Desert Devils by Edward Crosby Wells
THE SETTING:
Jo's kitchen/dining room. A lower middle-class motif. Extremely clean and well organized. Lots of plastic: a plastic napkin holder, salt and pepper shakers, food storage containers, canisters and plastic mixing bowls, plastic ornaments on the walls, plastic fruit in a plastic bowl. And little wooden do-dads: A wooden memo pad holder, a wooden rack from which to hang keys a souvenir from some past summer vacation. More souvenirs of questionable worth, although of an utilitarian nature: A toothpick holder from Carlsbad Caverns, a straw dispenser from Corpus Christi, and a bread box from El Paso. On the walls hang scenic plates: An oil well from Midland, Texas, the White House and the Alamo. There is one plate with the face of Jesus painted on it and another with the face of Elvis Presley. Downstage looking out over the audience the curtained window of the kitchen hosts no live potted plants; organic life other than human would only serve as breeding ground for germs and other things considered by Jo as "dirty." However, a neat arrangement of plastic flowers with glitter glued on their petals sits fading in the center of the dining table. Somewhere stands an ironing board and near it is a plastic basket bulging with clothes to be ironed.
THE PLACE:
Hobbs, New Mexico-a small city in southeastern New Mexico, a mile from the West Texas border.
THE TIME:
Late 1980s-mid-morning on a Monday in August. The weather is sunny and hot.
THE CHARACTERS:
JO: A woman in her fifties or sixties.
BILLIE: Jo's friend and neighbor, the same age as Jo.
LEOTA RUTH: Jo's daughter, late thirties to early forties.
MAMMAW: (pronounced ma'am-ah) Jo's Mother.
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ACT ONE
AT RISE Perhaps "Don't Be Cruel" sung by Elvis Presley is playing on the radio.
BILLIE, a large bulk of a woman with her hair in rollers is seated at the kitchen table, painting her toenails and sometimes knitting.
JO is slender and bony by comparison and prone to move about the kitchen bird-like-pecking here and there, searching for something to clean or polish, something to do. In JO's forever-scrutinizing eyes it is her duty as a housewife to see that all the household chores are done and when they are, it is her duty to create new ones; however mundane they may be. She wears a cobbler's apron filled with all sorts of cleaning supplies that she uses, more often than not, throughout the course of the play.
JO: (Running her hands down along the curtains hanging on the kitchen window sighs, nodding her head negatively.) I don't know. Honest to God, I really just don't know.
BILLIE: (Stops polishing her toenails.) Well . . . what kind of material did you have in mind?
JO: Don't know that I had any kind in mind, Billie. (Crosses to turn off radio.)
BILLIE: You'll be wanting something cheery.
JO: Why?
BILLIE: All right . . . you want something gloomy and dingy and ugly as sin, right? (Picks up her knitting.)
JO: You go to such extremes.
BILLIE: You want my input or not?
JO: Input? I don't even like the sound of that! (Dusts something.)
BILLIE: Input is a perfectly good word. It means putting in ones-
JO: Two cents?
BILLIE: (Unruffled.) Putting in one's . . . ideas about a thing.
JO: You mean opinion.
BILLIE: Well, yes. You could say that.
JO: Then, why didn't you?
BILLIE: What's wrong with the ones you got, anyway?
JO: Whoever said there was anything wrong with them?
BILLIE: Excuse me, but I'm sure I heard somebody say not two minutes ago in this very room that she wanted to change out the curtains in that there window.
JO: That don't mean there's got to be something wrong with them. I'm just tired of looking at them, that's all.
BILLIE: (Studying curtains.) Hmmm . . . oh . . . well . . . maybe you're right, Jo. I don't know-
JO: (Polishing something.) You don't know what?
BILLIE: I don't know if I'm tired of looking at them or not.
JO: Why should you be?
BILLIE: I see those curtains often enough, don't I?
JO: Not half as much as me.
BILLIE: No . . . not nearly so much.
JO: Then, who cares? I'm the one who's got to look at them day and night. Not you. You can go next door and look at your own curtains. You don't got to live with them like I do.
BILLIE: No . . . not like you do. (Rises and goes to cabinet, searching for something.)
JO: Who cares? That's all I've got to say . . . who cares. (Watching BILLIE.) Now what?
BILLIE: Something to nibble on with my coffee-acid. One should never drink too much coffee all on its own-too much acid.
