27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays Page 7

  MRS. WIRE: (shouting from the other side) Tomorrow morning! Money or out you go! Both of you. Both together! 780-page masterpiece and Brazilian rubber plantation! BALONEY! (Slowly the derelict Writer and the derelict woman turn to face each other. The daylight is waning grayly through the skylight. The Writer slowly and stiffly extends his arms in a gesture of helplessness.)

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (turning to avoid his look) Roaches! Everywhere! Walls, ceiling, floor! The place is infested with them.

  WRITER: (gently) I know. I suppose there weren’t any roaches on the Brazilian rubber plantation.

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (warming) No, of course there weren’t. Everything was immaculate always—always. Immaculate! The floors were so bright and clean they used to shine like—mirrors!

  WRITER: I know. And the windows—I suppose they commanded a very lovely view!

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: Indescribably lovely!

  WRITER: How far was it from the Mediterranean?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (dimly) The Mediterranean? Only a mile or two!

  WRITER: On a very clear morning I daresay it was possible to distinguish the white chalk cliffs of Dover? . . . Across the channel?

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: Yes—in very clear weather it was. (The Writer silently passes her a pint bottle of whisky.) Thank you, Mr.—?

  WRITER: Chekhov! Anton Pavlovitch Chekhov!

  MRS. HARDWICKE-MOORE: (smiling with the remnants of coquetry) Thank you, Mr.—Chekhov.

  CURTAIN

  The Last of My Solid Gold-Watches

  This play is inscribed to Mr. Sidney Greenstreet, for whom the principal character was hopefully conceived.

  Ce ne peut être que la fin du monde, en avonçant.

  RIMBAUD

  CHARACTERS

  MR. CHARLIE COLTON.

  A NEGRO, a porter in the hotel.

  HARPER, a traveling salesman.

  The Last of My Solid Gold Watches

  SCENE: A hotel room in a Mississippi Delta town. The room has looked the same, with some deterioration, for thirty or forty years. The walls are mustard-colored. There are two windows with dull green blinds, torn slightly, a ceiling-fan, a white iron bed with a pink counterpane, a washstand with rose-buds painted on the pitcher and bowl, and on the wall a colored lithograph of blind-folded Hope with her broken lyre.

  The door opens and Mr. Charlie Colton comes in. He is a legendary character, seventy-eight years old but still “going strong.” He is lavish of flesh, superbly massive and with a kingly dignity of bearing. Once he moved with a tidal ease and power. Now he puffs and rumbles; when no one is looking he clasps his hand to his chest and cocks his head to the warning heart inside him. His huge expanse of chest and belly is criss-crossed by multiple gold chains with various little fobs and trinkets suspended from them. On the back of his head is a derby and in his mouth a cigar. This is “Mistuh Charlie"—who sadly but proudly refers to himself as “the last of the Delta drummers.” He is followed into the room by a Negro porter, as old as he is—thin and toothless and grizzled. He totes the long orange leather sample cases containing the shoes which Mr. Charlie is selling. He sets them down at the foot of the bed as Mr. Charlie fishes in his pocket for a quarter.

  MR. CHARLIE: (handing the coin to the Negro) Hyunh!

  NEGRO: (breathlessly) Thankyseh!

  MR. CHARLIE: Huh! You’re too old a darkey to tote them big heavy cases.

  NEGRO: (grinning sadly) Don’t say that, Mistuh Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: I reckon you’ll keep right at it until yuh drop some day.

  NEGRO: That’s right, Mistuh Charlie. (Mr. Charlie fishes in his pocket for another quarter and tosses it to the Negro, who crouches and cackles as he receives it.)

  MR. CHARLIE: Hyunh!

  NEGRO: Thankyseh, thankyseh!

  MR. CHARLIE: Now set that fan in motion an’ bring me in some ice-water by an’ by!

  NEGRO: De fan don’ work, Mistuh Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: Huh! Deterioration! Everything’s going down-hill around here lately!

  NEGRO: Yes, suh, dat’s de troof, Mistuh Charlie, ev’ything’s goin’ down-hill.

  MR. CHARLIE: Who all’s registered here of my acquaintance? Any ole-timers in town?

  NEGRO: Naw, suh, Mistuh Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: “Naw-suh-Mistuh-Charlie” ‘s all I get any more! You mean to say I won’t be able to scare up a poker-game?

  NEGRO: (chuckling sadly) Mistuh Charlie, you’s de bes’ judge about dat!

