And then, one by one, the lamps would be lighted again, and The Wop and his daughter would sing and play Dago songs. . . . [Bring up mandolin: voice under “Dicitencello Vuoi.”] But sometimes The Wop would look around for his daughter, and all of a sudden Lady wouldn’t be there!

  DOLLY: Where would she be?

  BEULAH: She’d be with David Cutrere.

  DOLLY: Awwwwww—ha ha . . .

  BEULAH: —Carol Cutrere’s big brother, Lady and him would disappear in the orchard and old Papa Romano, The Wop, would holler, “Lady, Lady!”—no answer whatsoever, no matter how long he called and no matter how loud. . . .

  DOLLY: Well, I guess it’s hard to shout back, “Here I am, Papa,” when where you are is in the arms of your lover!

  BEULAH: Well, that spring, no, it was late that summer . . . [Dolly retires again from the playing area.] —Papa Romano made a bad mistake. He sold liquor to niggers. The Mystic Crew took action. —They rode out there, one night, with gallons of coal oil—it was a real dry summer—and set that place on fire! —They burned the whole thing up, vines, arbors, fruit trees. —Pee Wee and me, we stood on the dance pavilion across the lake and watched that fire spring up. Inside of tin minutes the whole nawth shore of the lake was a mass of flames, a regular sea of flames, and all the way over the lake we could hear Lady’s papa shouting, “Fire, fire, fire!”—as if it was necessary to let people know, and the whole sky lit up with it, as red as Guinea red wine! —Ha ha ha ha. . . . Not a fire engine, not a single engine pulled out of a station that night in Two River County! —The poor old fellow, The Wop, he took a blanket and run up into the orchard to fight the fire singlehanded—and burned alive. . . . Uh-huh! burned alive. . . .

  [Mandolin stops short, Dolly has returned to the table to have her coffee.]

  You know what I sometimes wonder?

  DOLLY: No. What do you wonder?

  BEULAH: I wonder sometimes if Lady has any suspicion that her husband, Jabe Torrance, was the leader of the Mystic Crew the night they burned up her father in his wine garden on Moon Lake?

  DOLLY: Beulah Binnings, you make my blood run cold with such a thought! How could she live in marriage twenty years with a man if she knew he’d burned her father up in his wine garden?

  [Dog bays in distance.]

  BEULAH: She could live with him in hate. People can live together in hate for a long time, Dolly. Notice their passion for money. I’ve always noticed when couples don’t love each other they develop a passion for money. Haven’t you seen that happen? Of course you have. Now there’s not many couples that stay devoted forever. Why, some git so they just barely tolerate each other’s existence. Isn’t that true?

  DOLLY: You couldn’t of spoken a truer word if you read it out loud from the Bible!

  BEULAH: Barely tolerate each other’s existence, and some don’t even do that. You know, Dolly Hamma, I don’t think half as many married min have committed suicide in this county as the coroner says has done so!

  DOLLY: [with voluptuous appreciation of Beulah’s wit]: You think it’s their wives that give them the deep six, honey?

  BEULAH: I don’t think so, I know so. Why there’s couples that loathe and despise the sight, smell and sound of each other before that round-trip honeymoon ticket is punched at both ends, Dolly.

  DOLLY: I hate to admit it but I can’t deny it.

  BEULAH: But they hang on together.

  DOLLY: Yes, they hang on together.

  BEULAH: Year after year after year, accumulating property and money, building up wealth and respect and position in the towns they live in and the counties and cities and the churches they go to, belonging to the clubs and so on and so forth and not a soul but them knowin’ they have to go wash their hands after touching something the other one just put down! ha ha ha ha ha!—

  DOLLY: Beulah, that’s an evil laugh of yours, that laugh of yours is evil!

  BEULAH [louder]: Ha ha ha ha ha! —But you know it’s the truth.

  DOLLY: Yes, she’s tellin’ the truth! [Nods to audience.]

  BEULAH: Then one of them—gits—cincer or has a—stroke or somethin’? —The other one—

  DOLLY: —Hauls in the loot?

