Death of a Salesman (5 page)

LINDA: He’s finding himself, Willy.

WILLY: Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!

LINDA: Shh!

WILLY: The trouble is he’s lazy, goddammit!

LINDA: Willy, please!

WILLY: Biff is a lazy bum!

LINDA: They’re sleeping. Get something to eat. Go on down.

WILLY: Why did he come home? I would like to know what brought him home.

LINDA: I don’t know. I think he’s still lost, Willy. I think he’s very lost.

WILLY: Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such—personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff—he’s not lazy.

LINDA: Never.

WILLY [
with pity and resolve
]: I’ll see him in the morning; I’ll have a nice talk with him. I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time. My God! Remember how they used to follow him around in high school? When he smiled at one of them their faces lit up. When he walked down the street . . . [
He loses himself in reminiscences.
]

LINDA [
trying to bring him out of it
]: Willy, dear, I got a new kind of American-type cheese today. It’s whipped.

WILLY: Why do you get American when I like Swiss?

LINDA: I just thought you’d like a change—

WILLY: I don’t want a change! I want Swiss cheese. Why am I always being contradicted?

LINDA [
with a covering laugh
]: I thought it would be a surprise.

WILLY: Why don’t you open a window in here, for God’s sake?

LINDA [
with infinite patience
]: They’re all open, dear.

WILLY: The way they boxed us in here. Bricks and windows, windows and bricks.

LINDA: We should’ve bought the land next door.

WILLY: The street is lined with cars. There’s not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass don’t grow any more, you can’t raise a carrot in the back yard. They should’ve had a law against apartment houses. Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? When I and Biff hung the swing between them?

LINDA: Yeah, like being a million miles from the city.

WILLY: They should’ve arrested the builder for cutting those down. They massacred the neighborhood. [
Lost
] More and more I think of those days, Linda. This time of year it was lilac and wisteria. And then the peonies would come out, and the daffodils. What fragrance in this room!

LINDA: Well, after all, people had to move somewhere.

WILLY: No, there’s more people now.

LINDA: I don’t think there’s more people. I think—

WILLY: There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. The competition is maddening! Smell the stink from that apartment house! And another one on the other side . . . How can they whip cheese?

LINDA: Go down, try it. And be quiet.

WILLY [
turning to
LINDA,
guiltily
]: You’re not worried about me, are you, sweetheart?

BIFF: What’s the matter?

HAPPY: Listen!

LINDA: You’ve got too much on the ball to worry about.

WILLY: You’re my foundation and my support, Linda.

LINDA: Just try to relax, dear. You make mountains out of molehills.

WILLY: I won’t fight with him any more. If he wants to go back to Texas, let him go.

LINDA: He’ll find his way.

WILLY: Sure. Certain men just don’t get started till later in life. Like Thomas Edison, I think. Or B. F. Goodrich. One of them was deaf. [
He starts for the bedroom doorway.
] I’ll put my money on Biff.

LINDA: And Willy—if it’s warm Sunday we’ll drive in the country. And we’ll open the windshield, and take lunch.

WILLY: No, the windshields don’t open on the new cars.

LINDA: But you opened it today.

WILLY: Me? I didn’t. [
He stops.
] Now isn’t that peculiar! Isn’t that a remarkable—[
He breaks off in amazement and fright as the flute is heard distantly.
]

LINDA: What, darling?

WILLY: That is the most remarkable thing.

LINDA: What, dear?

WILLY: I was thinking of the Chevvy. [
Slight pause.
] Nineteen twenty-eight . . . when I had that red Chevvy—[
Breaks off.
] That funny? I coulda sworn I was driving that Chevvy today.

LINDA: Well, that’s nothing. Something must’ve reminded you.

WILLY: Remarkable. Ts. Remember those days? The way Biff used to simonize that car? The dealer refused to believe there was eighty thousand miles on it. [
He shakes his head.
] Heh! [
To
LINDA] Close your eyes, I’ll be right up. [
He walks out of the bedroom.
]

HAPPY [
to
BIFF]: Jesus, maybe he smashed up the car again!

LINDA [
calling after
WILLY]: Be careful on the stairs, dear! The cheese is on the middle shelf! [
She turns, goes over to the bed, takes his jacket, and goes out of the bedroom.
]

HAPPY [
getting out of bed
]: He’s going to get his licence taken away if he keeps that up. I’m getting nervous about him, y’know, Biff ?

BIFF: His eyes are going.

HAPPY: No, I’ve driven with him. He sees all right. He just doesn’t keep his mind on it. I drove into the city with him last week. He stops at a green light and then it turns red and he goes. [
He laughs.
]

BIFF: Maybe he’s color-blind.

HAPPY: Pop? Why, he’s got the finest eye for color in the business. You know that.

BIFF [
sitting down on his bed
]: I’m going to sleep.

HAPPY: You’re not still sour on Dad, are you, Biff?

BIFF: He’s all right, I guess.

WILLY [
underneath them, in the living-room
]: Yes, sir, eighty thousand miles—eighty-two thousand!

BIFF: You smoking?

HAPPY [
holding out a pack of cigarettes
]: Want one?

BIFF [
taking a cigarette
]: I can never sleep when I smell it.

WILLY: What a simonizing job, heh!

