27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays Read online

  HARPER: (whose boredom has increased by leaps and bounds) You old-timers make one mistake. You only read one side of the vital statistics.

  MR. CHARLIE: (stung) What do you mean by that?

  HARPER: In the papers they print people dead in one corner and people born in the next and usually one just about levels off with the other.

  MR. CHARLIE: Thank you for that information. I happen to be the godfather of several new infants in various points on the road. However, I think you have missed the whole point of what I was saying.

  HARPER: I don’t think so, Mr. Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: Oh, yes, you have, young fellow. My point is this: the ALL-LEATHER slogan is not what sells any more—not in shoes and not in humanity, neither! The emphasis isn’t on quality. Production, production, yes! But out of inferior goods! Ersatz—that’s what they’re making ‘em out of!

  HARPER: (getting up) That’s your opinion because you belong to the past.

  MR. CHARLIE: (furiously) A piece of impertinence, young man! I expect to be accorded a certain amount of respect by whippersnappers like you!

  HARPER: Hold on, Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: I belong to—tradition. I am a legend. Known from one end of the Delta to the other. From the Peabody hotel in Memphis to Cat-Fish Row in Vicksburg. Mistuh Charlie—Mistuh Charlie! Who knows you? What do you represent? A line of goods of doubtful value, some kike concern in the East! Get out of my room! I’d rather play solitaire, than poker with men who’re no more solid characters than the jacks in the deck! (He opens the door for the young salesman who shrugs and steps out with alacrity. Then he slams the door shut and breathes heavily. The Negro enters with a pitcher of ice water.)

  NEGRO: (grinning) What you shoutin’ about, Mistuh Charlie?

  MR. CHARLIE: I lose my patience sometimes. Nigger—

  NEGRO: Yes, suh?

  MR. CHARLIE: You remember the way it used to be.

  NEGRO: (gently) Yes, suh.

  MR. CHARLIE: I used to come in town like a conquering hero! Why, my God, nigger—they all but laid red carpets at my feet! Isn’t that so?

  NEGRO: That’s so, Mistuh Charlie.

  MR. CHARLIE: This room was like a throne-room. My samples laid out over there on green velvet cloth! The ceiling-fan going—now broken! And over here—the wash-bowl an’ pitcher removed and the table-top loaded with liquor! In and out from the time I arrived till the time I left, the men of the road who knew me, to whom I stood for things commanding respect! Poker—continuous! Shouting, laughing—hilarity! Where have they all gone to?

  NEGRO: (solemnly nodding) The graveyard is crowded with folks we knew, Mistuh Charlie. It’s mighty late in the day!

  MR. CHARLIE: Huh! (He crosses to the window.) Nigguh, it ain’t even late in the day any more—(He throws up the blind.) It’s NIGHT! (The sface of the window is black.)

  NEGRO: (softly, with a wise old smile) Yes, suh . . . Night, Mistuh Charlie!

  CURTAIN

  Portrait of a Madonna

  Respectfully dedicated to the talent and charm of Miss Lillian Gish.

  CHARACTERS

  MISS LUCRETIA COLLINS.

  THE PORTER.

  THE ELEVATOR BOY.

  THE DOCTOR.

  THE NURSE.

  MR. ABRAMS.

  Portrait of a Madonna

  SCENE: The living room of a moderate-priced city apartment. The furnishings are old-fashioned and everything is in a state of neglect and disorder. There is a door in the back wall to a bedroom, and on the right to the outside hall.

  MISS COLLINS: Richard! (The door bursts open and Miss Collins rushes out, distractedly. She is a middle-aged spinster, very slight and hunched of figure with a desiccated face that is flushed with excitement. Her hair is arranged in curls that would become a young girl and she wears a frilly negligee which might have come from an old hope chest of a period considerably earlier.) No, no, no, no! I don’t care if the whole church hears about it! (She frenziedly snatches up the phone.) Manager, I’ve got to speak to the manager! Hurry, oh, please hurry, there’s a man—! (wildly aside as if to an invisible figure) Lost all respect, absolutely no respect! . . . Mr. Abrams? (in a tense hushed voice) I don’t want any reporters to hear about this but something awful has been going on upstairs. Yes, this is Miss Collins’ apartment on the top floor. I’ve refrained from making any complaint because of my connections with the church. I used to be assistant to the Sunday School superintendent and I once had the primary class. I helped them put on the Christmas pageant. I made the dress for the Virgin and Mother, made robes for the Wise Men. Yes, and now this has happened, I’m not responsible for it, but night after night after night this man has been coming into my apartment and—indulging his senses! Do you understand?

