Authors: Tennessee Williams
NIGHTINGALE
: Screaming old faggots at that antique dealer's. Well, they're rich and they buy boys, but that's a scene that you haven't learned yet. So. What happened downstairs?
WRITER
: He took me into a bedroom; he told me I looked pale and wouldn't I like a sunlamp treatment. I thought he meant my face so
Iâ
agreedâ
NIGHTINGALE
: Jesus, you've got to be joking.
WRITER
: I was shaking violently like I was a victim
ofâ
St. Vitus's Dance, you know, when he said, “Undress”!
NIGHTINGALE
: But you did.
WRITER
: Yes. He helped me. And I stretched out on the bed under the sunlamp and suddenly
heâ
NIGHTINGALE
: . . . turned it off and did you?
WRITER
: Yes, that's what happened. I think that he was shocked by my reaction.
NIGHTINGALE
: You did
him
orâ
?
WRITER
: . . . I told him that I . . . loved . . . him. I'd been drinking.
NIGHTINGALE
: Love can happen like that. For one night only.
WRITER
: He said, he laughed and said, “Forget it. I'm flying out tomorrow for training base.”
NIGHTINGALE
: He said to you, “Forget it,” but you didn't forget it.
WRITER
: No . . . I don't even have his address and I've forgotten his name . . .
NIGHTINGALE
: Still, I think you loved him.
WRITER
: . . . Yes. I . . . I'd like to see some of your serious paintings sometime.
NIGHTINGALE
: Yeah. You will. Soon. When I get them canvases shipped down from Baton Rouge next week. But meanwhile . . . [
His hand is sliding down the sheet
.] How about this?
WRITER
[
with gathering panic
]: . . . I think I'd better get some sleep now. I didn't mean to tell you all that. Goodnight, I'm going to sleep.
NIGHTINGALE
[
urgently
]: This would help you.
WRITER
: I need to sleep
nightsâ
to work.
NIGHTINGALE
: You are alone in the world, and I am, too. Listen. Rain!
[
They are silent. The sound of rain is heard on the roof
.]
Look. I'll give you two things for sleep. First, this. [
He draws back the sheet. The light dims
.] And then one of these pills I call my sandman special.
WRITER
: I don't . . .
NIGHTINGALE
: Shh, walls have ears! Lie back and imagine the paratrooper.
[
The dim light goes completely out. A passage of blues piano is heard. It is an hour later. There is a spotlight on the writer as narrator, smoking at the foot of the cot, the sheet drawn about him like a toga
.]
WRITER
: When I was alone in the room, the visitor having retreated beyond the plywood partition between his cubicle and mine, which was chalk white that turned ash-gray at night, not just he but everything visible was gone except for the lighter gray of the alcove with its window over Toulouse Street. An apparition came to me with the hypnotic effect of the painter's sandman special. It was in the form of an elderly female saint, of course. She materialized soundlessly. Her eyes fixed on me with a gentle questioning look which I came to remember as having belonged to my grandmother during her sieges of illness, when I used to go to her room and sit by her bed and want, so much, to say something or to put my hand over hers, but could do neither, knowing that if I did, I'd betray my feelings with tears that would trouble her more than her illness . . . Now it was she who stood next to my bed for a while. And as I drifted toward sleep, I wondered if she'd witnessed the encounter between the painter and me and what her attitude was toward
suchâ
perversions? Of longing?
[
The sound of stifled coughing is heard across the plywood partition
.]
Nothing about her gave me any sign. The weightless hands clasping each other so loosely, the cool and believing gray eyes in the faint pearly face were as immobile as statuary. I felt that she neither blamed nor approved the encounter. No. Wait. She . . . seemed to lift one hand very, very slightly before my eyes closed with sleep. An almost invisible gesture of . . . forgiveness? . . . through understanding? . . . before she dissolved into sleep. . .
Tye is in a seminarcotized state on the bed in Jane's room. Jane is in the hall burdened with paper sacks of groceries; the writer appears behind her
.
