Free Three Plays by Tennessee Williams

Row!
     
    BRICK : That'll come, Big Daddy.
     
    BIG DADDY : Naw, it won't. You're my son, and I'm going to straighten you out; now that I'm straightened out, I'm going to straighten out you!
     
    BRICK : Yeah?
     
    BIG DADDY : Today the report come in from Ochsner Clinic. Y'know what they told me?
    [His face glows with triumph.]
    The only thing that they could detect with all the instruments of science in that great hospital is a little spastic condition of the colon! And nerves torn to pieces by all that worry about it.
    [A little girl bursts into room with a sparkler clutched in each fist, bops and shrieks like a monkey gone mad and rushes back out again as Big Daddy strikes at her. Silence. The two men stare at each other. A woman laughs gaily outside.]
    I want you to know I breathed a sigh of relief almost as powerful as the Vicksburg tornado!
     
    BRICK : You weren't ready to go?
     
    BIG DADDY : GO WHERE?—crap....
    —When you are gone from here, boy, you are long gone and nowhere! The human machine is not so different from the animal machine or the fish machine or the bird machine or the reptile machine; or the insect machine! It's just a whole God damn lot more complicated and consequently more trouble to keep together. Yep. I thought I had it. The earth shook under my foot, the sky come down like the black lid of a kettle and I couldn't breathe!—Today!!—that lid was lifted, I drew my first free breath in—how many years?— God!—three....
    [There is laughter outside, running footsteps, the soft, plushy sound and light of exploding rockets. Brick stares at him soberly for a long moment; then makes a sort of startled sound in his nostrils and springs up on one foot and bops across the room to grab his crutch, swinging on the furniture for support. He gets the crutch and flees as if in horror for the gallery. His father seizes him by the sleeve of his white silk pyjamas.]
    Stay here, you son of a bitch!—till I say go!
     
    BRICK : I can't.
     
    BIG DADDY : You sure in hell will, God damn it.
     
    BRICK : No, I can't. We talk, you talk, in—circles! We get nowhere, nowhere! It's always the same, you say you want to talk to me and don't have a ruttin' thing to say to me!
     
    BIG DADDY : Nothin' to say when I'm tellin' you I'm going to live when I thought I was dying?!
     
    BRICK : Oh— that! —Is that what you have to say to me?
     
    BIG DADDY : Why, you son of a bitch! Ain't that, ain't that— important?!
     
    BRICK : Well, you said that, that's said, and now I—
     
    BIG DADDY : Now you set back down.
     
    BRICK : You're all balled up, you—
     
    BIG DADDY : I ain't balled up!
     
    BRICK : You are, you're all balled up!
     
    BIG DADDY : Don't tell me what I am, you drunken whelp! I'm going to tear this coat sleeve off if you don't set down!
     
    BRICK : Big Daddy—
     
    BIG DADDY : Do what I tell you! I'm the boss here, now! I want you to know I'm back in the driver's seat now!
    [Big Mama rushes in, clutching her great heaving bosom.]
    What in hell do you want in here, Big Mama?
     
    BIG MAMA : Oh, Big Daddy! Why are you shouting like that? I just cain't stainnnnnnnd —it....
     
    BIG DADDY [raising the back of his hand above his head] : GIT!—outa here.
     
    [She rushes back out, sobbing.]
     
    BRICK [softly, sadly] : Christ...
     
    BIG DADDY [fiercely] : Yeah! Christ!—is right....
    [Brick breaks loose and hobbles toward the gallery. | Big Daddy Jerks his crutch from under Brick so he steps with the injured ankle. He utters a hissing cry of anguish, clutches a chair and pulls it over on top of him on the floor.]
    Son of a—tub of—hog fat....
     
    BRICK : Big Daddy! Give me my crutch.
    [Big Daddy throws the crutch out of reach.]
    Give me that crutch, Big Daddy.
     
    BIG DADDY : Why do you drink?
     
    BRICK : Don't know, give me my crutch!
     
    BIG DADDY : You better think why you drink or give up drinking!
     
    BRICK : Will you please give me my crutch so I can get up off this floor?
     
    BIG