Death of a Salesman Page 4

  LINDA: Well, after all, people had to move somewhere.

  WILLY: No, there’s more people now.

  LINDA: I don’t think there’s more people. I think—

  WILLY: There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. The competition is maddening! Smell the stink from that apartment house! And another one on the other side . . . How can they whip cheese?

  [On WILLY’S last line, BIFF and HAPPY raise themselves up in their beds, listening.]

  LINDA: Go down, try it. And be quiet.

  WILLY [turning to LINDA, guiltily]: You’re not worried about me, are you, sweetheart?

  BIFF: What’s the matter?

  HAPPY: Listen!

  LINDA: You’ve got too much on the ball to worry about.

  WILLY: You’re my foundation and my support, Linda.

  LINDA: Just try to relax, dear. You make mountains out of molehills.

  WILLY: I won’t fight with him any more. If he wants to go back to Texas, let him go.

  LINDA: He’ll find his way.

  WILLY: Sure. Certain men just don’t get started till later in life. Like Thomas Edison, I think. Or B. F. Goodrich. One of them was deaf. [He starts for the bedroom doorway.] I’ll put my money on Biff.

  LINDA: And Willy—if it’s warm Sunday we’ll drive in the country. And we’ll open the windshield, and take lunch.

  WILLY: No, the windshields don’t open on the new cars.

  LINDA: But you opened it today.

  WILLY: Me? I didn’t. [He stops.] Now isn’t that peculiar! Isn’t that a remarkable—[He breaks off in amazement and fright as the flute is heard distantly.]

  LINDA: What, darling?

  WILLY: That is the most remarkable thing.

  LINDA: What, dear?

  WILLY: I was thinking of the Chevvy. [Slight pause.] Nineteen twenty-eight . . . when I had that red Chevvy—[Breaks off.] That funny? I coulda sworn I was driving that Chevvy today.

  LINDA: Well, that’s nothing. Something must’ve reminded you.

  WILLY: Remarkable. Ts. Remember those days? The way Biff used to simonize that car? The dealer refused to believe there was eighty thousand miles on it. [He shakes his head.] Heh! [To LINDA] Close your eyes, I’ll be right up. [He walks out of the bedroom.]

  HAPPY [to BIFF]: Jesus, maybe he smashed up the car again!

  LINDA [calling after WILLY]: Be careful on the stairs, dear! The cheese is on the middle shelf! [She turns, goes over to the bed, takes his jacket, and goes out of the bedroom.]

  [Light has risen on the boys’ room. Unseen, WILLY is heard talking to himself, “Eighty thousand miles,” and a little laugh. BIFF gets out of bed, comes downstage a bit, and stands attentively. BIFF is two years older than his brother, HAPPY, well built, but in these days bears a worn air and seems less self-assured. He has succeeded less, and his dreams are stronger and less acceptable than HAPPY’S. HAPPY is tall, powerfully made. Sexuality is like a visible color on him, or a scent that many women have discovered. He, like his brother, is lost, but in a different way, for he has never allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat and is thus more confused and hard-skinned, although seemingly more content.]

  HAPPY [getting out of bed]: He’s going to get his licence taken away if he keeps that up. I’m getting nervous about him, y’know, Biff ?

  BIFF: His eyes are going.

  HAPPY: No, I’ve driven with him. He sees all right. He just doesn’t keep his mind on it. I drove into the city with him last week. He stops at a green light and then it turns red and he goes. [He laughs.]

  BIFF: Maybe he’s color-blind.

  HAPPY: Pop? Why, he’s got the finest eye for color in the business. You know that.

  BIFF [sitting down on his bed]: I’m going to sleep.

  HAPPY: You’re not still sour on Dad, are you, Biff?

  BIFF: He’s all right, I guess.

  WILLY [underneath them, in the living-room]: Yes, sir, eighty thousand miles—eighty-two thousand!

  BIFF: You smoking?

  HAPPY [holding out a pack of cigarettes]: Want one?

  BIFF [taking a cigarette]: I can never sleep when I smell it.

  WILLY: What a simonizing job, heh!

  HAPPY [with deep sentiment]: Funny, Biff, y’know? Us sleeping in here again? The old beds. [He pats his bed affectionately. ] All the talk that went across those two beds, huh? Our whole lives.

  BIFF: Yeah. Lotta dreams and plans.

  HAPPY [with a deep and masculine laugh]: About five hundred women would like to know what was said in this room.

  [They share a soft laugh.]

  BIFF: Remember that big Betsy something—what the hell was her name—over on Bushwick Avenue?

  HAPPY [combing his hair]: With the collie dog!

  BIFF: That’s the one. I got you in there, remember?

  HAPPY: Yeah, that was my first time—I think. Boy, there was a pig! [They laugh, almost crudely.] You taught me everything I know about women. Don’t forget that.

  BIFF: I bet you forgot how bashful you used to be. Especially with girls.

  HAPPY: Oh, I still am, Biff.

  BIFF: Oh, go on.

  HAPPY: I just control it, that’s all. I think I got less bashful and you got more so. What happened, Biff? Where’s the old humor, the old confidence? [He shakes BIFF’S knee. BIFF gets up and moves restlessly about the room.] What’s the matter?

