Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams Read Free Book Online

ADMIT IT TO HIM! —one
     way or another!
    HE SLAPPED ME HARD ON THE MOUTH!—then turned and ran
     without stopping once, I am sure, all the way back into his room at the Blackstone .
     . . .
    —When I came to his room that night, with a little scratch like a
     shy little mouse at his door, he made that pitiful, ineffectual little attempt to
     prove that what I had said wasn't true . . . .
    [ Brick strikes at her with crutch, a blow
     that shatters the gemlike lamp on the table. ]
    —In this way, I destroyed him, by telling him truth that he and
     his world which he was born and raised in, yours and his world, had told him could
     not be told?
    —From then on Skipper was nothing at all but a receptacle for
     liquor and drugs . . . .
    —Who shot cock robin? I with
     my—
    [ She throws back her head with tight shut
     eyes. ]
    — merciful arrow!
    [ Brick strikes at her;
     misses. ]
    Missed me!—Sorry, I'm not tryin’ to
     whitewash my behavior, Christ, no! Brick, I'm not good. I don't
     know whypeople have to pretend to be good, nobody's good.
     The rich or the well-to-do can afford to respect moral patterns,
     conventional moral patterns, but I could never afford to, yeah, but —
     I'm honest! Give me credit for just that, will you please? — Born poor, raised poor, expect to
     die poor unless I manage to get us something out of what Big Daddy leaves when he
     dies of cancer! But Brick?!—-Skipper is dead! I'm
     alive! Maggie the cat is—
    [ Brick hops awkwardly forward and strikes at
     her again with his crutch. ]
    — alive! I am alive, alive! I
     am . . .
    [ He hurls the crutch at her, across the bed
     she took refuge behind, and pitches forward on the floor as she completes her
     speech. ]
    — alive!
    [ A little girl, Dixie, bursts into the room,
     wearing an Indian war bonnet and firing a cap pistol at Margaret and shouting:
     “Bang, bang, bang!"
    [ Laughter downstairs floats through the open
     hall door. Margaret had crouched gasping to bed at child's entrance. She
     now rises and says with cool fury: ]
    Little girl, your mother or someone should teach
     you—[ gasping ] — to knock at a door before you come into a room.
     Otherwise people might think that you lack good breeding . . . .
    DIXIE:
    Yanh, yanh, yanh, what is Uncle Brick doin’ on th’ floor?
    BRICK:
    I tried to kill your Aunt Maggie, but I failed and I fell. Little girl, give me my
     crutch so I can get up off th’ floor.

    MARGARET:
    Yes, give your uncle his crutch, he's a cripple, honey, he broke his ankle
     last night jumping hurdles on the high school athletic field!
    DIXIE:
    What were you jumping hurdles for, Uncle Brick?
    BRICK:
    Because I used to jump them, and people like to do what they used to do, even after
     they've stopped being able to do it . . . .
    MARGARET:
    That's right, that's your answer, now go away, little girl.
    [ Dixie fires cap pistol at Margaret three
     times. ]
    Stop, you stop that, monster! You little
     no-neck monster!
    [ She seizes the cap pistol and hurls it
     through gallery doors. ]
    DIXIE [ with a
     precocious instinct for the cruelest thing ]:
    You're jealous! —You're just
     jealous because you can't have babies!
    [ She sticks out her tongue at Margaret as
     she sashays past her with her stomach stuck out, to the gallery. Margaret slams
     the gallery doors and leans panting against them. There is a pause. Brick has
     replaced his spilt drink and sits, faraway, on the great four-poster
     bed. ]
    MARGARET:
    You see?—they gloat over us being childless, even in front of their
     five little no-neck monsters!
    [ Pause. Voices approach on the
     stairs. ]
    Brick?—I've been to a doctor in Memphis, a—a gynecologist
     . . . .

    I've been completely examined, and there is no reason why we can't have
     a child whenever we want one. And this is my time by the calendar to conceive. Are
     you listening to me? Are you? Are you LISTENING TO ME!
    BRICK:
    Yes. I hear you, Maggie.
    [ His attention returns to her