Night, Mother(English version)@31-60
-- 31 --
JESSIE You talk to Agnes today?
THELMA She's calling me from a pay phone this week. God only knows why. She has a perfectly good trimline at home.
JESSIE (Laughing.) Well, how is she?
THELMA How is she every day, Jessie? Nuts.
JESSIE Is she really crazy or just silly?
THELMA No, she's really crazy. She was probably using the pay phone because she had another little fire problem at home.
JESSIE Mother …
THELMA I'm serious! Agnes Fletcher's burned down every house she ever lived in. Eight fires and she's due for a new one any day now.
JESSIE (Laughing.) No!
THELMA (Really enjoying herself now.) Wouldn't surprise me a bit.
JESSIE (Laughing.) Why didn't you tell me this before? Why isn't she locked up somewhere?
THELMA Cause nobody ever got hurt. I guess. Agnes woke every body up to watch the fires as soon as she set 'em.
JESSIE That's thoughtful, I guess.
-- 32 --
THELMA One time she set out porch chairs and served lemondade.
JESSIE (Shaking her head.) Real lemondade?
THELMA The houses they lived in, you knew they were going to fall down anyway, so why wait for it, is all I could ever make out about it. Agnes likes a feeling of accomplishment.
JESSIE (Thinks about that a minute.) Good for her.
THELMA (Finding the pan she wants.) Why are you asking about Agnes? One cup or two?
JESSIE One. She's your friend. No marshmallows.
THELMA (Getting the milk, etc.) You have to have marshmallows. That's the old way, Jess. Two or three? Three is better.
JESSIE Three then. Her whole house burns up? Her clothes and pillows and everything? I'm not sure I believe this.
THELMA When she was a girl, Jess, not now. Long time ago. But she's still got it in her, I'm sure of it.
JESSIE She would't burn her house down now. Where would she go? She can't get Buster to build her a new one, he's dead. How could she burn it up?
-- 33 --
THELMA Be exciting though if she did. You never know.
JESSIE You do too know, Mama. She wouldn't do it.
THELMA (Forced to admit, but reluctant.) I guess not.
JESSIE What else? Why does she wear all those whistles around her neck?
THELMA Why does she have a house full of birds?
JESSIE I didn't know she had a house full of birds!
THELMA Well, she does. And she says they just follow her home. Well, I know for a fact she's still paying on the last parrot she bought. You gotta keep your life filled up, she says. She says a lot of stupid things. (Jessie laughs, Mama continues, convinced she's getting somewhere.) It's all that okra she eats. You can't just willy-nilly eat okra two meals a day and expect to get away with it. Made her crazy.
JESSIE She really eats okra twice a day? Where does she get it in the winter?
THELMA Well, she eats it a lot. Maybe not two meals, but …
JESSIE More than the average person.
THELMA (Beginning to get irritated.) I don't know how much okra the average person eats.
-- 34 --
JESSIE Do you know how much okra Agnes eats?
THELMA No.
JESSIE How many birds does she have?
THELMA Two.
JESSIE Then what are the whistles for?
THELMA They're not real whistles. Just little plastic ones on a necklace she won playing bingo and I only told you about it because I thought I might get a laugh out of you for once even if it wasn't the truth, Jessie. Things don't have to be true to talk about 'em, you know.
JESSIE Why won't she come over here?
(Mama is suddenly quiet, but the cocoa and milk are in the pan now, so she lights the stove and starts stirring.)
THELMA Well, now, what a good idea. We should've had more cocoa. cocoa is perfect.
JESSIE Except you don't like milk.
THELMA (Another attempt, but not as energetic.) I hate milk. Coats your throat as bad as okra. Something just downright disgusting about it.
JESSIE It's because of me, isn't it?
THELMA No, Jess.
JESSIE Yes, Mama.
-- 35 --
THELMA O. K. Yes, then, but she's crazy. She's as crazy as they come. She's a lunatic.