  Not once but repeatedly, Mr. Abrams! I don’t know whether he comes in the door or the window or up the fire-escape or whether there’s some secret entrance they know about at the church, but he’s here now, in my bedroom, and I can’t force him to leave, I’ll have to have some assistance! No, he isn’t a thief, Mr. Abrams, he comes of a very fine family in Webb, Mississippi, but this woman has ruined his character, she’s destroyed his respect for ladies! Mr. Abrams? Mr. Abrams! Oh, goodness! (She slams up the receiver and looks distractedly about for a moment; then rushes back into the bedroom.) Richard! (The door slams shut. After a few moments an old porter enters in drab gray cover-alls. He looks about with a sorrowfully humorous curiosity, then timidly calls.)

  PORTER: Miss Collins? (The elevator door slams open in hall and the Elevator Boy, wearing a uniform, comes in.)

  ELEVATOR BOY: Where is she?

  PORTER: Gone in ‘er bedroom.

  ELEVATOR BOY: (grinning) She got him in there with her?

  PORTER: Sounds like it. (Miss Collins‘ voice can be heard faintly protesting with the mysterious intruder.)

  ELEVATOR BOY: What’d Abrams tell yuh to do?

  PORTER: Stay here an’ keep a watch on ‘er till they git here.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Jesus.

  PORTER: Close ‘at door.

  ELEVATOR BOY: I gotta leave it open a little so I can hear the buzzer. Ain’t this place a holy sight though?

  PORTER: Don’t look like it’s had a good cleaning in fifteen or twenty years. I bet it ain’t either. Abrams’ll bust a blood-vessel when he takes a lookit them walls.

  ELEVATOR BOY: How comes it’s in this condition?

  PORTER: She wouldn’t let no one in.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Not even the paper-hangers?

  PORTER: Naw. Not even the plumbers. The plaster washed down in the bathroom underneath hers an’ she admitted her plumbin’ had been stopped up. Mr. Abrams had to let the plumber in with this here pass-key when she went out for a while.

  ELEVATOR BOY : Holy Jeez. I wunner if she’s got money stashed around here. A lotta freaks do stick away big sums of money in ole mattresses an’ things.

  PORTER: She ain’t. She got a monthly pension check or something she always turned over to Mr. Abrams to dole it out to ‘er. She tole him that Southern ladies was never brought up to manage finanshul affairs. Lately the checks quit comin’.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Yeah?

  PORTER: The pension give out or somethin’. Abrams says he got a contribution from the church to keep ‘er on here without ‘er knowin’ about it. She’s proud as a peacock’s tail in spite of ‘er awful appearance.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Lissen to ‘er in there!

  PORTER: What’s she sayin’?

  ELEVATOR BOY: Apologizin’ to him! For callin’ the police!

  PORTER: She thinks police ‘re comin’?

  MISS COLLINS: (from bedroom) Stop it, it’s got to stop!

  ELEVATOR BOY: Fightin’ to protect her honor again! What a commotion, no wunner folks are complainin’!

  PORTER: (lighting his pipe) This here’ll be the last time.

  ELEVATOR BOY: She’s goin’ out, huh?

  PORTER: (blowing out the match) Tonight.

  ELEVATOR BO
Y: Where’ll she go?

  PORTER: (slowly moving to the old gramophone) She’ll go to the state asylum.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Holy G!

  PORTER: Remember this ole number? (He puts on a record of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.”)

  ELEVATOR BOY: Naw. When did that come out?

  PORTER: Before your time, sonny boy. Machine needs oilin’.

  (He takes out small oil-can and applies oil about the crank and other parts of gramophone.)

  ELEVATOR BOY: How long is the old girl been here?

  PORTER: Abrams says she’s been livin’ here twenty-five, thirty years, since before he got to be manager even.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Livin’ alone all that time?

  PORTER: She had an old mother died of an operation about fifteen years ago. Since then she ain’t gone out of the place ex-cep’ on Sundays to church or Friday nights to some kind of religious meeting.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Got an awful lot of ol’ magazines piled aroun’ here.

