Death of a Salesman (7 page)

BIFF: Did you knock them dead, Pop?

WILLY: Knocked ’em cold in Providence, slaughtered ’em in Boston.

HAPPY [
on his back, pedaling again
]: I’m losing weight, you notice, Pop?

LINDA [
with youthful energy
]: Hello, dear!

WILLY: Sweetheart!

LINDA: How’d the Chevvy run?

WILLY: Chevrolet, Linda, is the greatest car ever built. [
To the boys
] Since when do you let your mother carry wash up the stairs?

BIFF: Grab hold there, boy!

HAPPY: Where to, Mom?

LINDA: Hang them up on the line. And you better go down to your friends, Biff. The cellar is full of boys. They don’t know what to do with themselves.

BIFF: Ah, when Pop comes home they can wait!

WILLY [
laughs appreciatively
]: You better go down and tell them what to do, Biff.

BIFF: I think I’ll have them sweep out the furnace room.

WILLY: Good work, Biff.

BIFF [
goes through wall-line of kitchen to doorway at back and calls down
]: Fellas! Everybody sweep out the furnace room! I’ll be right down!

VOICES: All right! Okay, Biff.

BIFF: George and Sam and Frank, come out back! We’re hangin’ up the wash! Come on, Hap, on the double! [
He and
HAPPY
carry out the basket.
]

LINDA: The way they obey him!

WILLY: Well, that’s training, the training. I’m tellin’ you, I was sellin’ thousands and thousands, but I had to come home.

LINDA: Oh, the whole block’ll be at that game. Did you sell anything?

WILLY: I did five hundred gross in Providence and seven hundred gross in Boston.

LINDA: No! Wait a minute, I’ve got a pencil. [
She pulls pencil and paper out of her apron pocket.
] That makes your commission . . . Two hundred—my God! Two hundred and twelve dollars!

WILLY: Well, I didn’t figure it yet, but . . .

LINDA: How much did you do?

WILLY: Well, I—I did—about a hundred and eighty gross in Providence. Well, no—it came to—roughly two hundred gross on the whole trip.

LINDA [
without hesitation
]: Two hundred gross. That’s . . . [
She figures.
]

WILLY: The trouble was that three of the stores were half closed for inventory in Boston. Otherwise I woulda broke records.

LINDA: Well, it makes seventy dollars and some pennies. That’s very good.

WILLY: What do we owe?

LINDA: Well, on the first there’s sixteen dollars on the refrigerator—

WILLY: Why sixteen?

LINDA: Well, the fan belt broke, so it was a dollar eighty.

WILLY: But it’s brand new.

LINDA: Well, the man said that’s the way it is. Till they work themselves in, y’know.

[
They move through the wall-line into the kitchen.
]

WILLY: I hope we didn’t get stuck on that machine.

LINDA: They got the biggest ads of any of them!

WILLY: I know, it’s a fine machine. What else?

LINDA: Well, there’s nine-sixty for the washing machine. And for the vacuum cleaner there’s three and a half due on the fifteenth. Then the roof, you got twenty-one dollars remaining.

WILLY: It don’t leak, does it?

LINDA: No, they did a wonderful job. Then you owe Frank for the carburetor.

WILLY: I’m not going to pay that man! That goddam Chevrolet, they ought to prohibit the manufacture of that car!

LINDA: Well, you owe him three and a half. And odds and ends, comes to around a hundred and twenty dollars by the fifteenth.

WILLY: A hundred and twenty dollars! My God, if business don’t pick up I don’t know what I’m gonna do!

LINDA: Well, next week you’ll do better.

WILLY: Oh, I’ll knock ’em dead next week. I’ll go to Hartford. I’m very well liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don’t seem to take to me.

[
They move onto the forestage.
]

LINDA: Oh, don’t be foolish.

WILLY: I know it when I walk in. They seem to laugh at me.

LINDA: Why? Why would they laugh at you? Don’t talk that way, Willy.

WILLY: I don’t know the reason for it, but they just pass me by. I’m not noticed.

LINDA: But you’re doing wonderful, dear. You’re making seventy to a hundred dollars a week.

WILLY: But I gotta be at it ten, twelve hours a day. Other men—I don’t know—they do it easier. I don’t know why —I can’t stop myself—I talk too much. A man oughta come in with a few words. One thing about Charley. He’s a man of few words, and they respect him.

LINDA: You don’t talk too much, you’re just lively.

WILLY [
smiling
]: Well, I figure, what the hell, life is short, a couple of jokes. [
To himself
] I joke too much! [
The smile goes.
]

LINDA: Why? You’re—

WILLY: I’m fat. I’m very—foolish to look at, Linda. I didn’t tell you, but Christmas time I happened to be calling on F. H. Stewarts, and a salesman I know, as I was going in to see the buyer I heard him say something about—walrus. And I—I cracked him right across the face. I won’t take that. I simply will not take that. But they do laugh at me. I know that.

LINDA: Darling . . .

WILLY: I gotta overcome it. I know I gotta overcome it. I’m not dressing to advantage, maybe.

LINDA: Willy, darling, you’re the handsomest man in the world—

WILLY: Oh, no, Linda.

LINDA: To me you are. [
Slight pause.
] The handsomest.

LINDA: And the boys, Willy. Few men are idolized by their children the way you are.

[
Music is heard as behind a scrim, to the left of the house,

THE WOMAN,
dimly seen, is dressing.
]

WILLY [
with great feeling
]: You’re the best there is, Linda, you’re a pal, you know that? On the road—on the road I want to grab you sometimes and just kiss the life outa you.