JESSIE What is it exactly? Did I say something, sometime? Or did she see me have a fit and's afraid I might have another one if she came over or what?
THELMA I guess.
JESSIE You guess what? What's she ever said? She must've given you some reason.
THELMA Your hands are cold.
JESSIE What difference does that make?
THELMA Like a corpse, she says, and I'm gonna be one soon enough as it is.
JESSIE That's crazy.
THELMA That's Agnes. "Jessie's shook the hand of death and I can't take the chance it's catching. Thelma, so I ain't comin' over and you can understand or not, but I ain't comin. I'll come up the driveway, but that's as far as I go."
JESSIE (Laughing, relieved.) I thought she didn't like me! She's scared of me! How about that! Scared of me.
THELMA I could make her come over here, Jessie. I could call her up right now and she could bring the birds and come visit. I didn't know you ever thought about her at all. I'll tell her she just has to come and she'll come all right. She owes me one.
-- 36 --
JESSIE No, that's all right. I just wondered about it. When I'm in the hospital, does she come over here?
THELMA Her kitchen is just a tiny thing. When she comes over here, she feels like …
(Toning it down a little.) Well, we all like a change of scene, don't we?
JESSIE (Playing along.) Sure we do. Plus there's no birds diving around.
THELMA I hate those birds. She says I don't understand them. What's there to understand about birds?
JESSIE Why Agnes likes them, for one thing. Why they stay with her when they could be outside with the other birds. How much water they need. What their singing means. How they fly. What they think Agnes is.
THELMA Why do you have to know so much about things, Jessie? There's just not that much to things that I could ever see.
JESSIE That you could ever tell, you mean. You didn't have to lie to me about Agnes.
THELMA I didn't lie. You never asked before!
JESSIE You lied about setting fire to all those houses and about how many birds she has and how much okra she eats and why she won't come over here. If I have to keep dragging the truth out of you, this is going to take all night.
-- 37 --
THELMA That's fine with me. I'm not a bit sleepy.
JESSIE Mama …
THELMA All right. Ask me whatever you want. Here.
(And they come to an awkward stop, as the cocoa is ready and Mama pours it into the cups Jessie has ready.)
JESSIE (As Mama takes her first sip.) Did you love Daddy?
THELMA No.
JESSIE (Pleased that Mama understands the rules better now.) I didn't think so. Were you really fifteen when you married him?
THELMA The way he told it? I'm sitting in the mud, he comes along, drags me in the kitchen, "She's been there ever since?"
JESSIE Yes.
THELMA No. It was a big fat lie, the whole thing. He just thought it was funnier that way. God, this milk in here.
JESSIE The cocoa helps.
THELMA (Pleased that they agree on this, at least.) Not enough, though, does it? You can still taste it, can't you?
JESSIE Yeah, it's pretty bad. I thought it was my memory that was bad, but it's not. It's the milk, all right.
-- 38 --
THELMA It's a real waste of chocolate. You don't have to finish it.
JESSIE (Puts her cup down.) Thanks though.
THELMA I should've known not to make it. I knew you wouldn't like it. You never did like it.
JESSIE You didn't ever love him or he did something and you stopped loving him or what?
THELMA He felt sorry for me. He wanted a plain country woman and that's what he married and then he held it against me the rest of my life like I was supposed to change and surprise him somehow. Like I remember this one day he was standing on the porch and I told him to get a shirt on and he went in and got one and then he said, real peaceful, but to the point, "You're right. Thelma. If God had meant for people to go around without any clothes on, they'd have been born that way."
JESSIE (Sees Mama's hurt.) He didn't mean anything by that, Mama.
THELMA He never said a word he didn't have to, Jessie. That was probably all he'd said to me all day, Jessie. So if he said it, there was something to it, but I never did figure that one out. What did that mean?
JESSIE I don't know. I liked him better than you did, but I didn't know him any better.
