27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (21 page)

B
ERTHA:
I wouldn’t believe your dying word on a Bible! Get Lena in here! It’s a frame-up! (
She rises and staggers toward the door.
)
Lena! Lena!
Get me police headquarters!

G
OLDIE:
(
alarmed
)
No, Bertha!

B
ERTHA:
(
still louder
)
GET ME POLICE HEADQUARTERS! (
Collapsing with weakness against the side of the door, she sobs bitterly and covers her eyes with one hand. The electric phonograph starts again. There is the shuffling of dancers outside.
)

G
OLDIE:
Bertha, be calm. Settle down here now.

B
ERTHA:
(
turning on her
)
Don’t tell me to be calm, you old slut. Get me police headquarters quick or I’ll—! (
Goldie catches her arm and they struggle but Bertha wrenches free.
)
I’ll report this robbery to the police if it’s the last thing I do! You’d steal the pennies off a dead nigger’s eyes, that’s how big-hearted you are! You come in here and try to soft-soap
me about priests and confessions and—GET ME POLICE HEADQUARTERS! (
She pounds the wall, and sobs.
)

G
OLDIE:
(
helplessly
)
Bertha, you need a good bromide. Get back in bed, honey, and I’ll bring you a double bromide and a box of aspirin.

B
ERTHA:
(
rapidly, with eyes shut, head thrown back and hands clenched
)
You’ll bring me back my twenty-five dollars you stole from under that comb and brush tray!

G
OLDIE:
Now, Bertha—

B
ERTHA:
(
without changing her position
)
You’ll bring it back or I’ll have you prosecuted! (
Her tense lips quiver; a shining thread of saliva dribbles down her chin. She stands like a person in a catatonic trance.
)
I’ve got friends in this town. Big shots! (
exultantly
)
Lawyers, politicians!
I
can beat any God damn rap you try to hang on me!
(
Her eyes flare open.
)
Vagrancy, huh?
(
She laughs wildly.
)
That’s a laugh, ain’t it! I got my constitutional rights!

(
Her laughter dies out and she staggers to the rocker and sinks into it. Goldie watches her with extreme awe. Then she edges cautiously past Bertha and out the door with a frightened gasp.
)

B
ERTHA:
Oh, Charlie, Charlie, you were such a sweet, sweet! (
Her head rocks and she smiles in agony.
)
You done me dirt more times than I could count, Charlie—stood me up, married a little choir-singer— Oh, God! I love you so much it makes my guts ache to look at your blessed face in the picture! (
Her ecstasy fades and the look of schizophrenic suspicion returns.
)
Where’s that hell-cat gone to? Where’s my ten dollars? Hey,
YOU!!
Come back in here with that money! I’ll brain you if ever I catch you monkeying around with any money belonging to me! . . . Oh, Charlie . . . I got a sick headache, Charlie. No, honey. Don’t go out tonight. (
She gets up from the rocker.
)
Hey, you! Bring me a cold ice-pack—my head’s aching. I got one hell of a hang-over, baby! (
She
laughs.
)
Vagrancy, huh? Vagrancy your Aunt Fanny! Get me my lawyer. I got influence in this town. Yeah. My folks own half the oil wells in the state of—of—Nevada. (
She laughs.
)
Yeah, that’s a laugh, ain’t it? (
Lena, a dark Jewish girl in pink satin trunks and blouse, comes in the door. Bertha looks at her with half-opened eyes.
)
Who’re you?

L
ENA:
It’s me, Lena.

B
ERTHA:
Oh. Lena, huh? Set down an’ take a load off yer feet. Have a cigarette, honey. I ain’t feeling good. There ain’t any cigarettes here. Goldie took ‘em. She takes everything I got. Set down an’—take a—

L
ENA:
(
in doorway
)
Goldie told me you weren’t feelin’ so good this evening so I thought I’d just look in on you, honey.