JANE
[
brightly
]: Good morning.
WRITER
[
shyly
]: Oh, good morning.
JANE
: Such a difficult operation, opening a purse with one hand.
WRITER
: Let me hold the sacks for you.
JANE
: Oh, thanks; now then, come in, put the sacks on one of those chairs. Over the weekend we run out of everything. Ice isn't delivered on Sundays, milk spoils. Everything of a perishable kind has got to be replaced. Oh, don't go out. Have you had a coffee?
WRITER
[
looking at Tye
]: I was about to but . . .
JANE
: Stay and have some with me. Sorry it's instant, can you stand instant coffee?
WRITER
: I beg your pardon?
JANE
: Don't mind him, when his eyes are half open it doesn't mean he is conscious.
TYE
: Bullshit, you picked up a kid on the street?
JANE
[
suppressing anger
]: This is the young man from across the
hallâ
I'm Jane Sparks, my friend is Tye McCool, and you
areâ
WRITER
[
pretending to observe a chess board to cover his embarrassment
]: What a beautiful chess board!
JANE
: Oh, that, yes!
WRITER
: Ivory and ebony? Figures?
JANE
: The white squares are mother-of-pearl. Do you play chess?
WRITER
: Used to. You play together, you and Mr.âMcCool?
TYE
: Aw, yeh, we play together but not chess. [
He rubs his crotch. Jane and the writer nervously study the chess board
.]
JANE
: I play alone, a solitary game, to keep in practice in case I meet a partner.
WRITER
: Look. Black is in check.
JANE
: My imaginary opponent. I choose sides you see, although I play for both.
WRITER
: I'd be happy
toâ
I mean sometimes when
youâ
TYE
[
touching the saucepan on the burner
]: OW!
JANE
: I set it to boil before I went to the store.
[
Jane sets a cup and doughnuts on the table
.]
TYE
: Hey, kid, why don't you take your cup across the hall to your own room?
JANE
: Because I've just
nowâ
you heard
meâ
invited him to have it here in this room with me.
TYE
: I didn't invite him in, and I want you to git something straight: I live here. And if I live in a place I got equal rights in this place, and it just so happens I don't entertain no stranger to look at me undressed.
WRITER
[
gulping down his coffee
]: Please. Uh, please, I think I'd rather go in my room because I, I've got some work to do there. I always work immediately after my coffee.
JANE
: I will not have this young grifter who has established squatter's rights here telling me that I can't enjoy a little society in a place
whereâ
frankly I am frantic with loneliness!
[
The writer does not know what to do. Tye suddenly grins. He pulls out a chair for the writer at the table as if it were for a lady
.]
TYE
: Have a seat kid, you like one lump or two? Where's the cat? Can I invite the goddam cat to breakfast?
JANE
: Tye, you said you were pleased with the robe I gave you for your birthday, but you never wear it.
TYE
: I don't dress for breakfast.
JANE
: Putting on a silk robe isn't dressing.
[
She removes the robe from a hook and throws it about Tye's shoulders. Automatically he circles her hips with an arm
.]
TYE
: Mmm. Good. Feels good.
JANE
[
shyly disengaging herself from his embrace
]: It ought to. Shantung silk.
TYE
: I didn't mean the robe, babe.
JANE
: Tye, behave yourself. [
She turns to the writer
.] I've cherished the hope that by introducing Tye to certain little improvements in wearing apparel and language, I may gradually, despite his
resistanceâ
TYE
: Ain't that lovely? That classy langwidge she uses?
JANE
: Inspire him
toâ
seek out some higher level of employment. [
Ignoring Tye, she speaks
.] I heard that you are a writer?
WRITER
: I,
uhâ
write,
butâ
JANE
: What form of writing? I mean fiction or poetry or . . .
TYE
: Faggots, they all do something artistic, all of 'em.
