Tennessee Falls  

by John Justice

The man who created Blanche Dubois was alone and he was dying. Not just "fixin'" to die, as his fellow Mississippians might say, but actually dying.

He was in mid-fall, choking to death on a plastic bottle cap, dropping the bottle itself and the pills bouncing around all over the room, his knees giving way and hurtling downward toward the carpet of the Elysee.

Outside, February 25, 1983 was a cold Friday morning and New York City didn't miss a beat. At the same instant over in Russia, where only Chekhov was more beloved, several of Tennessee's plays were running simultaneously, including Orpheus Descending, which was in its seventh year. This wasn't much comfort for the playwright-poet as he clawed at the Seconal cap lodged against his glottis and continued his fall. Which seemed somehow to be taking forever. It gave him time to make a note of the glut of dime store irony: The Elysee, "mythical paradise of the dead." He said, "Hah!" His room was the Sunset Suite on the 13th floor. He said "Hah!" again, adding:

"One thing ah do not find amusing is having to shuffle off all alone--that's a tragedy, baby!"

He remembered telling someone a while back that loneliness was his greatest affliction and his major theme. "It follows me like a shadow, a very ponderous shadow too heavy to drag after me all of my days and nights," he had said. Unlike a lot of what he'd said, he meant this when he said it, so it was dispiriting now to feel the despised shadow of loneliness wrapping itself around his toppling, falling carcass.

He began to weep. What with the bottle cap so snugly lodged, his cries were weak, yet they were heard: because no one with a mighty heart like Thomas Lanier Williams should suffer such a lonely death, in through the closed window came Anton Chekhov [1860-1904], floating in and down on the wings of compassion that both men cherished above all else. Alighting like a feather, his black doctor's bag in one hand, his monocle in place, Chekhov wrapped an arm around the descending American, stopping his fall.

Although a mortal mist was hazing over everything, Tennessee still recognized his artistic hero: Chekhov with his kind and observing eye, his neat goatee and mustache, the wry turn of his lips. And his voice, as tender Tennessee had heard it in his mind. Chekhov said: "Why are you weeping?"

"Ah'm weepin' for mah life, or rather, this lonesome leaving of it."

Between the Southern-mush accent and the glottis-stopping bottle cap, Chekhov didn't know what the hell Tennessee had just said. He made a deft magical move with his doctor's hands and plucked the plastic cap out of Tennessee's throat.

"God-damn Tony! Thank yew." "You understand, this is just a placebo--not even that, merely cheap legerdemain--it doesn't change your fate--I just wanted to keep you company."

"''s mighty white of you, Tony--can ya get me unstuck?" For Tennessee was now frozen in the position he'd been in when Chekhov caught him. [Stock still, arms and legs frozen akimbo, Tennessee looked for all the world like one of the creepy "living statues" in the French Quarter.]

"I'm afraid not, Tenn, but we can converse a moment. Let me, if I may, ask you a question about Blanche."

"Lissen, the fella who wrote The Seagull can poke a stick in my eye if he wants to. I'm in your debt, so go ahead on, maestro."

Chekhov takes Tennessee's hand in his and holds it tenderly.

"You loved Blanche very, very much, no?"

"I adored 'em all, Tony--Alma and Myrtle and Maggie and Laura and Amanda, and Blanche too."

"But I think Blanche most of all, because you gave her '.... beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit and tenderness of the heart.' You gave her those words because you loved her best."

"Mebbe yes, mebbe no."

"And you embellished your lover's gift with: 'Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.' Which is wonderful, straight from your heart to hers."

"Aw hell, I can't lie to you: If Blanche had of had a pecker, I'd of married her."

Chekhov laughed and murmured, "People are insane on the topic of theater, including yours and mine -- they think it concerns ideas, intellect. Issues. The clash of warring ideologies."

"Hah!"

"They try to draw some nice easy little moral--something you wouldn't mind have around the house. They want the same stuff over and over and over."

"Tony, you're quotin' yourself--that's from the mouth of Konstantine. The Seagull!"

"Oh dear, I'm mortified!"

"Naw, don't be: but you're right and your beautiful young boy is right--I kinda wish you hadn't of killed him off."

"Well in the first place, I didn't--he shot himself. Secondly, you know as well as I that we can't stop them from doing what they want. And finally, my friend, you as much as killed poor Blanche--dispossessed, raped, rejected and consigned to a madhouse."

"'Poor Blanche!?'" Tennessee cackled. "I'll tell yah something, Tony--can you reach that firewater? I can't move a muscle." Chekhov got the bottle of Scotch and tilted it so the liquor ran into other other man's mouth... and straight down to the floor, Tennessee being approximately 85% ectoplasm at this point, making a wet pool on the carpet. "I am a goner," he said, then:

"Listen, if you think Blanche Dubois spent 15 minutes in that booby-hatch, you're mistaken. By the time they left the Quarter, she had that doctor fanning her and hanging on her words and making plans that included candles and Chopin and escargots! Or she hitched a ride back to Stella's and to hell with Stanley or to bed again. Or she got to Dallas and cornered Shep Hundley, poor bastard! Hah! Nobody can kill Blanche, Tony! Not me, not you, not Stanley, nobody! She'll live forever!! Hah hah hah!!

"Lord, Tony, I'm tetched! Please forgive me."

"Tut tut!"

"Lissen, you know which one of your women I kinda fancy? No? Well they're all wonderful, you know, ‘cause you bring ‘im down low in their conditions, to their knees, stripped to the bone and the ones you love most sink lowest, and speak to us in the most glorious words, given them by you, Tony."

"Thank you, Tenn--which one?"

"'Am I so old and ugly you can discuss another woman in front of me? My beautiful lover, my divine lover, my joy, my pride, my happiness. I'm not ashamed of my love for you. My treasure, my foolish love, you want to destroy yourself but I don't want you to, I won't let you!'"

Chekhov smiles. "Arkadina, my pet--you've found me out!

"The more they hurt, the more we feel for them, you and I, right?"

"Yes," he said as his form, growing wispier, began to rise up and pull away from Tennessee. Chekhov reached toward the other man and saying, "Forgive me," re-set the Seconal bottle cap in his throat.

"It's the women, ain't it, Tony? Always the women!"

"Absolutely, the women always and forever."

"It was kind of you to drop by."

Chekhov vanished and Tennessee's fall resumed--the floor was undeniably rising up as he fell down -- murmuring to himself, "I'd give a nickel to know where Blanche is now --hear her voice -- I'll tell you one thing, she ain't dead -- I know that for a fact! Blanche wants to die and be buried at sea wrapped in a clean white cloth. Well hell, who wouldn't? I certainly didn't vote to croak here in this room, but be that as it may, here I go. I fall down dead and rise up God knows where. Nowhere, probably, although you can't strictly rule out old Nobodaddy. Well I'll make out, I always have."

And then he cried "En avante!", as he'd done in life when heading into the new, and finally, whispered, "I'll be fine, I'll just depend on --."

---

John Justice (Board Member, Playwright-In-Residence) is a playwright whose works include Two Sams/i>, Sam/Sara/i>, and How Wisteria Bought the Farm. He is a past awardee of a North Carolina Arts Council playwrighting fellowship and a member of the North Carolina Playwrights Alliance and the Dramatists Guild of America. For LG Pig: (Playwright) Europe Central.