Vieux Carre by Tennessee Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

foot on the chair
.] . . . negotiated— truce with— life. Oh— there’s a price for things, that’s something I’ve learned in theVieux Carré. For everything that you purchase in this marketplace you pay out of
here!
[
He thumps his chest
.] And the cash which is the stuff you use in your work can be overdrawn, depleted, like a reservoir going dry in a long season of drought . . .
    [
The scene is resumed on a realistic level with a change in the lighting
.]
    MRS. WIRE [
passing a bowl of gumbo to the writer
]: Here, son, have some gumbo. Let it cool a while. I just pretended to spit in it, you know.
    WRITER : I know.
    MRS. WIRE : I make the best gumbo, I do the best Creole cookin’ in Louisiana. It’s God’s truth, and now I’ll tell you what I’m plannin’ to do while your gumbo’s coolin’. I’ll tell you because it involves a way you could pay your room and board here.
    WRITER : Oh?
    MRS. WIRE : Uh huh, I’m plannin’ to open a lunchroom.
    WRITER : On the premises? Here?
    MRS. WIRE : On the premises, in my bedroom, which I’m gonna convert into a small dinin’ room. So I’m gonna git printed up some bus’ness cards. At twelve noon ev’ry day except Sundays you can hit the streets with these little bus’ness cards announcin’ that lunch is bein’ served for twenty-five cents, a cheaper lunch than you could git in a greasy spoon on Chartres . . . and no better cooking in the Garden District or the Vieux Carré.
    WRITER : Meals for a quarter in the Quarter.
    MRS. WIRE : Hey! That’s the slogan! I’ll print it on those cards that you’ll pass out.
    WRITER [
dreamily
]: Wonderful gumbo.
    MRS. WIRE : Why this “Meals for a quarter in the Quarter” is going to put me back in the black, yeah! Boy! . . . [
She throws him the key to his attic rooms. The lights dim out briefly
.]
    TYE’S VOICE : Hey! Whatcha doin’? Git yuh fuckin’ hands off me!
    [
The writer appears dimly in the attic hall outside his room. He stops
.]
    NIGHTINGALE’S VOICE : I thought that I was visiting a friend.
    TYE’S VOICE : ’Sthat how you visit a friend, unzippin’ his pants an’ pullin’ out his dick?
    NIGHTINGALE’S VOICE : I assure you it was a mistake of— identity . . .
    TYE [
becoming visible on the side of the bed in the writer’s cubicle
]: This ain’t my room. Where is my ole lady? Hey,
hey, Jane!
    WRITER : You collapsed in the hall outside your door so I helped you in here.
    TYE : Both of you git this straight. No goddam faggot messes with me, never! For less’n a hundred dollars!
    [
Jane becomes visible in the hall before this line
.]
    A hunnerd dollars, yes, maybe, but not a dime less.
    NIGHTINGALE [
emerging from the cubicle in his robe
]: I am afraid that you have priced yourself out of the market.
    JANE : Tye, come out of there.
    TYE : I been interfered with ’cause you’d locked me out.
    WRITER : Miss, uh, Sparks, I didn’t touch your friend except to, to . . . offer him my bed till you let him in.
    JANE : Tye, stand up— if you can stand! Stand. Walk.
    [
Tye stumbles against her, and she cries out as she is pushed against the wall
.]
    TYE’S VOICE : Locked out, bolted outa my room, to be— molested.
    JANE : I heard you name a price, with you everything has a price. Thanks, good night.
    [
During this exchange Nightingale in his purple robe has leaned, smoking with a somewhat sardonic look, against the partition between the two cubicles. The writer reappears
.]
    NIGHTINGALE : Back so quick?—
Tant
pis
. . .
    WRITER : I think if I were you, I’d go in your own room and get to bed.
    [
The writer enters his cubicle. Nightingale’s face slowly turns to a mask of sorrow past expression. There is music. Nightingale puts out his cigarette and enters his cubicle
.
    [
Jane undresses Tye. The