Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Page #6

- You're a liar!

- He wasn't good enough on his own.

Professional football is a business...

...not a social club!

You mean the business of making money?

Yeah, money!

The stuff your dreams are made of!

The Dixie Stars never made a nickel!

Not from the first day to the last.

It wasn't the money, it was the cheers.

He lapped them up.

The cheers didn't mean anything to me.

But they did to you!

Because they shut you out

and you hated that.

Not by the crowds, baby, by you.

By the man I worshiped.

That's why I hated Skipper.

You hated him so much you got him drunk

and went to bed with him.

Is that true?

You don't think I ravished a football hero?

Skipper was drunk.

So are you most of the time.

I don't seem to make out so well with you.

Are you saying nothing happened

between you and Skipper?

- You know what happened.

- I don't know!

I wasn't there.

I couldn't play that Sunday.

I wasn't in Chicago.

- I was in the hospital...

- Skipper played.

He played all right!

His first professional game without Brick.

Tell Big Daddy what happened.

Go on, tell him.

You're a sports announcer.

Give us a running account

of the all-American bust.

Tell him how many times

Skipper fumbled...

...and stumbled and fell apart.

On offensive he was useless.

On defensive he was a coward.

And it was all over:

Chicago:
47, Dixie Stars: 0.

Bad breaks. An off day.

No, baby.

Without you, Skipper was nothing.

Outside:
Big, tough, confident.

Inside:
Pure jelly!

You saw the game on TV.

You saw what happened.

But I didn't see what happened

in Skipper's hotel room.

That little episode was not on TV.

Tell Big Daddy

why you were in Skipper's room.

He was sick.

Sick with drink.

He wouldn't come out.

He'd busted some furniture...

...and the hotel manager said to stop him

before he called the police.

So I went to his room.

I scratched on his door

and begged him to let me in.

He was half crazy.

Violent and screaming one minute...

...weak and crying the next.

And all the time, scared stiff about you.

So I said to him maybe it was time

we forgot about football.

Maybe he ought to get a job

and let me and Brick alone.

I thought he'd hit me.

He walked toward me...

...with a funny sort of smile on his face.

Then he did the strangest thing.

He kissed me.

That was the first time

he'd ever touched me.

And then I knew what I was going to do.

I'd get rid of Skipper.

I'd show Brick that their deep,

true friendship was a big lie.

I'd prove it by showing...

...that Skipper would make love

to his best friend's wife.

He didn't need any coaxing.

He was more than willing.

He even seemed to have the same idea.

You're just trying to whitewash it.

I'm not!

I was trying to win back my husband.

It didn't matter how.

I would've done anything.

Even that.

But at the last second...

...I got panicky.

Supposing I lost you instead?

Supposing you'd hate me

instead of Skipper?

So I ran.

Nothing happened!

I've tried to tell him a hundred times

but he won't let me.

Nothing happened!

Hallelujah, St. Maggie.

I wanted to get rid of Skipper.

But not if it meant losing you.

He blames me for Skipper's death.

Maybe I got rid of Skipper.

Skipper won out anyway.

I didn't get rid of him at all.

Isn't it an awful joke, honey?

I lost you anyway.

- You didn't talk to him again before he...

- No.

- But Brick did.

- How do you know?

- Skipper told me.

- When?

When they put his broken body

in the ambulance.

I rode with him to the hospital.

He kept saying,

"Why did Brick hang up on me?"

Why, Brick?

- Where are you going?

- Home.

- You can't drive. You're drunk.

- Not yet, Big Daddy.

Not yet. Now, give me that bottle.

What are you running away from?

Why did you hang up on Skipper

when he called you?

Answer me!

What did he say?

Was it about him and Maggie?

- He said they'd made love.

- And you believed him?

Yes.

Then why haven't you thrown her out?

Something's missing here.

Why did Skipper kill himself?

Because somebody let him down.

I let him down.

When he called that night...

...I couldn't make sense out of...

But there was one thing that was sure.

Skipper was scared.

Scared...

...about what happened that day

on the football field.

That I'd blame him.

Scared that I'd walk out on him.

Skipper afraid! I couldn't believe that.

I mean, inside he was real

deep-down scared...

...and he broke like a rotten stick.

He started crying:

"I need you."

He kept babbling, "Help me."

Me help him?

How does one drowning man...

...help another drowning man?

So you hung up on him.

And then that phone...

...started to ring again.

It rang and it rang

and it wouldn't stop ringing.

And I lay in that hospital bed,

unable to move or run from that sound.

It kept ringing louder and louder.

And the sound of that

was like Skipper screaming for help.

And I couldn't pick it up.

So that's when he killed himself?

Yes.

Because I let him down.

So that disgust with mendacity

is really disgust with myself.

When I hear that click I don't hear

the sound of that phone ringing anymore.

And I can stop thinking.

I'm ashamed!

That's why I'm a drunk.

When I'm drunk I can stand myself.

But the truth is always there

in the morning, isn't it?

And it's here right now.

You're just feeling sorry for yourself.

That's all it is. Self-pity!

You didn't kill Skipper. He killed himself.

You, Skipper and lots like you,

living in a kid's world...

...playing games, touchdowns,

no worries, no responsibilities.

Life ain't no damn football game.

Life ain't just a bunch of high spots.

You're a 30-year-old kid.

Soon you'll be a 50-year-old kid...

...pretending you hear cheers

when there ain't any.

Dreaming and drinking your life away.

Heroes in the real world...

...live 24 hours a day,

not just two hours in a game.

Mendacity! You won't...

You won't live with mendacity,

but you're an expert at it.

The truth is pain and sweat...

...paying bills and making love to a woman

that you don't love anymore.

The truth is dreams that don't come true...

...and nobody prints your name

in the paper till you die.

Now, here.

The truth is you never growed up.

- Grown-ups don't hang up on friends.

- Get away.

And they don't hang up on their wives.

They don't hang up on life.

Now that's the truth that you can't face.

- Can you face the truth?

- Try me.

Sure, somebody else's truth!

- You're running again.

- Yeah, I am.

Running from lies,

like birthday congratulations...

...and many happy returns of the day

when there won't be any, and...

Please, let me go home.

- What did you say?

- I don't remember.

- There won't be any happy returns?

- Forget it.

Let me go home.

Leave the place to Gooper and Mae.

Who said I was going to leave

the place or anything?

I'll outlive you.

I'll bury you.

- I'll buy your coffin.

- That's right.

Many happy returns.

They were lying...

...weren't they, son...

...about that report from the clinic?

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