  MR. CHARLIE: Well, it’s mighty slim pickin’s these days. Ev’ry time I come in a town there’s less of the old and more of the new and by God, nigguh, this new stand of cotton I see around the Delta’s not worth pickin’ off th’ ground! Go down there an’ tell that young fellow, Mr. Bob Harper, to drop up here for a drink!

  NEGRO: (withdrawing) Yes, suh.

  MR. CHARLIE: It looks like otherwise I’d be playin’ solitaire!

  (The Negro closes the door. Mr. Charlie crosses to the window and raises the blind. The evening is turning faintly blue. He sighs and opens his valise to remove a quart of whisky and some decks of cards which he slaps down on the table. He pauses and clasps his hand over his chest.)

  MR. CHARLIE: (ominously to himself) Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom! Here comes th’ parade! (After some moments there comes a rap at the door.) Come awn in! (Harper, a salesman of thirty-five, enters. He has never known the “great days of the road” and there is no vestige of grandeur in his manner. He is lean and sallow and has a book of colored comics stuffed in his coat pocket.)

  HARPER: How is the ole war-horse?

  MR. CHARLIE: (heartily) Mighty fine an’ dandy! How’s the young squirrel?

  HARPER: Okay.

  MR. CHARLIE: That’s the right answer! Step on in an’ pour you’self a drink! Cigar?

  HARPER: (accepting both) Thanks, Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: (staring at his back with distaste) Why do you carry them comic sheets around with yuh?

  HARPER: Gives me a couple of laughs ev’ry once and a while.

  MR. CHARLIE: Poverty of imagination! (Harper laughs a little resentfully.) You can’t tell me there’s any real amusement in them things. (He pulls it out of Harper’s coat pocket.) “Superman,” “The Adventures of Tom Tyler!” Huh! None of it’s half as fantastic as life itself! When you arrive at my age—which is seventy-eight—you have a perspective of time on earth that astounds you! Literally astounds you! Naw, you say it’s not true, all of that couldn’t have happened! And for what reason? Naw! You begin to wonder. . . . Well . . . You’re with Schultz and Werner?

  HARPER: That’s right, Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: That concern’s comparatively a new one.

  HARPER: I don’t know about that. They been in th’ bus’ness fo’ goin’ on twenty-five years now, Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: Infancy! Infancy! You heard this one, Bob? A child in its infancy don’t have half as much fun as adults—in their adultery! (He roars with laughter. Harper grins. Mr. Charlie falls silent abruptly. He would have appreciated a more profound response. He remembers the time when a joke of his would precipitate a tornado. He fills up Harper’s glass with whisky.)

  HARPER: Ain’t you drinkin’?

  MR. CHARLIE: Naw, suh. Quit!

  HARPER: How come?

  MR. CHARLIE: Stomach! Perforated!

  HARPER: Ulcers? (Mr. Charlie grunts. He bends with difficulty and heaves a sample case onto the bed.) I had ulcers once.

  MR. CHARLIE: Ev’ry drinkin’ man has ulcers once. Some twice.

  HARPER: You’ve fallen off some, ain’t you?

  MR. CHARLIE: (opening the sample case) Twenty-seven pounds I lost since August. (Harper whistles. Mr. Charlie is fishing among his samples.) Yay-ep! Twenty-seven pounds I lost since August. (He pulls out an oxford which he regards disdainfully.) Hmmm . . . A waste of cow-hide! (He throws it back in and continues fishing.) A man of my age an’ constitution, Bob—he oughtn’t to carry so much of that—adipose tissue! It’s—
(He straightens up, red in the face and puffing.)—a terrible strain—on the heart! Hand me that other sample—over yonder. I wan’t’ show you a little eyeful of queenly footwear in our new spring line! Some people say that the Cosmopolitan’s not abreast of the times! That is an allegation which I deny and which I intend to disprove by the simple display of one little calf-skin slipper! (opening up the second case) Here we are, Son! (fishing among the samples) You knew ole “Marblehead” Langner in Friar’s Point, Mississippi.

  HARPER: Ole “Marblehead” Langner? Sure.

  MR. CHARLIE: They found him dead in his bath-tub a week ago Satiddy night. Here’s what I’m lookin’ faw!

  HARPER: “Marblehead"? Dead?

  MR. CHARLIE: Buried! Had a Masonic funeral. I helped carry th’ casket. Bob, I want you t’ look at this Cuban-heel, shawl-tongue, perforated toe, calf-skin Misses’ sport-oxford! (He elevates it worshipfully.) I want you to look at this shoe—and tell me what you think of it in plain language! (Harper whistles and bugs his eyes.) Ain’t that a piece of real merchandise, you squirrel? Well, suh, I want you t’ know—!

