Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (7 page)

[
The pause is broken only by a short
startled laugh from Margaret, the only one there who is conscious of and amused
by the grotesque.
]

MAE
[
raising her
arms and jangling her bracelets
]:

I wonder if the mosquitoes are active tonight?

BIG DADDY:

What's that, Little Mama? Did you make some remark?

MAE:

Yes, I said I wondered if the mosquitoes would eat us alive if we went out on the
gallery for a while.

BIG DADDY:

Well, if they do, I'll have your bones pulverized for fertilizer!

BIG MAMA
[
quickly
]:

Last week we had an airplane spraying the place and I think it done some good, at
least I haven't had a—

BIG DADDY
[
cutting her speech
]:

Brick, they tell me, if what they tell me is true, that you done some jumping last
night on the high school athletic field?

BIG MAMA:

Brick, Big Daddy is talking to you, son.

BRICK
[
smiling
vaguely over his drink
]:

What was that, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

They said you done some jumping on the high school track field last night.

BRICK:

That's what they told me, too.

BIG DADDY:

Was it jumping or humping that you were doing out there? What were doing out
there at three A.M., layin’ a woman on that cinder track?

BIG MAMA:

Big Daddy, you are off the sick-list, now, and I'm not going to excuse
you for talkin’ so—

BIG DADDY:

Quiet!

BIG MAMA:

—nasty
in front of Preacher and—

BIG DADDY:

QUIET!—I
ast you, Brick, if you was
cuttin’ you'self a piece o’ poon-tang last night on that
cinder track? I thought maybe
you were chasin’
poon-tang on that track an’ tripped over something in the heat of the
chase—'sthat it?

[
Gooper laughs, loud and false, others
nervously following suit. Big Mama stamps her foot, and purses her lips,
crossing to Mae and whispering something to her as Brick meets his
father's hard, intent, grinning stare with a slow, vague smile that he
offers all situations from behind the screen of his liquor.
]

BRICK:

No, sir, I don't think so . . . .

MAE
[
at the same
time, sweetly
]:

Reverend Tooker, let's you and I take a stroll on the widow's walk.

[
She and the preacher go out on the gallery
as Big Daddy says:
]

BIG DADDY:

Then what the hell were you doing out there at three o'clock in the
morning?

BRICK:

Jumping the hurdles, Big Daddy, runnin’ and jumpin’ the hurdles, but
those high hurdles have gotten too high for me, now.

BIG DADDY:

Cause you was drunk?

BRICK
[
his vague
smile fading a little
]:

Sober I wouldn't have tried to jump the
low
ones .
. . .

BIG MAMA
[
quickly
]:

Big Daddy, blow out the candles on your birthday cake!

MARGARET
[
at the
same
time
]:

I want to propose a toast to Big Daddy Pollitt on his sixty-fifth birthday,
the biggest cotton planter in—

BIG DADDY
[
bellowing with fury and disgust
]:

I told you to stop it, now stop it, quit
this—!

BIG MAMA
[
coming
in front of Big Daddy with the cake
]:

Big Daddy, I will not allow you to talk that way, not even on your birthday,
I—

BIG DADDY:

I'll talk like I want to on my birthday, Ida, or any other goddam day of the
year and anybody here that don't like it knows what they can do!

BIG MAMA:

You don't mean that!

BIG DADDY:

What makes you think I don't mean it?

[
Meanwhile various discreet signals have
been exchanged and Gooper has also gone out on the gallery.
]

BIG MAMA:

I just know you don't mean it.

BIG DADDY:

You don't know a goddam thing and you never did!

BIG MAMA:

Big Daddy, you don't mean that.

BIG DADDY:

Oh, yes, I do, oh, yes, I do, I mean it! I put up with a whole
lot of crap around here because I thought I was dying. And you thought I was
dying and you started taking over, well, you can stop taking over now, Ida, because
I'm not gonna die, you can just stop now this business of taking over because
you're not taking over because I'm not dying, I went through the
laboratory and the goddam exploratory operation and there's nothing wrong
with me but a spastic colon. And I'm not dying of cancer which you thought I
was dying of. Ain't that so? Didn't you think that I was dying
of cancer, Ida?

[
Almost everybody is out on the gallery but
the two old people glaring at each other across the blazing cake.

[
Big Mama's chest heaves and she
presses a fat fist to her mouth.

[
Big Daddy continues,
hoarsely:
]

Ain't that so, Ida? Didn't you have an idea I was
dying of cancer and now you could take control of this place and everything on
it? I got that impression, I seemed to get that impression. Your loud voice
everywhere, your fat old body butting in here and there!

BIG MAMA:

Hush! The Preacher!

BIG DADDY:

Rut the goddam preacher!

[
Big Mama gasps loudly and sits down on the
sofa which is almost too small for her.
]

Did you hear what I said? I said rut the goddam
preacher!

[
Somebody closes the gallery doors from
outside just as there is a burst of fireworks and excited cries from the
children.
]

BIG MAMA:

I never seen you act like this before and I can't think what's got in
you!

