Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer Read online

  CAROL: What’re you fixing?

  VAL: Belt buckle.

  CAROL: Boys like you are always fixing something. Could you fix my slipper?

  VAL: What’s wrong with your slipper?

  CAROL: Why are you pretending not to remember me?

  VAL: It’s hard to remember someone you never met.

  CAROL: Then why’d you look so startled when you saw me?

  VAL: Did I?

  CAROL: I thought for a moment you’d run back out the door.

  VAL: The sight of a woman can make me walk in a hurry but I don’t think it’s ever made me run. —You’re standing in my light.

  CAROL [moving aside slightly]: Oh, excuse me. Better?

  VAL: Thanks. . . .

  CAROL: Are you afraid I’ll snitch?

  VAL: Do what?

  CAROL: Snitch? I wouldn’t; I’m not a snitch. But I can prove that I know you if I have to. It was New Year’s Eve in New Orleans.

  VAL: I need a small pair of pliers. . . .

  CAROL: You had on that jacket and a snake ring with a ruby eye.

  VAL: I never had a snake ring with a ruby eye.

  CAROL: A snake ring with an emerald eye?

  VAL: I never had a snake ring with any kind of an eye. . . . [Begins to whistle softly, his face averted.]

  CAROL [smiling gently]: Then maybe it was a dragon ring with an emerald eye or a diamond or a ruby eye. You told us that it was a gift from a lady osteopath that you’d met somewhere in your travels and that any time you were broke you’d wire this lady osteopath collect, and no matter how far you were or how long it was since you’d seen her, she’d send you a money order for twenty-five dollars with the same sweet message each time. “I love you. When will you come back?” And to prove the story, not that it was difficult to believe it, you took the latest of these sweet messages from your wallet for us to see. . . . [She throws back her head with soft laughter. He looks away still further and busies himself with the belt buckle.] —We followed you through five places before we made contact with you and I was the one that made contact. I went up to the bar where you were standing and touched your jacket and said, “What stuff is this made of?” and when you said it was snakeskin, I said, “I wish you’d told me before I touched it.” And you said something not nice. You said, “Maybe that will learn you to hold back your hands.” I was drunk by that time, which was after midnight. Do you remember what I said to you? I said, “What on earth can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you, with both your hands, until your fingers are broken?” I’d never said that before, or even consciously thought it, but afterwards it seemed like the truest thing that my lips had ever spoken, what on earth can you do but catch at whatever comes near you with both your hands until your fingers are broken. . . . You gave me a quick, sober look. I think you nodded slightly, and then you picked up your guitar and began to sing. After singing you passed the kitty. Whenever paper money was dropped in the kitty you blew a whistle. My cousin Bertie and I dropped in five dollars, you blew the whistle five times and then sat down at our table for a drink, Schenley’s with Seven Up. You showed us all those signatures on your guitar. . . . Any correction so far?

  VAL: Why are you so anxious to prove I know you?

  CAROL: Because I want to know you better and better! I’d like to go out jooking with you tonight.

  VAL: What’s jooking?

  CAROL: Oh, don’t you know what that is? That’s where you get in a car and drink a little and drive a little and stop and dance a little to a juke box and then you drink a little more and drive a little more and stop and dance a little more to a juke box and then you stop dancing and you just drink and drive and then you stop driving and just drink, and then, finally, you stop drinking. . . .

  VAL: —What do you do, then?

  CAROL: That depends on the weather and who you’re jooking with. If it’s a clear night you spread a blanket among the memorial stones on Cypress Hill, which is the local bone orchard, but if it’s not a fair night, and this one certainly isn’t, why, usually then you go to the Idlewild cabins between here and Sunset on the Dixie Highway. . . .

  VAL: —That’s about what I figured. But I don’t go that route. Heavy drinking and smoking the weed and shacking with strangers is okay for kids in their twenties but this is my thirtieth birthday and I’m all through with that route. [Looks up with dark eyes.] I’m not young any more.

  CAROL: You’re young at thirty—I hope so! I’m twenty-nine!

  VAL: Naw, you’re not young at thirty if you’ve been on a goddam party since you were fifteen!

