The Wainwright Boy
from Unseen Character
(The dining room table transforms into a bar. THE WAINWRIGHT BOY sits on a stool staring into an empty glass.)
You best get yourself out of this casino!
There ain’t room for a cheat like you in these here walls.
I’ll take you down to the dock and throw you in the lake. You’re so drunk you won’t survive! You’ll just sink to the bottom of the water and turn all puffy and blue!
If I fell in, I’d survive! I know how to swim—even if I am overserved. I know how to do anything that’s associated with water! You want to know why?
Because my family comes from a long line of boat builders and boat captains. That’s right, water is in our blood! My father and his brother and their father and his father. All of them are wizards around a boat!
And a wagon! We know our boats and we know our wagons!
Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Mr. Bates Cutrere! And Wesley, you stay out of this! I like you, Wes. Just don’t have any patience for your boastful brother!
Stand up, Bates! Stand up, I say! I don’t like the way you cheat when you gamble. I don’t like the way you swear. I don’t like the way you rub your nose in circles! I don’t like the way you give me those funny little smirks like you know something that I don’t know. I think it is an awful characteristic to try and portray yourself as someone so holy.
So holy, but you ain’t a lick better than anybody else here! I’d go so far as to say that you bring this place down. Down with your holy energy. Down with your smirks and your grins and rolling your eyes—you put that gun away! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll put that gun away.
Don’t wave that gun at me! Funny thing about that gun. It’s called a Peacemaker. Did you know that? A Colt Peacemaker. Something that can bring about so much violence and blood, and they give it the name Peacemaker. Peace. Maker.
You want to make peace? I’ll show you how to make peace! Don’t fight me for the gun! I’m bigger and meaner and stronger! And now I’s got the gun!
I’m going to show you how peace is made. Walk out here with me. We’ll make peace in the light of the moon, under the clouds. We’ll stand beside the pin oaks and look up to the heavens! And we shall make peace.
Is that a deal? 
Unseen Character (part 2): Introduction and Menu
Review | My Friend Tom: The Poet-Playwright Tennessee Williams by William Jay Smith