-- 39 --
THELMA How could I love him, Jessie. I didn't have a thing he wanted. (Jessie doesn't answer.) He got his share, though. You loved him enough for both of us. You followed him around like some … Jessie, all the man ever did was farm and sit … and try to think of somebody to sell the farm to.
JESSIE Or make me a boyfriend out of pipe cleaners and sit back and smile like the stick man was about to dance and wasn't I going to get a kick out of that. Or sit up with a sick cow all night and leave me a chain of sleepy stick elephants on my bed in the morning.
THELMA Or just sit.
JESSIE I liked him sitting. Big old faded blue man in the chair. Quiet.
THELMA Agnes gets more talk out of her birds than I got from the two of you. He could've had that Gone Fishing sign around his neck in that chair. I saw him stare off at the water. I saw him look at the weather rolling in. I got where I could practically see the boat myself. But you, you knew what he was thinking about and you're going to tell me.
JESSIE I don't know, Mama! His life, I guess. His corn. His boots. Us. Things. You know.
THELMA No I don't know, Jessie! You had those quiet little conversations after supper every night. What were you whispering about?
-- 40 --
JESSIE We weren't whispering, you were just across the room.
THELMA What did you talk about?
JESSIE We talked about why black socks are warmer than blue socks. Is that something to go tell Mother? You were just jealous because I'd rather talk to him than wash the dishes with you.
THELMA I was jealous because you'd rather talk to him than anything!
(Jessie reaches across the table for the small clock and starts to wind it.) If I had died instead of him, he wouldn't have taken you in like I did.
JESSIE I wouldn't have expected him to.
THELMA Then what would you have done?
JESSIE Come visit.
THELMA Oh I see. He died and left you stuck with me and you're mad about it.
JESSIE (Getting up from the table.) Not any more. He didn't mean to. I didn't have to come here. We've been through this.
THELMA Or maybe you think if I'd loved him more, or at all, he'd still be alive.
JESSIE I never thought that.
THELMA He felt sorry for you, too, Jessie, don't kid yourself about that. He said you were a runt and he said it from the day you were born and he said you didn't have a chance.
-- 41 --
JESSIE (Gets the canister of sugar and starts refilling the sugar bowl.) I know he loved me.
THELMA What if he did? It didn't change anything.
JESSIE It didn't have to. I miss him.
THELMA He never really went fishing, you know. Never once. His tackle box was full of chewing tobacco and all he ever did was drive out to the lake and sit in his car. Dawson told me. And Bennie at the bait shop, he told Dawson. They all laughed about it. And he'd come back from fishing and all he'd have to show for it was … a whole pipe cleaner family -- chickens, pigs, a dog with a bad leg -- it was creepy strange. It made me sick to look at them, and I hid his pipe cleaners a couple of times but he always had more somewhere.
JESSIE I thought it might be better for you after he died. You'd get interested in things. Breathe better. Change somehow.
THELMA Into what? The Queen? A clerk in a shoestore? Why should I? Because he said to? Because you said to? (Jessie shakes her head.) Well, I wan't here for his entertainment and I'm not here for yours either, Jessie. I don't know what I'm here for, but then I don't think about it. (Realizing what all this means.)But I bet you wouldn't be killing yourself if he were still alive. That's a fine thing to figure out, isn't it?
-- 42 --
JESSIE (Filling the honey jar now.) That's not true.
THELMA Oh no? Then what were you asking about him for? Why did you want to know if I loved him?
JESSIE I didn't think you did, that's all.
THELMA Fine then. You were right. Do you feel better now?
JESSIE (Cleans the honey jar carefully.) It feels good to be right about it.
THELMA It didn't matter whether I loved him. It didn't matter to me and it didn't matter to him. And it didn't mean we didn't get along. It wasn't important. We didn't talk about it. (Sweeping the pots off the cabinet.) Take all these pots out to the porch!
JESSIE What for?
