Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams

Author:Tennessee Williams [Williams, Tennessee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2016-02-11T05:00:00+00:00

EPISODE NINE

Announcer: “Explosion!”

The spot comes up on the cell. We should feel a definite increase of tension over the preceding cell scenes. Butch paces restlessly. The others sit sullenly on their bunks, the Queen with an old movie magazine, Swifty anxiously flexing his legs.

JOE [entering from the hall and removing the jacket]: Save your shoe leather.

BUTCH: What for?

JOE: You might want to eat it tonight instead of cold beans.

BUTCH: Beans, huh?

SWIFTY [with a letter]: It’s from my lawyer.

QUEEN: What’s he say, honey?

SWIFTY: He says for me to sit tight.

QUEEN: Goodness! —My nails are in awful condition.

SWIFTY: Sit tight! What does he think I’ve been doing since I got here? Sit tight—sit tight! Don’t he know I’ve got to be moving around?

BUTCH: Take it easy, Mister Olympics! —Who toleja cold beans?

JOE: Boy that works in the kitchen.

SWIFTY: I don’t trust that lawyer. This time he says six months.

QUEEN: I don’t trust no man, honey. No further’n I could kick Grant’s Tomb with a fractured toe! [He giggles.]

BUTCH: He oughta know.

SWIFTY: My lawyer?

BUTCH: Your lawyer! Naw—the kitchen boy.

JOE: Maybe our friend the Canary forgot to spill.

BUTCH: He’d never forget to spill anything.

JOE: Then maybe the Boss don’t care how we feel about cold beans for supper.

BUTCH: He wants to call our hand.

JOE: Sure. He’s got an ace in the hole. —Klondike!

BUTCH: We’ve got one, too.

JOE: Hunger strike?

BUTCH: You named it, Brother.

JOE: Two guys can’t hold the ace of spades.

BUTCH: Once I sat in a game where that was the situation.

JOE: How didja solve it?

BUTCH [producing his razor]: Wit’ this.

JOE: You better quit flashin’ that thing.

BUTCH: Ev’rybody knows I got tough whiskers. [He laughs and replaces razor in his belt.] “Fawchun’s always hid-ing—/I looked ev’rywhere!”

[Bird calls are heard from the hall.]

Here it comes, it’s th’ Canary. [He gives a shrill whistle.] Hello, Canary. How’s them solo flights you been makin? You know—out there on the mountain tops wit’ nothing around ja but the stars? [He and Joe laugh.]

OLLIE [from next cell]: Don’t pay ’em no mind, Jim.

JIM: Never mind about that. I got something to tell you.

BUTCH: Tell us about Goldilocks and the bears.

JOE: I like Goody-Two-Shoes.

JIM: Come outside for a minute.

BUTCH: You wanta fight?

JIM: No, I wanta talk.

BUTCH: You allus wanta talk, that’s your trouble. If you got something to spill come in here.

JIM: I know what happened last time I got in a cage with you, Butch.

BUTCH: I’m glad I made that good an impression.

JIM: Are you coming out?

BUTCH: Naw. Are you coming in?

JIM: Yeah. I will. Soon as they douse the glims.

QUEEN: Better not, honey. Butch has got tough whiskers.

JIM: Yeah, I know what he cuts ’em with.

BUTCH: Why dontcha spill it, then?

JIM: I never deliberately ratted on nobody, Butch.

[A whistle sounds. The lights dim.]

Okay. I’m coming in now. [He unlocks the cell and enters.]

QUEEN: Now, Butch—

JOE: Watch, yourself. It’s not worth getting jerked to Jesus for.

BUTCH: Naw, Canary, my respect for you is increased two hundred percent. I never thought you’d have what it takes to step inside here.

JIM: It’s like what I was telling Ollie last night.

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