Baby Doll Tiger Tail: A Screenplay and Play by Tennessee Williams Read online

  DOCTOR: What I think you need is a harmless sort of sedative. . . .

  ARCHIE: Sedative! Sedative! What do I want with a sedative???

  [He bolts out of the office. . . .]

  DISSOLVE.

  21] MEDIUM LONG SHOT. ARCHIE LEE’S CAR GOING DOWN FRONT STREET.

  Baby Doll sits on her side aloof. Suddenly a moving van passes the other way. On its side is marked the legend: IDEAL PAY AS YOU GO PLAN FURNITURE COMPANY. Suddenly, Baby Doll jumps up and starts waving her hand, flagging the van down, then when this fails, flagging Archie Lee down.

  22] CLOSER SHOT. ARCHIE’S CAR.

  BABY DOLL: That was all our stuff!

  ARCHIE: No it wasn’t. . . .

  BABY DOLL: That was our stuff. Turn around, go after them.

  ARCHIE: Baby Doll, I’ve got to wait down here for my perscription. . . .

  [At this moment another IDEAL PAY AS YOU GO PLAN FURNITURE COMPANY goes by, in the OTHER direction.]

  BABY DOLL: There goes another one, towards our house.

  ARCHIE: Baby, let’s go catch the show at the Delta Brilliant.

  [Baby Doll starts beating him.]

  Or let’s drive over to the Flaming Pig and have some barbecue ribs and a little cold beer.

  BABY DOLL: That’s our stuff. . .!

  [Archie Lee looks the other way.]

  I said that’s our stuff. . .!! I wanta go home. HOME. NOW. If you don’t drive me home now, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll—Mr. Hanna. Mr. Gus Hanna. You live on Tiger Tail Road. . . .

  ARCHIE: I’ll drive you home.

  [He spins the car around and they start home.]

  23] EXTERIOR. MEIGHAN HOUSE. DAY.

  Meighan’s car turns in the drive. The van we saw is backed up to the house, and furniture is being removed from the house. Baby Doll runs among them and starts to beat the movers. They go right on with their work, paying no attention. After a time Aunt Rose puts her arms around Baby Doll and leads her into the house.

  24] CLOSE SHOT. ARCHIE LEE.

  He really is on a spot. Again he hears the sound of the Syndicate Cotton Gin. He makes the same sound, imitating it, he made earlier. He looks in its direction and spits. Then he gets out of the car and walks towards his empty home.

  25] INTERIOR. MEIGHAN HOUSE. THE PARLOR.

  Baby Doll is sobbing by the window. The screen door creaks to admit the hulking figure of Archie Lee.

  ARCHIE [approaching]: Baby Doll. . .

  BABY DOLL: Leave me alone in here. I don’t want to sit in the same room with a man that would make me live in a house with no furniture.

  ARCHIE: Honey, the old furniture we got left 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.

  [Somewhere outside Aunt Rose is heard singing: “Rock of Ages.”]

  ARCHIE: She’s out there pickin’ roses in the yard just as if nothing at all had happened here. . . .

  BABY DOLL: I’m going to move to the Kotton King Hotel. I’m going to move to the Kotton King Hotel. . . .

  ARCHIE: No, you ain’t, Baby Doll.

  BABY DOLL: And I’m going to get me a job. The manager of the Kotton King Hotel carried my daddy’s coffin, he’ll give me work.

  ARCHIE: What sort of work do you think you could do, Baby Doll?

  BABY DOLL: I could curl hair in a beauty parlor or polish nails in a barbershop, I reckon, or I could be a hostess and smile at customers coming into a place.

  ARCHIE: What place?

  BABY DOLL: Any place! I could be a cashier.

  ARCHIE: You can’t count change.

  BABY DOLL: I could pass out menus or programs or something and say hello to people coming in! [Rises.] I’ll phone now.

  [She exits.]

  26] HALL.

  Baby Doll crosses to the telephone. She is making herself attractive as if preparing for an interview.

  BABY DOLL: Kotton King? 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. My daddy was 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. . . .

  27] EXTERIOR OF HOUSE.

  Archie comes out the door and wanders into the yard, passing Aunt Rose, who holds a bunch of roses.

  AUNT ROSE: Archie Lee, look at these roses! Aren’t they poems of nature?

  ARCHIE: Uh-huh, poems of nature.

  [He goes past her, through the front gate and over to his Chevy.

  [The front seat on the driver’s side has been removed and a broken-down commodious armchair put in its place.

  [Sound of the Syndicate Gin, throbbing. Archie Lee reaches under the chair and fishes out a pint bottle. He takes a slug, listens to the Syndicate, takes another. Then he throws the bottle out of the car, turns the ignition key of the car and. . . .]

