Baby Doll & Tiger Tail by Tennessee Williams

last bottle of coke ’fore the fire broke out.
    BABY DOLL : Well! —I got to have me another an’ I know where to git one, too!
    AUNT ROSE : Now, you can exist without another cola till Archie Lee takes you downtown fo’ one.
    BABY DOLL : In your opinion, not mine! I know where to get me a coke without Archie Lee and it ain’t downtown.
    AUNT ROSE : No place I know of, Precious.
    BABY DOLL : Ruby Lightfoot has colas an’ that’s where I’ll git me one by myself, on foot!
    AUNT ROSE : Lawd, lawd, no! You at a good-time house? Unescorted?
    BABY DOLL : Don’t worry, Aunt Rose. Archie Lee gimme this pistol in the—
    [
She rushes inside: sound of drawer slamming
.]
    AUNT ROSE : No, no, no! Not in your condition, it might go off accidental!
    BABY DOLL [
emerging from house
]: Don’t you worry, I’ll be right back!
    AUNT ROSE : Wait here, I’ll go with you, soon as I get my hat on! I’ll go in fo’ it, you stay out—outside— A woman my age is—whew!—less likely to be molested.
    [
Baby Doll has already run down the road. Gun shot. Both women scream. In a few moments she runs back, gasping with horror
.]
    AUNT ROSE [
continuing, hand to her chest
]: Baby Doll! What’s happened? What’re you shootin’ at?!
    BABY DOLL [
wild-eyed, aghast
]: A man!
    AUNT ROSE : A man?
    BABY DOLL : Jumped outa the bushes and stood right square in the road and he—he SHOWED himself to me, third time this month! I would of shot him daid if he’d moved at me! I scaired him silly with my pistol!
    AUNT ROSE : Set down, now, honey, breathe quiet. You could a just imagined it, out of—excitement.
    BABY DOLL : Plain as day I seen it in the full moon on the road! A man! I’m gonna report it to the Sheriff. You phone him!
    AUNT ROSE : He would only laugh at an old woman like me.
    BABY DOLL : I’ll phone him m’self soon as I catch my breath.
    AUNT ROSE : Honey, it would get in the paper again and you don’t want that. I think maybe I got some paregoric to calm your nerves—yes, I’ll fetch it right now.
    [
Starting back in, she sways dizzily, clutching the door handle for support
.]
    BABY DOLL : Aunt Rose! Are you all right?
    AUNT ROSE : It’s just been too much all at once, this experience you say happened—the fire, all that excitement—give me a dizzy spell.
    BABY DOLL : Then you go right in to bed.
    [
Baby Doll supports the old woman inside: the hall is lighted dimly
.]
    AUNT ROSE : Child, child, be careful! I’m terrified of the future. Don’t know what it holds—except death. —Promise me you’ll give me a Christian burial, child, and when I’m gone, you won’t disappoint my brother, bless his—
    [
Their voices fade out. A moment later Baby Doll returns to the porch with paregoric and teaspoon: she leans against the screen door and pours it somewhat inaccurately into the spoon, tastes it. Baby Doll sits in swing, pouting. . . waiting. Archie Lee’s car is heard turning into the drive. Archie scuttles on stage carrying an empty gallon can of coal oil and pitches it under the corner of the front porch. He walks downstage to peer at the dim glow from the Syndicate blaze. He turns to face the porch as a dog barks at him in the distance
.]
    ARCHIE : What are you doin’ out here this time a-the night? Dressed like that?
    BABY DOLL : I ain’t talkin’ to you. . .
    ARCHIE : I said, what are you doing out here?
    BABY DOLL : Because in the first place, I didn’t have the money to pay for a hotel room, because you don’t gimme any money, because you don’t have any money ever since Syndicate started ginnin’ all the cotton around here, and secondly, even if I had the money I couldn’t have had no way of getting there because you went off in the Chevy, and left me no way of getting there or anywhere, including to the Syndicate fire which I wanted to see just like everyone else in Tiger Tail Bayou. . .
    ARCHIE : What fire you talking about?
    BABY DOLL : What fire am I talking about?
    ARCHIE : I don’t know about