AMOS: Nobody escapes . . . [DAVID stops, turns to AMOS.] . . . except you. [He walks to the door, past DAVID, and goes out.]
Curtain.
ACT THREE
Scene i
Living room. Night in the following February.
J.B. is asleep on the couch. SHORY and GUS are silently playing cards and smoking at a table near the fireplace. Snow can be seen on the window muntins. Several coats on the rack. Presently . . .
GUS: There’s no brainwork in this game. Let me teach you claviash.
SHORY: I can win all the money I need in rummy and pinochle. Play.
GUS: You have no intellectual curiosity.
SHORY: No, but you can slip me a quarter. [Showing his hand.] Rummy.
Enter BELLE from the stairs.
GUS [to BELLE]: Everything all right?
BELLE [half turns to him, holding blanket forth]: She keeps sweating up all the blankets. That poor girl.
GUS: The doctor says anything?
BELLE: Yes . . . [Thinks.] . . . he said, go down and get a dry blanket.
GUS: I mean, about when it will be coming along?
BELLE: Oh, you can’t tell about a baby. That’s one thing about them, they come most any time. Sometimes when you don’t expect it, and sometimes when you do expect it. [She goes up to door and turns again.] Why don’t Davey buy a baby carriage?
GUS: Didn’t he? I suppose he will.
BELLE: But how can you have a baby without a baby carriage?
SHORY: You better blow your nose.
BELLE: I haven’t time! [She blows her nose and goes out, up left.]
SHORY: A quarter says it’s a boy. [Tosses a quarter on the table.]
GUS: It’s a bet. You know, statistics show more girls is born than boys. You should’ve asked me for odds.
SHORY: Dave Beeves doesn’t need statistics, he wants a boy. Matter of fact, let’s raise it—a dollar to your half that he’s got a boy tonight.
GUS: Statistically I would take the bet, but financially I stand pat. Enter DAVID from left door to outside. He is dressed for winter. It is immediately evident that a deep enthusiasm, a ruddy satisfaction is upon him. He wears a strong smile. He stamps his feet a little as he removes his gloves, and then his short coat, muffler, hat, leaving a sweater on. As he closes the door.
DAVID: How’m I doing upstairs?
GUS: So far she only sweats.
DAVID: Sweating! Is that normal?
GUS: Listen, she ain’t up there eating ice cream.
DAVID [goes to the fireplace, rubs his hands before it. Of J.B. as though amused]: The least little thing happens and he stays home from work. He’s been here all day.
GUS: Certain men like to make holidays. A new kid to him is always a holiday.
DAVID [he looks around]: What a fuss.
GUS: You’re very calm. Surprising to me. Don’t you feel nervous?
SHORY [to Gus]: You seen too many movies. What’s the use of him pacing up and down?
DAVID [with an edge of guilt]: I got the best doctor; everything she needs. I figure, whatever’s going to happen’ll happen. After all, I can’t . . .
Breaks off. In a moment BELLE enters from the left door, carrying a different blanket. She goes toward the stair landing. DAVID finally speaks, unable to restrain it.
Belle . . . [She stops. He goes to her, restraining anxiety.]
Would you ask the doctor . . . if he thinks it’s going to be very hard for her, heh?
BELLE: He told me to shut up.
DAVID: Then ask J.B.’s wife.
BELLE: She told me to shut up too. But I’ll ask her.
BELLE goes up the stairs. DAVID watches her ascend a moment.
DAVID [looking upstairs]: That girl is going to live like a queen after this. [Turns to them, banging his fist in his palm.] Going to make a lot of money this year.
SHORY: Never predict nothin’ but the weather, half an hour ahead.
DAVID: Not this time. I just finished mating my mink, and I think every one of them took.
GUS: All finished? That’s fine.
A knock is heard on the door. DAVID goes to it, opens it. PAT enters. He is dressed in a pea jacket, a wool stocking cap on his head. He carries a duffle bag on his shoulder.
DAVID: Oh, hello, Dad.
PAT: The baby come yet?
DAVID: Not yet.
PAT: My train doesn’t leave for a couple of hours. I thought I’d wait over here.
DAVID: Here, give me that. [He takes the duffle bag from PAT, puts it out of the way.]
SHORY: So you’re really going, Pat?
PAT: I got my old job back—ship’s cook. I figure with a little studying, maybe in a year or so, I’ll have my Third license. So . . .
