Free Three Plays by Tennessee Williams Page B

clutch his belly. He sinks into a chair and his voice is softer and hoarser.]
    You I do like for some reason, did always have some kind of real feeling for—affection—respect—yes, always.... You and being a success as a planter is all I ever had any devotion to in my whole life!—and that's the truth.... I don't know why, but it is! I've lived with mendacity!—Why can't you live with it? Hell, you got to live with it, there's nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there?
     
    BRICK : Yes, sir. Yes, sir, there is something else that you can live with!
     
    BIG DADDY : What?
     
    BRICK [lifting his glass] : This!—Liquor...
     
    BIG DADDY : That's not living, that's dodging away from life.
     
    BRICK : I want to dodge away from it.
     
    BIG DADDY : Then why don't you kill yourself, man?
     
    BRICK : I like to drink....
     
    BIG DADDY : Oh, God, I can't talk to you....
     
    BRICK : I'm sorry, Big Daddy.
     
    BIG DADDY : Not as sorry as I am. I'll tell you something. A little while back when I thought my number was up—
    [This speech should have torrential pace and fury.]
    —before I found out it was just this—spastic—colon. I thought about you. Should I or should I not, if the jig was up, give you this place when I go—since I hate Gooper an' Mae an' know that they hate me, and since all five same monkeys are little Maes an' Goopers.—And I thought, No!—Then I thought, Yes!—I couldn't make up my mind. I hate Gooper and his five same monkeys and that bitch Mae! Why should I turn over twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile to not my kind?—But why in hell, on the other hand, Brick—should I subsidize a goddam fool on the bottle?—Liked or not liked, well, maybe even— loved! —Why should I do that?—Subsidize worthless behaviour? Rot? Corruption?
     
    BRICK [smiling] : I understand.
     
    BIG DADDY : Well, if you do, you're smarter than I am, God damn it, because I don't understand. And this I will tell you frankly. I didn't make up my mind at all on that question and still to this day I ain't made out no will!—Well, now I don't have to. The pressure is gone. I can just wait and see if you pull yourself together or if you don't.
     
    BRICK : That's right, Big Daddy.
     
    BIG DADDY : You sound like you thought I was kidding.
     
    BRICK [rising] : No, sir, I know you're not kidding.
     
    BIG DADDY : But you don't care—?
     
    BRICK [hobbling toward the gallery door] : No, sir, I don't care.... Now how about taking a look at your birthday fireworks and getting some of that cool breeze off the river?
     
    [He stands in the gallery doorway as the night sky turns pink and green and gold with successive flashes of light.]
     
    BIG DADDY : WAIT! —Brick...
    [His voice drops. Suddenly there is something shy, almost tender, in his restraining gesture.]
    Don't let's—leave it like this, like them other talks we've had, we've always—talked around things, we've—just talked around things for some rutten reason, I don't know what, it's always like something was left not spoken, something avoided because neither of us was honest enough with the—other....
     
    BRICK : I never lied to you, Big Daddy.
     
    BIG DADDY : Did I ever to you?
     
    BRICK : No, sir....
     
    BIG DADDY : Then there is at least two people that never lied to each other.
     
    BRICK : But we've never talked to each other.
     
    BIG DADDY : We can now .
     
    BRICK : Big Daddy, there don't seem to be anything much to say.
     
    BIG DADDY : You say that you drink to kill your disgust with lying.
     
    BRICK : You said to give you a reason.
     
    BIG DADDY : Is liquor the only thing that'll kill this disgust?
     
    BRICK : Now. Yes.
     
    BIG DADDY : But not once, huh?
     
    BRICK : Not when I was still young an' believing. A drinking man's someone who wants to forget he isn't still young an' believing.
     
    BIG DADDY : Believing what?
     
    BRICK : Believing....
     
    BIG DADDY : Believing what?
     
    BRICK