Hale Allean - Fugitive Kind

Scene: The lobby of a flophouse in a large Middle Western city. Outside the door, an arc lamp projects a bright electronic bow, spotlighting the passing characters. A large glass window admits a skyline of the city whose towers are outlined at night by a faint electric glow, so that we are always conscious of the city as a great implacable force, pressing in upon the shabby room and crowding its fugitive inhabitants back against their last wall.

A stair is visible with a red bulb at the first landing. The desk or counter is stage right with an office door behind it. About the walls are benches and one or two chairs. An iron glows hotly. A checker-board is suspended by a string from the wall. There is a large calendar with a single sheet for each day so that the date is plain to the audience. OKAY BEDS 15 is printed on window and on placard by desk.

When lighted the set is realistic. But during the final scenes of the play, where the mood is predominantly lyrical, the stage is darkened, the realistic details are lost the great window, the red light on the landing and the shadow walls make an almost expressionistic background.

As the curtain rises a group of transients are discovered idling about the room. Two Italians seated on the bench are playing La Morra, an Italian game in which two individuals extend fingers or fists simultaneously shouting out numbers (in Italian), the winner being the one who names correctly the sum of digits projected. As they play, they become more excited, their voices rise to a piercing screech, and they huddle toward each other like fighting cocks. Suddenly the door of the office is opened and a strikingly dark, vital girl comes out Glory, Gwendlebaums adopted daughter. Her long bob is parted in the middle and the soft hair flies loosely about her face. In dealing with these men she has acquired a hard, shrewish manner she glowers and swaggers as though constantly on the verge of battle. But off her guard she is graceful and relaxed and has all the charm and softness that a girl should have. Her presence in this place is unexpected, incongruous. She knows it and so is mostly on the defensive.

GLORY [fiercely]: Victor!

ONE OF THE ITALIANS [tone of nasal inquiry]: Nanh?

GLORY: You two quit yellin like that. Theres men upstairs tryin t sleep.

VICTOR: Nanh.

[They look at her sheepishly till she withdraws. Then begin playing again in whispers that rapidly rise to nearly the same pitch as before. A tall, gangling young man in clothes that are suggestive of the western plains slouches down the stairs. He carries a guitar and we know instinctively that he calls himself Texas or Slim and picks up loose change by use of his instrument and a thin pleasant tenor voice at cafes and beer parlors cheap enough to tolerate entertainment of this sort. He lounges on the end of the bench, strums and hums softly, watching the Italians game. Glory bursts out again.]

GLORY: I told you to quit that yellin!

VICTOR: Nanh?

TEXAS: You heard the lady. Pipe down. [He grins at Glory.]

VICTOR: Nanh?

[They stare viciously at Glorys back as she returns to office and burst into spluttering Italian with many gestures. Texas laughs and rolls a cigarette; he strikes a match in a cupped hand, ducking way over it as men do who are used to riding freight trains. During this business another group has entered the front door of the flophouse. Carl, Olsen, Pete and Rocky. The first two are old-timers. The other two are youths. Carl is coughing violently as he comes in. Texas looks up, then rises to greet Carl and Olsen effusively.]

TEXAS: Well, Im a green lizard if it aint!

CARL: Hi, Texas.

OLSEN: Hiyuh.

[They shake hands and arrange themselves about the room.]

TEXAS: Wheres the last time I seen you coupla kyowtes?

OLSEN: Huh?

CARL: Jungle outside Savannah. You was the guy that put that stinkin rats carcass in the slum. Had my belly tied up in knots for a week.

TEXAS: Rats carcass your ass! That was a good shank of ham.

[At this point Terry Meighan may enter unobtrusively and take his seat in the corner, unfolding a newspaper and holding it in front of his face. He is distinctly better dressed than the other men but unshaven. His nerves are raw from tension, hunger, lack of sleep. As he moves across the stage, he glances through window at the towering outline of the city and shrinks back from it to the darkest corner of room.

The outer door opens again and is held open for a minute by the new entrant, Jabe Stallcup, a small, cindery man with an air of desperate friendliness. The noise of the city crowds through the opened door, harsh, blatant noises and the cry of a newsboy.]

JABE [to Carl]: Hello. Hello, Carl. [Carl ignores him.] You know me, dontcha?

CARL: Much as I want to.

[Texas strikes a chord on his guitar. The Italians stop playing their game to watch.]

PETE: Whos that?

CARL: A rat. Never got nothin on me, but I dont like the smell of him.

OLSEN: No use gettin him riled.

TEXAS: Jabes a power with the local constabulary.

CARL: Hot in here like a furnace.

PETE: Feels chilly to me.

CARL: Im runnin a fever by Christ!

OLSEN: Naw you aint runnin no fever.

TEXAS: Bad cough you got there.

PETE: Last night he was spittin up blood.

CARL: Yes, I commence to spittin a little blood up last night. [He looks eagerly, apprehensively about the room at all their faces as though expecting some startling reaction to this statement. Nobody shows much interest and so he relaxes.] Not much though. [To Texas:] Ole thinks we oughta lay up till the cold snaps over.

OLSEN: Might as well rest for Christmas.

TEXAS: This aint no weather for ridin the blinds.

OLSEN: Naw its naw weather.

CARL: Goin Sout, if we coulda got to New Aw-leens before New Years I figger Id have a fifty-fifty chance of outlivin another winter.

OLSEN: Quit talkin that way. Youre tough as you ever been, Carl.

CARL: Not too tough for them labatory rats to git their teeth in me.

TEXAS: What rats?

CARL: Labatory rats them amachur sawbones feed you to when you die in this town. Aintcha heard about them?

TEXAS: Naw.

OLSEN: One of his screwy ideas. [His fingers describe cartwheels in air.]

CARL: Its the Gods truth Im tellin you boy! [He coughs as though whole body would shake to pieces.]

OLSEN: How you ben doin, Texas?

TEXAS [looks serious, gives a bird]: All they want is a nickels worth a canned music round here.

CARL [examining shoe]: What I tell you, Ole? Worn clean through.

TEXAS: Radios an electric victrolas! I pick up a few dimes now an then.

CARL: God damn you, that rats carcass tied my belly in knots.

TEXAS: I got that ham shank offen a Baptis preachers wife.

CARL: Aint digested my food good since.

TEXAS: Summer before last, that calaboose in Mobile.

OLSEN: Huh?

TEXAS: Thats where I seen you all last! They was bookin you-all the mornin that I got out.

OLSEN: Yeah.

CARL [with sharp laugh]: Suspected a rape!

TEXAS: You? [He slaps his knee.] Powder River one mile wide an two inches deep!

OLSEN: Funny you think, huh?

CARL: We nearly got strung. Strung a couple niggers on the same charge nex day. Let us off.

TEXAS: Guilty?

TEXAS: Yeah?

CARL: Had a corner on the beef-trust, that baby. Got hysterics. Evry poor stiff they brung in, she says, Yeah, thats him, thats him! [He spits disgustedly.] Turns out later she hadnt been raped at all.