  [Picks up his guitar and sings and plays “Heavenly Grass.” Carol has taken a pint of bourbon from her trench coat pocket and she passes it to him.]

  CAROL: Thanks. That’s lovely. Many happy returns of your birthday, Snakeskin. [She is very close to him. Vee enters and says sharply:]

  VEE: Mr. Xavier don’t drink.

  CAROL: Oh, ex-cuse me!

  VEE: And if you behaved yourself better your father would not be paralyzed in bed!

  [Sound of car out front. Women come running with various cries. Lady enters, nodding to the women, and holding the door open for her husband and the men following him. She greets the women in almost toneless murmurs, as if too tired to speak. She could be any age between thirty-five and forty-five, in appearance, but her figure is youthful. Her face taut. She is a woman who met with emotional disaster in her girlhood; verges on hysteria under strain. Her voice is often shrill and her body tense. But when in repose, a girlish softness emerges again and she looks ten years younger.]

  LADY: Come in, Jabe. We’ve got a reception committee here to meet us. They’ve set up a buffet supper.

  [Jabe enters. A gaunt, wolfish man, gray and yellow. The women chatter idiotically.]

  BEULAH: Well, look who’s here!

  DOLLY: Well, Jabe!

  BEULAH: I don’t think he’s been sick. I think he’s been to Miami. Look at that wonderful color in his face!

  DOLLY: I never seen him look better in my life!

  BEULAH: Who does he think he’s foolin’? Ha ha ha!— not me!

  JABE: Whew, Jesus—I’m mighty—tired. . . .

  [An uncomfortable silence, everyone staring greedily at the dying man with his tense, wolfish smile and nervous cough.]

  PEE WEE: Well, Jabe, we been feedin’ lots of nickels to those one-arm bandits in there.

  DOG: An’ that pinball machine is hotter’n a pistol.

  PEE WEE: Ha ha.

  [Eva Temple appears on stairs and screams for her sister.]

  EVA: Sistuh! Sistuh! Sistuh! Cousin Jabe’s here!

  [A loud clatter upstairs and shrieks.]

  JABE: Jesus. . . .

  [Eva rushing at him—stops short and bursts into tears.]

  LADY: Oh, cut that out, Eva Temple! —What were you doin’ upstairs?

  EVA: I can’t help it, it’s so good to see him, it’s so wonderful to see our cousin again, oh, Jabe, blessed!

  SISTER: Where’s Jabe, where’s precious Jabe? Where’s our precious cousin?

  EVA: Right here, Sister!

  SISTER: Well, bless your old sweet life, and lookit the color he’s got in his face, will you?

  BEULAH: I just told him he looks like he’s been to Miami and got a Florida suntan, ha ha ha!

  [The preceding speeches are very rapid, all overlapping.]

  JABE: I ain’t been out in no sun an’ if you all will excuse me I’m gonna do my celebratin’ upstairs in bed because I’m kind of—worn out. [Goes creakily to foot of steps while Eva and Sister sob into their handkerchiefs behind him.] —I see they’s been some changes made here. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. How come the shoe department’s back here now? [Instant hostility as if habitual between them.]

  LADY: We always had a problem with light in this st
ore.

  JABE: So you put the shoe department further away from the window? That’s sensible. A very intelligent solution to the problem, Lady.

  LADY: Jabe, you know I told you we got a fluorescent tube coming to put back here.

  JABE: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well. Tomorrow I’ll get me some niggers to help me move the shoe department back front.

  LADY: You do whatever you want to, it’s your store.

  JABE: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I’m glad you reminded me of it.

  [Lady turns sharply away. He starts up stairs. Pee Wee and Dog follow him up. The women huddle and whisper in the store. Lady sinks wearily into chair at table.]

  BEULAH: That man will never come down those stairs again!

  DOLLY: Never in this world, honey.

  BEULAH: He has th’ death sweat on him! Did you notice that death sweat on him?

  DOLLY: An’ yellow as butter, just as yellow as—

  [Sister sobs.]

  EVA: Sister, Sister!

  BEULAH [crossing to Lady]: Lady, I don’t suppose you feel much like talking about it right now but Dog and me are so worried.

  DOLLY: Pee Wee and me are worried sick about it.

  LADY: —About what?