THELMA Just leave me this one pan. (She jerks the silverware drawer open.) Get me one knife, one fork, one big spoon and the can opener and put them out where I can get them. (Starts throwing knives and forks in one of the pans.)
JESSIE Don't do that! I just straightened that drawer!
THELMA (Throws the pan in the sink.) And throw out all the plates and cups. I'll use paper. Loretta can have what she wants and Dawson can sell the rest.
-- 43 --
JESSIE (Calmly.) What are you doing?
THELMA I'm not going to cook. I never liked it anyway. I like candy. Wrapped in plastic or coming in sacks. And tuna. I like tuna. I'll eat tuna, thank you.
JESSIE (Taking the pan out of the sink.) What if you want to make apple butter? You can't make apple butter in that little pan. What if you leave carrots on cooking and burn up that pan?
THELMA I don't like carrots.
JESSIE What if the stawberries are good this year and you want to go picking with Agnes.
THELMA I'll tell her to bring a pan. You said you would do whatever I wanted! I don't want a bunch of pans cluttering up my cabinets I can't get down to anyway. Throw them out. Every last one.
JESSIE (Gathering up the pots.) I'm putting them all back in I'm not taking them to the porch. If you want them, they'll be here. You'll bend down and get them, like you got the one for the cocoa. And if somebody else comes over here to cook they'll have something to cook in and that's the end of it!
THELMA Who's going to come cook here?
JESSIE Agnes.
-- 44 --
THELMA In my pots. Not on your life.
JESSIE There's no reason why the two of you couldn't just live here together. Be cheaper for both of you and somebody to talk to. And if the birds bothered you, well, one day when Agnes is out getting her hair done, you could take them all for a walk!
THELMA (As Jessie straightens the silverware.) So that's why you're pestering me about Agnes. You think you can rest easy if you get me a new babysitter. Well, I don't want to live with Agnes. I barely want to talk with Agnes. She's just around. We go back, that's all. I'm not letting Agnes near this place. You don't get off as easy as that, child.
JESSIE O. K. then. It's just something to think about.
THELMA I don't like things to think about. I like things to go on!
JESSIE (Closes the silverware drawer.) I want to know what Daddy said to you the night he died. You came storming out of his room and said I could wait it out with him if I wanted to, but you were going to watch Gunsmoke. What did he say to you?
THELMA He didn't have anything to say to me, Jessie. That's why I left. He didn't say a thing. It was his last chance not to talk to me and he took full advantage of it.
-- 45 --
JESSIE (After a moment.) I'm sorry you didn't love him. Sorry for you. I mean. He seemed like a nice man.
THELMA (As Jessie walks to the refrigerator.) Ready for your apple now?
JESSIE Soon as I'm through here. Mama.
THELMA You won't like the apple either. It'll be just like the cocoa. You never liked eating at all, did you? Any of it! What have you been living on all these years, toothpaste?
JESSIE (As she starts to clean out the refrigerator.) Now you know the milkman comes on Wednesdays and Saturdays and he leaves the order blank in an egg box and you give the bills to Dawson once a month.
THELMA Do they still make that orangeade?
JESSIE It's not orangeade, it's just orange.
THELMA I'm going to get some. I thought they stopped making it. You just stopped ordering it.
JESSIE You should drink milk.
THELMA Not any more, I'm not. That hot chocolate was the last. Hooray.
JESSIE (Getting the garbage can from under the sink.) I told them to keep delivering a quart a week no matter what you said. I told them you'd run out of cokes and you'd have to drink it. I told them I knew you wouldn't pour it on the ground …
-- 46 --
THELMA (Finishing her sentence.) And you told them you weren't going to be ordering any more?
JESSIE I told them I was taking a little holiday and to look after you.
THELMA And they didn't think something was funny about that? You who doesn't go to the front steps? You, who only see the driveway looking down from a stretcher passed out cold?