JO: (Reaches into a nearby cabinet and removes a plastic container filled with sugar cookies handing BILLIE the cookies.) Here. I made them yesterday. BILLIE: Sugar cookies! My favorite!
JO: You say that about all cookies.
BILLIE: I do not.
JO: You do too. Last week peanut butter cookies was your favorite. The week before that it was tollhouse.
BILLIE: I love tollhouse.
JO: See what I mean?
BILLIE: Well . . . next to tollhouse, sugar cookies are my absolute favorite.
JO: Rats', too.
BILLIE: Rats?
JO: That's what I put down for the rats. (Gets coffeepot.)
BILLIE: You feed your rats?
JO: I don't have any rats . . . not anymore. Coffee?
BILLIE: Please. (Polishing off a cookie.) Delicious. You must give me your recipe.
JO: (Pouring coffee.) The one for people or the one for rats?
BILLIE: The one for people, of course. I don't have rats.
JO: You don't?
BILLIE: No. The very idea-
JO: They had to come from somewhere.
BILLIE: If you're hinting that I have rats and that they somehow carpet-bagged their way over here under my fence, you're sadly mistaken. What about Clara on the other side? They could've come from her, you know.
JO: As clean as she is? Don't be silly.
BILLIE: Well, I don't have rats. I never did have rats. And, I certainly don't intend to get any! But, if I did, I wouldn't be feeding them cookies. Poison. I'd feed them poison. (Pauses to examine cookie.) Jo, what's the difference between the people recipe and the rat recipe?
JO: Margarine instead of butter.
BILLIE: Practical.
JO: Imitation vanilla extract.
BILLIE: Smart. Why waste the real thing on rats.
JO And an extra cup of sugar.
BILLIE: They like them sweet, huh?
JO How would I know? The extra sugar counteracts the taste of the poison.
BILLIE: How would you know that? I mean, it could be sweet already. It seems to me, if you're going to make a poison, you're going to make it attractive to the thing you wanna kill.
JO: You think so, huh?
BILLIE: Maybe the extra sugar counteracts the taste of the cheese.
JO: What cheese?
BILLIE: In the rat poison.
JO: There ain't no cheese in the rat poison.
BILLIE: How do you know? Did you taste it?
JO: No. I didn't taste it.
BILLIE: (Pause.) Well, you ought to. (Beat) I bet it tastes like cheese.
JO: It could taste like chicken fried steak, for all I care.
BILLIE: That's it. I'll make chicken fry for dinner. Thanks, Jo.
JO: Don't mention it.
BILLIE So, instead of sugar on the top, you sprinkle on a little rat poison. .
JO: No. I mix it in with the batter-a lot of rat poison.
BILLIE: (Spitting out cookie. Soggy crumbs fly across the table.) What?
JO: Look at the mess you're making. You don't really think I'm going to feed my best friend cookies I baked for the rats, do you?
BILLIE: (Thinking.) No. I guess not.
JO: Then stop acting like a retard. Look what you went and did. You got coffee and crumbs all over my arrangement. (Examines the arrangement of plastic flowers setting on the table.) Something else to clean.
BILLIE: I'll do it.
JO: You just stay put. (Rises and crosses to drawer under counter.) I'll take care of it . . . just like I have to do everything else around here.
BILLIE: Whatever. (Removing the rollers from her hair. After a pause.) Any news about H.O.?
JO: (Searching through drawer.) Nothing more than I told you yesterday. (Removes metal Band-Aid container, closes drawer.) They're going to send him home tomorrow. That's all I know. (Crosses to table, sits and removes Q-tips from container begins to clean plastic floral arrangement, meticulously.) Ugh. What a filthy mess.
BILLIE: That's not all me.
JO: Billie, did I say it was?
BILLIE: No.
JO: Then don't go putting words in my mouth.
BILLIE: Did they find out what made him take such a fit?
JO: Some kind of stomach thing, that's all I know.
BILLIE: Well, something ain't right. I mean, a man just don't start foaming at the mouth in the middle of Tootie's and take to ripping all the plastic off all the chickens in the meat case.
JO: He said he wanted to set them free.
BILLIE: Free? Free to do what?
JO: I don't know! Fly away, maybe.
BILLIE: Jo, chickens can't fly away.
JO (More to herself.) I suppose H.O. will be moping around the house all week, expecting me to wait on him hand and foot.
BILLIE: They hop.
JO: What?
BILLIE: Hop, hop. Chickens kinda run and hop. I'm sure they don't fly. (Demonstrates.)
JO: What on Earth are you talking about?