B
ERTHA:
Yeah, that’s a laugh, ain’t it? I’m all right. I’ll be on the job again tonight. You bet. I always come through, don’t I, kid? Ever known me to quit? I may be a little down on my luck right now but—that’s all! (
She pauses, as if for agreement.
)
That’s all, ain’t it, Lena? I ain’t old. I still got my looks. Ain't I?

L
ENA:
Sure you have, Bertha. (
There is a pause.
)

B
ERTHA:
Well, what’re you grinning about?

L
ENA:
I ain’t grinning, Bertha.

B
ERTHA:
(
herself slightly smiling
)
I thought maybe you thought there was something funny about me saying I still had my looks.

L
ENA:
(
after a pause
)
No, Bertha, you got me wrong.

B
ERTHA:
(
hoarsely
)
Listen, sweetheart, I know the Mayor of this God damn little burg. Him and me are like that. See? I can beat any rap you try to hang on me and I don’t give a damn what. Vagrancy, huh ? That’s a sweet laugh to me! Get me my traveling bag, will you, Lena? Where is it? I been thrown out of better places than this. (
She rises and drags herself vaguely about the room and then collapses on bed. Lena moves toward the bed.
)
God, I’m too tired. I’ll just lay
down till my head stops swimming. . . . (
Goldie appears in the doorway. She and Lena exchange significant glances.
)

G
OLDIE:
Well, Bertha, have you decided yet?

B
ERTHA:
Decided what?

G
OLDIE:
What you’re gonna do?

B
ERTHA:
Leave me be. I’m too tired.

G
OLDIE:
(
casually
)
Well, I’ve called up the hospital, Bertha. They’re sending an ambulance around to get you. They’re going to put you up in a nice clean ward.

B
ERTHA:
Tell ‘em to throw me in the river and save the state some money. Or maybe they’re scared I’d pollute the water. I guess they’ll have to cremate me to keep from spreadin’ infection. Only safe way of disposin’ of Bertha’s remains. That’s a sweet laugh, ain’t it? Look at her, Lena, that slut that calls herself Goldie. She thinks she’s big-hearted. Ain’t that a laugh? The only thing big about her is the thing that she sits on. Yeah, the old horse! She comes in here talking soft about callin’ a priest an’ havin’ me stuck in the charity ward. Not me. None a that stuff for me, I’ll tell you!

G
OLDIE:
(
with controlled fury
)
You better watch how you talk. They’ll have you in the strait-jacket, that’s what!

B
ERTHA:
(
suddenly rising
)
Get the hell out! (
She throws a glass at Goldie, who screams and runs out. Bertha then turns to Lena.
)
Set down and take a letter for me. There’s paper under that kewpie.

L
ENA:
(
looking on the dresser
)
No, there ain’t, Bertha.

B
ERTHA:
Ain’t? I been robbed a that, too! (
Lena walks to the table by the bed and picks up a tablet.
)

L
ENA:
Here’s a piece, Bertha.

B
ERTHA:
All right. Take a letter. To Mr. Charlie Aldrich, owner of the biggest hardware store in the City of Memphis. Got that?

L
ENA:
What’s the address, Bertha?

B
ERTHA:
It’s 563 Central Avenue. Got it? Yeah, that’s right.

Mr. Charlie Aldrich. Dear Charlie. They’re fixing to lock me up in the city bug-house. On a charge of criminal responsibility without due process of law. Got that? (
Lena stops writing.
)
And I’m as sane as you are right this minute, Charlie. There’s nothing wrong with my upper-story and there never will be. Got that? (
Lena looks down and pretends to write.
)
So come on down here, Charlie, and bail me out of here, honey, for old times’ sake. Love and kisses, your old sweetheart, Bertha. . . . Wait a minute. Put a P.S. and say how’s the wife and your— No! Scratch it out! That don’t belong in there. Scratch it all out, the whole damn thing! (
There is a painful silence. Bertha sighs and turns slowly on the bed, pushing her damp hair back.
)
Get you a clean sheet of paper. (
Lena rises and tears another sheet from the tablet. A young Girl sticks her head in the door.
)

G
IRL:
Lena!

L
ENA:
Coming.

B
ERTHA:
Got it?

L
ENA:
Yes.

