Death of Bessie Smith, the Sandbox, and the American Dream Read online

  NURSE (Laughs)

  Oh, my … oh, my.

  INTERN (Serious)

  It’s a truly beautiful sight. Go out and have a look.

  NURSE (Coquettish)

  Oh, Doctor, I am chained to my desk of pain, so I must rely on you. … Talk the sunset to me, you … you monstrous burning intern hanging on the edge of my circumference … ha, ha, ha.

  INTERN

  (Leans toward her) When?

  NURSE

  When?

  INTERN (Lightly)

  When … when are you going to let me nearer, woman?

  NURSE

  Oh, my!

  INTERN

  Here am I … here am I tangential, while all the while I would serve more nobly as a radiant, not outward from, but reversed, plunging straight to your lovely vortex.

  NURSE (Laughs)

  Oh, la! You must keep your mind off my lovely vortex … you just remain … uh … tangential.

  INTERN (Mock despair)

  How is a man to fulfill himself? Here I offer you love … consider the word … love. … Here I offer you my love, my self … my bored bed …

  NURSE

  I note your offer … your offer is noted. (Holds out a clipboard) Here … do you want your reports?

  INTERN

  No … I don’t want my reports. Give them here. (Takes the clipboard)

  NURSE

  And while you’re here with your hot breath on me, hand me a cigarette. I sent the Nigger down for a pack. I ran out. (He gives her a cigarette) Match?

  INTERN

  Go light it on the sunset. (Tosses match to her) He says you owe him for three packs.

  NURSE

  (Lights her cigarette) Your bored bed … indeed.

  INTERN

  Ma’am … the heart yearns, the body burns …

  NURSE

  And I haven’t time for interns.

  INTERN

  … the heart yearns, the body burns … and I haven’t time … Oh, I don’t know … the things you women can do to art.

  (More intimate, but still light)

  Have you told your father, yet? Have you told your father that I am hopelessly in love with you? Have you told him that at night the sheets of my bed are like a tent, poled center-upward in my love for you?

  NURSE (Wry)

  I’ll tell him … I’ll tell my father just that … just what you said … and he’ll be down here after you for talking to a young lady like that! Really!

  INTERN

  My God! I forgot myself! A cloistered maiden in whose house trousers are never mentioned … in which flies, I am sure, are referred to only as winged bugs. Here I thought I was talking to someone, to a certain young nurse, whose collection of anatomical jokes for all occasions …

  NURSE (Giggles)

  Oh, you be still, now. (Lofty) Besides, just because I play coarse and flip around here … to keep my place with the rest of you … don’t you think for a minute that I relish this turn to the particular from the general. … If you don’t mind, we’ll just cease this talk.

  INTERN (Half sung)

  I’m always in tumescence for you. You’d never guess the things I …

  NURSE (Blush-giggle)

  Now stop that! Really, I mean it!

  INTERN

  Then marry me, woman. If nothing else, marry me.

  NURSE

  Don’t, now.

  INTERN

  (Joking and serious at the same time) Marry me.

  NURSE

  (Matter-of-fact, but not unkindly) I am sick of this talk. My poor father may have some funny ideas; he may be having a pretty hard time reconciling himself to things as they are. But not me! Forty-six dollars a month! Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you make? Forty-six dollars a month! Boy, you can’t afford even to think about marrying. You can’t afford marriage. … Best you can afford is lust. That’s the best you can afford.

  INTERN (Scathing)

  Oh … gentle woman … nineteenth-century lady out of place in this vulgar time … maiden versed in petit point and murmured talk of the weather …

  NURSE

  Now I mean it … you can cut that talk right out.

  INTERN

  … type my great-grandfather fought and died for … forty-six dollars a month and the best I can afford is lust! Jesus, woman!

  NURSE

  All right … you can quit making fun of me. You can quit it right this minute.

  INTERN

  I! Making fun of you …!

  NURSE

  I am tired of being toyed with; I am tired of your impractical propositions. Must you dwell on what is not going to happen? Must you ask me, constantly, over and over again, the same question to which you are already aware you will get the same answer? Do you get pleasure from it? What unreasonable form of contentment do you derive from persisting in this?

  INTERN (Lightly)

  Because I love you?

  NURSE

  Oh, that would help matters along; it really would … even if it were true. The economic realities would pick up their skirts, whoop, and depart before the lance-high, love-smit knight. My knight, whose real and true interest, if we come right down to it, as indicated in the order of your propositions, is, and always has been, a convenient and uncomplicated bedding down.

  INTERN

  (Smiling, and with great gallantry) I have offered to marry you.

  NURSE

  Yeah … sure … you have offered to marry me. The United States is chuck-full of girls who have heard that great promise—I will marry you … I will marry you … IF! If! The great promise with its great conditional attached to it. …

  INTERN (Amused)

  Who are you pretending to be?

  NURSE (Abrupt)

  What do you mean?

  INTERN (Laughing)

  Oh, nothing.

  NURSE

  (Regards him silently for a moment; then) Marry me! Do you know … do you know that Nigger I sent to fetch me a pack of butts … do you know he is in a far better position … realistically, economically … to ask to marry me than you are? Hunh? Do you know that? That Nigger! Do you know that Nigger outearns you … and by a lot?