BILLIE: Chickens. You said ol' H.O. took the plastic off so they could fly away.
JO: I didn't say any such thing.
BILLIE: Oh, I could've sworn-
JO: 'Sides, they was quartered.
BILLIE: Quartered? That pretty much puts an end to hopping, too, don't it?
JO: What is wrong with you this morning? You take a stupid-pill or something?
BILLIE: No. Took a water pill . . . bloat.
JO: Well, you better be careful. You're liable to end up with brain-rot!
BILLIE: I know you don't mean to hurt me, Jo, but you do sometimes. You know that, don'tcha? (No response.) Jo, is something bothering you this morning? I mean, more than usual.
JO: (Returns to table and sits resumes cleaning plastic floral arrangement with Q-tip.) Ain't nothin' bothering me.
BILLIE: Well, you're not yourself.
JO: Who am I?
BILLIE: Don't you know?
JO: I know I'm someone who's tired. Just tired.
BILLIE: I didn't sleep well last night, either. Sanford dog barked all night. Did
you hear it?
JO: No.
BILLIE: When Georgie's home, dogs don't bark all night.
JO: Course they do.
BILLIE Oh, no. Georgie gets out there and yells once and you don't hear another yap all night.
JO: Well, it ain't got nothing to do with sleep. I'm just tired. Tired of taking care of people. Tired of living. Tired of not living. Tired. Just tired. Don'tcha get it?
BILLIE: How dense do you think I am, Jo? I understand more than you think.
JO: When's my turn, huh? I thought when we retired we were gonna do things-travel maybe. Visit some of H.O.'s folks up north.
BILLIE: You can still do that.
JO: Sure, with mother to take care of-
BILLIE: Mammaw can take care of herself. She's got more energy than any two people I know.
JO: And then there's-poor thing-Leota Ruth. Couldn't tie her own shoelaces on a bet.
BILLIE: Of course she can.
JO: It's a figure of speech, Billie. Honestly. She's been three times over in that mental health unit this year alone.
BILLIE: Maybe she'll have no cause to go again.
JO: A lot you know. Once you got it you got it for life. All you can do is medicate it.
BILLIE: What exactly has she got?
JO: She's crazy, Billie. She sees things and hears things that don't exist.
BILLIE: Maybe she's one of those psychics.
JO: You mean psychos.
BILLIE: No. I mean, like special extra-terrestrial gifted or something like that.
JO She ain't no such thing! Where do you get your crazy ideas?
BILLIE: There's solid proof that people like that exist.
JO: Not in Hobbs, New Mexico.
BILLIE: Well, maybe she'll meet someone real nice, get married, and move on.
JO: Yeah and maybe Publisher's Clearing House will give me ten million dollars.
BILLIE: Stranger things have happened. You never know.
JO: (Disregarding the last.) And, Howie Boy-sending him all our extra money so he can eat and pay his rent.
BILLIE: He's over forty, Jo. He hadn't ought to be drainin' you so.
JO: He's a songwriter. It takes time to break into the business.
BILLIE: Still, he's too tied to his mama, if you ask me.
JO: (Warning.) Ain't no one asking you, Billie.
BILLIE: Sorry. You got all the cotton plumb wore off that Q-tip. (JO frowns and takes out a fresh Q-tip. A pause.) What do you suppose the "Q" stands for?
JO: What?
BILLIE: The "Q" in Q-tip. What do you suppose it stands for?
JO: It don't stand for nothin'.
BILLIE: It's gotta stand for something.
JO: Why? Because you say so?
BILLIE: Quick. Quick-tip, that's it!
JO: I got things to do, Billie. I can't sit around all day like some people I know.
BILLIE: What is that supposed to mean?
JO: What is what supposed to mean?
BILLIE: You think I sit around all day and do nothing, don'tcha?
JO: Why does the world always have to revolve around you, huh? You always think I'm talking about you. There are other people walking around this planet, too.
BILLIE: Then, who? Who, Jo? Who? Who did you have in mind?
JO: I don't know who. Honest to God! Miz Astor. That's who. (Rises and throws Q-tip onto table.)
BILLIE: You meant me. You had me in mind.
JO: (Squirts back of chair with cleaner taken from out her cobbler's apron proceeds to wipe chair dry.) I didn't have nobody in mind, Billie. Nobody. H.O.'s coming home tomorrow and there's things to get done. You know how men are. Get a little tummy ache and it's "get me this" and "get me that." There ain't nothing more helpless than a grown man outta sorts.