B
ERTHA:
That’s right. Now just say this. Hello from Bertha—to Charlie—with all her love. Got that? Hello from Bertha—to Charlie . . .

L
ENA:
(
rising and straightening her blouse
)
Yes.

B
ERTHA:
With all . . . her love . . . (
The music in the outer room recommences.
)

CURTAIN

This Property Is Condemned

CHARACTERS

W
ILLIE,
a young girl.

T
OM,
a boy.

This Property Is Condemned

S
CENE:
A railroad embankment on the outskirts of a small Mississippi town on one of those milky white winter mornings peculiar to that part of the country. The air is moist and chill. Behind the low embankment of the tracks is a large yellow frame house which has a look of tragic vacancy. Some of the upper windows are boarded, a portion of the roof has fallen away. The land is utterly flat. In the left background is a billboard that says “GIN WITH JAKE” and there are some telephone poles and a few bare winter trees. The sky is a great milky whiteness: crows occasionally make a sound of roughly torn cloth.

The girl Willie is advancing precariously along the railroad track, balancing herself with both arms outstretched, one clutching a banana, the other an extraordinarily dilapidated doll with a frowsy blond wig.

She is a remarkable apparition
—
thin as a beanpole and dressed in outrageous cast-off finery. She wears a long blue velvet party dress with a filthy cream lace collar and sparkling rhinestone beads. On her feet are battered silver kid slippers with large ornamental buckles. Her wrists and her fingers are resplendent with dimestore jewelry. She has applied rouge to her childish face in artless crimson daubs and her lips are made up in a preposterous Cupid’s bow. She is about thirteen and there is something ineluctably childlike and innocent in her appearance despite the makeup. She laughs frequently and wildly and with a sort of precocious, tragic abandon.

The boy Tom, slightly older, watches her from below the embankment.
He wears corduroy pants, blue shirt and a sweater and carries a kite of red tissue paper with a gaudily ribboned tail.

T
OM:
Hello. Who are you?

W
ILLIE:
Don’t talk to me till I fall off. (
She proceeds dizzily. Tom watches with mute fascination. Her gyrations grow wider and wider. She speaks breathlessly.
)
Take my—crazy doll—will you?

T
OM:
(
scrambling up the bank
)
Yeh.

W
ILLIE:
I don’t wanta—break her when—I fall! I don’t think I can—stay on much—longer—do you?

T
OM:
Naw.

W
ILLIE:
I’m practically—off—right now! (
Tom offers to assist her.
)
No, don’t touch me. It’s no fair helping. You’ve got to do it—all—by yourself! God, I’m wobbling! I don’t know what’s made me so nervous! You see that water-tank way back yonder?

T
OM:
Yeah?

W
ILLIE:
That’s where I—started—from! This is the furthest—I ever gone—without once—falling off. I mean it will be—if I can manage to stick on—to the next—telephone—pole! Oh! Here I go! (
She becomes completely unbalanced and rolls down the bank.
)

T
OM:
(
standing above her now
)
Hurtcha self?

W
ILLIE:
Skinned my knee a little. Glad I didn’t put my silk stockings on.

T
OM:
(
coming down the bank
)
Spit on it. That takes the sting away.

W
ILLIE:
Okay.

T
OM:
That’s animal’s medicine, you know. They always lick their wounds.

W
ILLIE:
I know. The principal damage was done to my bracelet, I guess. I knocked out one of the diamonds. Where did it go?

T
OM
: You never could find it in all them cinders.

W
ILLIE:
I don’t know. It had a lot of shine.

T
OM
: It wasn’t a genuine diamond.

W
ILLIE:
How do you know?

T
OM:
I just imagine it wasn’t. Because if it was you wouldn’t be walking along a railroad track with a banged-up doll and a piece of a rotten banana.

W
ILLIE:
Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. I might be peculiar or something. You never can tell. What’s your name?

T
OM.
Tom.

W
ILLIE:
Mine’s Willie. We’ve both got boy’s names.

T
OM:
How did that happen?

