Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 188

MRS. MADDEN. Well, I guess anybody'd be glad not t' have kids with _you_ f'r a husban'. Y' don't earn enough money t' keep a cat--let alone kids!

An' jus' t' think they'd be like you!

MADDEN [_more surprised than angry_]. Florence--you're talking like a street woman.

MRS. MADDEN. Oh, I am, am I? Well, I guess you treat me like a street woman. Y' don' deserve t' have a wife.

MADDEN. Well, I don't guess I do. Not one like you!

MRS. MADDEN. That's right! That's right! You don' know how t' treat a lady.

MADDEN [_controlling himself_]. Look here, Florrie. Don't let's get all het up over this.

MRS. MADDEN. Who's gettin' het up? [_Bursting past him toward the door at the left._] I wish t' G.o.d you was a gen'leman!

MADDEN. Florrie--_don't_!

MRS. MADDEN [_turning on him from the other side of the table_]. W'y don't y' go out an' dig in th' ditch? Y'd earn a d.a.m.n sight more money th'n--

MADDEN [_with angry impatience_]. You _know_ I'm not strong enough.

MRS. MADDEN. Bony little shrimp! Not even pep enough t' have kids!

MADDEN [_beside himself_]. Florence! [_Going toward her._] I'm goin' to tell you some things I never thought I would. You're just a plain, common, selfish, vulgar woman! You don't care one penny for anybody except yourself. You an' your clothes an' your movies an' your sodas an'

your candy! [_Mrs. Madden is glowering at him across the table. She is beginning to weep with rage.--Two or three times she opens her mouth as if to speak, but each time he cuts her short._] Look at the way you been leavin' this house lately. [_He makes an inclusive gesture toward the room._] The four years I've lived with you would drive a saint to h.e.l.l!

[_Mrs. Madden marches furiously by him and over to her hat and coat, which are hanging from pegs at the right, just in front of the stove._]

I wish I'd never seen you!

MRS. MADDEN [_getting her coat and hat_]. D' y' think I'm goin' t' stay in this house t' be talked to like that? [_Putting on her hat viciously._] D' y' think I'm goin' t' stand that kind of a thing?

[_Putting on her coat.--Sobbing angrily._] I guess ... you'll be ...

pretty sorry when I've ... gone. [_Coming closer to him on her way to the outside door._] If ... if I _did_ somethin' ... if somethin' ...

_happened_ t' me ... I guess you ... you wouldn't never ... f'give yerself! [_She is at the door._]

MADDEN. I don't worry about you. [_She turns on him at the door._] You wouldn't do anything like that. You're too _yellow_!

MRS. MADDEN [_at the door. Sobbing, in a fury_]. You'll ... see!

[_With one last glare at him, she turns, opens the door and goes outside, slamming the door behind her. Madden stares after her, almost beside himself. He takes several steps across the room, then crosses and recrosses it, trying to regain control of himself. Little by little his anger fades; the energy goes out of his pacing, and finally he approaches the table and sits down in his old place with a hopeless droop of the shoulders. He takes up another bill and looks at its amount helplessly, finally writing it down on the same piece of paper as before. He starts to add up the total of the bills he has already set down on the piece of paper. His hand moves mechanically. Suddenly a shadow crosses his face, as an idea begins to form itself in his mind. He looks straight ahead, his eyes opening wide with horror. With a sudden movement he springs up from the table and goes quickly to the window, where he looks out anxiously at the river. He turns back into the room, and pa.s.ses his hand across his face with the same gesture of horror he used earlier in speaking to Mrs. Madden of the woman who had fallen into the river._]

MADDEN. Ugh!

[_He returns to the table, his face dark with the fear that has seized him. At the table, he stands a moment, thinking. Once again he pa.s.ses his hand across his forehead with the same gesture of horrified fear. He drops into the chair behind the table, still thoughtful. After a moment his face clears, and he shakes his head with an expression of disbelief. He bends again over the bills, and once more takes up his work of going over them. From outside comes the faint sound of some one whistling "Tell Me." Gradually the whistle grows louder and louder, as if the whistler were coming nearer up the street. There is a sharp rap at the door.