  HARPER: Charlie, that certainly is a piece of merchandise there!

  MR. CHARLIE: Bob, that piece of merchandise is only a small indication—of what our spring line consists of! You don’t have to pick up a piece of merchandise like that—with I.S.C. branded on it!—and examine it with the microscope t’ find out if it’s quality stuff as well as quality looks! This ain’t a shoe that Mrs. Jones of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is going to throw back in your face a couple or three weeks later because it come to pieces like card-board in th’ first rain! No, suh—I want you to know! We got some pretty fast-movers in our spring line—I’m layin’ my samples out down there in th’ lobby first thing in th’ mornin’—I’ll pack ‘em up an’ be gone out of town by noon— But by the Almighty Jehovah I bet you I’ll have to wire the office to mail me a bunch of brand-new order-books at my next stopping-off place, Bob! Hot cakes! That’s what I’m sellin’! (He returns exhaustedly to the sample case and tosses the shoe back in, somewhat disheartened by Harper’s vaguely benevolent contemplation of the brass light-fixture. He remembers a time when people’s attention could be more securely riveted by talk. He slams the case shut and glances irritably at Harper who is staring very sadly at the brown carpet.) Well, suh— (He fours a shot of whisky.) It was a mighty shocking piece of news I received this afternoon.

  HARPER: (blowing a smoke ring) What piece of news was that?

  MR. CHARLIE: The news about ole Gus Hamma—one of the old war-horses from way back, Bob. He and me an’ this boy’s daddy, C. C., used t’ play poker ev’ry time we hit town together in this here self-same room! Well, suh, I want you t’ know—

  HARPER: (screwing up his forehead) I think I heard about that. Didn’t he have a stroke or something a few months ago?

  MR. CHARLIE: He did. An’ partly recovered.

  HARPER: Yeah? Last I heard he had t’ be fed with a spoon.

  MR. CHARLIE: (quickly) He did an’ he partly recovered! He’s been goin’ round, y’know, in one of them chairs with a ‘lectric motor on it. Goes chug-chug-chuggin’ along th’ road with th’ butt of a cigar in his mouth. Well, suh, yestuddy in Blue Mountain, as I go out the Elks’ Club door I pass him comin’ in, bein’ helped by th’ nigguh— “Hello! Hiyuh, Gus!” That was at six-fifteen. Just half an hour later Carter Bowman stepped inside the hotel lobby where I was packin’ up my sample cases an’ give me the information that ole Gus Hamma had just now burnt himself to death in the Elks’ Club lounge!

  HARPER: (involuntarily grinning) What uh yuh talkin’ about?

  MR. CHARLIE: Yes, suh, the ole war-horse had fallen asleep with that nickel cigar in his mouth—set his clothes on fire—and burnt himself right up like a piece of paper!

  HARPER: I don’t believe yuh!

  MR. CHARLIE: Now, why on earth would I be lyin’ to yuh about a thing like that? He burnt himself right up like a piece of paper!

  HARPER: Well, ain’t that a bitch of a way for a man to go?

  MR. CHARLIE: One way—another way—! (gravely) Maybe you don’t know it—but all of us ole-timers, Bob, are disappearin’ fast! We all gotta quit th’ road one time or another. Me, I reckon I’m pretty nearly the last of th’ Delta drummers!

  HARPER: (restively squirming and glancing at his watch) The last—of th’ Delta drummers! How long you been on th’ road?

  MR. CHARLIE: Fawty-six yeahs in Mahch!

  HARPER: I don’t believe yuh.

  MR. CHARLIE: Why would I tell you a lie about something like that? No, suh, I want you t’ know— I want you t’ know—Hmmm. . . . I lost a mighty good customer this week.

  HARPER: (with total disinterest, adjusting the crotch of his trousers) How’s that, Charlie?

  MR. CHARLIE: (grimly) Ole Ben Summers—Friar’s Point, Mississippi . . . Fell over dead like a bolt of lightning had struck him just as he went to pour himself a drink at the Cotton Planters’ Cotillion!

  HARPER: Ain’t that terrible, though! What was the trouble?