  BEULAH: Jabe’s operation in Memphis. Was it successful?

  DOLLY: Wasn’t it successful?

  [Lady stares at them blindly. The women, except Carol, close avidly about her, tense with morbid interest.]

  SISTER: Was it too late for surgical interference?

  EVA: Wasn’t it successful?

  [A loud, measured knock begins on the floor above.]

  BEULAH: Somebody told us it had gone past the knife.

  DOLLY: We do hope it ain’t hopeless.

  EVA: We hope and pray it ain’t hopeless.

  [All their faces wear faint, unconscious smiles. Lady looks from face to face; then utters a slight, startled laugh and springs up from the table and crosses to the stairs.]

  LADY [as if in flight]: Excuse me, I have to go up, Jabe’s knocking for me. [Lady goes upstairs. The women gaze after her.]

  CAROL [suddenly and clearly, in the silence]: Speaking of knocks, I have a knock in my engine. It goes knock, knock, and I say who’s there. I don’t know whether I’m in communication with some dead ancestor or the motor’s about to drop out and leave me stranded in the dead of night on the Dixie Highway. Do you have any knowledge of mechanics? I’m sure you do. Would you be sweet and take a short drive with me? So you could hear that knock?

  VAL: I don’t have time.

  CAROL: What have you got to do?

  VAL: I’m waiting to see about a job in this store.

  CAROL: I’m offering you a job.

  VAL: I want a job that pays.

  CAROL: I expect to pay you.

  [Women whisper loudly in the background.]

  VAL: Maybe sometime tomorrow.

  CAROL: I can’t stay here overnight; I’m not allowed to stay overnight in this county.

  [Whispers rise. The word “corrupt” is distinguished. Then Carol, without turning, smiles very brightly.]

  What are they saying about me? Can you hear what those women are saying about me?

  VAL: —Play it cool. . . .

  CAROL: I don’t like playing it cool! What are they saying about me? That I’m corrupt?

  VAL: If you don’t want to be talked about, why do you make up like that, why do you—

  CAROL: To show off!

  VAL: What?

  CAROL: I’m an exhibitionist! I want to be noticed, seen, heard, felt! I want them to know I’m alive! Don’t you want them to know you’re alive?

  VAL: I want to live and I don’t care if they know I’m alive or not.

  CAROL: Then why do you play a guitar?

  VAL: Why do you make a goddam show of yourself?

  CAROL: That’s right, for the same reason.

  VAL: We don’t go the same route. . . . [He keeps moving away from her; she continually follows him. Her speech is compulsive.]

  CAROL: I used to be what they call a Christ-bitten reformer. You know what that is? —A kind of benign exhibitionist. . . . I delivered stump speeches, wrote letters of protest about the gradual massacre of the colored majority in the county. I thought it was wrong for pellagra and slow starvation to cut them down when the cotton crop failed from army worm or boll weevil or too much rain in summer. I wanted to, tried to, put up free clinics, I squandered the money my mother left me on it. And when that Willie McGee thing came along—he was sent to the chair for having improper relations with a white whore— [Her voice is like a passionate incantation.] I made a fuss about it. I put on a potato sack and set out for the capital on foot. This was in winter. I walked barefoot in this burlap sack to deliver a personal protest to the governor of the state. Oh, I suppose it was partly exhibitionism on my part, but it wasn’t completely exhibitionism; there was something else in it, too. You know how far I got? Six miles out of town—hooted, jeered at, even spit on!—every step of the way—and then arrested! Guess what for? Lewd vagrancy! Uh-huh, that was the charge, “lewd vagrancy,” because they said that potato sack I had on was not a respectable garment. . . . Well, all that was a pretty long time ago, and now I’m not a reformer any more. I’m just a “lewd vagrant.” And I’m showing the “S.O.B.S.” how lewd a “lewd vagrant” can be if she puts her whole heart in it like I do mine! All right. I’ve told you my story, the story of an exhibitionist. Now I want you to do something for me. Take me out to Cypress Hill in my car. And we’ll hear the dead people talk. They do talk there. They chatter together like birds on Cypress Hill, but all they say is one word and that one word is “live,” they say, “Live, live, live, live, live!” It’s all they’ve learned, it’s the only advice they can give. —Just live. . . . [She opens the door.] Simple!—a very simple instruction. . . .