W
ILLIE:
I was expected to be a boy but I wasn’t. They had one girl already. Alva. She was my sister. Why ain’t you at school?

T
OM
: I thought it was going to be windy so I could fly my kite.

W
ILLIE:
What made you think that?

T
OM
: Because the sky was so white.

W
ILLIE:
Is that a sign?

T
OM
: Yeah.

W
ILLIE:
I know. It looks like everything had been swept off with a broom. Don’t it?

T
OM
: Yeah.

W
ILLIE:
It’s perfectly white. It’s white as a clean piece of paper.

T
OM:
Uh-huh.

W
ILLIE:
But there isn’t a wind.

T
OM
: Naw.

W
ILLIE:
It’s up too high for us to feel it. It’s way, way up in the attic sweeping the dust off the furniture up there!

T
OM:
Uh-huh. Why ain’t you at school?

W
ILLIE:
I quituated. Two years ago this winter.

T
OM:
What grade was you in?

W
ILLIE:
Five A.

T
OM
: Miss Preston.

W
ILLIE:
Yep. She used to think my hands was dirty until I explained that it was cinders from falling off the railroad tracks so much.

T
OM
: She’s pretty strict.

W
ILLIE:
Oh, no, she’s just disappointed because she didn’t get married. Probably never had an opportunity, poor thing. So she has to teach Five A for the rest of her natural life. They started teaching algebra an’ I didn’t give a goddam what X stood for so I quit.

T
OM
: You’ll never get an education walking the railroad tracks.

W
ILLIE:
You won’t get one flying a red kite neither. Besides . . .

T
OM:
What?

W
ILLIE:
What a girl needs to get along is social training. I learned all of that from my sister Alva. She had a wonderful popularity with the railroad men.

T
OM:
Train engineers?

W
ILLIE:
Engineers, firemen, conductors. Even the freight sup’rintendent. We run a boarding-house for railroad men. She was I guess you might say The Main Attraction. Beautiful? Jesus, she looked like a movie star!

T
OM:
Your sister?

W
ILLIE:
Yeah. One of ‘em used to bring her regular after each run a great big heart-shaped red-silk box of assorted chocolates and nuts and hard candies. Marvelous?

T
OM:
Yeah. (
The cawing of crows sounds through the chilly air.
)

W
ILLIE:
You know where Alva is now?

T
OM:
Memphis?

W
ILLIE:
Naw.

T
OM:
New Awleuns?

W
ILLIE:
Naw.

T
OM:
St. Louis?

W
ILLIE:
You’ll never guess.

T
OM:
Where is she then? (
Willie does not answer at once.
)

W
ILLIE:
(
very solemnly
)
She’s in the bone-orchard.

T
OM:
What?

W
ILLIE:
(
violently
)
Bone-orchard, cemetery, graveyard! Don’t you understand English?

T
OM:
Sure. That’s pretty tough.

W
ILLIE:
You don’t know the half of it, buddy. We used to have some high old times in that big yellow house.

T
OM:
I bet you did.

W
ILLIE:
Musical instruments going all of the time.

T
OM:
Instruments? What kind?

W
ILLIE:
Piano, victrola, Hawaiian steel guitar. Everyone played on something. But now it’s—awful quiet. You don’t hear a sound from there, do you?

T
OM:
Naw. Is it empty?

W
ILLIE:
Except for me. They got a big sign stuck up.

T
OM:
What does it say?

W
ILLIE:
(
loudly but with a slight catch
)
“THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED!”

T
OM:
You ain’t still living there?

W
ILLIE:
Uh-huh.

T
OM:
What happened? Where did everyone go?

W
ILLIE:
Mama run off with a brakeman on the C. & E. I. After that everything went to pieces. (
A train whistles far off.
)
You hear that whistle? That’s the Cannonball Express. The fastest thing on wheels between St. Louis, New Awleuns an’ Memphis. My old man got to drinking.

T
OM
: Where is he now?