  MR. CHARLIE: Mortality, that was the trouble! Some people think that millions now living are never going to die. I don’t think that—I think it’s a misapprehension not borne out by the facts! We go like flies when we come to the end of the summer . . . And who is going to prevent it? (He becomes depressed.) Who—is going—to prevent it! (He nods gravely.) The road is changed. The shoe industry is changed. These times are—revolution! (He rises and moves to the window.) I don’t like the way that it looks. You can take it from me—the world that I used to know—the world that this boy’s father used t’ know—the world we belonged to, us old time war-horses!—is slipping and sliding away from under our shoes. Who is going to prevent it? The ALL LEATHER slogan don’t sell shoes any more. The stuff that a shoe’s made of is not what’s going to sell it any more! No! STYLE! SMARTNESS! APPEARANCE! That’s what counts with the modern shoe-purchaser, Bob! But try an’ tell your style department that. Why, I remember the time when all I had to do was lay out my samples down there in the lobby. Open up my order-book an’ write out orders until my fingers ached! A sales-talk was not necessary. A store was a place where people sold merchandise and to sell merchandise the retail-dealer had to obtain it from the wholesale manufacturer, Bob! Where they get merchandise now I do not pretend to know. But it don’t look like they buy it from wholesale dealers! Out of the air—I guess it materializes! Or maybe stores don’t sell stuff any more! Maybe I’m living in a world of illusion! I recognize that possibility, too!

  HARPER: (casually, removing the comic paper from his pocket) Yep—yep. You must have witnessed some changes.

  MR. CHARLIE: Changes? A mild expression. Young man—I have witnessed—a REVOLUTION! (Harper has opened his comic paper but Mr. Charlie doesn’t notice, for now his peroration is really addressed to himself.) Yes, a revolution! The atmosphere that I breathe is not the same! Ah, well—I’m an old war-horse. (He opens his coat and lifts the multiple golden chains from his vest. An amazing number of watches rise into view. Softly, proudly he speaks.) Looky here, young fellow! You ever seen a man with this many watches? How did I acquire this many time-pieces? (Harper has seen them before. He glances above the comic sheet with affected amazement.) At every one of the annual sales conventions of the Cosmopolitan Shoe Company in St. Louis a seventeen-jewel, solid-gold, Swiss-movement Hamilton watch is presented to the ranking salesman of the year! Fifteen of those watches have been awarded to me! I think that represents something! I think that’s something in the way of achievement! . . . Don’t you?

  HARPER: Yes, siree! You bet I do, Mistuh Charlie! (He chuckles at a remark in the comic sheet. Mr. Charlie sticks out his lips with a grunt of disgust and snatches the comic sheet from the young man’s hands.)

  MR. CHARLIE: Young man—I’m talkin’ to you, I’m talkin’ for your benefit. And I expect the courtesy of your attention until I am through! I may be an old war-horse. I may have received—the last of my solid gold wa
tches . . . But just the same—good manners are still a part of the road’s tradition. And part of the South’s tradition. Only a young peckerwood would look at the comics when old Charlie Colton is talking.

  HARPER: (taking another drink) Excuse me, Charlie. I got a lot on my mind. I got some business to attend to directly.

  MR. CHARLIE: And directly you shall attend to it! I just want you to know what I think of this new world of yours! I’m not one of those that go howling about a Communist being stuck in the White House now! I don’t say that Washington’s been took over by Reds! I don’t say all of the wealth of the country is in the hands of the Jews! I like the Jews and I’m a friend to the niggers! I do say this—however. . . . The world I knew is gone—gone—gone with the wind! My pockets are full of watches which tell me that my time’s just about over! (A look of great trouble and bewilderment appears on his massive face. The rather noble tone of his speech slackens into a senile complaint.) All of them—pigs that was slaughtered—carcasses dumped in the river! Farmers receivin’ payment not t’ grow wheat an’ corn an’ not t’ plant cotton! All of these alphabet letters that’s sprung up all about me! Meaning—unknown—to men of my generation! The rudeness—the lack of respect—the newspapers full of strange items! The terrible—fast—dark—rush of events in the world! Toward what and where and why! . . . I don’t pretend to have any knowledge of now! I only say—and I say this very humbly—I don’t understand—what’s happened. . . . I’m one of them monsters you see reproduced in museums—out of the dark old ages—the giant rep-tiles, and the dino-whatever-you-call-ems. BUT—I do know this! And I state it without any shame! Initiative—self-reliance—independence of character! The old sterling qualities that distinguished one man from another—the clay from the potters—the potters from the clay—are— (kneading the air with his hands) How is it the old song goes? . . . Gone with the roses of yesterday! Yes—with the wind!