  BEULAH: That’s right, hauls in the loot! Oh, my, then you should see how him or her blossoms out. New house, new car, new clothes. Some of ’em even change to a different church! —If it’s a widow, she goes with a younger man, and if it’s a widower, he starts courtin’ some chick, ha ha ha ha ha! And so I said, I said to Lady this morning before she left for Mamphis to bring Jabe home, I said, “Lady, I don’t suppose you’re going to reopen the confectionery till Jabe is completely recovered from his operation.” She said, “It can’t wait for anything that might take that much time.” Those are her exact words. It can’t wait for anything that might take that much time. Too much is invested in it. It’s going to be done over, redecorated, and opened on schedule the Saturday before Easter this spring! —Why?—Because—she knows Jabe is dying and she wants to clean up quick!

  DOLLY: An awful thought. But a true one. Most awful thoughts are.

  [They are startled by sudden light laughter from the dim upstage area. The light changes on the stage to mark a division.]

  SCENE ONE

  The women turn to see Carol Cutrere in the archway between the store and the confectionery. She is past thirty and, lacking prettiness, she has an odd, fugitive beauty which is stressed, almost to the point of fantasy, by a style of make-up with which a dancer named Valli has lately made such an impression in the bohemian centers of France and Italy, the face and lips powdered white and the eyes outlined and exaggerated with black pencil and the lids tinted blue. Her family name is the oldest and most distinguished in the county.

  BEULAH: Somebody don’t seem to know that the store is closed.

  DOLLY: Beulah?

  BEULAH: What?

  DOLLY: Can you understand how anybody would deliberately make themselves look fantastic as that?

  BEULAH: Some people have to show off, it’s a passion with them, anything on earth to get attention.

  DOLLY: I sure wouldn’t care for that kind of attention. Not me. I wouldn’t desire it. . . .

  [During these lines, just loud enough for her to hear them, Carol has crossed to the pay-phone and deposited a coin.]

  CAROL: I want Tulane 0370 in New Orleans. What? Oh. Hold on a minute.

  [Eva Temple is descending the stairs, slowly, as if awed by Carol’s appearance, Carol rings open the cashbox and removes some coins; returns to deposit coins in phone.]

  BEULAH: She helped herself to money out of the cashbox.

  [Eva passes Carol like a timid child skirting a lion cage.]

  CAROL: Hello, Sister.

  EVA: I’m Eva.

  CAROL: Hello, Eva.

  EVA: Hello . . . [Then in a loud whisper to Beulah and Dolly.] She took money out of the cashbox.

  DOLLY: Oh, she can do as she pleases, she’s a Cutrere!

  BEULAH: Shoot . . .

  EVA: What is she doin’ barefooted?

  BEULAH: The last time s
he was arrested on the highway, they say that she was naked under her coat.

  CAROL [to operator]: I’m waiting. [Then to women.] —I caught the heel of my slipper in that rotten boardwalk out there and it broke right off. [Raises slippers in hand.] They say if you break the heel of your slipper in the morning it means you’ll meet the love of your life before dark. But it was already dark when I broke the heel of my slipper. Maybe that means I’ll meet the love of my life before daybreak. [The quality of her voice is curiously clear and childlike. Sister Temple appears on stair landing bearing an old waffle iron.]

  SISTER: Wasn’t that them?

  EVA: No, it was Carol Cutrere!

  CAROL [at phone]: Just keep on ringing, please, he’s probably drunk. [Sister crosses by her as Eva did.] Sometimes it takes quite a while to get through the living-room furniture. . . .

  SISTER: —She a sight?

  EVA: Uh-huh!