WILLY: ’Cause I get so lonely—especially when business is bad and there’s nobody to talk to. I get the feeling that I’ll never sell anything again, that I won’t make a living for you, or a business, a business for the boys. [
He talks through
THE WOMAN’S
subsiding laughter;
THE WOMAN
primps at the “mirror.”
] There’s so much I want to make for—

THE WOMAN: Me? You didn’t make me, Willy. I picked you.

WILLY [
pleased
]: You picked me?

THE WOMAN [
who is quite proper-looking, Willy’s age
]: I did. I’ve been sitting at that desk watching all the salesmen go by, day in, day out. But you’ve got such a sense of humor, and we do have such a good time together, don’t we?

WILLY: Sure, sure. [
He takes her in his arms.
] Why do you have to go now?

THE WOMAN: It’s two o’clock . . .

WILLY: No, come on in! [
He pulls her.
]

THE WOMAN: . . . my sisters’ll be scandalized. When’ll you be back?

WILLY: Oh, two weeks about. Will you come up again?

THE WOMAN: Sure thing. You do make me laugh. It’s good for me. [
She squeezes his arm, kisses him.
] And I think you’re a wonderful man.

WILLY: You picked me, heh?

THE WOMAN: Sure. Because you’re so sweet. And such a kidder.

WILLY: Well, I’ll see you next time I’m in Boston.

THE WOMAN: I’ll put you right through to the buyers.

WILLY [
slapping her bottom
]: Right. Well, bottoms up!

THE WOMAN [
slaps him gently and laughs
]: You just kill me, Willy. [
He suddenly grabs her and kisses her roughly.
] You kill me. And thanks for the stockings. I love a lot of stockings. Well, good night.

WILLY: Good night. And keep your pores open!

THE WOMAN: Oh, Willy!

LINDA: You are, Willy. The handsomest man. You’ve got no reason to feel that—

WILLY [
coming out of
THE WOMAN’S
dimming area and going over to
LINDA]: I’ll make it all up to you, Linda, I’ll—

LINDA: There’s nothing to make up, dear. You’re doing fine, better than—

WILLY [
noticing her mending
]: What’s that?

LINDA: Just mending my stockings. They’re so expensive—

WILLY [
angrily, taking them from her
]: I won’t have you mending stockings in this house! Now throw them out!

[LINDA
puts the stockings in her pocket.
]

BERNARD [
entering on the run
]: Where is he? If he doesn’t study!

WILLY [
moving to the forestage, with great agitation
]: You’ll give him the answers!

BERNARD: I do, but I can’t on a Regents! That’s a state exam! They’re liable to arrest me!

WILLY: Where is he? I’ll whip him, I’ll whip him!

LINDA: And he’d better give back that football, Willy, it’s not nice.

WILLY: Biff! Where is he? Why is he taking everything?

LINDA: He’s too rough with the girls, Willy. All the mothers are afraid of him!

WILLY: I’ll whip him!

BERNARD: He’s driving the car without a license!

[THE WOMAN’S
laugh is heard.
]

WILLY: Shut up!

LINDA: All the mothers—

WILLY: Shut up!

BERNARD [
backing quietly away and out
]: Mr. Birnbaum says he’s stuck up.

WILLY: Get outa here!

BERNARD: If he doesn’t buckle down he’ll flunk math! [
He goes off.
]

LINDA: He’s right, Willy, you’ve gotta—

WILLY [
exploding at her
]: There’s nothing the matter with him! You want him to be a worm like Bernard? He’s got spirit, personality . . .

WILLY: Loaded with it. Loaded! What is he stealing? He’s giving it back, isn’t he? Why is he stealing? What did I tell him? I never in my life told him anything but decent things.

HAPPY: Let’s go now, come on.

WILLY [
sitting down at the kitchen table
]: Huh! Why did she have to wax the floors herself? Everytime she waxes the floors she keels over. She knows that!

HAPPY: Shh! Take it easy. What brought you back tonight?

WILLY: I got an awful scare. Nearly hit a kid in Yonkers. God! Why didn’t I go to Alaska with my brother Ben that time! Ben! That man was a genius, that man was success incarnate! What a mistake! He begged me to go.

HAPPY: Well, there’s no use in—

WILLY: You guys! There was a man started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines?

HAPPY: Boy, someday I’d like to know how he did it.

WILLY: What’s the mystery? The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle, and comes out, the age of twenty-one, and he’s rich! The world is an oyster, but you don’t crack it open on a mattress!

HAPPY: Pop, I told you I’m gonna retire you for life.

WILLY: You’ll retire me for life on seventy goddam dollars a week? And your women and your car and your apartment, and you’ll retire me for life! Christ’s sake, I couldn’t get past Yonkers today! Where are you guys, where are you? The woods are burning! I can’t drive a car!

CHARLEY: Everything all right?

HAPPY: Yeah, Charley, everything’s . . .

WILLY: What’s the matter?

CHARLEY: I heard some noise. I thought something happened. Can’t we do something about the walls? You sneeze in here, and in my house hats blow off.

HAPPY: Let’s go to bed, Dad. Come on.

[CHARLEY
signals to
HAPPY
to go.
]

WILLY: You go ahead, I’m not tired at the moment.

HAPPY [
to
WILLY]: Take it easy, huh? [
He exits.
]

WILLY: What’re you doin’ up?

CHARLEY [
sitting down at the kitchen table opposite
WILLY]: Couldn’t sleep good. I had a heartburn.

WILLY: Well, you don’t know how to eat.

CHARLEY: I eat with my mouth.

WILLY: No, you’re ignorant. You gotta know about vitamins and things like that.

CHARLEY: Come on, let’s shoot. Tire you out a little.