DAVID: It’s so foolish your leaving, Dad. Can’t I change your mind?
PAT: It’s better this way, David. Maybe if I’m not around Amos’ll take hold of himself.
There is a knock on the door.
DAVID: That’s probably Amos now.
He goes to the door, opens it. AMOS enters. He is smoking a cigarette.
Hello, Ame. All locked up? Come in.
AMOS: I got my motor running. Hello, Gus, Shory. [He ignores PAT. There is a pause.]
GUS: Working hard?
AMOS [a tired, embittered chuckle]: Yeh, pretty tough; pumpin’ gas, ringin’ the cash register . . . [Giving DAVID a small envelope and a key.] There’s twenty-six bucks in there. I got the tally slip in with it.
DAVID [as though anxious for his participation; strained]: Twenty-six! We did all right today.
AMOS: Always do, don’t ya? ’Night. [Starts to go.]
DAVID: Listen, Ame. [AMOS turns.] The mink’ll be bearing in about a month. I was thinking you might like to take a shot at working with me, here . . . it’s a great exercise. . . . Spring is coming, you know. You want to be in condition . . .
AMOS: For what?
DAVID: Well . . . maybe play some ball this summer.
AMOS [glances at PAT]: Who said I’m playing ball?
DAVID [as carelessly as possible]: What are you going to do with yourself?
AMOS: Pump your gas. . . . Bring you the money every night. Wait for something good to happen. [A bitter little laugh.] I mean the day they announced they’re building the new main highway right past your gas station I knew something good had to happen to me. [Laughing.] I mean it just had to, Dave! [Now with real feeling.] Baby hasn’t come yet? [DAVID shakes his head, disturbed by his brother’s bitterness.] Overdue, ain’t she? [Takes a drag on his cigarette. ]
DAVID: A little.
AMOS: Well, if it’s a boy . . . [Glancing at PAT and defiantly blowing out smoke.] Don’t have him pitchin’ down the cellar. With a wink at DAVID, he goes out. After a moment DAVID goes to PAT.
DAVID: Why must you go, Dad? Work with me here, I’ve plenty for everybody, I don’t need it all.
PAT: Inhaling cigarettes in those glorious lungs. I couldn’t bear to watch him destroying my work that way.
SHORY [at the fireplace]: Come on, Pat, pinochle.
DAVID [beckoning GUS over to the right]: Hey, Gus, I want to talk to you.
PAT [going to SHORY. Without the old conviction]: Fireplace heat is ruination to the arteries. PAT takes GUS’s place, GUS coming to the right.
SHORY [mixing the deck]: So you’ll drop dead warm. Sit down. [He deals.]
DAVID and GUS are at right. J.B. continues sleeping. The card game begins.
DAVID: I want you to do something for me, Gus. In a little more than thirty days I’ll have four or five mink for every bitch in those cages. Four to one.
GUS: Well, don’t count the chickens . . .
DAVID: No, about this I’m sure. I want to mortgage the shop. Before you answer . . . I’m not being an Indian giver. I signed sixty percent of the shop over to you because you’re worth it—I didn’t want what don’t belong to me and I still don’t. I just want you to sign so I can borrow some money on the shop. I need about twenty-five
hundred dollars.
GUS: I can ask why?
DAVID: Sure. I want to buy some more breeders.
GUS: Oh. Well, why not use the money you have?
DAVID: Frankly, Gus . . . [Laughs confidently.] . . . I don’t have any other money.
GUS: Ah, go on now, don’t start kidding me . . .
DAVID: No, it’s the truth. I’ve damn near as many mink out there as Dan Dibble. That costs big money. What do you say? PAT and SHORY look up now and listen while playing their hands.
GUS [thinks a moment]: Why do you pick on the shop to mortgage? You could get twenty-five hundred on the gas station, or the quarry, or the farm . . . [Slight pause.]
DAVID: I did. I’ve got everything mortgaged. Everything but the shop.
GUS [shocked]: Dave, I can’t believe this!
DAVID [indicates out of the right window]: Well, look at them out there. I’ve got a ranch. You didn’t think I had enough cash to buy that many, did you?
GUS [gets up trying to shake off his alarm]: But, Dave, this is mink. Who knows what can happen to them? I don’t understand how you can take everything you own and sink it in . . .