  28] THE CHEVY ROCKS OUT OF THE YARD. DISSOLVE.

  29] THE INTERIOR. BRITE SPOT CAFE.

  A habitually crowded place. Tonight it is empty. In the corner a customer or two. Behind the bar, the man in the white apron with nothing to do is sharpening a frog gig on a stone. Enter Archie, goes over to the bar.

  ARCHIE: Didn’t get to the bank today, Billy, so I’m a little short of change. . . .

  [The Bartender has heard this before. He reaches to a low shelf and takes out an unlabeled bottle and pours Archie a jolt.]

  ARCHIE: Thanks. Where’s everybody?

  BARTENDER: Over to the Syndicate Gin. Free liquor over there tonight. Why don’t you go over?

  [Then he laughs sardonically.]

  ARCHIE: What’s the occasion?

  BARTENDER: First anniversary. Why don’t you go over and help them celebrate.

  ARCHIE: I’m not going to my own funeral either.

  BARTENDER: I might as well lock up and go home. All that’s coming in here is such as you.

  ARCHIE: What you got there?

  [The Bartender holds up a frog gig. The ends, where just sharpened, glisten.]

  ARCHIE: Been getting any frogs lately?

  BARTENDER: Every time I go out. Going tomorrow night and get me a mess. You wanna come? There’s a gang going. You look like you could use some fresh meat.

  [Another rather despondent-looking character comes in.]

  ARCHIE: Hey, Mac, how you doing?

  MAC: Draggin’, man.

  BARTENDER: Why ain’t you over to the Syndicate like everybody else?

  MAC: What the hell would I do over that place. . . . That place ruined me. . . ruined me. . . .

  BARTENDER: The liquor’s running free over there tonight. And they got fireworks and everything. . . .

  MAC: Fireworks! I’d like to see the whole place up in smoke. [Confidentially.] Say, I’m good for a couple, ain’t I?

  [As the Bartender reaches for the same bottle-without-a-label, we]

  DISSOLVE TO:

  30] EXTERIOR. SYNDICATE GIN.

  A big platform has been built for the celebration and decked out with flags, including the Stars and Bars of Dixie and the Mississippi State Banner.

  A band is playing “Mississippi Millions Love You,” the state song, which is being sung by an emotional spinster. Several public officials are present, not all of them happy to be there as the county has a strongly divided attitude towards the Syndicate-owned plantation. Some old local ward heeler is reeling onto the speaker’s platform and a signal is given to stop the band music. The Old Boy lifts a tin cup, takes a long swallow and remarks.

  THE OLD BOY: Strongest branch water that ever wet my whistle. Must of come out of Tiger Tail Bayou.

  [There is a great haw-haw.]

  THE OLD BOY [continuing]: Young man? Mr. Vacarro. This is a mighty fine party you’re throwing tonight to c
elebrate your first anniversary as superintendent of the Syndicate Plantation and Gin. And I want you to know that all of us good neighbors are proud of your achievement, bringin’ in the biggest cotton crop ever picked off the blessed soil of Two River County.

  [The camera has picked up a handsome, cocky young Italian, Silva Vacarro. His affability is not put on, but he has a way of darting glances right and left as he chuckles and drinks beer which indicates a certain watchfulness, a certain reserve.

  [The camera has also picked up, among the other listeners, some uninvited guests. . . including Archie Lee and his friend from the Brite Spot. Archie Lee is well on the way and, of course, his resentment and bitterness are much more obvious.]

  THE OLD BOY: Now when you first come here, well, we didn’t know you yet and some of us old-timers were a little standoffish, at first.

  [Vacarro’s face has suddenly gone dark and sober. In his watchfulness he has noticed the hostile guests. With a sharp gesture of his head, be summons a man who works for him—Rock—who comes up and kneels alongside. The following colloquy takes place right through the Old Boy’s lines.]

  SILVA: There’s a handful of guys over there that don’t look too happy to me. . . .

  ROCK: They got no reason to be. You put ’em out of business when you built your own gin, and started to gin your own cotton.

  SILVA: Watch ’em, keep an eye on ’em, specially if they start to wander around. . . .

  THE OLD BOY [who has continued]: Natchully, a thing that is profitable to some is unprofitable to others. We all know that some people in this county have suffered some financial losses due in some measure to the success of the Syndicate Plantation.

  [Vacarro is looking around again, rather defiantly, but at no one in particular. Between the knees of his corduroy riding breeches is a whip that he carries habitually, a braided leather riding crop.]

  THE OLD BOY: But as a whole, the community has reaped a very rich profit.

  [He has said this rather defiantly as if he knew he was bucking a certain tide. . . . A voice from the crowd.]