Madden starts violently, and, jumping up, he goes quickly to the door. He opens it eagerly and slumps with obvious disappointment as Edgar Mix enters breezily. Mix is about twenty-five; a loosely put together, thin faced youth in a new suit of readymade clothes which are of too blatant a pattern and much too extreme a cut to be in really good taste. He is whistling the refrain of "Tell Me."_]

MIX [_as he pa.s.ses_]. H'llo, James. [_Without stopping for an answer, he crosses the room and starts to remove his hat and coat._] Where's the sister?

MADDEN [_he has closed the door. Dully._] She's gone out.

[_As if struck by an idea, Madden reopens the door and goes outside. He can be seen, looking first to the left, then to the right, and finally down at the river before him. Mix finishes taking off his outer garments, which he hangs with a flourish on pegs near the stove. He is still whistling the same refrain._]

MIX. W'at's a matter with you? Tryin' t' freeze me out? [_His voice has the same flat quality as his sister's, but it is full of energy._]

[_Madden does not appear to hear him. He now comes back into the house, shutting the door behind him. His face is anxious, a fact he tries to hide._]

MADDEN. Did you want to see Florence? [_Mix pauses in his whistling._]

MIX. Sure. Nothin' important, though. Just about a little party she said you an' she was goin' t' take me on t'night. [_He commences whistling cheerily the opening bars of his refrain._]

MADDEN [_dully_]. Sorry. I don't know anythin' about it.

[_Mix stops whistling suddenly and looks down with dismay. Then, with his hands in his pockets, he slowly whistles the four descending notes at the end of the third bar and the beginning of the fourth. He stops and shakes his head, then slowly whistles a few more bars of the refrain, starting where he just left off, and letting himself drop into the morris chair on the descending note in the fifth bar. After another brief silence he finishes the refrain, but with a sudden return of the same quick, light mood in which he entered. The refrain over, he begins again at the beginning and whistles two or three more bars. Madden has meanwhile sat down at the table and is again going over the bills._]

MIX. Jim--ever get a piece runnin' in yer head so y' can't get it out?

[_Madden is looking vacantly down at the bills._] I s'pose I been w'istlin' that tune steady f'r three whole weeks. [_He whistles three or four more bars of the same refrain._] Like it? [_Madden does not appear to have heard him._] P'raps Florrie's got th' record f'r that on th'

phornograph. Has she, Jim? It ain't been out long.

MADDEN [_impatiently_]. Oh, I don't know, Ed.

MIX [_after whistling very softly a bar or two more_]. I see some girl fell in the river.

MADDEN [_startled_]. What?

MIX. Yep. They was tryin' t' make her come to. No use. She was a goner all right.

MADDEN [_rising from his chair. Trying to control himself._] Where was this?

MIX. Oh, not s' far below here. Saw her m'self, I did.

MADDEN [_with increasing fear. Taking a step or two toward Mix._] Did you see her face?

MIX. Nope. Somethin' 'd struck her face. Y'd hardly know she was a woman, 'cept f'r her clothes.

MADDEN [_wildly. Coming closer_]. How long ago?

MIX. W'at y' gettin' s' het up about? [_Madden is almost frantic._]

Oh ... 'bout 'n hour.

[_Madden relaxes suddenly. The reaction is almost too much for him. He slowly goes back to the table._]

MADDEN [_nervously_]. Oh ... down by Market Wharf?

MIX. Sure. Did y' see her? [_Madden sits down heavily._]

MADDEN. Uhuh.

[_For a second or two there is silence. Madden rearranges the bills in front of him. Mix lolls in the armchair, whistling very softly._]

MADDEN. Ed.

MIX. Uhuh.