HAPPY [
with deep sentiment
]: Funny, Biff, y’know? Us sleeping in here again? The old beds. [
He pats his bed affectionately.
] All the talk that went across those two beds, huh? Our whole lives.

BIFF: Yeah. Lotta dreams and plans.

HAPPY [
with a deep and masculine laugh
]: About five hundred women would like to know what was said in this room.

[
They share a soft laugh.
]

BIFF: Remember that big Betsy something—what the hell was her name—over on Bushwick Avenue?

HAPPY [
combing his hair
]: With the collie dog!

BIFF: That’s the one. I got you in there, remember?

HAPPY: Yeah, that was my first time—I think. Boy, there was a pig! [
They laugh, almost crudely.
] You taught me everything I know about women. Don’t forget that.

BIFF: I bet you forgot how bashful you used to be. Especially with girls.

HAPPY: Oh, I still am, Biff.

BIFF: Oh, go on.

HAPPY: I just control it, that’s all. I think I got less bashful and you got more so. What happened, Biff? Where’s the old humor, the old confidence? [
He shakes
BIFF’S
knee.
BIFF
gets up and moves restlessly about the room.
] What’s the matter?

BIFF: Why does Dad mock me all the time?

HAPPY: He’s not mocking you, he—

BIFF: Everything I say there’s a twist of mockery on his face. I can’t get near him.

HAPPY: He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about Dad for a long time, Biff. Something’s—happening to him. He—talks to himself.

BIFF: I noticed that this morning. But he always mumbled.

HAPPY: But not so noticeable. It got so embarrassing I sent him to Florida. And you know something? Most of the time he’s talking to you.

BIFF: What’s he say about me?

HAPPY: I can’t make it out.

BIFF: What’s he say about me?

HAPPY: I think the fact that you’re not settled, that you’re still kind of up in the air . . .

BIFF: There’s one or two other things depressing him, Happy.

HAPPY: What do you mean?

BIFF: Never mind. Just don’t lay it all to me.

HAPPY: But I think if you got started—I mean—is there any future for you out there?

BIFF: I tell ya, Hap, I don’t know what the future is. I don’t know—what I’m supposed to want.

HAPPY: What do you mean?

BIFF: Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it’s a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. And still—that’s how you build a future.

HAPPY: Well, you really enjoy it on a farm? Are you content out there?

BIFF [
with rising agitation
]: Hap, I’ve had twenty or thirty different kinds of job since I left home before the war, and it always turns out the same. I just realized it lately. In Nebraska when I herded cattle, and the Dakotas, and Arizona, and now in Texas. It’s why I came home now, I guess, because I realized it. This farm I work on, it’s spring there now, see? And they’ve got about fifteen new colts. There’s nothing more inspiring or—beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt. And it’s cool there now, see? Texas is cool now, and it’s spring. And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I’m not gettin’ anywhere! What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week! I’m thirty-four years old, I oughta be makin’ my future. That’s when I come running home. And now, I get here, and I don’t know what to do with myself. [
After a pause
] I’ve always made a point of not wasting my life, and everytime I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my life.

HAPPY: You’re a poet, you know that, Biff? You’re a—you’re an idealist!

BIFF: No, I’m mixed up very bad. Maybe I oughta get married. Maybe I oughta get stuck into something. Maybe that’s my trouble. I’m like a boy. I’m not married, I’m not in business, I just—I’m like a boy. Are you content, Hap? You’re a success, aren’t you? Are you content?

HAPPY: Hell, no!

BIFF: Why? You’re making money, aren’t you?

HAPPY [
moving about with energy, expressiveness
]: All I can do now is wait for the merchandise manager to die. And suppose I get to be merchandise manager? He’s a good friend of mine, and he just built a terrific estate on Long Island. And he lived there about two months and sold it, and now he’s building another one. He can’t enjoy it once it’s finished. And I know that’s just what I would do. I don’t know what the hell I’m workin’ for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment—all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely.

BIFF [
with enthusiasm
]: Listen, why don’t you come out West with me?

HAPPY: You and I, heh?

BIFF: Sure, maybe we could buy a ranch. Raise cattle, use our muscles. Men built like we are should be working out in the open.

HAPPY [
avidly
]: The Loman Brothers, heh?

BIFF [
with vast affection
]: Sure, we’d be known all over the counties!

HAPPY [
enthralled
]: That’s what I dream about, Biff. Sometimes I want to just rip my clothes off in the middle of the store and outbox that goddam merchandise manager. I mean I can outbox, outrun, and outlift anybody in that store, and I have to take orders from those common, petty sons-of-bitches till I can’t stand it any more.

BIFF: I’m tellin’ you, kid, if you were with me I’d be happy out there.

HAPPY [
enthused
]: See, Biff, everybody around me is so false that I’m constantly lowering my ideals . . .

BIFF: Baby, together we’d stand up for one another, we’d have someone to trust.

HAPPY: If I were around you—

BIFF: Hap, the trouble is we weren’t brought up to grub for money. I don’t know how to do it.

HAPPY: Neither can I!

BIFF: Then let’s go!

HAPPY: The only thing is—what can you make out there?

BIFF: But look at your friend. Builds an estate and then hasn’t the peace of mind to live in it.

HAPPY: Yeah, but when he walks into the store the waves part in front of him. That’s fifty-two thousand dollars a year coming through the revolving door, and I got more in my pinky finger than he’s got in his head.