Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer Read online

VAL [taking a step toward her]: Yeah?—Is this a small pink-headed woman?

  LADY: Pin-headed woman did you say?

  VAL: Naw, I said, “Pink!”—A little pink-haired woman, in a checkered coat with pearl buttons this big on it.

  LADY: I talked to her on the phone. She didn’t go into such details about her appearance but she did say you got familiar. I said, “How? by his talk or behavior?” And she said, “Both!”—Now I was afraid of this when I warned you last week, “No monkey business here, boy!”

  VAL: This little pink-headed woman bought a valentine from me and all I said is my name is Valentine to her. Few minutes later a small colored boy come in and delivered the valentine to me with something wrote on it an’ I believe I still got it. . . . [Finds and shows it to Lady who goes to him. Lady reads it, and tears it fiercely to pieces. He lights a cigarette.]

  LADY: Signed it with a lipstick kiss? You didn’t show up for this date?

  VAL: No, ma’am. That’s why she complained. [Throws match on floor.]

  LADY: Pick that match up off the floor.

  VAL: Are you bucking for sergeant, or something? [He throws match out the door with elaborate care. Her eyes follow his back. Val returns lazily toward her.]

  LADY: Did you walk around in front of her that way?

  VAL [at counter]: What way?

  LADY: Slew-foot, slew-foot!

  [He regards her closely with good-humored perplexity.]

  Did you stand in front of her like that? That close? In that, that—position?

  VAL: What position?

  LADY: Ev’rything you do is suggestive!

  VAL: Suggestive of what?

  LADY: Of what you said you was through with—somethin’—Oh, shoot, you know what I mean. —Why’d ya think I give you a plain, dark business suit to work in?

  VAL [sadly]: Un-hun. . . . [Sighs and removes his blue jacket.]

  LADY: Now what’re you takin’ that off for?

  VAL: I’m giving the suit back to you. I’ll change my pants in the closet. [Gives her the jacket and crosses into alcove.]

  LADY: Hey! I’m sorry! You hear me? I didn’t sleep well last night. Hey! I said I’m sorry! You hear me? [She enters alcove and returns immediately with Val’s guitar and crosses downstage. He follows.]

  VAL: Le’ me have my guitar, Lady. You find too many faults with me and I tried to do good.

  LADY: I told you I’m sorry. You want me to get down and lick the dust off your shoes?

  VAL: Just give me back my guitar.

  LADY: I ain’t dissatisfied with you. I’m pleased with you, sincerely!

  VAL: You sure don’t show it.

  LADY: My nerves are all shot to pieces. [Extends hand to him.] Shake.

  VAL: You mean I ain’t fired, so I don’t have to quit? [They shake hands like two men. She hands him guitar—then silence falls between them.]

  LADY: You see, we don’t know each other, we’re, we’re—just gettin’—acquainted.

  VAL: That’s right, like a couple of animals sniffin’ around each other. . . .

  [The image embarrasses her. He crosses to counter, leans over and puts guitar behind it.]

  LADY: Well, not exactly like that, but—!

  VAL: We don’t know each other. How do people get to know each other? I used to think they did it by touch.

  LADY: By what?

  VAL: By touch, by touchin’ each other.

  LADY [moving up and sitting on shoe-fitting chair which has been moved to right window]: Oh, you mean by close—contact!

  VAL: But later it seemed like that made them more strangers than ever, uhh, huh, more strangers than ever. . . .

  LADY: Then how d’you think they get to know each other?

  VAL [sitting on counter]: Well, in answer to your last question, I would say this: Nobody ever gets to know no body! We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life! You understand me, Lady? —I’m tellin’ you it’s the truth, we got to face it, we’re under a lifelong sentence to solitary confinement inside our own lonely skins for as long as we live on this earth!

  LADY [rising and crossing to him]: Oh, no, I’m not a big optimist but I cannot agree with something as sad as that statement!

  [They are sweetly grave as two children; the store is somewhat dusky. She sits in chair right of counter.]

  VAL: Listen! —When I was a kid on Witches Bayou? After my folks all scattered away like loose chicken’s feathers blown around by the wind?—I stayed there alone on the bayou, hunted and trapped out of season and hid from the law! —Listen! —All that time, all that lonely time, I felt I was—waiting for something!

