Sweet Bird of Youth Read online

  TOM JUNIOR [almost bursting free]: Don't say the name of my sister!

  CHANCE: I said the name of my girl!

  TOM JUNIOR [breaking away from the group]: I'm all right, I'm all right. Leave us alone, will you. I don't want Chance to feel that he's outnumbered. [He herds them out.] Okay? Come on

  down here.

  PRINCESS [trying to restrain Chance]: No, Chance, don't.

  TOM JUNIOR: Excuse yourself from the lady and come on down here. Don't be scared to. I

  just want to talk to you quietly. Just talk. Quiet talk.

  CHANCE: Tom Junior, I know that since the last time I was here something has happened to

  Heavenly and I--

  TOM JUNIOR: Don't--speak the name of my sister. Just leave her name off your tongue --

  CHANCE: Just tell me what happened to her.

  TOM JUNIOR: Just keep your ruttin' voice down.

  CHANCE: I know I've done many wrong things in my life, many more than I can name or

  number, but I swear I never hurt Heavenly in my life.

  TOM JUNIOR: You mean to say my sister was had by somebody else--diseased by somebody

  else the last time you were in St Cloud? . . . I know, it's possible, it's barely possible that you didn't know what you done to my little sister the last time you come to St Cloud. You remember that time when you came home broke? My sister had to pick up your tabs in restaurants and

  bars, and had to cover bad checks you wrote on banks where you had no accounts. Until you

  met this rich bitch, Minnie, the Texas one with the yacht, and started spending weekends on her yacht, and coming back Mondays with money from Minnie to go on with my sister. I mean,

  you'd sleep with Minnie, that slept with any goddam gigolo bastard she could pick up on

  Bourbon Street or the docks, and then you would go on sleeping again with my sister. And

  sometime, during that time, you got something besides your gigolo fee from Minnie and passed

  it on to my sister, my little sister that had hardly even heard of a thing like that, and didn't know what it was till it had gone on too long and--

  CHANCE: I left town before I found out I--[The lamentation music is heard.]

  TOM JUNIOR: You found out! Did you tell my little sister?

  CHANCE: I thought if something was wrong she'd write me or call me--

  TOM JUNIOR: How could she write you or call you, there're no addresses, no phone numbers

  in gutters. I'm itching to kill you--here, on this spot! . . . My little sister, Heavenly, didn't know about the diseases and operations of whores, till she had to be cleaned and cured--I mean

  spayed like a dawg by Dr George Scudder's knife. That's right--by the knife! . . . And tonight--if you stay here tonight, if you're here after this rally, you're gonna get the knife, too. You know?

  The knife? That's all. Now go on back to the lady, I'm going back to my father, [Tom Junior

  exits.]

  PRINCESS [as Chance returns to her]: Chance, for God's sake, let's go now. . . .

  [The 'Lament' is in the air. It blends with the wind-blown sound of the palms.]

  All day I've kept hearing a sort of lament that drifts through the air of this place. It says,

  'Lost, lost, never to be found again.' Palm gardens by the sea and olive groves on Mediterranean islands all have that lament drifting through them. 'Lost, lost'. . . . The isle of Cyprus, Monte Carlo, San Remo, Torremolenas, Tangiers. They're all places of exile from whatever we loved.

  Dark glasses, wide-brimmed hats, and whispers, 'Is that her?' Shocked whispers. . . . Oh,

  Chance, believe me, after failure comes flight. Nothing ever comes after failure but flight. Face it. Call the car, have them bring down the luggage, and let's go on along the Old Spanish Trail.

  [She tries to hold him.]

  CHANCE: Keep your grabbing hands off me.

  [Marchers offstage start to sing 'Bonnie Blue Flag'.]

  PRINCESS: There's no one but me to hold you back from destruction in this place.

  CHANCE: I don't want to be held.

  PRINCESS: Don't leave me. If you do I'll turn into the monster again. I'll be the first lady of the Beanstalk Country.

  CHANCE: Go back to the room.

  PRINCESS: I'm going nowhere alone. I can't.

  CHANCE [in desperation]: Wheel chair! [Marchers enter from the left. Tom Junior and Boss

  with them.] Wheel chair!

  Stuff, get the lady a wheel chair! She's having another attack!

  [Stuff and a bellboy catch at her . . . but she pushes Chance away and stares at him

  reproachfully. . . . The bellboy takes her by the arm. She accepts this anonymous arm and exits, Chance and the heckler are alone on stage.]

  CHANCE [as if reassuring, comforting somebody besides himself]: It's all right, I'm alone now, nobody's hanging on to me.

  [He is panting. Loosens his tie and collar. Band in the Crystal Ballroom, muted, strikes

  up a likely but lyrically distorted variation of some such popular tune as the 'Lichtensteiner Polka', Chance turns towards the sound. Then, from left stage, comes a drum majorette, bearing a gold and purple silk banner inscribed, 'Youth for Tom Finley', prancing and followed by Boss Finley, Heavenly, and Tom Junior, with a tight grip on her arm, as if he were conducting her to a death chamber.]

  TOM JUNIOR: Papa? Papa! Will you tell Sister to march?

