Vieux Carre (9 page)

WRITER
[
to Sky
]: —Were you serious about the West Coast offer?

SKY
: You're welcome to come along with me. I don't like to travel a long distance like that by myself.

WRITER
: How do you travel?

SKY
: I've got a beat-up old '32 Ford across the street with a little oil and about half a tank of gas in it. If you want to go, we could share the expense. Have you got any cash?

WRITER
: I guess I've accumulated a capital of about thirty-five dollars.

SKY
: We'll siphon gas on the way.

WRITER
: Siphon?

SKY
: I travel with a little rubber tube, and at night I unscrew the top of somebody's gas tank and suck the gas out through the tube and spit it into a bucket and empty it into my car. Is it a deal?

WRITER
[
with suppressed excitement
]: How would we live on the road?

SKY
[
rolling a cigarette with obvious practice
]: We'd have to exercise our wits. And our personal charm. And, well, if that don't suffice, I have a blanket in the car, and there's plenty of wide open spaces between here and the Coast. [
He pauses for a beat
.] Scared? Of the undertaking?

WRITER
[
smiling slowly
]:
No—
the
Coast—
starting when?

SKY
: Why not this evening? The landlady won't admit me to the house again, but I'll call you. Just keep your window open. I'll blow my clarinet in the courtyard. Let's say about six.

JANE
: Tye, Tye,
oh—
Christ . . .

TYE
: —
Wh—
?

Some men would beat a chick up for less'n that, y'know.

JANE
: All right, get out of bed and beat me up, but get
up
.

TYE
[
stroking a promontory beneath the bed sheet
]: —Can't you see I
am
up?

JANE
: I don't mean that kind of up, and don't bring stripshow lewdness in here
this—
Sunday afternoon.

TYE
: Babe, don't mention the show to me t'day.

JANE
: I'd like to remind you that when we first stumbled into
this—
crazy—co-habitation, you promised me you'd quit the show in a week.

TYE
: For what? Tight as work is for a dude with five grades of school and no skill training from the Mississippi sticks?

JANE
: You could find something
less—
publicly embarrassing, like
a—
filling station attendant.

TYE
: Ha!

JANE
: But of course your choice of employment is no concern of mine now.

TYE
: Why not, Babe?

JANE
: I'm not “Babe” and not “Chick”!

TYE
: You say you're not my chick?

JANE
: I say I'm nobody's chick.

TYE
: Any chick who shacks with me's my chick.

JANE
: This is my place. You
just—
moved in and stayed.

TYE
: I paid the rent this month.

JANE
: Half of it, for the first time, my savings being as close to exhaustion as me.

Lord, I don't know how I managed to haul you to bed.

TYE
: Hey, you put me to bed last night?

JANE
: It was much too much exertion for someone in
my—
condition.

TYE
[
focusing on her more closely
]: —Honey, are you pregnant?

JANE
: No, Lord, now who'd be fool enough to get pregnant by a Bourbon Street stripshow barker?

TYE
: When a chick talks about her condition, don't it mean she's pregnant?

JANE
: All female conditions are not pregnancy, Tye. [
She staggers, then finishes her coffee
.] Mine is that of a desperate young woman living with a young bum employed by gangsters and using her place as a depository for hot merchandise. Well, they're all packed. You're packed too.

TYE
: —Come to bed.

JANE
: No, thank you. Your face is smeared with lipstick; also other parts of you. I didn't know lip rouge ever covered so
much—
territory.

TYE
: I honestly don't remember a fuckin' thing after midnight.

JANE
: That I do believe. Now have some coffee, I've warmed it. It isn't instant, it's percolated.

TYE
: Who's birthday is it?

JANE
: It's percolated in honor of our day of parting.

TYE
: Aw, be sweet, Babe, please come back to bed. I need comfort, not coffee.

JANE
: You broke a promise to me.

TYE
: Which?

JANE
: Among the many? You used a needle last night. I saw the mark of it on you.

TYE
: No shit. Where?

JANE
[
returning to the bedside
]: There, right there on
your—
[
He circles her with his arm and pulls her onto the bed
.] I've been betrayed by
a—
sensual streak in my nature. Susceptibility to touch. And you have skin like a child. I'd gladly support you if I believed you'
d—
if I had the means to and the time to. Time. Means. Luck. Things that expire, run out. And all at once you're stranded.

TYE
: Jane
you—
lie down with me and hold me.

JANE
: I'm afraid, Tye, we'll just have to hold each other in our memories from now on.

TYE
[
childishly
]: Don't talk that way. I never had a rougher night in my life. Do I have to think and remember?

JANE
: Tye, we've had a long spell of dreaming, but now we suddenly have to.

TYE
: Got any aspirin, Babe?

JANE
: You're past aspirin, Tye. I think you've gone past all
legal—
analgesics.

TYE
: You say words to me I've never heard before.

JANE
: Tye, I've been forced to make an urgent phone call to someone I never wanted to call.

TYE
: Call?

JANE
: And then I packed your personal belongings and all that loot you've been holding here. Exertion of packing nearly blacked me out. Trembling,
sweating—
had to bathe and change.

TYE
: Babe?

JANE
: You're vacating the premises, “Babe.” It's
afternoon
.

TYE
: Look, if you're knocked up, have the kid. I'm against abortion.

JANE
: On moral principles?

TYE
: Have the kid, Babe. I'd pull myself together for a kid.

JANE
: You didn't for me.