  CAROL: Bertie?—Carol! —Hi, doll! Did you trip over something? I heard a crash. Well, I’m leaving right now, I’m already on the highway and everything’s fixed, I’ve got my allowance back on condition that I remain forever away from Two River County! I had to blackmail them a little. I came to dinner with my eyes made up and my little black sequin jacket and Betsy Boo, my brother’s wife, said, “Carol, you going out to a fancy dress ball?” I said, “Oh, no, I’m just going jooking tonight up and down the Dixie Highway between here and Memphis like I used to when I lived here.” Why, honey, she flew so fast you couldn’t see her passing and came back in with the ink still wet on the check! And this will be done once a month as long as I stay away from Two River County. . . . [Laughs gaily.] —How’s Jackie? Bless his heart, give him a sweet kiss for me! Oh, honey, I’m driving straight through, not even stopping for pickups unless you need one! I’ll meet you in the Starlite Lounge before it closes, or if I’m irresistibly delayed, I’ll certainly join you for coffee at the Morning Call before the all-night places have closed for the day . . . —I—Bertie? Bertie? [Laughs uncertainly and hangs up.] —let’s see, now. . . . [Removes a revolver from her trench coat pocket and crosses to fill it with cartridges back of counter.]

  EVA: What she looking for?

  SISTER: Ask her.

  EVA [advancing]: What’re you looking for, Carol?

  CAROL: Cartridges for my revolver.

  DOLLY: She don’t have a license to carry a pistol.

  BEULAH: She don’t have a license to drive a car.

  CAROL: When I stop for someone I want to be sure it’s someone I want to stop for.

  DOLLY: Sheriff Talbott ought to know about this when he gits back from the depot.

  CAROL: Tell him, ladies. I’ve already given him notice that if he ever attempts to stop me again on the highway, I’ll shoot it out with him. . . .

  BEULAH: When anybody has trouble with the law—

  [Her sentence is interrupted by a panicky scream from Eva, immediately repeated by Sister. The Temple Sisters scramble upstairs to the landing. Dolly also cries out and turns, covering her face. A Negro Conjure Man has entered the store. His tattered garments are fantastically bedizened with many talismans and good-luck charms of shell and bone and feather. His blue-black skin is daubed with cryptic signs in white paint.]

  DOLLY: Git him out, git him out, he’s going to mark my baby!

  BEULAH: Oh, shoot, Dolly. . . . [Dolly has now fled after the Temple Sisters, to the landing of the stairs. The Conjure Man advances with a soft, rapid, toothless mumble of words that sound like wind in dry grass. He is holding out something in his shaking hand.] It’s just that old crazy conjure man from Blue Mountain. He cain’t mark your baby.

  [Phrase of primitive music or percussion as Negro moves into light. Beulah follows Dolly to landing.]

  CAROL [very high and clear voice]: Come here, Uncle, and let me see what you’ve got there. Oh, it’s a bone of some kind. No, I don’t want to touch it, it isn’t clean yet, there’s still some flesh clinging to it. [Women make sounds of revulsion.] Yes, I know it’s the breastbone of a bird but it’s still tainted with corruption. Leave it a long time on a bare rock in the rain and the sun till every sign of corruption is burned and washed away from it, and then it will be a good charm, a white charm, but now it’s a black charm, Uncle. So take it away and do what I told you with it. . . .

  [The Negro makes a ducking obeisance and shuffles slowly back to the door.]

  Hey, Uncle Pleasant, give us the Choctaw cry.

  [Negro stops in confectionery.]

  He’s part Choctaw, he knows the Choctaw cry.

  SISTER TEMPLE: Don’t let him holler in here!

  CAROL: Come on, Uncle Pleasant, you know it!

  [She takes off her coat, sits on right window sill. She starts the cry herself. The Negro throws back his head and completes it: a series of barking sounds that rise to a high, sustained note of wild intensity. The women on the landing retreat further upstairs. Just then, as though the cry had brought him, Val enters the store. He is a young man, about thirty, who has a kind of wild beauty about him that the cry would suggest. He does not wear Levi’s or a T-shirt, he has on a pair of dark serge pants, glazed from long wear and not excessively tight-fitting. His remarkable garment is a snakeskin jacket, mottled white, black and gray. He carries a guitar which is covered with inscriptions.]

  CAROL [looking at the young man]: Thanks, Uncle . . .

  BEULAH: Hey, old man, you! Choctaw! Conjure man! Nigguh! Will you go out-a this sto’? So we can come back downstairs?