JANE
[
quickly
]: Do you know, I find myself drinking twice as much coffee here as I did in New York. For me the climate here is debilitating. Perhaps because of the dampness and the, and
theâ
very low altitude, really there's no altitude at all, it's slightly under sea level. Have another cup with me?
[
The writer doesn't answer: Jane prepares two more cups of the instant coffee. Tye is staring steadily, challengingly at the writer, who appears to be hypnotized
.]
Of course, Manhattan hasn't much altitude either. But I grew up in the Adirondacks really. We lived on high ground, good elevation.
TYE
: I met one of 'em once by accident on the street. You see, I was out of a job, and he came up to me on a corner in the Quarter an' invited me to his place for supper with him. I seen right off what he was an' what he wanted, but I didn't have the price of a poor boy sandwich so I accepted, I went. The place was all Japanese-like, everything very artistic. He said to me,
“Cross over that little bridge that crosses my little lake which I made myself and sit on the bench under my willow tree while I make supper for us and bathe an' change my clo'se. I won't be long.” So I crossed over the bridge over the lake, and I stretched out under the weepin' willow tree: fell right asleep. I was woke up by what looked like a female but was him in drag. “Supper ready,”
heâ
sheâsaid. Then this freak, put her hand on
myâ
I said, “It's gonna cost you more than supper . . .”
JANE
: Tye.
TYE
: Huh, baby?
JANE
: You will
not
continue that story.
TYE
: It's a damn good story. What's your objection to it? I ain't got to the part that's really funny. [
He speaks to the writer, who is crossing out of the light
.] Don't you like the story?
[
The writer exits
.]
JANE
: Why did you do that?
TYE
: Do what?
JANE
: You know what, and the boy knew what you meant by it. Why did you want to hurt him with the implication that he was in a class with a common, a predatory transvestite?
TYE
: Look Jane . . . You say you was brought up on high ground, good elevation, but you come in here, you bring in here and expose me to a little queer, and . . .
JANE
: Does everyone with civilized behavior, good manners, seem to be a queer to you?
TYE
: . . . Was it good manners the way he looked at me, Babe?
JANE
[
voice rising
]: Was it good manners for you to stand in front of him rubbing
yourâ
groin the way you did?
TYE
: I wanted you to notice his reaction.
JANE
: He was just embarrassed.
TYE
: You got a lot to learn about life in the Quarter.
JANE
: I think that he's a serious person that I can talk to, and I need some one to talk to!
[
Pause
]
TYE
: You can't talk to
me
huh?
JANE
: With you working all night at a Bourbon Street strip-joint, and sleeping nearly all day? Involving yourself with all the underworld elements of this corrupt city . . .
TYE
: 'Sthat all I do? Just that? I never pleasure you, Babe?
[
Fade in piano blues. She draws a breath and moves as if half asleep behind Tye's chair
.]
JANE
: Yes,
youâ
pleasure me, Tye.
TYE
: I try to do my best to, Babe. Sometimes I wonder why a
girlâ
JANE
: Not a girl, Tye. A woman.
TYE
: âHow
didâ
why
didâ
you get yourself mixed up with me?
JANE
: A sudden change of circumstances removed me
fromâ
how shall I put it so you'd understand?
TYE
:
Justâ
say.
JANE
: What I'd thought was myself. So I quit my former connections, I came down here
toâ
[
She stops short
.] Well, to make an adjustment
toâ
[
Pause
.] We met by chance on Royal Street when a deluge of rain backed me into a doorway. Didn't know you were behind me until you put your hand on my hip and I turned to say, “Stop that!” but didn't because you were something I'd never encountered
beforeâ
faintly
innocentâ
boy's eyes. Smiling. Said to myself, “Why not, with nothing to lose!” Of course you pleasure me, Tye!âI'd been alone so long . . .
[
She touches his throat with trembling fingers. He leans sensually back against her. She runs her hand down his chest
.]
Silk on silk
isâ
lovely . . . regardless of the danger.
[
As the light on this area dims, typing begins offstage. The dim-out is completed
.]