Free Three Plays by Tennessee Williams Page A

DADDY : First you answer my question. Why do you drink? Why are you throwing your life away, boy, like somethin' disgusting you picked up on the street?
     
    BRICK [getting on to his knees] : Big Daddy, I'm in pain, I stepped on that foot.
     
    BIG DADDY : Good! I'm glad you're not too numb with the liquor in you to feel some pain!
     
    BRICK : You—spilled my—drink....
     
    BIG DADDY : I'll make a bargain with you. You tell me why you drink and I'll hand you one. I'll pour you the liquor myself and hand it to you.
     
    BRICK : Why do I drink?
     
    BIG DADDY : Yeah! Why?
     
    BRICK : Give me a drink and I'll tell you.
     
    BIG DADDY : Tell me first!
     
    BRICK : I'll tell you in one word.
     
    BIG DADDY : What word?
     
    BRICK : DISGUST!
    [The clock chimes softly, sweetly. Big Daddy gives it a short, outraged glance.]
    Now how about that drink?
     
    BIG DADDY : What are you disgusted with? You got to tell me that, first. Otherwise being disgusted don't make no sense!
     
    BRICK : Give me my crutch.
     
    BIG DADDY : You heard me, you got to tell me what I asked you first.
     
    BRICK : I told you, I said to kill my disgust!
     
    BIG DADDY : DISGUST WITH WHAT!
     
    BRICK : You strike a hard bargain.
     
    BIG DADDY : What are you disgusted with?—an' I'll pass you the liquor.
     
    BRICK : I can hop on one foot, and if I fall, I can crawl.
     
    BIG DADDY : You want liquor that bad?
     
    BRICK [dragging himself up, clinging to bedstead] : Yeah, I want it that bad.
     
    BIG DADDY : If I give you a drink, will you tell me what it is you're disgusted with, Brick?
     
    BRICK : Yes, sir, I will try to.
    [The old man pours him a drink and solemnly passes it to him. There is silence as Brick drinks.]
    Have you ever heard the word 'mendacity'?
     
    BIG DADDY : Sure. Mendacity is one of them five-dollar words that cheap politicians throw back and forth at each other.
     
    BRICK : You know what it means?
     
    BIG DADDY : Don't it mean lying and liars?
     
    BRICK : Yes, sir, lying and liars.
     
    BIG DADDY : Has someone been lying to you?
     
    CHILDREN [chanting in chorus offstage] : We want Big Dad-dee! We want Big Dad-dee!
     
    [Gooper appears in the gallery door.]
     
    GOOPER : Big Daddy, the kiddies are shouting for you out there.
     
    BIG DADDY [fiercely] : Keep out, Gooper!
     
    GOOPER : 'Scuse me!
     
    [Big Daddy slams the doors after Gooper.]
     
    BIG DADDY : Who's been lying to you, has Margaret been lying to you, has your wife been lying to you about something, Brick?
     
    BRICK : Not her. That wouldn't matter.
     
    BIG DADDY : Then who's been lying to you, and what about?
     
    BRICK : No one single person and no one lie....
     
    BIG DADDY : Then what, what then, for Christ's sake?
     
    BRICK : —The whole, the whole—thing....
     
    BIG DADDY : Why are you rubbing your head? You got a headache?
     
    BRICK : No, I'm tryin' to—
     
    BIG DADDY : —Concentrate, but you can't because your brain's all soaked with liquor, is that the trouble? Wet brain!
    [He snatches the glass from Brick's hand.]
    What do you know about this mendacity thing? Hell! I could write a book on it! Don't you know that? I could write a book on it and still not cover the subject? Well, I could, I could write a goddam book on it and still not cover the subject anywhere near enough!!—Think of all the lies I got to put up with!—Pretences! Ain't that mendacity? Having to pretend stuff you don't think or feel or have any idea of? Having for instance to act like I care for Big Mama!—I haven't been able to stand the sight, sound, or smell of that woman for forty years now!—even when I laid her!—regular as a piston.... Pretend to love that son of a bitch of a Gooper and his wife Mae and those five same screechers out there like parrots in a jungle? Jesus I Can't stand to look at 'em! Church!—it bores the Bejesus out of me but I go!—I go an' sit there and listen to the fool preacher! Clubs!—Elks! Masons! Rotary!— crap!
    [A spasm of pain makes him