  LADY: What for?

  VAL: What does anyone wait for? For something to happen, for anything to happen, to make things make more sense. . . . It’s hard to remember what that feeling was like because I’ve lost it now, but I was waiting for something like if you ask a question you wait for someone to answer, but you ask the wrong question or you ask the wrong person and the answer don’t come. Does everything stop because you don’t get the answer? No, it goes right on as if the answer was given, day comes after day and night comes after night, and you’re still waiting for someone to answer the question and going right on as if the question was answered. And then—well—then. . . .

  LADY: Then what?

  VAL: You get the make-believe answer.

  LADY: What answer is that?

  VAL: Don’t pretend you don’t know because you do!

  LADY: —Love?

  VAL [placing hand on her shoulder]: That’s the make-believe answer. It’s fooled many a fool besides you an’ me, that’s the God’s truth, Lady, and you had better believe it. [Lady looks reflectively at Val and he goes on speaking and sits on stool below counter.] —I met a girl on the bayou when I was fourteen. I’d had a feeling that day that if I just kept poling the boat down the bayou a little bit further I would come bang into whatever it was I’d been so long expecting!

  LADY: Was she the answer, this girl that you met on the bayou?

  VAL: She made me think that she was.

  LADY: How did she do that?

  VAL: By coming out on the dogtrot of a cabin as naked as I was in that flat-bottom boat! She stood there a while with the daylight burning around her as bright as heaven as far as I could see. You seen the inside of a shell, how white that is, pearly white? Her naked skin was like that. —Oh, God, I remember a bird flown out of the moss and its wings made a shadow on her, and then it sung a single, high clear note, and as if she was waiting for that as a kind of a signal to catch me, she turned and smiled, and walked on back in the cabin. . . .

  LADY: You followed?

  VAL: Yes, I followed, I followed, like a bird’s tail follows a bird, I followed! I thought that she give me the answer to the question, I’d been waiting for, but afterwards I wasn’t sure that was it, but from that time the question wasn’t much plainer than the answer and—

  LADY: —What?

  VAL: At fifteen I left Witches Bayou. When the dog died I sold my boat and the gun. . . . I went to New Orleans in this snakeskin jacket. . . . It didn’t take long for me to learn the score.

  LADY: What did you learn?

  VAL: I learned that I had something to sell besides snakeskins and other wild things’ skins I caught on the bayou. I was corrupted! That’s the answer. . . .

  LADY: Naw, that ain’t the answer!

  VAL: Okay, you tell me the answer!

  LADY: I don’t know the answer, I just know corruption ain’t the answer. I know that much. If I thought that was the answer I’d take Jabe’s pistol or his morphine tablets and—

  [A woman bursts into store.]

  WOMAN: I got to use your pay phone!

  LADY: Go ahead. Help yourself.

  [Woman crosses to phone
, deposits coin. Lady crosses to confectionery. To Val:]

  Get me a coke from the cooler.

  [Val crosses and goes out right. During the intense activity among the choral women, Lady and Val seem bemused, as if they were thinking back over their talk before. For the past minute or two a car horn has been heard blowing repeatedly in the near distance.]

  WOMAN [at phone]: Cutrere place, get me the Cutrere place, will yuh? David Cutrere or his wife, whichever comes to the phone!

  BEULAH [rushes in from the street to right-center]: Lady, Lady, where’s Lady! Carol Cutrere is—!

  WOMAN: Quiet, please! I am callin’ her brother about her!

  [Lady sits at table in confectionery.]

  WOMAN [at phone]: Who’s this I’m talking to? Good! I’m calling about your sister, Carol Cutrere. She is blowing her car horn at the Red Crown station, she is blowing and blowing her car horn at the Red Crown station because my husband give the station attendants instructions not to service her car, and she is blowing and blowing and blowing on her horn, drawing a big crowd there and, Mr. Cutrere, I thought that you and your father had agreed to keep that girl out of Two River County for good, that’s what we all understood around here.

  [Car horn.]

  BEULAH [listening with excited approval]: Good! Good! Tell him that if—

  [Dolly enters.]