  INTERN

  (Bows to her) I know he does … and I know what value you, you and your famous family, put on such things. So, I have an idea for you … why don’t you just ask that Nigger to marry you? ’Cause, boy, he’d never ask you! I’m sure if you told your father about it, it would give him some pause at first, because we know what type of man your father is … don’t we? … But then he would think about it … and realize the advantages of the match … realistically … economically … and he would find some way to adjust his values, in consideration of your happiness, and security. …

  NURSE

  (Flicks her still-lit cigarette at him, hard; hits him with it) You are disgusting!

  INTERN

  Damn you, bitch!

  NURSE

  Disgusting!

  INTERN

  Realistic … practical … (A little softer, now) Your family is a famous name, but those thousand acres are gone, and the pillars of your house are blistered and flaking … (Harder) Not that your family ever had, within human memory, a thousand acres to go … or a house with pillars in the first place. …

  NURSE (Angry)

  I am fully aware of what is true and what is not true. (Soberly) Go about your work and leave me be.

  INTERN (Sweetly)

  Aw.

  NURSE

  I said … leave me be.

  INTERN

  (Brushing himself) It is a criminal offense to set fire to interns … orderlies you may burn at will, unless you have other plans for them … but interns …

  NURSE

  … are a dime a dozen. (Giggles) Did I burn you?

  INTERN

  No, you did not burn me.

  NURSE

  That’s too bad … would have served you right if I had. (Pauses; then smiles) I’
m sorry, honey.

  INTERN (Mock formal)

  I accept your apology … and I await your surrender.

  NURSE (Laughs)

  Well, you just await it. (A pause) Hey, what are you going to do about the mayor being here now?

  INTERN

  What am I supposed to do about it? I am on emergencies, and he is not an emergency case.

  NURSE

  I told you … I told you what you should do.

  INTERN

  I know … I should go upstairs to his room … I should pull up a chair, and I should sit down and I should say, How’s tricks, Your Honor?

  NURSE

  Well, you make fun if you want to … but if you listen to me, you’ll know you need some people behind you.

  INTERN

  Strangers!

  NURSE

  Strangers don’t stay strangers … not if you don’t let them. He could do something for you if he had a mind to.

  INTERN

  Yes he could … indeed, he could do something for me. … He could give me his car … he could make me a present of his Cord automobile. … That would be the finest thing any mayor ever did for a private citizen. Have you seen that car?

  NURSE

  Have I seen that car? Have I seen this … have I seen that? Cord automobiles and … and sunsets … those are … fine preoccupations. Is that what you think about? Huh? Driving a fine car into a fine sunset?

  INTERN (Quietly)

  Lord knows, I’d like to get away from here.

  NURSE (Nodding)

  I know … I know. Well, maybe you’re going to have to get away from here. People are aware how dissatisfied you are … people have heard a lot about your … dissatisfaction. … My father has heard … people got wind of the way you feel about things. People here aren’t good enough for your attentions. … Foreigners … a bunch of foreigners who are cutting each other up in their own business … that’s where you’d like to be, isn’t it?

  INTERN (Quietly; intensely)

  There are over half a million people killed in that war! Do you know that? By airplanes. … Civilians! You misunderstand me so! I am … all right … this way. … My dissatisfactions … you call them that … my dissatisfactions have nothing to do with loyalties. … I am not concerned with politics … but I have a sense of urgency … a dislike of waste … stagnation … I am stranded … here. … My talents are not large … but the emergencies of the emergency ward of this second-rate hospital in this second-rate state … No! … it isn’t enough. Oh, you listen to me. If I could … if I could bandage the arm of one person … if I could be over there right this minute … you could take the city of Memphis … you could take the whole state … and don’t you forget I was born here … you could take the whole goddamn state. …

  NURSE (Hard)

  Well, I have a very good idea of how we could arrange that. I have a dandy idea. … We could just tell the mayor about the way you feel, and he’d be delighted to help you on your way … out of this hospital at the very least, and maybe out of the state! And I don’t think he’d be giving you any Cord automobile as a going-away present, either. He’d set you out, all right … he’d set you right out on your butt! That’s what he’d do.

  INTERN

  (With a rueful half-smile) Yes … yes … I imagine he would. I feel lucky … I feel doubly fortunate, now … having you … feeling the way we do about each other.

  NURSE

  You are so sarcastic!

  INTERN

  Well, how the hell do you expect me to behave?

  NURSE

  Just … (Laughs) … oh, boy, this is good … just like I told the Nigger … you walk a straight line, and you do your job … (Turns coy, here) … and … and unless you are kept late by some emergency more pressing than your … (Smiles wryly) … “love” … for me … I may let you drive me home tonight … in your beat-up Chevy.

  INTERN

  Woman, as always I anticipate with enormous pleasure the prospect of driving you home … a stop along the way … fifteen minutes or so … of tantalizing preliminary love play ending in an infuriating and inconclusive wrestling match, during which you hiss of the … the liberties I should not take, and I sound the horn once or twice accidentally with my elbow …

  (She giggles at this)

  … and finally, in my beat-up car, in front of your father’s beat-up house … a kiss of searing intensity … a hand in the right place … briefly … and your hasty departure within. I am looking forward to this ritual … as I always do.