  [Goes out. Women’s voices rise from the steady, indistinct murmur, like hissing geese.]

  WOMEN’S VOICES: —No, not liquor! Dope!

  —Something not normal all right!

  —Her father and brother were warned by the Vigilantes to keep her out of this county.

  —She’s absolutely degraded!

  —Yes, corrupt!

  —Corrupt! (Etc., etc.)

  [As if repelled by their hissing voices, Val suddenly picks up his guitar and goes out of the store as—Vee Talbott appears on the landing and calls down to him.]

  VEE: Mr. Xavier! Where is Mr. Xavier?

  BEULAH: Gone, honey.

  DOLLY: You might as well face it, Vee. This is one candidate for salvation that you have lost to the opposition.

  BEULAH: He’s gone off to Cypress Hill with the Cutrere girl.

  VEE [descending]: —If some of you older women in Two River County would set a better example there’d be more decent young people!

  BEULAH: What was that remark?

  VEE: I mean that people who give drinkin’ parties an’ get so drunk they don’t know which is their husband and which is somebody else’s and people who serve on the altar guild and still play cards on Sundays—

  BEULAH: Just stop right there! Now I’ve discovered the source of that dirty gossip!

  VEE: I’m only repeating what I’ve been told by others. I never been to these parties!

  BEULAH: No, and you never will! You’re a public killjoy, a professional hypocrite!

  VEE: I try to build up characters! You and your drinkin’ parties are only concerned with tearin’ characters down! I’m goin’ upstairs, I’m goin’ back upstairs! [Rushes upstairs.]

  BEULAH: Well, I’m glad I said what I said to that woman. I’ve got no earthly patience with that sort of hypocriticism. Dolly, let’s put this perishable stuff in the Frigidaire and leave here. I’ve never been so thoroughly disgusted!

  DOLLY: Oh, my Lawd. [Pauses at stai
rs and shouts:] PEE WEE! [Goes off with the dishes.]

  SISTER: Both of those wimmen are as common as dirt.

  EVA: Dolly’s folks in Blue Mountain are nothin’ at all but the poorest kind of white trash. Why, Lollie Tucker told me the old man sits on the porch with his shoes off drinkin’ beer out of a bucket! —Let’s take these flowers with us to put on the altar.

  SISTER: Yes, we can give Jabe credit in the parish notes.

  EVA: I’m going to take these olive-nut sandwiches, too. They’ll come in handy for the Bishop Adjutant’s tea.

  [Dolly and Beulah cross through.]

  DOLLY: We still have time to make the second show.

  BEULAH [shouting]: Dog!

  DOLLY: Pee Wee! [They rush out of store.]

  EVA: Sits on the porch with his shoes off?

  SISTER: Drinkin’ beer out of a bucket! [They go out with umbrellas, etc. Men descend stairs.]

  TALBOTT: Well, it looks to me like Jabe will more than likely go under before the cotton comes up.

  PEE WEE: He never looked good.

  DOG: Naw, but now he looks worse. [They cross to door.]

  TALBOTT: Vee!

  VEE [from landing]: Hush that bawling. I had to speak to Lady about that boy and I couldn’t speak to her in front of Jabe because he thinks he’s gonna be able to go back to work himself.

  TALBOTT: Well, move along, quit foolin’.

  VEE: I think I ought to wait till that boy gits back.

  TALBOTT: I’m sick of you making a goddam fool of yourself over every stray bastard that wanders into this county.

  [Car horn honks loudly, Vee follows her husband out. Sound of cars driving off. Dogs bay in distance as lights dim to indicate short passage of time.]

  SCENE TWO

  A couple of hours later that night. Through the great window the landscape is faintly luminous under a scudding moonlit sky. Outside a girl’s laughter, Carol’s, rings out high and clear and is followed by the sound of a motor, rapidly going off.

  Val enters the store before the car sound quite fades out and while a dog is still barking at it somewhere along the highway. He says “Christ” under his breath, goes to the buffet table and scrubs lipstick stain off his mouth and face with a paper napkin, picks up his guitar, which he had left on a counter.