  BOSS: Little Bit, you hold you haid up high when we march into that ballroom. [Music up high

  . . . They march up the steps and on to the gallery in the rear . . . then start across it. The Boss calling out] Now march! [And they disappear up the stairs.]

  VOICE [offstage]: Now let us pray. [There is a prayer mumbled by many voices.]

  MISS LUCY [who has remained behind]: You still want to try it?

  HECKLER: I'm going to take a shot at it. How's my voice?

  MISS LUCY: Better.

  HECKLER: I better wait here till he starts talkin', huh?

  MISS LUCY: Wait till they turn down the chandeliers in the ballroom. . . . Why don't you

  switch to a question that won't hurt his daughter?

  HECKLER: I don't want to hurt his daughter. But he's going to hold her up as the fair white

  virgin exposed to black lust in the South, and that's his build-up, his lead into his Voice of God speech.

  MISS LUCY: He honestly believes it.

  HECKLER: I don't believe it. I believe that the silence of God, the absolute speechlessness of Him is a long, long and awful thing that the whole world is lost because of.

  I think it's yet to be broken to any man, living or any yet lived on earth--no exceptions,

  and least of all Boss Finley.

  [Stuff enters, goes to table, starts to wipe it. The chandelier lights go down.]

  MISS LUCY [with admiration]: It takes a hillbilly to cut down a hillbilly. . . . [to Stuff] Turn on the television, baby.

  VOICE [offstage]: I give you the beloved Thomas J. Finley.

  [Stuff makes a gesture as if to turn on the TV, which we play in the fourth wall. A

  wavering beam of light, flickering, narrow, intense, comes from the balcony rail, Stuff moves his head so that he's in it, looking into it. . . . Chance walks slowly downstage, his head also in the narrow flickering beam of light. As he walks downstage, there suddenly appears on the big TV screen, which is the whole back wall of the stage, the image of Boss Finley. His arm is

  around Heavenly and he is speaking. . . . When Chance sees the Boss's arm around Heavenly,

  he makes a noise in his throat like a hard fist hit him low. . . . Now the sound, which always follows the picture by an instant, comes on . . . loud.]

  BOSS [on TV screen]: Thank you, my friends, neighbors, kinfolk, fellow Americans. . . . I have told you before, but I will tell you again. I got a mission that I hold sacred to perform in the Southland. When I was fifteen I came down barefooted out of the red clay hills . . . . Why?

&nb
sp; Because the Voice of God called me to execute this mission.

  MISS LUCY [to Stuff]: He's too loud.

  HECKLER: Listen!

  BOSS: And what is this mission? I have told you before but I will tell you again. To shield

  from pollution a blood that I think is not only sacred to me, but sacred to Him.

  [Upstage we see the heckler step up the last steps and makes a gesture as if he were

  throwing doors open. . . . He advances into the hall, out of our sight.]

  MISS LUCY: Turn it down, Stuff.

  STUFF [motioning to her]: Shh!

  BOSS: Who is the colored man's best friend in the South? That's right . . .

  MISS LUCY: Stuff, turn down the volume.

  BOSS: It's me, Tom Finley. So recognized by both races.

  STUFF [shouting]: He's speaking the word. Pour it on!

  BOSS: However--I can't and will not accept, tolerate, condone this threat of a blood pollution.

  [Miss Lucy turns down the volume of the TV set.]

  >>>

  BOSS: As you all know I had no part in a certain operation on a young black gentleman. I call that incident a deplorable thing. That is the one thing about which I am in total agreement with the Northern radical Press. It was a deplorable thing. However . . . I understand the emotions that lay behind it. The passion to protect by this violent emotion something that we hold sacred: our purity of our own blood. But I had no part in, and I did not condone the operation

  performed on the unfortunate colored gentleman caught prowling the midnight streets of our

  Capitol City. . . .

  <<<

  CHANCE: Christ! What lies. What a liar!

  MISS LUCY: Wait! . . . Chance, you can still go. I can still help you, baby.

  CHANCE [putting hands on Miss Lucy's shoulders]: Thanks, but no thank you, Miss Lucy.

  Tonight, God help me, somehow, I don't know how, but somehow I'll take her out of St Cloud.

  I'll wake her up in my arms, and I'll give her life back to her. Yes, somehow, God help me,

  somehow!

  [stuff turns up volume of TV set.]

  >>

  HECKLER [as voice on the TV]: Hey, Boss Finley! [The TV camera swings to show him at the

  back of the hall.] How about your daughter's operation? How about that operation your

  daughter had done on her at the Thomas J. Finley hospital here in St Cloud? Did she put on

  black in mourning for her appendix? . . .

  [We hear a gasp, as if the heckler had been hit.

  Picture: Heavenly horrified. Sounds of a disturbance. Then the doors at the top of stairs

  up left burst open and the heckler tumbles down. . . . The picture changes to Boss Finley. He is trying to dominate the disturbance in the hall.]

  BOSS: Will you repeat that question? Have that man step forward. I will answer his question.