W
ILLIE:
Disappeared. I guess I ought to refer his case to the Bureau of Missing Persons. The same as he done with Mama when she disappeared. Then there was me and Alva. Till Alva’s lungs got affected. Did you see Greta Garbo in
Camille?
It played at the Delta Brilliant one time las’ spring. She had the same what Alva died of. Lung affection.

T
OM:
Yeah?

W
ILLIE:
Only it was—very beautiful the way she had it. You know. Violins playing. And loads and loads of white flowers. All of her lovers come back in a beautiful scene!

T
OM:
Yeah?

W
ILLIE:
But Alva’s all disappeared.

T
OM:
Yeah?

W
ILLIE:
Like rats from a sinking ship! That’s how she used to describe it. Oh, it—wasn’t like death in the movies.

T
OM:
Naw?

W
ILLIE:
She says, “Where is Albert? Where’s Clemence?” None of them was around. I used to lie to her, I says, “They send their regards. They’re coming to see you tomorrow.” “Where’s Mr. Johnson?” she asked me. He was the freight sup’rintendent, the most important character we ever had in our rooming-house. “He’s been transferred to Grenada,” I told her. “But wishes to be remembered.” She known I was lying.

T
OM:
Yeah?

W
ILLIE: “
This here is the pay-off!” she says. “They all run out on me like rats from a sinking ship!” Except Sidney.

T
OM:
Who was Sidney?

W
ILLIE:
The one that used to give her the great big enormous red-silk box of American Beauty choc’lates.

T
OM:
Oh.

W
ILLIE:
He remained faithful to her.

T
OM
: That’s good.

W
ILLIE:
But she never did care for Sidney. She said his teeth was decayed so he didn’t smell good.

T
OM:
Aw
!

W
ILLIE:
It wasn’t like death in the movies. When somebody dies in the movies they play violins.

T
OM
: But they didn’t for Alva.

W
ILLIE:
Naw. Not even a goddam victrola. They said it didn’t
agree with the hospital regulations. Always singing around the house.

T
OM:
Who? Alva?

W
ILLIE:
Throwing enormous parties. This was her favorite number. (
She closes her eyes and stretches out her arms in the simulated rapture of the professional blues singer. Her voice is extraordinarily high and pure with a precocious emotional timbre.
)

You’re the only star

In my blue hea-ven

And you’re shining just

For me!

This is her clothes I got on. Inherited from her. Everything Alva’s is mine. Except her solid gold beads.

T
OM:
What happened to them?

W
ILLIE:
Them? She never took ‘em off.

T
OM:
Oh!

W
ILLIE:
I’ve also inherited all of my sister’s beaux. Albert and Clemence and even the freight sup’rintendent.

T
OM:
Yeah?

W
ILLIE:
They all disappeared. Afraid that they might get stuck for expenses I guess. But now they turn up again, all of ‘em, like a bunch of bad pennies. They take me out places at night. I’ve got to be popular now. To parties an’ dances an’ all of the railroad affairs. Lookit here!

T
OM:
What?

W
ILLIE:
I can do bumps! (
She stands in front of him and shoves her stomach toward him in a series of spasmodic jerks.
)

T
OM
: Frank Waters said that . . .

W
ILLIE:
What?

T
OM
: You know.

W
ILLIE:
Know what?

T
OM
: You took him inside and danced for him with your clothes off.

W
ILLIE:
Oh. Crazy Doll’s hair needs washing. I’m scared to wash it though ‘cause her head might come unglued where she had that compound fracture of the skull. I think that most of her brains spilled out. She’s been acting silly ever since. Saying an’ doing the most outrageous things.

T
OM:
Why don’t you do that for me?

W
ILLIE:
What? Put glue on your compound fracture?

T
OM
: Naw. What you did for Frank Waters.

W
ILLIE:
Because I was lonesome then an’ I’m not lonesome now. You can tell Frank Waters that. Tell him that I’ve inherited all of my sister’s beaux. I go out steady with men in responsible jobs. The sky sure is white. Ain’t it? White as a clean piece of paper. In Five A we used to draw pictures. Miss Preston would give us a piece of white foolscap an’ tell us to draw what we pleased.