  VOICE: Next time you run for office you better run on the Republican ticket. Git the nigger vote, Fatso!

  THE OLD BOY [answering]: Just look at the new construction been going on! Contractors, carpenters, lumbermen, not to mention the owner and proprietor of the Brite Spot down the road there! And not to mention—

  [Suddenly somebody throws something at the speaker, something liquid and sticky. Instantly, Rock and Vacarro spring up. . . .]

  ROCK: Who done that?!?!

  SILVA [crossing to front of platform]: If anybody’s got anything more to throw, well, here’s your target, here’s your standing target! The wop! the foreign wop!!

  [Big rhubarb. The Old Boy is wiping his face with a wad of paper napkins.

  [Suddenly, we see that something in the middle distance is on fire. The wide dark fields begin to light up.

  [Voices cry alarm. Shouts, cries. Everyone and every thing is lit by the shaking radiance of the fire.

  [Vacarro races towards the fire. It is in the gin building. The volatile dust explodes. Loaded wagons are being pushed away, by Negro field hands driven by Vacarro.

  [A fire engine arrives. But it seems lax in its efforts and inefficient. A hose is pulled out, but there is insufficient water to play water on the blaze, and the hose itself falls short. The firemen are not merely ineffectual. Some seem actually indifferent. In fact, some of their faces express an odd pleasure in the flames, which they seem more interested in watching than fighting.

  [Vacarro rushes among them exhorting, commanding, constantly gesturing with his short riding crop. In his frenzy, he lashes the crop at the man holding the fire hose. The man, resentfully, throws the end of the hose at Vacarro, who seizes the nozzle and walks directly towards and into the flames.

  [Now men try to stop him. Vacarro turns the hose on them, driving them back and then goes into the flames. He disappears from sight. All we hear is his shouts in a foreign tongue.

  [A wall collapses.

  [The hose suddenly leaps about as if it has been freed. The crowd. Horrified. Then they see something. . . .

  [Vacarro comes out. He holds aloft a small, gallon-size kerosene can. He strikes at his trouser bottoms, which are hot. He is on the point of collapse. Men rush to him and drag him to a safe distance. He clutches the can.

  [They lay him out, and crouch around him. He is smudged and singed. He eyes open, look around.

  [His viewpoint. From this distorted angle, lit by the victorious flames are a circle of faces which are either indifferent or downright unfriendly. Some cannot control a faint smile.

  [Vacarro clutches the can, closes his eyes.

  [Another wall collapses.]

  DISSOLVE.

  31] EXTERIOR. MEIGHAN HOUSE. NIGHT.

  Archie Lee’s car turns into the drive. He descends noiselessly as a thief. Camera follows him, and it and he discover Baby Doll on the porch swing. There are several suitcases, packed and ready to go. In a chair near the porch swing, sleeping as mildly as a baby, is Aunt Rose Comfort.

  ARCHIE: What are you doin’ out here at one o’clock in the morning?

  BABY DOLL: I’m not talking to you.

  ARCHIE: 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 give me any money, because you don’t have any money, and secondly, because if I had the money I couldn’t have no way of getting there because you went off in the Chevy, and leave me no way of getting anywhere, including to the fire which I wanted to see just like everyone else.

  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: 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 in the place. 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 haid?? Will you remember that now?

  BABY DOLL: Le’ go my arm!

  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—OWWW!!! Will you quit twisting my arm.

  ARCHIE: I’m trying to wake you up. You’re asleep, you’re dreaming! What did I do after supper?

  BABY DOLL: 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 come inside and go to bed.

  BABY DOLL: Go to what bed? I got no bed to go to!

  ARCHIE: You will tomorrow. The furniture is coming back tomorrow.

  [Baby Doll whimpers.]

  ARCHIE [continuing]: 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 travels up her arm]: My sweet baby doll. My sweet little baby doll.

  BABY DOLL [sleepily]: Hurt. . . . MMMmmmmm! Hurt.

  ARCHIE: Hurt?

  BABY DOLL: Mmm!

  ARCHIE: Kiss?

  BABY DOLL: Mmmmmmmmm.

  ARCHIE: Baby sleepy?

  BABY DOLL: MMmmmmm.

  ARCHIE:
Kiss good. . .?

  BABY DOLL: Mmmmm. . . .

  ARCHIE: Make little room. . . good. . . .

  BABY DOLL: Too hot.

  ARCHIE: Make a little room, go on. . . .

  BABY DOLL: Mmmm. . . .

  ARCHIE: Whose baby? Big sweet. . . whose baby?

  BABY DOLL: You hurt me. . . . Mmmm. . . .

  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: Hmmmmm. . . .

  [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?