DAVID: Four for one, Gus. If prices stay up I can make sixty thousand dollars this year.
GUS: But how can you be sure; you can’t . . .
DAVID: I’m sure.
GUS: But how can you be . . . ?
DAVID [more nervously now, wanting to end this tack]: I’m sure. Isn’t it possible? To be sure?
GUS: Yes, but why? [Pause.] Why are you sure?
J.B. [suddenly erupting on the couch]: Good Good and . . . ! [He sits up rubbing himself.] What happened to those radiators you were going to put into this house? [He gets up, goes to the fire, frozen.] You could hang meat in this room.
DAVID [to J.B.]: You’re always hanging meat.
GUS: I don’t know how to answer you. I have worked very hard in the shop . . . I . . . [His reasonableness breaks.] You stand there and don’t seem to realize you’ll be wiped out if those mink go, and now you want more yet!
DAVID: I said they’re not going to die!
J.B. [to PAT and SHORY]: Who’s going to die? What’re they talking about?
DAVID: Nothin’. [He looks out of the window. J.B. watches him, mystified.]
PAT: I think Amos would smoke a pipe instead of those cigarettes, if you told him, Shory.
J.B.: Dave, you want a baby carriage y’know.
DAVID [half turns]: Heh? . . . Yeh, sure.
J.B.: I figured you forgot to ask me so I ordered a baby carriage for you.
DAVID turns back to the window as. . . .
Matter of fact, it’s in the store. [With great enthusiasm.] Pearl grey! Nice soft rubber tires too . . . boy, one thing I love to see . . .
DAVID [turns to him, restraining]: All right, will you stop talking?
J.B. is shocked. In a moment he turns and goes to the rack, starts getting into his coat. DAVID crosses quickly to him.
John, what the hell! [He takes J.B.’s arm.]
J.B.: You unnerve me, Dave! You unnerve me! A man acts a certain way when he’s going to be a father, and by Jesus I want him to act that way.
SHORY: Another moviegoer! Why should he worry about something he can’t change?
DAVID: I’ve got a million things to think of, John. I want to ask you.
J.B.: What?
DAVID [hangs J.B.’s coat up]: I want to get a buy on a new Buick; maybe you can help me swindle that dealer you know in Burley. I’m taking Hester to California in about a month. Sit down.
J.B. [suddenly pointing at him]: That’s what unnerves me! You don’t seem to realize what’s happening. You can’t take a month-old baby in a car to California.
DAVID [a blank, shocked look]: Well, I meant . . .
J.B. [laughs, slaps his back relieved at this obvious truth]: The trouble with you is, you don’t realize that she didn’t swell up because she swallowed an olive! [GUS and he laugh; DAVID tries to.] You’re a poppa, boy! You’re the guy he’s going to call Pop!
There is a commotion of footsteps upstairs. DAVID goes quickly to the landing. BELLE hurries down. She is sniffling, sobbing.
DAVID: What happened?
BELLE touches his shoulder kindly but brushes right past him to the fireplace where she picks up a wood basket.
[DAVID continues going to her.] What happened, Belle!
BELLE [standing with the wood]: She’s having it, she’s having it. [She hurries to the landing, DAVID behind her.]
DAVID: What does the doctor say? Belle! How is she? [He catches her arm.]
BELLE: I don’t know. She shouldn’t have fallen that time. She shouldn’t have fallen, Davey. Oh dear . . .
She bursts into a sob and rushes upstairs. DAVID stands gaping upward. But GUS is staring at DAVID. After a long moment . . .
GUS [quietly]: Hester fell down?
DAVID [turns slowly to him after an instant of his own]: What?
GUS: Hester had a fall?
DAVID: Yeh, some time ago.
GUS: You had her to the doctor?
DAVID: Yeh.
GUS: He told you the baby would be possibly dead? [Pause.]
DAVID: What’re you talking about?
GUS [quavering]: I think you know what I’m talking about.
DAVID is speechless. Walks to a chair and sits on the arm as though, at the price of terrible awkwardness, to simulate ease. Always glancing at GUS, he gets up unaccountably, and in a broken, uncontrolled voice . . .
DAVID: What are you talking about?
GUS: I understand why you were so sure about the mink. But I sign no mortgage on the shop. I do not bet on dead children. DAVID is horrified at the revelation. He stands rigidly, his fists clenched. He might sit down or spring at GUS or weep.