  NURSE (Pleased)

  Why, thank you.

  INTERN

  I look forward to this ritual because of how it sets me apart from other men …

  NURSE

  Aw …

  INTERN

  … because I am probably the only white man under sixty in two counties who has not had the pleasure of …

  NURSE

  LIAR! You no-account mother-grabbing son of a Nigger!

  INTERN (Laughs)

  Boy! Watch you go!

  NURSE

  FILTH! You are filth!

  INTERN

  I am honest … an honest man. Let me make you an honest woman.

  NURSE

  (Steaming … her rage between her teeth) You have done it, boy … you have played around with me and you have done it. I am going to get you. … I am going to fix you … I am going to see to it that you are through here … do you understand what I’m telling you?

  INTERN

  There is no ambiguity in your talk now, honey.

  NURSE

  You’re damn right there isn’t.

  (The ORDERLY re-enters from stage-rear. The NURSE sees him)

  Get out of here!

  (But he stands there)

  Do you hear me? You get the hell out of here! GO!

  (He retreats, exits, to silence)

  INTERN (Chuckling)

  King of the castle. My, you are something.

  NURSE

  Did you get what I was telling you?

  INTERN

  Why, I heard every word … every sweet syllable. …

  NURSE

  You have overstepped yourself … and you are going to wish you hadn’t. I’ll get my father … I’ll have you done with myself

  INTERN (Cautious)

  Aw, come on, now.

  NURSE

  I mean it.

  INTERN (Lying badly)

  Now look … you don’t think I meant …

  NURSE (Mimicking)

  Now you don’t think I meant … (Laughs broadly) Oh, my … you are the funny one.

  (Her threat, now, has no fury, but is filled with quiet conviction)

  I said I’ll fix you … and I will. You just go along with your work … you do your job … but what I said … you keep that burning in the back of your brain. We’ll go right along, you and I, and we’ll be civil … and it’ll be as though nothing had happened … nothing at all. (Laughs again) Honey, your neck is in the noose … and I have a whip … and I’ll set the horse from under you … when it pleases me.

  INTERN (Wryly)

  It’s going to be nice around here.

  NURSE

  Oh, yes it is. I’m going to enjoy it … I really am.

  INTERN

  Well… I’ll forget about driving you home tonight. …

  NURSE

  Oh, no … you will not forget about driving me home tonight. You will drive me home tonight … you will drive me home tonight … and tomorrow night … you will see me to my door … you will be my gallant. We will have things between us a little bit the way I am told things used to be. You will court me, boy, and you will do it right!

  INTERN

  (Stares at her for a moment) You impress me. No matter what else, I’ve got to admit that.

  (The NURSE laughs wildly at this. Music. The lights on this hospital set fade, and come up on the SECOND NURSE, at her desk, for)

  SCENE SEVEN

  JACK<
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  (Rushing in) Ma’am, I need help, quick!

  SECOND NURSE

  What d’you want here?

  JACK

  There has been an accident, ma’am … I got an injured woman outside in my car. …

  SECOND NURSE

  Yeah? Is that so? Well, you sit down and wait. … You go over there and sit down and wait a while.

  JACK

  This is an emergency! There has been an accident!

  SECOND NURSE

  YOU WAIT! You just sit down and wait!

  JACK

  This woman is badly …

  SECOND NURSE

  YOU COOL YOUR HEELS!

  JACK

  Ma’am … I got Bessie Smith out in that car there. …

  SECOND NURSE

  I DONT CARE WHO YOU GOT OUT THERE, NIGGER. YOU COOL YOUR HEELS!

  (Music up.

  The lights fade on this scene, come up again on the main hospital scene, on the NURSE and the INTERN, for)

  SCENE EIGHT

  (Music fades)

  NURSE (Loud)

  Hey, Nigger … Nigger!

  (The ORDERLY re-enters)

  Give me my cigarettes.

  INTERN

  I think I’ll …

  NURSE

  You stay here!

  (The ORDERLY hands the nurse the cigarettes, cautious and attentive to see what is wrong)

  A person could die for a smoke, the time you take. What’d you do … sit downstairs in the can and rest your small, shapely feet … hunh?

  ORDERLY

  You told me to … go back outside …

  NURSE

  Before that! What’d you do … go to the cigarette factory? Did you take a quick run up to Winston-Salem for these?

  ORDERLY

  No … I …

  NURSE

  Skip it. (To the INTERN) Where? Where were you planning to go?

  INTERN (Too formal)

  I beg your pardon?

  NURSE

  I said … where did you want to go to? Were you off for coffee?

  INTERN

  Is that what you want? Now that you have your cigarettes, have you hit upon the idea of having coffee, too? Now that he is back from one errand, are you planning to send me on another?

  NURSE (Smiling wickedly)

  Yeah … I think I’d like that … keep both of you jumping. I would like coffee, and I would like you to get it for me. So why don’t you just trot right across the hall and get me some? And I like it good and hot … and strong …