27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays by Tennessee Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

OTHER: I never should have poured—dark wine—at supper.
    S ON: Mother!
    M OTHER:
    Yes—yes, lately the place has grown a great deal wilder
    because of neglect
    or maybe because winds take more liberty with it.
    Storms seem to come more often.
    F ATHER:
    Year after year it’s the same.

    I step out the door, a little bit drunk after supper, to watch down the valley—
    Five miles off, even ten,
    the rainstorms advancing like armies of tall, silent men.
    Nothing changes . . .
    M OTHER:
    But isn’t it strange how things grow up in a life?
    Like trees—
    One spring planted—accepted—forgotten almost,
    Then all of a sudden—crowding the backyard with shadows!
    F ATHER:
    Invaders!
    We are invaders ourselves.
    These ranches, these golden valleys—
    A land so fiercely contested as this land was.
    Father’s blood and mother’s anguish bought it!
    Is it to be merely used for cattle to graze on?
    Are we to build on it nothing but barns and fences?
    No, no, we are invaders. We used the land—gave nothing!
    But even so—
    This man has killed our daughter.
    We ask in return his life.
    M OTHER: Demand his life in return.
    L UISA: Hear how the blood-lust in them cries out loud!
    T HE J UDGE:
    Rosalio, in your presence your sister was slain.
    It is for you to accuse the man who . . .
    S ON: ( springing up )Yes, I accuse him!
    L UISA:
    Your tongue should be torn from your mouth and flung to buzzards!
    Shameless—Shameless!

    S ON:
    Yes, I am shameless—shameless.
    The kitchen-woman has spoken her kitchen truth.
    The loft of the barn was occupied by lovers not once, not twice, but time and time again, whenever our blood’s rebellion broke down bars.
    Resistless it was, this coming of birds together in heaven’s center . . .
    Plumage—song—the dizzy spirals of flight all suddenly forced together in one brief, burning conjunction!
    Oh—oh—
    a passionate little spasm of wings and throats that clutched—and uttered—darkness . . .
    Down
    down
    down
    Afterwards, shattered, we found our bodies in grass.
    ( Soft music )
    The coolness healed us,
    the evening drained our fever,
    bandaged the wounded part in silk of stars . . .
    And so did the wind take back the startling pony—and hurl him down arroyos toward the dawn!
    ( He sinks down on the bench between his parents. )
    T HE J UDGE: ( rising )
    Enough for a while—enough. The court is thirsty.
    ( He crosses to door and shouts. )
    Muckachos! Run to the well and bring us water!
    Or if you prefer— habanero!
    Musician—play!
    ( Smiling cavalierly, The Guitar Player moves sinuously forward.

    He stands in the light through the window and plays a danson. Gourds and buckets of water are brought inside and passed among the benches.
    The Judge returns from the doorway. )
    S CENE II
    T HE J UDGE:
    The clouds are darkening still.
    If heaven is good enough to send us rain, the court will be suspended until tomorrow.
    Now let us get on.
    ( He pauses before the people from Casa Blanca. )
    Rosalio, could you not guess that this violation of blood which you have acknowledged would certainly—sooner or later—bring shame—disaster?
    S ON:
    We knew—and we did not know.
    We were oblivious of this sun-bleached man who sullenly dreamed to possess her.
    But he of us derived his green suspicion, the only green thing in him, watered and tended by this sly Indian woman.
    He, our former repair man, mender of our broken fences, which almost without our knowledge had grown to be his, till he seized on the girl—instead of Casa Blanca.
    Finding that all of his clutching was finally gainless, clutched an axe!
    For he would be owner of something—or else destroy it!
    ( The guitar sounds. He faces The Rancher. )
    You, repair man, come early, before daybreak can betray you.

    Now clasp in your hand the smooth white heft of the axe!
    But wait! Wait—first—
    Fill up the tin buckets with chalky white fluid, the milk of that phosphorescent green lizard—Memory, passion.
    L UISA: The tainted