J.B.: He couldn’t think a thing like that. He . . . He looks to DAVID for reinforcement, but DAVID is standing there hurt and silent and self-horrified. J.B. goes to DAVID.
Dave, you wouldn’t want a thing like that. [He shakes him.] Dave!
DAVID [glaring at GUS]: I’d cut my throat!
He walks downstage from J.B., looking at GUS. His movements are wayward, restless, like one caught in a strange cul-de-sac. GUS is silent.
Why do you look at me that way? [Glances at J.B. then slowly back to GUS.] Why do you look that way? I’m only telling you what happened. A person has to look at facts, doesn’t he? I heard something at the door and I opened it . . . and there she was lying on the step. A fact is a fact, isn’t it? [They don’t reply. Bursting out.] Well, for Jesus’ sake, if you . . . !
GUS [a shout]: What fact! She fell! So the baby is dead because she fell? Is this a fact?!!
DAVID [moves away from GUS’s direction, in high tension]: I didn’t say dead. It doesn’t have to be dead to be . . . to . . . [Breaks off.]
GUS: To be what?
Pause.
DAVID: To be a curse on us. It can come wrong . . . A fall can make them that way. The doctor told me. [GUS looks unconvinced. ] The trouble with you is that you think I got a special angel watching over me.
SHORY [ pointing at Gus]: He said it that time, brother!
GUS [to SHORY too]: A man needs a special angel to have a live child?
DAVID [ furiously]: Who said he was going to be dead?!
GUS: What are you excited about? [Takes his arm.] Take it easy, sit . . .
DAVID [freeing his aim]: Stop humoring me, will you? Dan Dibble’ll have my new mink here tonight. I got all the papers ready . . . [Goes to a drawer, takes out papers.] All you do is sign and . . .
GUS [suddenly he rushes to David, pulls the papers out of his hand, throws them down]: Are you mad! [He frightens DAVID into immobility.] There is no catastrophe upstairs, there is no guarantee up there for your mink. [He grasps DAVID’s arm, pleadingly.] Dave . . .
DAVID: If you say that again I’m going to throw you out of this house!
J.B. [nervously]: Oh, come on now, come on now.
From above a s
cream of pain is heard. DAVID freezes. GUS looks up.
GUS [to DAVID]: Don’t say that again.
DAVID thrusts his hands into his pockets as though they might reveal him too. Under great tension he attempts to speak reasonably. His voice leaps occasionally, he clears his throat. GUS never takes his eyes off him. DAVID walks from J.B. unwillingly.
DAVID: I’m a lucky man, John. Everything I’ve ever gotten came . . . straight out of the blue. There’s nothing mad about it. It’s facts. When I couldn’t have Hester unless Old Man Falk got out of the way, he was killed just like it was specially for me. When I couldn’t fix the Marmon . . . a man walks in from the middle of the night . . . and fixes it for me. I buy a lousy little gas station . . . they build a highway in front of it. That’s lucky. You pay for that.
SHORY: Damn right you do.
GUS: Where is such a law?
DAVID: I don’t know. [Observes a silence. He walks to the windows. ] Of all the people I’ve heard of I’m the only one who’s never paid. Well . . . I think the holiday’s over. [Turns toward upstairs, with great sorrow.] I think we’re about due to join up with the rest of you. I’ll have almost sixty thousand dollars when I market my mink . . . but it won’t be money I got without paying for it. And that’s why I put everything in them. That’s why I’m sure. Because from here on in we’re paid for. I saw it in black and white when she fell. [With a heartbroken tone.] God help me, we’re paid for now. I’m not afraid of my luck anymore, and I’m going to play it for everything it’s worth.
GUS: David, you break my heart. This is from Europe this idea. This is from Asia, from the rotten places, not America.
DAVID: No?
GUS: Here you are not a worm, a louse in the earth; here you are a man. A man deserves everything here!
SHORY: Since when?
GUS [strongly to SHORY]: Since forever!
SHORY: Then I must have been born before that.
GUS [angrily now]: I beg your pardon, he is not you and do me a favor and stop trying to make him like you.
DAVID: He’s not making me anything.
GUS: He won’t be happy until he does, I can tell you! [Indicating SHORY.] This kind of people never are.
SHORY: What kind of people?
GUS: Your kind! His life he can make golden, if he wants.