  [Carol hands the Negro a dollar; he goes out cackling. Val holds the door open for Vee Talbott, a heavy, vague woman in her forties. She does primitive oil paintings and carries one into the store, saying:]

  VEE: I got m’skirt caught in th’ door of the Chevrolet an’ I’m afraid I tore it. [The women descend into store: laconic greetings, interest focused on Val.] Is it dark in here or am I losin’ my eyesight? I been painting all day, finished a picture in a ten-hour stretch, just stopped a few minutes fo’ coffee and went back to it again while I had a clear vision. I think I got it this time. But I’m so exhausted I could drop in my tracks. There’s nothing more exhausting than that kind of work on earth, it’s not so much that it tires your body out, but it leaves you drained inside. Y’know what I mean? Inside? Like you was burned out by something? Well! Still! —You feel you’ve accomplished something when you’re through with it, sometimes you feel—elevated! How are you, Dolly?

  DOLLY: All right, Mrs. Talbott.

  VEE: That’s good. How are you, Beulah?

  BEULAH: Oh, I’m all right, I reckon.

  VEE: Still can’t make out much. Who is that there? [Indicates Carol’s figure by the window. A significant silence greets this question. Then, suddenly:] Oh! I thought her folks had got her out of the county . . .

  [Carol utters a very light, slightly rueful laugh, her eyes drifting back to Val as she moves back into confectionery.]

  Jabe and Lady back yet?

  DOLLY: Pee Wee an’ Dawg have gone to the depot to meet ’em.

  VEE: Aw. Well, I’m just in time. I brought my new picture with me, the paint isn’t dry on it yet. I thought that Lady might want to hang it up in Jabe’s room while he’s convalescin’ from the operation, cause after a close shave with death, people like to be reminded of spiritual things. Huh? Yes! This is the Holy Ghost ascending. . . .

  DOLLY [looking at canvas]: You didn’t put a head on it.

  VEE: The head was a blaze of light, that’s all I saw in my vision.

  DOLLY: Who’s the young man with yuh?

  VEE: Aw, excuse me, I’m too worn out to have manners. This is Mr. Valentine Xavier, Mrs. Hamma and Mrs. —I’m sorry, Beulah. I never can get y’ last name!

  BEULAH: I fo’give you. My name is Beulah Binnings.

  VAL: What shall I do with this here?

  VEE: Oh, that bowl of sh
erbet. I thought that Jabe might need something light an’ digestible so I brought a bowl of sherbet.

  DOLLY: What flavor is it?

  VEE: Pineapple.

  DOLLY: Oh, goody, I love pineapple. Better put it in the icebox before it starts to melt.

  BEULAH [looking under napkin that covers bowl]: I’m afraid you’re lockin’ th’ stable after the horse is gone.

  DOLLY: Aw, is it melted already?

  BEULAH: Reduced to juice.

  VEE: Aw, shoot. Well, put it on ice anyhow, it might thicken up. [Women are still watching Val.] Where’s the icebox?

  BEULAH: In the confectionery.

  VEE: I thought that Lady had closed the confectionery.

  BEULAH: Yes, but the Frigidaire’s still there.

  [Val goes out right through confectionery.]

  VEE: Mr. Xavier is a stranger in our midst. His car broke down in that storm last night and I let him sleep in the lockup. He’s lookin’ for work and I thought I’d introduce him to Lady an’ Jabe because if Jabe can’t work they’re going to need somebody to help out in th’ store.

  BEULAH: That’s a good idea.

  DOLLY: Uh-huh.

  BEULAH: Well, come on in, you all, it don’t look like they’re comin’ straight home from the depot anyhow.

  DOLLY: Maybe that wasn’t the Cannonball Express.

  BEULAH: Or maybe they stopped off fo’ Pee Wee to buy some liquor.

  DOLLY: Yeah . . . at Ruby Lightfoot’s.

  [They move past Carol and out of sight. Carol has risen. Now she crosses into the main store area, watching Val with the candid curiosity of one child observing another. He pays no attention but concentrates on his belt buckle, which he is repairing with a pocketknife.]