Free Vieux Carre by Tennessee Williams Page A

buildin’ after they done it to him.
    NIGHTINGALE [
in a wheezing voice as he drops onto the cot in his cubicle
]: It’s you that’ll get a knife stuck in you, between your— dried up old— dugs . . .
    WRITER [
sotto voce, near tears
]: Be easy on him, he’s dying.
    MRS. WIRE : Not here. He’s defamed this place as infested with bedbugs to try to explain away the blood he coughs on his pillow.
    WRITER : That’ s— his last defense against—
    MRS. WIRE : The truth, there’s no defense against truth. Ev’rything in that room is contaminated, has got to be removed to the incinerator an’ burned. Start with the mattress, Nursie!
    [
Nursie has entered the lighted area with a bunch of musty keys
.]
    NIGHTINGALE : I warn you, if you attempt to enter my room, I’ll strike you down with this easel!
    MRS. WIRE : You do that, just try, the effort of the exertion would finish you right here! Oh, shoot, here’s the master key, opens all doors!
    NIGHTINGALE : At your own risk— I’ll brain you, you bitch.
    MRS. WIRE : Go on in there, Nursie!
    NURSIE : Aw, no, not me! I told you I would never go in that room!
    MRS. WIRE : We’re coming in!
    NIGHTINGALE : WATCH OUT!
    [
He is backed into the alcove, the easel held over his head like a crucifix to exorcise a demon. A spasm of coughingwracks him. He bends double, dropping the easel, collapses to his knees, and then falls flat upon the floor
.]
    NURSIE [
awed
]: Is he daid, Mizz Wire?
    MRS. WIRE : Don’t touch him. Leave him there until the coroner gets here.
    NIGHTINGALE [
gasping
]: Coroner, your ass— I’ll outlive you.
    MRS. WIRE : If I dropped dead this second! Nursie, haul out that filthy mattress of his, pour kerosene on it.
    NURSIE : Wouldn’t touch that mattress with a pole . . .
    MRS. WIRE : And burn it. Git a nigger to help you haul everything in here out, it’s all contaminated. Why, this whole place could be quarantined!
    NURSIE : Furniture?
    MRS. WIRE : All! Then wash off your hands in alcohol to prevent infection, Nursie.
    NURSIE : Mizz Wire, the courtyard is full of them Azalea Festival ladies that paid admission to enter! You want me to smoke ’em out?
    MRS. WIRE : Collect the stuff you can move.
    NURSIE : Move where?
    MRS. WIRE : Pile it under the banana tree in the courtyard, cover it with tarpaulin, we can burn it later.
    NIGHTINGALE : If anyone lays a hand on my personal effects, I’ll[
His voice chokes with sobs
.]—I will be back in the Two Parrots tonight. I wasn’t fired. I was given a leave of absence till I recovered from . . . asthma . . .
    MRS. WIRE [
with an abrupt compassion
]: Mr. Nightingale.
    NIGHTINGALE : Rossignol!—of the Baton Rouge Rossignols, as any dog could tell you . . .
    MRS. WIRE : I won’t consult a dawg on this subject. However, the place for you is not here but in the charity ward at St. Vincent’s. Rest there till I’ve made arrangements to remove you.
    SKY : The altercation’s subsided.
    WRITER [
to Sky, who has begun to play his clarinet
]: What kind of horn is that?
    [
Mrs. Wire appears at the entrance to the writer’s cubicle. Sky plays entrance music— “Ta-ta-taaaa!”
]
    SKY : It’s not a horn, kid, horns are brass. A clarinet’s a wood-wind instrument, not a horn.
    MRS. WIRE : Yais, now about you all.
    SKY : Never mind about us. We’re leaving for the West Coast.
    [
Mrs. Wire and the writer are equally stunned in opposite ways
.]
    MRS. WIRE : —What’s he mean, son? You’re leavin’ with this jailbird?
    WRITER : — I—
    MRS. WIRE : You won’t if I can prevent it, and I know how. In my register book, when you signed in here, you wrote St. Louis. We got your home address, street and number. I’m gonna inform your folks of the vicious ways and companions you been slipping into. They’s a shockin’ diff’rence between