  DOLLY: She’s gotten out of the car and—

  BEULAH: Shhh!

  WOMAN: Well, I just wanted to let you know she’s back here in town makin’ another disturbance and my husband’s on the phone now at the Red Crown station— [Dolly goes outside and looks off.] —trying to get the Sheriff, so if she gits picked up again by th’ law, you can’t say I didn’t warn you, Mr. Cutrere. [Car horn.]

  DOLLY [coming back in]: Oh, good! Good!

  BEULAH: Where is she, where’s she gone now?

  WOMAN: You better be quick about it. Yes, I do. I sympathize with you and your father and with Mrs. Cutrere, but Carol cannot demand service at our station, we just refuse to wait on her, she’s not—Hello? Hello? [She jiggles phone violently.]

  BEULAH: What’s he doin’? Comin’ to pick her up?

  DOLLY: Call the Sheriff’s office!

  [Beulah goes outside again. Val comes back with a bottle of Coca-Cola—hands it to Lady and leans on juke box.]

  DOLLY [going out to Beulah]: What’s goin’ on now?

  BEULAH [outside]: Look, look, they’re pushing her out of the station driveway.

  [They forget Lady in this new excitement. Ad libs continual. The short woman from the station charges back out of the store.]

  DOLLY: Where is Carol?

  BEULAH: Going into the White Star Pharmacy! [Dolly rushes back in to the phone. Beulah, crossing to Lady.] Lady, I want you to give me your word that if that Cutrere girl comes in here, you won’t wait on her! You hear me?

  LADY: No.

  BEULAH: —What? Will you refuse to wait on her?

  LADY: I can’t refuse to wait on anyone in this store.

  BEULAH: Well, I’d like to know why you can’t.

  DOLLY: Shhh! I’m on the phone!

  BEULAH: Who you phonin’ Dolly?

  DOLLY: That White Star Pharmacy! I want to make sure that Mr. Dubinsky refuses to wait on that girl! [Having found and deposited coin.] I want the White Far Starmacy. I mean the— [Stamps foot.] —White Star Pharmacy! —I’m so upset my tongue’s twisted!

  [Lady hands coke to Val. Beulah is at the window.]

  I’m getting a busy signal. Has she come out yet?

  BEULAH: No, she’s still in the White Star!

  DOLLY: Maybe they’re not waiting on her.

  BEULAH: Dubinsky’d wait on a purple-bottom baboon if it put a dime on th’ counter an’ pointed at something!

  DOLLY: I know she sat at a table in the Blue Bird Café half’n hour last time she was here and the waitresses never came near her!

  BEULAH: That’s different. They’re not foreigners there!

  [Dolly crosses to counter.]

  You can’t ostracize a person out of this county unless everybody cooperates. Lady just told me that she was going to wait on her if she comes here.

  DOLLY: Lady wouldn’t do that.

  BEULAH: Ask her! She told me she would!

  LADY [rising and turning at once to the women and shouting at them]: Oh, for God’s sake, no! I’m not going to refuse to wait on her because you all don’t like her! Besides I’m delighted that wild girl is givin’ her brother so much trouble! [After this outburst she goes back of the counter.]

  DOLLY [at phone]: Hush! Mr. Dubinsky! This is Dolly Hamma, Mr. “Dog” Hamma’s wife!

  [Carol quietly enters the front door.]

  I want to ask you, is Carol Cutrere in your drugstore?

  BEULAH [warningly]: Dolly!

  CAROL: No. She isn’t.

  DOLLY: —What?

  CAROL: She’s here.

  [Beulah goes into confectionery. Carol moves toward Val downstage.]

  DOLLY: —Aw! —Never mind, Mr. Dubinsky, I— [Hangs up furiously and crosses to door.]

  [A silence in which they all stare at the girl from various positions about the store. She has been on the road all night in an open car: her hair is blown wild, her face flushed and eyes bright with fever. Her manner in the scene is that of a wild animal at bay, desperate but fearless.]

  LADY [finally and quietly]: Hello, Carol.

  CAROL: Hello, Lady.

  LADY [defiantly cordial]: I thought that you were in New Orleans, Carol.

  CAROL: Yes, I was. Last night.

  LADY: Well, you got back fast.