TYE
: A baby would be a livin' thing between us, with both our blood.

JANE
: Never mind.

NURSIE
: Any donations t'keep the cou'tyard up, just drop it in my apron as you go out, ladies! . . .

JANE
: Those tourists down there in the courtyard! If I'd known when I took this room it was over a tourist
attraction—

TYE
: It's the Festival, Babe. It ain't always Festival . . . gimme my cigarettes, ought to be some left in a pocket.

JANE
[
throwing his pants and a fancy sport shirt on the bed
]: Here, your clothes, get in them.

TYE
[
putting on his shorts
]: Not yet. It's Sunday, Babe . . . Where's Beret? I like Beret to be here when I wake up.

JANE
: Not even a cat will wait ten, twelve hours for you to sleep off whatever you shot last night. How did a girl well educated and reasonably well brought up get involved in this . . . Oh, I'm talking to myself.

TYE
: I hear you, Babe, and I see you.

JANE
: Then . . . get up and dressed.

TYE
: It's not dark yet, Babe. Y'know I never get dressed till after dark on Sundays.

JANE
: Today has to be an exception. I'm . . . expecting a caller, very important to me.

TYE
: Fashion designer?

JANE
: No. Buyer . . . to look at my illustrations. They're no good, I'm no good. I just had a flair, not a talent, and the flair flared out, I'm . . . finished. These sketches are evidence of it! [
She starts tearing fashion sketches off the wall
.] Look at me! Bangles, jangles! All taste gone! [
She tears off her costume jewelry
.]

TYE
: Babe, you're in no shape to meet a buyer.

JANE
[
slowly and bitterly
]: He's no buyer of anything but me.

TYE
: —Buyer of
you?
Look. You said that you were expecting a buyer to look at your drawin's here.

JANE
: I know what I said, I said a buyer to look at my illustrations,
but what I said was a lie. Among other things, many other undreamed of before, you've taught me to practice deception.

VOICES OFFSTAGE
: Edwina, Edwina, come see this dream of a little courtyard. Oh, my, yaiss, like a dream.

JANE
: I know what I said, but let's say, Tye, that I experienced last week a somewhat less than triumphant encounter with the buyer of fashion illustrations at
Vogue Moderne
. In fact, it left me too shattered to carry my portfolio home without a shot of Metaxas brandy at the Blue Lantern, which was on the street level of the building. It was there that I met a gentleman from Brazil. He had observed my entrance, the Brazilian, and apparently took me for a hooker, sprang up with surprising agility for a gentleman of his corpulence, hauled me to his table, and introduced me to his
camaradas
, “Señorita, this is Señor and Señor and Señor,” declared me, “
Bonita
,
muy, muy, bonita”—
tried to press a hundred-dollar bill in my hand. Well, some atavistic bit of propriety surfaced and I, like a fool, rejected
it—
but did accept his business card, just in case. This morning, Tye, I called him. “Señorita Bonita of the Blue Lantern awaits you, top floor of seven-two-two Toulouse,” that was the invitation that I phoned in to the message desk. He must have received it by now at the Hotel Royal Orleans, where the Presidential Suite somehow contains him.

TYE
: Who're you talkin' about?

JANE
: My expected caller, a responsible businessman from Brazil. Sincerely interested in my bankrupt state . . .

TYE
: Forget it, come back to bed and I'll undress you, Babe, you need rest.

JANE
: The bed bit is finished between us. You're moving out today.

No, no, no, no, no, no!

TYE
: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

MRS. WIRE
[
from a few steps below the writer
]: What's paralyzed you there? Son?

WRITER
: Miss Sparks is crying.

MRS. WIRE
: That woman's moanin' in there don't mean she's in pain. Son, I got a suspicion you never had close relations with wimmen in your life.

JANE
: Ohhh!

WRITER
: I never heard sounds like that.

TYE'S VOICE
: Babe, I don't wanna force you . . .

JANE'S VOICE
: Plee-ase! I'm not a thing, I'm
not—
a—thing!

MRS. WIRE
[
shouting
]: You all quit that loud fornication in there!

TYE'S VOICE
[
shouting back
]: Get the fuck downstairs, god-dam ole witch!

MRS. WIRE
: Howlin' insults at me in my own house, won't tolerate it! [
She bursts into the room
.] Never seen such a disgustin' exhibition!

JANE
: As! You see!—Mrs. Wire!—Everything is!—packed, he's —
moving—
today . . .

TYE
: The rent is paid in full! So get the fuck outa here!

JANE
: Tye, please.

MRS. WIRE
: What's in them boxes?

TYE
: None of
your—

JANE
: Our
personal—
belongings, Mrs. Wire.

MRS. WIRE
: That I doubt! The contents of these boxes will be inspected before removed from this place and in the presence of my nephew on the police force!

Don't you expose yourself naykid in my presence! Nursie!

JANE
: Mrs. Wire, for once I do agree with you! Can you get him out, please, please get him out!

MRS. WIRE
[
averting her face with an air of shocked propriety
]: Dress at once
and—

NURSIE
: Mizz Wire, I got the hospital on the phone.

MRS. WIRE
: They sendin' an ambulance for Nightingale?

NURSIE
: Soon's they got a bed for him, but they want you to call 'em back
and—

MRS. WIRE
: St. Vincent's is run by taxpayers' money, I'll remind 'em of that. [
She crosses off stage. Tye slams the door
.]