MOONY: Four bits! Tobacco money! Now you got the whole works—so good-bye!

JANE: Wait! [She clutches his arm and her fury makes her inescapable.] There’s something you got to take with you! Your property, Moony—you might as well take it along!

MOONY: I got all I want.

JANE: No, you ain’t. There’s something else that goes with you. You just wait here for a second, I’ll wrap it up for you— [Crosses quickly to door upstage.]

MOONY: What the hell are you—! [He hesitates at the door. Jane quickly reappears with the baby in her arms.]

JANE: Here! Here’s your kid, Moony! Take him with you. Sure. — Go along, now; the two of you! [Shoves baby into Moony’s unwilling arms.] Me, I can’t be bothered with no brats. I got to go back to work. O’Connor will give me my old job back. Sure he will. You two can go an’ hop a freight an’ spend Christmas in a boxcar. Maybe you’ll find your old man— You’ll have a swell time singing “Ride a Cock-horse” together!

[She laughs wildly and runs out of the room. Moony gingerly holds the baby. Looks helplessly down at its face. Frowns. Swears under his breath. Finally slams the door shut.]

MOONY: Another one of her lousy tricks! [Baby starts crying.] SHUT UP! [Then more softly.] Moony’s kid don’t cry! [He smiles slightly and rocks the baby in his arms.] Naw, Moony’s kid don’t cry. Grows up an’ swings a big axe like his Daddy. Cuts his own way through the woods.

[He walks away from the door, completely absorbed now in the baby, and apparently forgetting that he ever had any intention of going away.]

Lookit the hobby-horse! [Stands above the new toy.] Santie Claus bought it for Moony’s kid. Ten-fifty it cost! See? How shiny it is! Nice, huh? Nice! What are you crying for? Daddy ain’t going nowhere. Naw! —Daddy was only—fooling. . . .

SLOW CURTAIN

THE DARK ROOM

The first professional production of The Dark Room opened in London, England in 1966.

CHARACTERS

MISS MORGAN

MRS. POCCIOTTI

LUCIO

Scene: For expediency the same set as in Moony’s Kid Don’t Cry may be used, with a few prop changes and general rearrangement to heighten effect of poverty. Miss Morgan is pretty much a stock character: the neat, fussy spinster engaged in social service. She may be interpreted more or less sympathetically, as the producer desires.

Mrs. Pocciotti is an avalanche of female flesh, swarthy Italian, her bulk emphasized by a ridiculously skimpy gray knit sweater, whose sleeves extend halfway down her forearms. Everything about her is heavy and deliberate except her eyes, which smolder and dart suspiciously.

MISS MORGAN [seated at table with pencil and pad]: Now your husband, Mrs. Pocciotti, just how long has he been unemployed?

MRS. POCCIOTTI: God knows how long.

MISS MORGAN: I’m afraid I’ll have to have a more definite answer.

MRS. POCCIOTTI [poking her broom under the stove]: Musta been—1930 he got laid off.