  PORTER: She used to collect ‘em. She’d go out in back and fish ‘em out of the incinerator.

  ELEVATOR BOY: What’n hell for?

  PORTER: Mr. Abrams says she used to cut out the Campbell soup kids. Them red-tomato-headed kewpie dolls that go with the soup advertisements. You seen ‘em, ain’tcha?

  ELEVATOR BOY: Uh-huh.

  PORTER: She made a collection of ‘em. Filled a big lot of scrapbooks with them paper kiddies an’ took ‘em down to the Children’s Hospitals on Xmas Eve an’ Easter Sunday, exactly twicet a year. Sounds better, don’t it? (referring to gramophone, which resumes its faint, wheedling music) Eliminated some a that crankin’ noise . . .

  ELEVATOR BOY: I didn’t know that she’d been nuts that long.

  PORTER: Who’s nuts an’ who ain’t? If you ask me the world is populated with people that’s just as peculiar as she is.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Hell. She don’t have brain one.

  PORTER: There’s important people in Europe got less’n she’s got. Tonight they’re takin’ her off’ n’ lockin’ her up. They’d do a lot better to leave ‘er go an’ lock up some a them maniacs over there. She’s harmless; they ain’t. They kill millions of people an’ go scot free!

  ELEVATOR BOY: An ole woman like her is disgusting, though, imaginin’ somebody’s raped her.

  PORTER: Pitiful, not disgusting. Watch out for them cigarette ashes.

  ELEVATOR BOY: What’s uh diff'rence? So much dust you can’t see it. All a this here goes out in the morning, don’t it?

  PORTER: Uh-huh.

  ELEVATOR BOY: I think I’ll take a couple a those ole records as curiosities for my girl friend. She’s got a portable in ‘er bedroom, she says it’s better with music!

  PORTER: Leave ‘em alone. She’s still got ‘er property rights.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Aw, she’s got all she wants with them dream-lovers of hers!

  PORTER: Hush up! (He makes a warning gesture as Miss Collins enters from bedroom. Her appearance is that of a ravaged woman. She leans exhaustedly in the doorway, hands clasped over her flat, virginal bosom.)

  MISS COLLINS: (breathlessly) Oh, Richard—Richard . . .

  PORTER: (coughing) Miss—Collins.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Hello, Miss Collins.

  MISS COLLINS: (just noticing the men) Goodness! You’ve arrived already! Mother didn’t tell me you were here! (Self-consciously she touches her ridiculous corkscrew curls with the faded pink ribbon tied through them. Her manner becomes that of a slightly coquettish but prim little Southern belle.) I must ask you gentlemen to excuse the terrible disorder.

  PORTER: That’s all right, Miss Collins.

  MISS COLLINS: It’s the maid’s day off. Your No’thern girls receive such excellent domestic training, but in the South it was never considered essential for a girl to have anything but prettiness and charm! (She laughs girlishly.) Please do sit down. Is it too close? Would you like a window open?

  PORTER: No, Miss Collins.

  MISS COLLINS: (advancing with delicate grace to the sofa) Mother will bring in something cool after while. . . . Oh, my!

  (She touches her forehead.)

  PORTER: (kindly) Is anything wrong, Miss Collins?

  MISS COLLINS: Oh, no, no, thank you, nothing! My head is a little bit heavy. I’m always a little bit—malarial—this time of year! (She sways dizzily as she starts to sink down on the sofa.)

  PORTER: (helping her) Careful there, Miss Collins.

  MISS COLLINS: (vaguely) Yes, it is, I hadn’t noticed before. (She peers at them near-sightedly with a hesitant smile.) You gentlemen have come from the church?

  PORTER: No, ma’am. I’m Nick, the porter, Miss Collins, and this boy here is Frank that runs the elevator.

  MISS COLLINS: (stiffening a little) Oh? . . . I don’t understand.

  PORTER: (gently) Mr. Abrams just asked me to drop in here an’ see if you was getting along all right.

  MISS COLLINS: Oh! Then he must have informed you of what’s been going on in here!

  PORTER: He mentioned some kind of—disturbance.

  MISS COLLINS: Yes! Isn’t it outrageous? But it mustn’t go any further, you understand. I mean you mustn’t repeat it to other people.

  PORTER: No, I wouldn’t say nothing.

  MISS COLLINS: Not a word of it, please!

  ELEVATOR BOY: Is the man still here, Miss Collins?

