Free Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

been scared? I mean have you ever felt downright terror of
     something?
    [ He gets up. ]
    Just one moment. I'm going to close these doors . . . .
    [ He closes doors on gallery as if he were
     going to tell an important secret. ]
    BRICK:
    What?

    BIG DADDY:
    Brick?
    BRICK:
    Huh?
    BIG DADDY:
    Son, I thought I had it!
    BRICK:
    Had what? Had what, Big Daddy?
    BIG DADDY:
    Cancer!
    BRICK:
    Oh . . . .
    BIG DADDY:
    I thought the old man made out of bones had laid his cold and heavy hand on my
     shoulder!
    BRICK:
    Well, Big Daddy, you kept a tight mouth about it.
    BIG DADDY:
    A pig squeals. A man keeps a tight mouth about it, in spite of a man not having a
     pig's advantage.
    BRICK:
    What advantage is that?
    BIG DADDY:
    Ignorance—of mortality—is a comfort. A man don't have that
     comfort, he's the only living thing that conceives of death, that knows what
     it is. The others go without knowing which is the way that anything living should
     go, go without knowing, without any knowledge of it, and yet a pig squeals,but a man sometimes, he can keep a tight mouth about it.
     Sometimes he—
    [ There is a deep, smoldering ferocity in the
     old man. ]
    —can keep a tight mouth about it. I wonder if—
    BRICK:
    What, Big Daddy?
    BIG DADDY:
    Awhiskey highball would injure this spastic
     condition?
    BRICK:
    No, sir, it might do it good.
    BIG DADDY [ grins
     suddenly, wolfishly ]:
    Jesus, I can't tell you! The sky is open!
     Christ, it's open again! It's open, boy, it's
     open!
    [ Brick looks down at his
     drink. ]
    BRICK:
    You feel better, Big Daddy?
    BIG DADDY:
    Better? Hell! I can breathe!—All of my life I been like a
     doubled up fist . . . .
    [ He pours a drink. ]
    —Poundin’, smashin’,
     drivin'!—now I'm going to loosen these doubled-up
     hands and touch things easy with them . . . .
    [ He spreads his hands as if caressing the
     air. ]
    You know what I'm contemplating?
    BRICK [ vaguely ]:
    No, sir. What are you contemplating?

    BIG DADDY:
    Ha ha!— Pleasure! —pleasure
     with women!
    [ Brick's smile fades a little but
     lingers. ]
    Brick, this stuff burns me!—
    —Yes, boy. I'll tell you something that you might not
     guess. I still have desire for women and this is my sixty-fifth birthday.
    BRICK:
    I think that's mighty remarkable, Big Daddy.
    BIG DADDY:
    Remarkable?
    BRICK:
    Admirable, Big Daddy.
    BIG DADDY:
    You're damn right it is, remarkable and admirable both. I realize now that I
     never had me enough. I let many chances slip by because of scruples about it,
     scruples, convention—crap . . . . All that stuff is bull, bull,
     bull!—It took the shadow of death to make me see it. Now that
     shadow's lifted, I'm going to cut loose and have, what is it they call
     it, have me a—ball!
    BRICK:
    A ball, huh?
    BIG DADDY:
    That's right, a ball, a ball! Hell!—I slept with Big Mama
     till, let's see, five years ago, till I was sixty and she was
     fifty-eight, and never even liked her, never did!
    [ The phone has been ringing down the hall.
     Big Mama enters, exclaiming: ]

    BIG MAMA:
    Don't you men hear that phone ring? I heard it way out on the
     gall'ry.
    BIG DADDY:
    There's five rooms off this front gall'ry that you could go through.
     Why do you go through this one?
    [ Big Mama makes a playful face as she
     bustles out the hall door .]
    Hunh!—Why, when Big Mama goes out of a room, I
     can't remember what that woman looks like, but when Big Mama comes back into
     the room, boy, then I see what she looks like, and I wish I
     didn't!
    [ Bends over laughing at this joke till it
     hurts his guts and he straightens with a grimace. The laugh subsides to a
     chuckle as he puts the liquor glass a little distrustfully down on the
     table.
    [ Brick has risen and hobbled to the gallery
     doors. ]
    Hey! Where you goin'?
    BRICK:
    Out for a breather.
    BIG DADDY:
    Not yet you ain't. Stay here till this talk is finished, young fellow.
    BRICK:
    I thought it was finished, Big Daddy.
    BIG DADDY:
    It ain't even begun.
    BRICK:
    My