  BIFF: Why does Dad mock me all the time?

  HAPPY: He’s not mocking you, he—

  BIFF: Everything I say there’s a twist of mockery on his face. I can’t get near him.

  HAPPY: He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about Dad for a long time, Biff. Something’s—happening to him. He—talks to himself.

  BIFF: I noticed that this morning. But he always mumbled.

  HAPPY: But not so noticeable. It got so embarrassing I sent him to Florida. And you know something? Most of the time he’s talking to you.

  BIFF: What’s he say about me?

  HAPPY: I can’t make it out.

  BIFF: What’s he say about me?

  HAPPY: I think the fact that you’re not settled, that you’re still kind of up in the air . . .

  BIFF: There’s one or two other things depressing him, Happy.

  HAPPY: What do you mean?

  BIFF: Never mind. Just don’t lay it all to me.

  HAPPY: But I think if you got started—I mean—is there any future for you out there?

  BIFF: I tell ya, Hap, I don’t know what the future is. I don’t know—what I’m supposed to want.

  HAPPY: What do you mean?

  BIFF: Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it’s a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. And still—that’s how you build a future.

  HAPPY: Well, you really enjoy it on a farm? Are you content out there?

  BIFF [with rising agitation]: Hap, I’ve had twenty or thirty different kinds of job since I left home before the war, and it always turns out the same. I just realized it lately. In Nebraska when I herded cattle, and the Dakotas, and Arizona, and now in Texas. It’s why I came home now, I guess, because I realized it. This farm I work on, it’s spring there now, see? And they’ve got about fifteen new colts. There’s nothing more inspiring or—beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt. And it’s cool there now, see? Texas is cool now, and it’s spring. And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I’m not gettin’ anywhere! What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week! I’m thirty-four years old, I oughta be makin’ my future. That’s
when I come running home. And now, I get here, and I don’t know what to do with myself. [After a pause] I’ve always made a point of not wasting my life, and everytime I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my life.

  HAPPY: You’re a poet, you know that, Biff? You’re a—you’re an idealist!

  BIFF: No, I’m mixed up very bad. Maybe I oughta get married. Maybe I oughta get stuck into something. Maybe that’s my trouble. I’m like a boy. I’m not married, I’m not in business, I just—I’m like a boy. Are you content, Hap? You’re a success, aren’t you? Are you content?

  HAPPY: Hell, no!

  BIFF: Why? You’re making money, aren’t you?

  HAPPY [moving about with energy, expressiveness]: All I can do now is wait for the merchandise manager to die. And suppose I get to be merchandise manager? He’s a good friend of mine, and he just built a terrific estate on Long Island. And he lived there about two months and sold it, and now he’s building another one. He can’t enjoy it once it’s finished. And I know that’s just what I would do. I don’t know what the hell I’m workin’ for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment—all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely.

  BIFF [with enthusiasm]: Listen, why don’t you come out West with me?

  HAPPY: You and I, heh?

  BIFF: Sure, maybe we could buy a ranch. Raise cattle, use our muscles. Men built like we are should be working out in the open.

  HAPPY [avidly]: The Loman Brothers, heh?

  BIFF [with vast affection]: Sure, we’d be known all over the counties!

  HAPPY [enthralled]: That’s what I dream about, Biff. Sometimes I want to just rip my clothes off in the middle of the store and outbox that goddam merchandise manager. I mean I can outbox, outrun, and outlift anybody in that store, and I have to take orders from those common, petty sons-of-bitches till I can’t stand it any more.

  BIFF: I’m tellin’ you, kid, if you were with me I’d be happy out there.

  HAPPY [enthused]: See, Biff, everybody around me is so false that I’m constantly lowering my ideals . . .

  BIFF: Baby, together we’d stand up for one another, we’d have someone to trust.

  HAPPY: If I were around you—

  BIFF: Hap, the trouble is we weren’t brought up to grub for money. I don’t know how to do it.

  HAPPY: Neither can I!

  BIFF: Then let’s go!

  HAPPY: The only thing is—what can you make out there?

  BIFF: But look at your friend. Builds an estate and then hasn’t the peace of mind to live in it.

  HAPPY: Yeah, but when he walks into the store the waves part in front of him. That’s fifty-two thousand dollars a year coming through the revolving door, and I got more in my pinky finger than he’s got in his head.

  BIFF: Yeah, but you just said—

  HAPPY: I gotta show some of those pompous, self-important executives over there that Hap Loman can make the grade. I want to walk into the store the way he walks in. Then I’ll go with you, Biff. We’ll be together yet, I swear. But take those two we had tonight. Now weren’t they gorgeous creatures?

  BIFF: Yeah, yeah, most gorgeous I’ve had in years.

  HAPPY: I get that any time I want, Biff. Whenever I feel disgusted. The only trouble is, it gets like bowling or something. I just keep knockin’ them over and it doesn’t mean anything. You still run around a lot?

  BIFF: Naa. I’d like to find a girl—steady, somebody with substance.

  HAPPY: That’s what I long for.

  BIFF: Go on! You’d never come home.