BIG DADDY:

I went through all that laboratory and operation and all just so I would know if you
or me was boss here! Well, now it turns out that I am and you
ain't—and that's my birthday present and my cake and
champagne!—because for three years now you been gradually taking over.
Bossing. Talking. Sashaying your fat old body around the place I made! I made
this place! I was overseer on it! I was the overseer on the old Straw
and Ochello plantation. I quit school at ten! I quit school at ten years old
and went to work like a nigger in the fields. And I rose to be overseer of the Straw
and Ochello plantation. And old Straw died and I was Ochello's partner and
the place got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger! I did all
that myself with no goddam help from you, and now you think you're just about
to take over. Well, I am just about to tell you that you are nor just about to take
over, you are not just about to take over a God damn thing. Is that clear to you,
Ida? Is that very plain to you, now? Is that understood
completely? I been through the laboratory from A to Z I've had the
goddam exploratory operation, and nothing is wrong with me but a spastic
colon—made spastic, I guess, by
disgust!
By all the goddam lies and liars that I have had to put up with, and all the goddam
hypocrisy that I lived with all these forty years that we been livin’
together!

Hey! Ida!! Blow out the candles on the birthday
cake! Purse up your lips and draw a deep breath and blow out the goddam
candles on the cake!

BIG MAMA:

Oh, Big Daddy, oh, oh, oh, Big Daddy!

BIG DADDY:

What's the matter with you?

BIG MAMA:

In all these years you never believed that I loved
you??

BIG DADDY:

Huh?

BIG MAMA:

And I did, I did so much, I did love you!—I
even loved your hate and your hardness, Big Daddy!

[
She sobs and rushes awkwardly out onto the
gallery.
]

BIG DADDY
[
to
himself
]:

Wouldn't it be funny if that was true .
. . .

[
A pause is followed by a burst of light in
the sky from the fireworks.
]

BRICK! HEY, BRICK!

[
He stands over his blazing birthday
cake.

[
After some moments, Brick hobbles in on his
crutch, holding his glass:

[
Margaret follows him with a bright, anxious
smile.
]

I didn't call you, Maggie. I called Brick.

MARGARET:

I'm just delivering him to you.

[
She kisses Brick on the mouth which he
immediately wipes with the back of his hand. She flies girlishly hack out. Brick
and his father are alone.
]

BIG DADDY:

Why did you do that?

BRICK:

Do what, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

Wipe her kiss off your mouth like she'd spit on you.

BRICK:

I don't know. I wasn't conscious of it.

BIG DADDY:

That woman of yours has a better shape on her than Gooper's but somehow or
other they got the same look about them.

BRICK:

What sort of look is that, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

I don't know how to describe it but it's the same look.

BRICK:

They don't look peaceful, do they?

BIG DADDY:

No, they sure in hell don't.

BRICK:

They look nervous as cats?

BIG DADDY:

That's right, they look nervous as cats.

BRICK:

Nervous as a couple of cats on a hot tin roof?

BIG DADDY:

That's right, boy, they look like a couple of cats on a hot tin roof.
It's funny that you and Gooper being so different would pick out the same
type of woman.

BRICK:

Both of us married into society, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY:

Crap . . . I wonder what gives them both that look?

BRICK:

Well. They're sittin’ in the middle of a big piece of land, Big Daddy,
twenty-eight thousand acres is a pretty big piece of land and so
they're squaring off on it, each determined to knock off a bigger piece of it
than the other whenever you let it go.

BIG DADDY:

I got a surprise for those women. I'm not gonna let it go for a long time yet
if that's what they're waiting for.

BRICK:

That's right, Big Daddy. You just sit tight and let them scratch each
other's eyes out . . . .

BIG DADDY:

You bet your life I'm going to sit tight on it and let those sons of bitches
scratch their eyes out, ha ha ha. . . .

But Gooper's wife's a good breeder, you got to admit
she's fertile. Hell, at supper tonight she had them all at the table and they
had to put a couple of extra leafs in the table to make room for them, she's
got five head of them, now, and another one's comin’.

BRICK:

Yep, number six is comin’ . . . .

BIG DADDY:

Brick, you know, I swear to God, I don't know the way it happens?

BRICK:

The way what happens, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

You git you a piece of land, by hook or crook, an’ things start growin’
on it, things accumulate on it, and the first thing you know it's completely
out of hand, completely out of hand!

BRICK:

Well, they say nature hates a vacuum, Big Daddy.

BIG DADDY:

That's what they say, but sometimes I think that a vacuum is a hell of a lot
better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

Is someone out there by that door?

BRICK:

Yep.

BIG DADDY:

Who?

[
He has lowered his
voice.
]

BRICK:

Someone int'rested in what we say to each other.

BIG DADDY:

Gooper?——GOOPER!

[
After a discreet pause, Mae appears in the
gallery door.
]

MAE:

Did you call Gooper, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

Aw, it was you.

MAE:

Do you want Gooper, Big Daddy?

BIG DADDY:

No, and I don't want you. I want some privacy here, while I'm having a
confidential talk with my son Brick. Now it's too hot in here to dose them
doors, but if I have to close those rotten doors in order to have a private talk with
my son Brick, just let me know and I'll close ‘em. Because I hate
eavesdroppers, I don't like any kind of sneakin’ an’
spyin’.

MAE:

Why, Big Daddy—

BIG DADDY:

You stood on the wrong side of the moon, it threw your shadow!

MAE:

I was just—

BIG DADDY:

You was just nothing but
spyin’
an’ you
know
it!

MAE
[
begins to
sniff and sob
]:

Oh, Big Daddy, you're so unkind for some reason to those that really love
you!