BILLIE: Still, it's nice to have a man around the house.
JO: Why don't you just die and stay stupid!
BILLIE: You're not as humorous as you think, Jo. You can abuse me all you like, but what goes 'round comes 'round.
JO: So you say.
BILLIE: It's a fact, Jo. As ye sow so shall ye reap.
JO: Don't you quote to me, missy. You wanna do that kind of thing you go down the street corner and quote to somebody who cares. Not to me-not in my house.
BILLIE: (Demurely.) Elvis would have agreed.
JO: How dare you? How dare you?
BILLIE: Well . . . he would have.
JO: Don't you ever disgrace the name of Elvis Presley while you're sitting under my roof again! Elvis was a saint! (Crosses to 'Elvis' plate.)
BILLIE: For God's sake, Jo, he weren't nothin' but a singer.
JO: A singer? A singer? (Holding 'Elvis" plate with maniacal restraint.) An instrument of God, Billie! A saint among men, martyred! Taken to the Lord's
breast in his prime . . . murdered!
BILLIE: Nobody murdered him, Jo. He did it to himself.
JO: How dare you?
BILLIE: Drugs, Jo. He took drugs.
JO: He was murdered! Cut down by the American Medical Association-a branch of the Mafia!
BILLIE (Resigned.) All right. Whatever you say.
JO: No. No, it's not all right because I say it. It's all right because it's the truth! (Dusts 'Elvis' plate.)
BILLIE: Okay, okay.
JO: Don't you ever disgrace the good name of Elvis Presley in this house ever again.
BILLIE: All right. I'm sorry. Okay?
JO: Never again. (Replaces the 'Elvis' plate and gives the 'Jesus' plate a quick flick of the duster, almost as an afterthought.)
BILLIE: (Anxious to change the subject.) I found a penny head's up this morning. That's good luck, isn't it?
JO: (Returning to table sits.) It ain't nothin' but superstitious junk. How a grown woman can believe in that kind of nonsense is beyond me.
BILLIE: I never said I believed in it. (Gathers up her knitting and hair rollers.) I think I'll be heading home.
JO: Why? Got something better to do?
BILLIE: Maybe.
JO: I'm sure it ain't housework.
BILLIE: (Dropping her belongings back onto the table.) Jo, my house is my business! You can clean, scrub, make a fool of yourself all you like. I don't care. Who've I got to clean for? Georgie ain't home but three or four days a month.
JO: Well, that's what you get for marrying a rodeo man.
BILLIE: Humph-
JO: But, since you bring it up, you can't exactly eat off your kitchen floor, can you?
BILLIE: I don't know. Do you need an answer right away?
JO: You can eat off mine.
BILLIE: Yes, Jo. You can eat off yours. I'll stay at the table if you don't mind.
JO: It's just a figure of speech.
BILLIE: (Stands.) Of course it is. It's your quaint, not to say "bitchy", way of telling me I'm dirty.
JO: I never said any such thing.
BILLIE: Not directly, no. You don't know how to be that honest.
JO: (Stands face to face.) Honest? You want honest? Your house is a pigsty.
BILLIE: That's not honest. That's cruel, unnecessary, and rude. (Sits.)
JO: You asked for it. (Sits and starts cleaning flowers with Q-tip.)
BILLIE: This compulsive addiction you have for housewifery is a sickness, don'tcha know.
JO: So is living in filth.
BILLIE: Look at yourself polishing that there bunch of plastic flowers with a Q-tip. That's sane?
JO: It's my job.
BILLIE: Only because you make it so. Why don'tcha just dump it in the sink and run water over it?
JO: Because that's not the way it's done.
BILLIE: That's the way I'd do it.
JO: Well, that's your problem, isn't it?
BILLIE: (Suddenly.) Cushion!
JO: What?
BILLIE: Cushion-tip! That's what the "Q" stand for-cushion-tip.
JO: Cushion don't start with a "Q". It starts with a "C", stupid.
BILLIE: Oh, that's right. I wonder what I could've been thinking of?
JO: There's no telling.
(LEOTA RUTH enters from outside with the laces of her walking shoes dragging along the floor, untied. There is something fragile, haunting, and haunted about her. She appears as a frightened animal always on the lookout for some hidden, silent predator. Whatever she is wearing must have long sleeves. She is carrying a bouquet of wild flowers.)
BILLIE: Well, I'm sure I was thinking of something.
[end of extract]