DR. CRANE [crossly]: Make sense. How could it without time? We’re thirty miles from Biloxi.

JESSIE: Must of! Must of, she’s—

[Kitchen door swings open and Bella slowly shuffles back to the living room with articles from kitchen.]

JESSIE: My God, Bella! —What is that you got there?

BELLA [slowly, eyes in a trance]: Ma Smiley’s jellies and Marches’ peanut butter for sandwiches. They expect ’em in the icebox—run to it home after school. Habit of life—not changed at all . . .

JESSIE: Bella? Are you all right, Bella?

BELLA: Life—habit. —Know what I mean?

DR. CRANE [to Jessie]: Remove that stuff, throw it out.

[Jessie wrests the jars from Bella’s grasp. Bella wails childishly.]

I’ve repeatedly told this woman either she sticks to the diet or it’s just a question of time.

[Bella’s wail rises in volume. Jessie glances at the doctor. He spreads his arms in a gesture of resignation. Jessie sets the jars back down before Bella.]

Ambulance charge will have to be paid whether she goes or not.

BELLA: With some bread, please, and a knife to spread it on with. Oh, Jessie, forgot glazed paper to wrap sandwiches separately in.

JESSIE: [offstage]: Glazed paper?

BELLA: In cabinet by ice-box in kitchen always.

JESSIE: [offstage]: —Cabinet. —Yes!—Got it.

DR. CRANE: What are you going to do with the sandwiches, Bella?

BELLA: Will keep in the ice-box till they run home from school. [Jessie returns with tray that bears plate, bread, knife and glazed paper.] Thank you, Jessie. One for Chips, his flavor blackberry. One for Joanie, wild cherry. Charlie will have to be satisfied with the same. Cornelius is only interested in beer. [Glancing toward Jessie and the doctor.] I’m sorry to be—such a question of time. Well—Maybe the Moose Lodge will straighten everything out. . . .

[Fade in music with rain as Bella slowly, sensuously spreads the bread with jelly.]

THE END

Notes on the Text

NOTES ON THE TEXT

Playwrights often learn their craft by writing one-acts. Once successful, most move on to full-length plays and never look back. Tennessee Williams was different: he continued writing one-acts and experimenting with the short form throughout his life. Nearly all of his thirty-three full-length plays can be traced back to drafts that include one-act versions, and often closely related short stories or poems. Even the play thought to be his last—dated “January 1983” by the author—is a one-act, The One Exception, recently collected for the first time in The Traveling Companion and Other Plays, 2008.