  MISS COLLINS: Oh, no. No, he’s gone now.

  ELEVATOR BOY: How did he go, out the bedroom window, Miss Collins?

  MISS COLLINS: (vaguely) Yes. . . .

  ELEVATOR BOY: I seen a guy that could do that once. He crawled straight up the side of the building. They called him The Human Fly! Gosh, that’s a wonderful publicity angle,

  Miss Collins—"Beautiful Young Society Lady Raped by The Human Fly!”

  PORTER: (nudging him sharply) Git back in your cracker box!

  MISS COLLINS: Publicity? No! It would be so humiliating! Mr. Abrams surely hasn’t reported it to the papers!

  PORTER: No, ma’am. Don’t listen to this smarty pants.

  MISS COLLINS: (touching her curls) Will pictures be taken, you think? There’s one of him on the mantel.

  ELEVATOR BOY: (going to the mantel) This one here, Miss Collins?

  MISS COLLINS: Yes. Of the Sunday School faculty picnic. I had the little kindergardeners that year and he had the older boys. We rode in the cab of a railroad locomotive from Webb to Crystal Springs. (She covers her ears with a girlish grimace and toss of her curls.) Oh, how the steam-whistle blew! Blew! (giggling) Blewwwww! It frightened me so, he put his arm round my shoulders! But she was there, too, though she had no business being. She grabbed his hat and stuck it on the back of her head and they—they rassled for it, they actually rassled together! Everyone said it was shameless! Don’t you think that it was?

  PORTER: Yes, Miss Collins.

  MISS COLLINS: That’s the picture, the one in the silver frame up there on the mantel. We cooled the watermelon in the springs and afterwards played games. She hid somewhere and he took ages to find her. It got to be dark and he hadn’t found her yet and everyone whispered and giggled about it and finally they came back together—her hangin’ on to his arm like a common little strumpet—and Daisy Belle Huston shrieked out, “Look, everybody, the seat of Evelyn’s skirt!” It was—covered with—grass-stains! Did you ever hear of anything as outrageous? It didn’t faze her, though, she laughed like it was something very, very amusing! Rather triumphant she was!

  ELEVATOR BOY: Which one is him, Miss Collins?

  MISS COLLINS: The tall one in the blue shirt holding onto one of my curls. He loved to play with them.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Quite a Romeo—1910 model, huh?

  MISS COLLINS: (vaguely) Do you? It’s nothing, really, but I like the lace on the collar. I said to Mother, “Even if I don’t wear it, Mother, it will be so nice for my hope-chest!”

  ELEVATOR BOY: How was he dressed tonight when he climbed into your balcony, Miss Collins?

  MISS COL
LINS: Pardon?

  ELEVATOR BOY: Did he still wear that nifty little stick-candy-striped blue shirt with the celluloid collar?

  MISS COLLINS: He hasn’t changed.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Oughta be easy to pick him up in that. What color pants did he wear?

  MISS COLLINS: (vaguely) I don’t remember.

  ELEVATOR BOY: Maybe he didn’t wear any. Shimmied out of ‘em on the way up the wall! You could get him on grounds of indecent exposure, Miss Collins!

  PORTER: (grasping his arm) Cut that or git back in your cage! Understand?

  ELEVATOR BOY: (snickering) Take it easy. She don’t hear a thing.

  PORTER: Well, you keep a decent tongue or get to hell out. Miss Collins here is a lady. You understand that?

  ELEVATOR BOY: Okay. She’s Shoiley Temple.

  PORTER: She’s a lady!

  ELEVATOR BOY: Yeah! (He returns to the gramophone and looks through the records.)

  MISS COLLINS: I really shouldn’t have created this disturbance. When the officers come I’ll have to explain that to them. But you can understand my feelings, can’t you?

  PORTER: Sure, Miss Collins.

  MISS COLLINS: When men take advantage of common white-trash women who smoke in public there is probably some excuse for it, but when it occurs to a lady who is single and always com-pletely above reproach in her moral behavior, there’s really nothing to do but call for police protection! Unless of course the girl is fortunate enough to have a father and brothers who can take care of the matter privately without any scandal.

  PORTER: Sure. That’s right, Miss Collins.

  MISS COLLINS: Of course it’s bound to cause a great deal of very disagreeable talk. Especially ‘round the church! Are you gentlemen Episcopalian?