JESSIE (Enjoying this, but not laughing.) They said it was about time, but why didn't I take you with me. And I said I didn't think you'd want to go and they said, "Yeah, everybody's got their own idea of vacation."
THELMA I guess you think that's funny.
JESSIE (Pulling jars out of the refrigerator.) You know there never was any reason to call the ambulance for me. All they ever did for me in the emergency room was let me wake up. I could've done that here. Now, I'll just call them out and you say yes or no. I know you like pickles. Ketchup?
THELMA Keep it.
JESSIE We've had this since last Fourth of July.
THELMA Keep the ketchup. Keep it all.
JESSIE Are you going to drink ketchup from the bottle or what? How can you want your food and not want your pots to cook it in? This stuff will all spoil in here, Mother.
-- 47 --
THELMA Nothing I ever did was good enough for you and I want to know why.
JESSIE That's not true.
THELMA And I want to know why you've lived here this long feeling the way you do.
JESSIE You have no earthly idea how I feel.
THELMA Well how could I? You're real far back there, Jessie.
JESSIE Back where?
THELMA What's it like over there, where you are? Do people always say the right thing or get whatever they want or what?
JESSIE What are you talking about?
THELMA Why do you read the newspaper? Why don't you wear that sweater I made for you? Do you remember how I used to look or am I just any old woman now? When you have a fit do you see stars or what? How did you fall off the horse, really? Why did Cecil leave you? Where did you put my old glasses?
JESSIE (Stunned by Mama's intensity.) They're in the bottom drawer of your dresser in an old Milk of Magnesia box. Cecil left me because he made me choose between him and smoking.
THELMA Jessie, I know he wasn't that dumb.
JESSIE I never understood why he hated it so much when it's so good. Smoking is the only thing I know that's always just what you think it's going to be. Just like it was the last time and right there when you want it and real quiet.
-- 48 --
THELMA Your fits made him sick and you know it.
JESSIE Say seizures, not fits. Seizures.
THELMA It's the same thing. A seizure in the hospital is a fit at home.
JESSIE They didn't bother him at all. Except he did feel responsible for it. It was his idea to go horseback riding that day. It was his idea I could do anything if I just made up my mind to. I fell off the horse because I didn't know how to hold on. Cecil left for pretty much the same reason.
THELMA He had a girl, Jessie. I walked right in on them in the tool shed.
JESSIE (After a moment.) O. K. That's fair. (Lights another cigarette.)Was she very pretty?
THELMA She was Agnes' girl, Carlene. Judge for yourself.
JESSIE (As she walks to the living room.) I guess you and Agnes had a good talk about that, huh?
THELMA I never thought he was good enough for you. They moved here from Tennessee, you know.
JESSIE What are you talking about? You liked him better than I did. You flirted him out here to build your porch or I'd never even met him at all. You thought maybe he'd help you out around the place, come in and get some coffee and talk to you. God knows what you thought. All that curly hair.
-- 49 --
THELMA He's the best carpenter I ever saw. That little house of yours will still be standing at the end of the world, Jessie.
JESSIE You didn't need a porch, Mama.
THELMA All right! I wanted you to have a husband.
JESSIE And I couldn't get one on my own, of course.
THELMA How were you going to get a husband never opening your mouth to a living soul?
JESSIE So I was quiet about it, so what?
THELMA So I should have let you just sit here? Sit like your Daddy? Sit here?
JESSIE Maybe.
THELMA Well I didn't think so.
JESSIE Well what did you know?
THELMA I never said I knew much. How was I supposed to learn anything living out here? I didn't know enough to do half the things I did in my life. Things happen. You do what you can about them and you see what happens next. I married you off to the wrong man, I admit that. So I took you in when he left. I'm sorry.
JESSIE He wasn't the wrong man.
THELMA He didn't love you, Jessie, or he wouldn't have left.
-- 50 --
JESSIE He wasn't the wrong man, Mama. I loved Cecil so much. And I tried to get more exercise and I tried to stay awake. I tried to learn to ride a horse. And I tried to stay outside with him, and but he always knew I was trying so it didn't work.