  Where is he? Have that man step forward, I will answer his question. . . . Last Friday . . . Last Friday, Good Friday. I said last Friday, Good Friday . . . Quiet, may I have your attention

  please. . . . Last Friday, Good Friday, I seen a horrible thing on the campus of our great State University, which I built for the State. A hideous straw-stuffed effigy of myself, Tom Finley, was hung and set fire to in the main quadrangle of the college. This outrage was inspired . . .

  inspired by the Northern radical Press. However, that was Good Friday. Today is Easter. I say that was Good Friday. Today is Easter Sunday and I am in St Cloud.

  [During this a gruesome, not-lighted, silent struggle has been going on. The heckler

  defended himself but finally has been overwhelmed and rather systematically beaten. . . . The tight intense follow spot beam stayed on Chance. If he had any impulse to go to the heckler's aid, he'd be discouraged by Stuff and another man who stand behind him, watching him. . . . At the height of the beating, there are bursts of great applause. . . . At a point during it, Heavenly is suddenly escorted down the stairs, sobbing, and collapses.]

  CURTAIN

  Act Three

  [A while later that night: the hotel bedroom again. The shutters in the Moorish Corner

  are thrown open on the Palm Garden: scattered sounds of disturbance are still heard: something burns in the Palm Garden: an effigy, an emblem? Flickering light from it falls on the Princess.

  Over the interior scene, the constant serene projection of royal palms, branched among stars.]

  PRINCESS [pacing with the phone]: Operator! What's happened to my driver?

  [Chance enters on the gallery, sees someone approaching on other side--quickly pulls

  back and stands in shadows on the gallery.]

  You told me you'd get me a driver. . . . Why can't you get me a driver when you said

  that you would? Somebody in this hotel can surely get me somebody to drive me at any price

  asked!--out of this infernal . . .

  [She turns suddenly as Dan Hatcher knocks at the corridor door. Behind him appear

  Tom Junior, Bud, and Scotty, sweaty, disheveled from the riot in the Palm Garden.]

  Who's

  that?

  SCOTTY: She ain't gonna open, break it in.

  PRINCESS [dropping phone]: What do you want?

  HATCHER: Miss Del Lago . . .

  BUD: Don't answer till she opens.

  PRINCESS: Who's out there! What do you want?

  SCOTTY [to shaky Hatcher]: Tell her you want her out of the goddam room.

  HATCHER [with forced note of authority]: Shut up. Let me handle this . . . Miss Del Lago,

  your check-out time was three-thirty p.m., and it's now after midnight. . . . I'm sorry but you can't hold this room any longer.

  PRINCESS [throwing open the door]: What did you say? Will you repeat what you said! [Her

  imperious voice, jewels, furs, and commanding presence abash them for a moment.]

  HATCHER: Miss Del Lago . . .

  TOM JUNIOR [recovering quickest]: This is Mr Hatcher, assistant manager here. You checked

  in last night with a character not wanted here, and we been informed he's stayin' in your room with you. We brought Mr Hatcher up here to remind you that the check-out time is long past

  and--

  PRINCESS [powerfully]: My checkout time at any hotel in the world is when I want to check

  out. . . .

  TOM JUNIOR: This ain't any hotel in the world.

  PRINCESS [making no room for entrance]: Also, I don't talk to assistant managers of hotels

  when I have complaints to make about discourtesies to me, which I do most certainly have to

  make about my experiences here. I don't even talk to managers of hotels, I talk to owners of

  them. Directly to hotel owners about discourtesies to me. [Picks up satin sheets on bed.] These sheets are mine, they go with me. And I have never suffered such dreadful discourtesies to me at any hotel at any time or place anywhere in the world. Now I have found out the name of this hotel owner. This is a chain hotel under the ownership of a personal friend of mine whose guest I have been in foreign capitals such as . . . [Tom Junior has pushed past her into the room.]

  What in hell is he doing in my room?

  TOM JUNIOR: Where is Chance Wayne?

  PRINCESS: Is that what you've come here for? You can go away then. He hasn't been in this

  room since he left this morning.

  TOM JUNIOR: Scotty, check the bathroom. . . . [He checks a closet, stoops to peer under the

  bed. Scotty goes off at right.] Like I told you before, we know you're Alexandra Del Lago

  travelling with a degenerate that I'm sure you don't know. That's why you can't stay in St Cloud, especially after this ruckus that we--[Scotty re-enters from the bathroom and indicates to Tom Junior that Chance is not there.]--Now if you need any help in getting out of St Cloud, I'll be--

  PRINCESS [cutting in]: Yes. I want a driver. Someone to drive my car. I want to leave here.

  I'm desperat
e to leave here. I'm not able to drive. I have to be driven away!

  TOM JUNIOR: Scotty, you and Hatcher wait outside while I explain something to her. . . .

  [They go and wait outside the door, on the left end of the gallery.] I'm gonna git you a driver, Miss Del Lago. I'll get you a state trooper, half a dozen state troopers if I can't get you no driver. Okay? Some time come back to our town 'n' see us, hear? We'll lay out a red carpet for you. Okay? G'night, Miss Del Lago.

  [They disappear down the hall, which is then dimmed out. Chance now turns from