  CAROL: I drove all night.

  LADY: In that storm?

  CAROL: The wind took the top off my car but I didn’t stop. [She watches Val steadily; he steadily ignores her; turns away and puts bottles of Coca-Cola on a table.]

  LADY [with growing impatience]: Is something wrong at home, is someone sick?

  CAROL [absently]: No. No, not that I know of, I wouldn’t know if there was, they—may I sit down?

  LADY: Why, sure.

  CAROL [crossing to chair at counter and sitting]: —They pay me to stay away so I wouldn’t know. . . .

  [Silence, Val walks deliberately past her and goes into alcove.]

  —I think I have a fever, I feel like I’m catching pneumonia, everything’s so far away. . . .

  [Silence again except for the faint, hissing whispers of Beulah and Dolly at the back of the store.]

  LADY [with a touch of exasperation]: Is there something you want?

  CAROL: Everything seems miles away. . . .

  LADY: Carol, I said is there anything you want here?

  CAROL: Excuse me!—yes. . . .

  LADY: Yes, what?

  CAROL: Don’t bother now. I’ll wait.

  [Val comes out of alcove with the blue jacket on.]

  LADY: Wait for what, what are you waiting for! You don’t have to wait for nothing, just say what you want and if I got it in stock I’ll give it to you!

  [Phone rings once.]

  CAROL [vaguely]: —Thank you—no. . . .

  LADY [to Val]: Get that phone, Val.

  [Dolly crosses and hisses something inaudible to Beulah.]

  BEULAH [rising]: I just want to wait here to see if she does or she don’t

  DOLLY: She just said she would!

  BEULAH: Just the same, I’m gonna wait!!

  VAL [at phone]: Yes, sir, she is. —I’ll tell her. [Hangs up and speaks to Lady.] Her brother’s heard she’s here and he’s coming to pick her up.

  LADY: David Cutrere is not coming in this store!

  DOLLY: Aw-aw!

  BEULAH: David Cutrere used to be her lover.

  DOLLY: I remember you told me.


  LADY [wheels about suddenly toward the women]: Beulah! Dolly! Why’re you back there hissing together like geese? [Coming from behind counter to right-center.] Why don’t you go to th’—Blue Bird and—have some hot coffee—talk there!

  BEULAH: It looks like we’re getting what they call the bum’s rush.

  DOLLY: I never stay where I’m not wanted and when I’m not wanted somewhere I never come back! [They cross out and slam door.]

  LADY [after a pause]: What did you come here for?

  CAROL: To deliver a message.

  LADY:To me?

  CAROL: No.

  LADY: Then who?

  [Carol stares at Lady gravely a moment, then turns slowly to look at Val.]

  —Him?—Him?

  [Carol nods slowly and slightly.]

  OK, then, give him the message, deliver the message to him.

  CAROL: It’s a private message. Could I speak to him alone, please?

  [Lady gets a shawl from a hook.]

  LADY: Oh, for God’s sake! Your brother’s plantation is ten minutes from here in that sky-blue Cadillac his rich wife give him. Now look, he’s on his way here but I won’t let him come in, I don’t even want his hand to touch the door-handle. I know your message, this boy knows your message, there’s nothing private about it. But I tell you, that this boy’s not for sale in my store! —Now—I’m going out to watch for the sky-blue Cadillac on the highway. When I see it, I’m going to throw this door open and holler and when I holler, I want you out of this door like a shot from a ­pistol!—that fast! Understand?

  [NOTE: Above scene is overextended. This can be remedied by a very lively performance. It might also help to indicate a division between the Lady-Val scene and the group scene that follows. Lady slams door behind her. The loud noise of the door-slam increases the silence that follows, Val’s oblivious attitude is not exactly hostile, but deliberate. There’s a kind of purity in it; also a kind of refusal to concern himself with a problem that isn’t his own. He holds his guitar with a specially tender concentration, and strikes a soft chord on it. The girl stares at Val; he whistles a note and tightens a guitar string to the pitch of the whistle, not looking at the girl. Since this scene is followed by the emotional scene between Lady and David, it should be keyed somewhat lower than written; it’s important that Val should not seem brutal in his attitude toward Carol; there should be an air between them of two lonely children.]