THELMA He was a selfish man. He told me once he hated to see people move into his houses after he built them. He knew they'd mess them up.
JESSIE I loved that bridge he built over the creek in back of the house. It didn't have to be anything special, a couple of boards would have been just fine, but he used that yellow pine and rubbed it so smooth …
THELMA He had responsibilities here. He had a wife and son here and he failed you.
JESSIE Or that baby bed he built for Ricky. I told him he didn't have to spend so much time on it, but he said it had to last and the thing ended up weighing 200 pounds and I couldn't move it. I said, "How long did a baby bed have to last anyway?" But maybe he thought if it was strong enough, it might keep Ricky a baby.
THELMA Ricky is too much like Cecil.
JESSIE He is not. Ricky is as much like me as it's possible for any human to be. We even wear the same size pants. These are his, I think.
-- 51 --
THELMA That's just the same size. That's not you're the same person.
JESSIE I see it on his face. I hear it when he talks. We look out at the world and we see the same thing. Not Fair. And the only difference between us is Ricky's out there trying to get even. And he knows not to trust anybody and he got it straight from me. And he knows not to try to get work and guess where he got that. And he walks around like there's loose boards in the floor and you know who laid that floor, I did.
THELMA Ricky isn't through yet. You don't know how he'll turn out!
JESSIE (Going back to the kitchen.) Yes I do and so did Cecil. Ricky is the two of us together for all time in too small a space. And we're tearing each other apart, like always, inside that boy and if you don't see it, then you're just blind.
THELMA Give him time, Jess.
JESSIE Oh, he'll have plenty of that. 5 years for forgery, 10 years for armed assault …
THELMA (Furious.) Stop that! (Then pleading.)Jessie, Cecil might be ready to try it again, honey, that happens sometimes. Go downtown. Find him. Talk to him. He didn't know what he had in you. Maybe he sees things different now, but you're not going to know that til you go see him. Or call him up! Right now! He might be home.
-- 52 --
JESSIE And say what? Nothing's changed, Cecil, I'd just like to look at you, if you don't mind? No. He loved me, Mama. He just didn't know how things fall down around me like they do. I think he did the right thing. He gave himself another chance, that's all. But I did beg him to take me with him. I did tell him I would leave Ricky and you and everything I loved out here if only he would take me with him, but he couldn't and I understand that. (A pause.) I wrote that note I showed you. I wrote it. Not Cecil. I said "I'm sorry, Jessie, I can't fix it all for you." I said I'd always love me, not Cecil. But that's how he felt.
THELMA Then he should've taken you with him!
JESSIE (Picking up the garbage bag she has filled.) Mama, you don't pack your garbage when you move.
THELMA You will not call yourself garbage, Jessie.
JESSIE (Taking the bag to the big garbage can.) Just a way of saying it, Mama. Thinking about my list, that's all. (Opening the can, putting the garbage in, then securing the lid.)
Well, a little more than that. I was trying to say it's all right that Cecil left. It was … a relief in a way. I never was what he wanted to see, so it was better when he wasn't looking at me all the time.
-- 53 --
THELMA I'll make your apple now.
JESSIE No thanks. You get the manicure stuff and I'll be right there. (Jessie ties up the big garbage bag in the can and replaces the small garbage bag under the sink, all the time trying desperately to regain her calm. Mama watches, from a distance, her hand reaching unconsciously for the phone. Then she has a better idea. Or rather she thinks of the only other thing left and is willing to try it. Maybe she is even convinced it will work.)
THELMA Jessie, I think your Daddy had little …
JESSIE (Interrupting her.) Garbage night is Tuesday. Put it out as late as you can. The Davis's dogs get in it if you don't.
