Free Vieux Carre by Tennessee Williams

extended it out of bounds in the love nest she’d picked out for us. Pink, pink, pink. So I cut out before daybreak.
    WRITER : Without a word to the girl?
    SKY : A note, “Not ready. Be back.” Wonder if she believed it, or if I did. That was Christmas week. I asked permission to leave my knapsack here with the landlady, overnight. She said, “For fifty cents.” Extortionary, but I accepted the deal. However was unavoidably detained like they say. Returned last night for my gear and goddam, this landlady here refuses to surrender it to me except for twenty-five bucks. Crazy witch!
    [
Mrs. Wire is at the cubicle entrance
.]
    MRS. WIRE : What’s he doin’ up there?
    SKY : Admiring the view.
    MRS. WIRE : You was urinating out of the window! Jailbird! You ain’t been in a hospital four months, you been in the House of Detention for resistin’ arrest and assaultin’ an officer of the law. I know. You admire the view in the bathroom. I don’t allow no trashy behavior here. [
She turns to the writer
.] Why ain’t you on the streets with those business cards?
    WRITER : Because I’m at the last paragraph of a story.
    MRS. WIRE : Knock it off this minute! Why, the streets are swarming this Sunday with the Azalea Festival trade.
    WRITER : The time I give to “Meals for a Quarter in the Quarter” has begun to exceed the time originally agreed on, Mrs. Wire.
    MRS. WIRE : It’s decent, healthy work that can keep you off bad habits, bad company that I know you been drifting into.
    WRITER : How would you know anything outside of this moldy, old—
    MRS. WIRE : Don’t talk that way about this—
historical
old building. Why, 722 Toulouse Street is one of the oldest buildings in the Vieux Carré, and the courtyard, why, that courtyard out there is on the tourist list of attractions!
    WRITER : The tourists don’t hear you shoutin’ orders and insults to your, your— prisoners here!
    MRS. WIRE : Two worthless dependents on me, that pair of scavenger crones that creep about after dark.
    [
Nightingale coughs in his cubicle. Mrs. Wire raises her voice
].
    And I got that TB case spitting contagion wherever he goes, leaves a track of blood behind him like a chicken that’s had it’s head chopped off.
    NIGHTINGALE : ’sa goddam libelous lie!
    MRS. WIRE [
crossing to the entrance of the adjoining cubicle
]: Been discharged from the Two Parrots, they told you to fold up your easel and git out!
    NIGHTINGALE [
hoarsely
]: I’m making notes on these lies, and my friend, the writer, is witness to them!
    MRS. WIRE : You is been discharged from the Two Parrots. It’s God’s truth, I got it from the cashier!
    [Sky
chuckles, fascinated. He sits on the edge of the table or cot, taking a cigarette and offering one to the writer. Their casual friendly talk is contrapuntal to the violent altercation in progress outside
.]
    She told me they had to scrub the pavement around your easel with a bucket of lye each night, that customers had left without payin’ because you’d hawked an’ spit by their tables!
    NIGHTINGALE : Bucket of lies, not lye, that’s what she told you!
    MRS. WIRE : They only kept you there out of human pity!
    NIGHTINGALE : Pity!
    MRS. WIRE : Yais, pity! But finally pity and patience was exhausted, it run out there and it’s run out here! Unlock that door! NURSIE!
    NURSIE [
off stage
]: Now what?
    MRS. WIRE : Bring up my keys! Mr. Nightingale’s locked himself in! You’re gonna find you’self mighty quicker than you expected in a charity ward on your way to a pauper’s grave!
    WRITER : Mrs. Wire, be easy on him . . .
    MRS. WIRE : You ain’t heard what he calls me? Why, things he’s said to me I hate to repeat. He’s called me a fuckin’ ole witch, yes, because I stop him from bringin’ pickups in here at midnight that might stick a knife in the heart of anyone in the