Vieux Carre by Tennessee Williams Page B

sleeping alone in the dark. But the Lord gave us dark for sleep, and Daddy don’t like to find you took his rightful place . . .
    WRITER : Mrs. Wire, I’m no relation to you, none but a tenant that earned his keep a while . . . Nursie! Nursie!
    NURSIE [
approaching
]: She gone up there? [
Nursie appears
.] She gets these spells, goes back in time. I think it musta been all that Azalea Festival excitement done it.
    MRS. WIRE : “If the bough breaks, the cradle will fall . . .”
    NURSIE [
at the cubicle entrance
]: Mizz Wire, it’s Nursie. I’ll take you back downstairs.
    MRS. WIRE [
rousing a bit
]: It all seemed so real. —I even remember lovemaking . . .
    NURSIE : Get up, Mizz Wire, come down with Nursie.
    MRS. WIRE [
accepting Nursie’s support
]: Now I’ m— old.
    [
They withdraw from the light
.]
    MRS. WIRE’S VOICE : Ahhhhhhhh . . . Ahhhhhhhh . . . Ahhhh . . . Ahhhhh . . .
    [
This expression of despair is lost in the murmur of the wind. The writer sinks onto his cot; the angel of the alcove appears in the dusk
.]
    WRITER : Grand! [
She lifts her hand in a valedictory gesture
.] I guess angels warn you to leave a place by leaving before you.
    [
The light dims in the cubicle as the writer begins to pack and builds back up in the studio. The writer returns to the edge of the studio light
.]
    JANE : You said you were going to get dressed and go back to your place of employment and resume the pitch for the ladies.
    TYE : What did you say, Babe?
    [
He has finished dressing and is now at the mirror, absorbed in combing his hair. Jane utters a soft, involuntary laugh
.]
    JANE : A hundred dollars, the price, and worth it, certainly worth it. I must be much in your debt, way over my means to payoff!
    TYE : Well, I ain’t paid to make a bad appearance at work. [
He puts on a sport shirt with girls in grass skirts printed on it
.]
    JANE : I hate that shirt.
    TYE : I know you think it’s tacky. Well, I’m tacky, and it’s the only clean one I got.
    JANE : It isn’t clean, not really. And does it express much grief over the Champagne Girl’s violent departure to Spain?
    TYE : Do you have to hit me with that? What reason . . . ?
    JANE : I’ve really got no reason to hit a goddamn soul but myself that lacked pride to keep my secrets. You know I shouldn’t have told you about my— intentions, I should have just slippedaway. The Brazilian was far from attractive but— my circumstances required some drastic— compromises.
    TYE [
crouching beside her
]: You’re talking no sense, Jane. The Brazilian’s out of the picture; those steps on the stairs were steps of hospital workers coming to take a— pick a dying fruit outa the place.
    JANE :
Do you think I expect you back here again?
You’ll say yes, assure me now as if forever— but— reconsider— the moment of impulse . . .
    TYE : Cut some slack for me, Babe. We all gotta cut some slack for each other in this fucking world. Lissen. You don’t have to sweat it.
    JANE : Give me another remission; one that lasts!
    TYE : Gotta go now, it’s late, after dark and I’m dressed.
    JANE : Well, zip your fly up unless you’re now in the show. [
She rises and zips up his fly, touches his face and throat with trembling fingers
.]
    TYE : Jane, we got love between us! Don’t ya know that?
    JANE [
not harshly
]: Lovely old word, love, it’s travelled a long way, Tye.
    TYE : And still’s a long way to go. Hate to leave you alone but—
    JANE : I’m not alone. I’ve got Beret. An animal is a comforting presence sometimes. I wonder if they’d admit her to St. Vincent’s?
    TYE : St. Vincent’s?
    JANE : That charity hospital where they took the painter called Nightingale.
    TYE : You ain’t going there, honey.
    JANE : It strikes me as being a likely destination.
    TYE : Why?
    JANE : I