(Now replacing the garbage sack in the can under the sink.) And keep ordering the heavy black bags. It doesn't pay to buy the cheap ones. And I've got all the ties here with the hammers and all. Take them out of the box as soon as you open a new one and put them in this drawer. They'll get lost if you don't and rubber bands or something else won't work.
THELMA I think your Daddy had fits too. I think he sat in his chair and had little fits. I read this a long time ago in a magazine, how little fits go, just little blackouts where maybe their eyes don't even close and people just call them "thinking spells."
-- 54 --
JESSIE (Getting the slipcover out the laundry basket.) I don't think you want this manicure we've been looking forward to. I washed this cover for the sofa, but it'll take both of us to get it back on.
THELMA I watched his eyes. I know that's what it was. The magazine said some people don't even know they've had one.
JESSIE Daddy would've known if he'd had fits, Mama.
THELMA The lady in this story kept track of her fits and she'd had 80,000 of them in the last eleven years.
JESSIE Next time you wash this cover, it'll dry better if you put it on wet.
THELMA Jessie, listen to what I'm telling you. This lady had anywhere between five and five hundred fits a day and they lasted maybe 15 seconds apiece, so that out of her life, she'd only lost about two weeks altogether and she had a full-time secretary job and an I. Q. of 120.
JESSIE (Has to be amused by Mama's approach.) You want to talk about fits, is that it?
THELMA Yes. I do. I want to say …
JESSIE (Interrupting.) Most of the time I wouldn't even know I'd had one, except I wake up with different clothes on feeling like I've been run over. Sometimes I feel my head start to turn around or hear myself scream. And sometimes, there is this dizzy stupid feeling a little before it, but if the TV's on, well, it's easy to miss.
(As Jessie and Mama replace the slip cover on the sofa and the afghan on the chair, the physical struggle somehow mirrors the emotional one in the conversation.)
-- 55 --
THELMA I can tell when you're about to have one. Your eyes get this big! But Jessie, you haven't …
JESSIE (Taking charge of this.) What do they look like? The seizures.
THELMA (Reluctant.) Different each time, Jess.
JESSIE O. K. Pick one, then. A good one. I think I want to know now.
THELMA There's not much to tell. You just … crumple, in a heap, like a puppet and somebody cut the strings all at once, or like the firing squad in some Mexican movie, you just slide down the wall, you know. You don't know what happens? How can you not know what happens?
JESSIE I'm busy.
THELMA That's not funny.
JESSIE I'm not laughing. My head turns around and I fall down and then what?
THELMA Well, your chest squeezes in and out and you sound like you're gagging, sucking air in and out like you can't breathe.
JESSIE Do it for me. Make the sound for me.
THELMA I will not. It's awful sounding.
JESSIE Yeah. It felt like it might be. What's next.
-- 56 --
THELMA Your mouth bites down and I have to get your tongue out of the way fast so you don't bite yourself.
JESSIE Or you. I bite you too, don't I?
THELMA You got me once real good. I had to get a tetanus! But I know what to watch for now. Then you turn blue and the jerks start up. Like I'm standing there poking you with a cattle prod or you're sticking your finger in a light socket as fast as you can.
JESSIE Foaming like a mad dog the whole time.
THELMA It's bubbling, Jess, not foam like the washer overflowed, for God's sake, it's bubbling like a baby spitting up. I go get a wet washcloth, that's all. And then the jerks slow down and you wet yourself and it's over. Two minutes tops.
JESSIE How do I get to the bed?
THELMA How do you think?
JESSIE I'm too heavy for you now. How do you do it?
THELMA I call Dawson. But I get you cleaned up before he gets here and I make him leave before you wake up.
JESSIE You could just leave me on the floor.
THELMA I want you to wake up someplace nice, O. K.? (Then making a real effort.) But Jessie, and this is the reason I even brought this up! You haven't had a seizure for a solid year. A whole year, do you realize that?
-- 57 --
JESSIE Yeah, the phenobarb's about right now, I guess.
