Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Brick and Maggie Flashcards
Maggie: Oh, I might some time cheat on you with someone, since you’re so insultingly eager to have me do it!–But if I do, you can be damned sure it will be in a place and time where no one but me and the man could possibly know. Because I’m not going to give you any excuse to divorce me for being unfaithful or anything else…
Brick: Maggie, I wouldn’t divorce you for being unfaithful or anything else. Don’t you know that? Hell. I’d be relieved to know that you’d found yourself a lover.
Maggie: Well, I’m taking no chances. no, I’d rather stay on this hot tin roof.
Brick: A hot tin roof’s ‘n uncomfo’table place t’ stay on…
Maggie: yeah, but I can stay on it just as long as I have to.
Brick: You could leave me, Maggie.
Maggie: I know when I made my mistake.–What and I?–Oh!–my bracelets… [beat] I’ve thought a whole lot about it and now I know when I made my mistake. Yes, I made my mistake when I told you the truth about that thing with Skipper. Never should have confessed it, a fatal error, tellin’ you about that thing with Skipper
Brick: Maggie, shut up about Skipper. I mean it, Maggie; you got to shut up about Skipper.
Maggie: You ought to understand that Skipper and I–
Brick: You don’t think I’m serious, Maggie? You’re fooled by the fact that I am saying this quiet? Look, Maggie. What you’re doing is a dangerous thing to do. You’re–you’re–you’re–foolin’ with something that–nobody ought to fool with.
Maggie: This time I’m going to finish what I have to say to you. Skipper and I made love, if love you could call it, because it made both of us feel a little bit closer to you. You see, you son of a bitch, you asked too much of people, of me, of him, of all the unlucky poor damned sons of bitches that happen to love you, and there was a whole pack of them, yes, there was a pack of them besides me and Skipper, you asked too goddamn much of people that loved you, you–superior creature!–you godlike being!–And so we made love to each other to dream it was you, both of us! Yes, yes, yes! Truth, truth! What’s so awful about it? I like it, I think the truth is–yeah! I shouldn’t have told you…
Brick: It was Skipper that told me about it. Not you, Maggie.
Maggie: I told you!
Brick: After he told me!
Maggie: What does it matter who–? Because it’s got to be told and you, you! –you never let me! [beat] Brick, I tell you, you got to believe me, Brick, I do understand all about it! I–I think it was–noble! Can’t you tell I’m sincere when I say I respect it? My only point, the only point I’m making, is life has got to be allowed to continue even after the dream of life is–all–over… Why I remember when we double-dated at college, Gladys Fitzgerald and I and you and Skipper, it was more like a date between you and Skipper. Gladys and I were just sort of tagging along as if it was necessary to chaperone you! –to make a good public impression–
Brick: Maggie, you want me to hit you with this crutch? Don’t you know I could kill you with this crutch?
Maggie: Good Lord, man, d’ you think I’d care if you did?
Brick: One man has one great good true thing in his life. One great good thing which is true!–I had a friendship with Skipper–You are naming it dirty!
Maggie: I’m not naming it dirty! I am naming it clean.
Brick: Not love with you, Maggie, but friendship with Skipper as that one great true thing, and you are naming it dirty!
Maggie: Then you haven’t been listenin’, not understood what I’m saying! I’m naming it so damn clean that it killed poor Skipper!–You two had something that had to be kept on ice, yes, incorruptible, yes! –and death was the only icebox where you could keep it…
Brick: I married you, Maggie. Why would I marry you, Maggie, if I was-?
Maggie: I know, believe me I know, that it was only Skipper that harbored even any unconscious desire for anything not perfectly pure between you two!–Now let me skip a little. You married me early that summer we graduated out of Old Miss, and we were happy, weren’t we, we were blissful, yes, hit heaven together ev’ry time that we loved! But that fall, Skipper began hittin’ the bottle…you got a spinal injury–couldn’t play the Thanksgivin’ game in Chicago. I joined Skipper. The Dixie Starts lost because poor Skipper was drunk. We drank together that night all night in the bar of the Blackstone and when cold day was comin’ up over the Lake ad’ we were comin’ out drunk to take a dizzy look at it, I said, ‘SKIPPER! STOP LOVIN’ MY HUSBAND OR TELL HIM HE’S GOT TO LET YOU ADMIT IT TO HIM!’-one way or another! HE SLAPPED ME HARD ON THE MOUTH!–then turned and ran without stopping once, I am sure, all the way back into his room at the Blackstone…–When I came to his room that night, with a little scratch like a shy little mouse at his door, he made that pitiful, ineffectual little attempt to prove that what I had said wasn’t true–In this way, I destroyed him, by telling him truth that he and his world which he was born and raised in, yours and his world, had told him could not be told?–From then on Skipper was nothing at all but a receptacle for liquor and drugs…–merciful arrow! Missed me!–Sorry,–I’m not trying to whitewash my behaviour, Christ, no! Brick, I’m not good. I don’t know why people have to pretend to be good, nobody’s good. The rich or the well-to-do can afford to respect moral patterns, conventional moral patterns, but I could never afford to, yeah, but–I’m honest! Give me credit for just that, will you please?–Born poor, raised poor, expect to die poor unless I manage to get us something out of what Big Daddy leaves when he dies of cancer! But Brick?!-Skipper is dead! I’m Alive! Maggie the cat is–alive! I am alive! I am…–alive! [beat] Brick?– I’ve been to a doctor in Memphis, a–a gynecologist… I’ve been completely examined, and there is no reason why we can’t have a child whenever we want one. And this is my time by the calendar to conceive. Are you listening to me? Are you? Are you LISTENING TO ME!
Brick: Yes. I hear you, Maggie.–But how in hell on earth do you imagine–that you’re going to have a child by a man that can’t stand you?
Maggie: That’s a problem that I will have to work out.
END SCENE
