Zap Read Online Free

housekeeping.
(Pause.)
“Bathtub.”
    WOMAN.
(She smiles and writes the word in.)
But no number given for the morgue?
    MAN.
(He turns the brochure over and scans it in bafflement.)
No.
    (Long pause, during which nothing happens. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the
ENGLISH MYSTERY,
as before. Immediately, there is a peal of thunder and the lights flicker off. When they come up again a moment later
CLIFFORD GRAY,
thirty, is in the room, in uniform and with his right arm in a sling. His manner is troubled and distant.)
    EMMALINE. Clifford! You’re here! Oh, darling!
(She embraces him, then gently touches his right arm.)
But what happened?
    CLIFFORD. We had a visit in my trench — from one of the Kaiser’s shells. Hello, Colonel, Marjorie, Reverend, Lady . . .
(He stares at LADY DENSLOW but can’t think of her name.)
    LADY DENSLOW. Denslow. Vanessa. How could you forget?
    CLIFFORD.
(Slightly dazed.)
Vanessa — of course.
(To the others.)
Don’t let me interrupt.
    EMMALINE. Interrupt? But, darling — you’re the guest of honor.
    CLIFFORD. Am I? I do pity you all.
(To INSPECTOR SWIFT.)
I don’t believe we’ve met.
    INSPECTOR SWIFT. Actually, we have. Roderick Swift. We dined together last May, in Cambridge.
    EMMALINE. You remember, darling. The celebrated detective.
    COL. HARDWICKE. The most famous in all England.
    CLIFFORD. Memory hasn’t been the same since that German shell. Sorry.
    EMMALINE. You must be famished. Come, let’s go into the dining room.
(CLIFFORD heads in one direction; all the rest exit in the opposite direction, except for EMMALINE, who spots CLIFFORD’s mistake and rescues him.)
Oh, Clifford. This way. Don’t you remember?
    (Sobbing, she leads
CLIFFORD
off. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the
SOUTHERN PLAY.
The place is an antebellum mansion in Mississippi, home to the Puckett family. The time is 1934.
AARON PUCKETT,
twenty-five and fiery, is in the midst of a shouting match with his father,
REGINALD,
who’s pouring himself a whiskey from the bottle. Actors use southern accents.)
    REGINALD. And what’s the disgrace in living in Catfish Crossing, Mississippi?
    AARON. My God, don’t you have eyes? People . . . here . . . are narrow!
    REGINALD. Narrow?
(Considers.)
Miz Cornford down the road—
    AARON. Narrow-minded! Backward! Intolerant! Provincial! I can’t breathe here, Pappy. Don’t you understand? People here can’t see past their crops and account books — and neither can you. No one here has time for art, or patience for anybody who does. Not
one
of the world’s great watercolorists has come from Pinkham County.
That’s
why I’ve got to go.
    (Sound of train whistle.
REGINALD
drains his glass with one swallow.)
    REGINALD. Well, go on, then! Take your two-bit paint set and those puny little brushes and go starve up north!
(He slams his glass down.)
We aren’t good enough for you, is that it? Well, let me tell you, Aaron — you’re not good enough for us!
    (
CAROLINE,
twenty, with bizarrely stiff hair, enters in robe and slippers and shuffles straight for the whiskey. She takes no notice of the argument.)
    CAROLINE. Morning, Aaron.
    REGINALD.
(To AARON.)
You’re a disgrace to the Puckett family!
    CAROLINE. Morning, Pappy.
    (
CAROLINE
pours the last of the whiskey into her glass, holding the bottle upside down and pounding on it like a catsup bottle to extract the last drops. She sits. Having heard this argument many times, she mouths
AARON
’s lines and echoes his gestures.)
    AARON. And how could I bring the proud name of Puckett any lower than it already is? A chimpanzee in the family would raise us up! You’ve drunk and gambled away what was left of the family fortune. The Depression is wiping out the rest. Grandmammy still thinks Vicksburg is under siege. Mother hanged herself in the smokehouse, right there amongst the hams. We’re lucky she wasn’t served that Sunday for supper. After that, you turned to moonshining, along with my “sister” Caroline