THELMA You bet it is. You might never have another one, ever! You might be through with it for all time!
JESSIE Could be.
THELMA You are. I know you are!
JESSIE I sure am feeling good. I really am. The double vision's gone and my gums aren't swelling. No rashes or anything. I'm feeling as good as I ever felt in my life. I'm even feeling like worrying or getting mad and I'm not afraid it will start a fit if I do. I just go ahead.
THELMA Of course you do! You can even scream at me, if you want to. I can take it. You don't have to act like you're just visiting here, Jessie. This is your house too.
JESSIE The best part is my memory's back.
THELMA Your memory's always been good. When couldn't you remember things? You're always reminding me what …
JESSIE Because I've made lists for everything. But now, I remember what things mean on my lists. I see dishtowels and I used to wonder whether I was supposed to wash them, buy them or look for them because I wouldn't remember where I put them after I washed them, but now I know it means wrap them up, they're a present for Loretta's birthday.
-- 58 --
THELMA (Finished with the sofa now.) You used to go looking for your lists, too, I've noticed that. You always know where they are now! (Then suddenly worried.)Loretta's birthday isn't coming up, is it?
JESSIE I made a list of all the birthdays for you. I even put yours on it.
(A small smile.) So you can call Loretta and remind her.
THELMA Let's take Loretta to Howard Johnson's and have those fried clams. I know you love that clam roll.
JESSIE (A slight pause.) I won't be here, Mama.
THELMA What have we just been talking about? You'll be here. You're well, Jessie. You're starting all over. You said it yourself. You're remembering things and …
JESSIE I won't be here. If I'd ever had a year like this, to think straight and all, before now, I'd be gone already.
THELMA (Not pleading, commanding.) No, Jessie.
JESSIE (Folding the rest of the laundry.) Yes, Mama. Once I started remembering, I could see what it all added up to.
THELMA The fits are over!
-- 59 --
JESSIE It's not the fits, Mama.
THELMA Then it's me for giving them to you, but I didn't do it!
JESSIE It's not the fits! You said it yourself, the medicine takes care of the fits.
THELMA (Interrupting.) Your Daddy gave you those fits, Jessie. He passed it down to you like your green eyes and your straight hair. It's not my fault!
JESSIE So what if he had little fits? It's not inherited. I fell off the horse. It was an accident.
THELMA The horse wasn't the first time, Jessie. You had a fit when you were five years old.
JESSIE I did not.
THELMA You did! You were eating a popsicle and down you went. He gave it to you. It's his fault, not mine.
JESSIE Well, you took your time telling me.
THELMA How do you tell that to a five year old?
JESSIE What did the doctor say?
THELMA He said kids have them all the time. He said there wasn't anything to do but wait for another one.
JESSIE But I didn't have another one.
(Now there is a real silence.) You mean to tell me I had fits all the time as a kid and you just told me I fell down or something and it wasn't til I had the fit when Cecil was looking that anybody bothered to find out what was the matter with me?
-- 60 --
THELMA It wasn't all the time, Jessie, and they changed when you started to school, more like your Daddy's. Oh, that was some swell time, sitting here with the two of you turning on and off like light bulbs some nights.
JESSIE How many fits did I have?
THELMA You never hurt yourself. I never let you out of my sight. I caught you every time.
JESSIE But you didn't tell anybody.
THELMA It was none of their business.
JESSIE You were ashamed.
THELMA I didn't want anybody to know. Least of all you.
JESSIE Least of all, me. Oh right. That was mine to know, Mama, not yours. Did Daddy know?
THELMA He thought you were … you fell down a lot. That's what he thought. You were careless. Or maybe he thought I beat you. I don't know what he thought. He didn't think about it.
JESSIE Because you didn't tell him!
THELMA If I told him about you, I'd have to tell him about him!
JESSIE I don't like this. I don't like this one bit.
THELMA I didn't think you'd like it. That's why I didn't tell you.
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