  HAPPY: I would! Somebody with character, with resistance! Like Mom, y’know? You’re gonna call me a bastard when I tell you this. That girl Charlotte I was with tonight is engaged to be married in five weeks. [He tries on his new hat.]

  BIFF: No kiddin’!

  HAPPY: Sure, the guy’s in line for the vice-presidency of the store. I don’t know what gets into me, maybe I just have an overdeveloped sense of competition or something, but I went and ruined her, and furthermore I can’t get rid of her. And he’s the third executive I’ve done that to. Isn’t that a crummy characteristic? And to top it all, I go to their weddings! [Indignantly, but laughing] Like I’m not supposed to take bribes. Manufacturers offer me a hundred-dollar bill now and then to throw an order their way. You know how honest I am, but it’s like this girl, see. I hate myself for it. Because I don’t want the girl, and, still, I take it and—I love it!

  BIFF: Let’s go to sleep.

  HAPPY: I guess we didn’t settle anything, heh?

  BIFF: I just got one idea that I think I’m going to try.

  HAPPY: What’s that?

  BIFF: Remember Bill Oliver?

  HAPPY: Sure, Oliver is very big now. You want to work for him again?

  BIFF: No, but when I quit he said something to me. He put his arm on my shoulder, and he said, “Biff, if you ever need anything, come to me.”

  HAPPY: I remember that. That sounds good.

  BIFF: I think I’ll go to see him. If I could get ten thousand or even seven or eight thousand dollars I could buy a beautiful ranch.

  HAPPY: I bet he’d back you. ’Cause he thought highly of you, Biff. I mean, they all do. You’re well liked, Biff. That’s why I say to come back here, and we both have the apartment. And I’m tellin’ you, Biff, any babe you want . . .

  BIFF: No, with a ranch I could do the work I like and still be something. I just wonder though. I wonder if Oliver still thinks I stole that carton of basketballs.

  HAPPY: Oh, he probably forgot that long ago. It’s almost ten years. You’re too sensitive. Anyway, he didn’t really fire you.

  BIFF: Well, I think he was going to. I think that’s why I quit. I was never sure whether he knew or not. I know he thought the world of me, though. I was the only one he’d let lock up the place.

  WILLY [below]: You gonna wash the engine, Biff?

  HAPPY: Shh!

  [BIFF looks at HAPPY, who is gazing down, listening. WILLY is mumbling in the parlor.]

  HAPPY: You hear that?

  [They listen. WILLY laughs warmly.]

  BIFF [growing angry]: Doesn’t he know Mom can hear that?

  WILLY: Don’t get your sweater dirty, Biff!

  [A look of pain crosses BIFF’S face.]

  HAPPY: Isn’t that terrible? Don’t leave again, will you? You’ll find a job here. You gotta stick around. I don’t know what to do about him, it’s getting embarrassing.

  WILLY: What a simonizing job!

  BIFF: Mom’s hearing that!

  WILLY: No kiddin’, Biff, you got a date? Wonderful!

  HAPPY: Go on to sleep. But talk to him in the morning, will you?

  BIFF [reluctantly getting into bed]: With her in the house. Brother!

  HAPPY [getting into bed]: I wish you’d have a good talk with him.

  [The light on their room begins to fade.]

  BIFF [to himself in bed]: That selfish, stupid . . .

  HAPPY: Sh . . . Sleep, Biff.

  [Their light is out. Well before they have finished speaking, WILLY’S form is dimly seen below in the darkened kitchen. He opens the refrigerator, searches in there, and takes out a bottle of milk. The apartment houses are fading out, and the entire house and surroundings become covered with leaves. Music insinuates itself as the leaves appear.]

  WILLY: Just wanna be careful with those girls, Biff, that’s all. Don’t make any promises. No promises of any kind. Because a girl, y’know, they always believe what you tell ’em, and you’re very young, Biff, you’re too young to be talking seriously to girls.

  [Light rises on the kitchen. WILLY, talking, shuts the refrigerator door and comes downstage to the kitchen table. He pours milk into a glass. He is totally immersed in himself, smiling faintly.]

  WILLY: Too young entirely, Biff. You want to watch your schooling first. Then when you’re all set, there’ll be
plenty of girls for a boy like you. [He smiles broadly at a kitchen chair.] That so? The girls pay for you? [He laughs.] Boy, you must really be makin’ a hit.

  [WILLY is gradually addressing—physically—a point offstage, speaking through the wall of the kitchen, and his voice has been rising in volume to that of a normal conversation.]

  WILLY: I been wondering why you polish the car so careful. Ha! Don’t leave the hubcaps, boys. Get the chamois to the hubcaps. Happy, use newspaper on the windows, it’s the easiest thing. Show him how to do it, Biff! You see, Happy? Pad it up, use it like a pad. That’s it, that’s it, good work. You’re doin’ all right, Hap. [He pauses, then nods in approbation for a few seconds, then looks upward.] Biff, first thing we gotta do when we get time is clip that big branch over the house. Afraid it’s gonna fall in a storm and hit the roof. Tell you what. We get a rope and sling her around, and then we climb up there with a couple of saws and take her down. Soon as you finish the car, boys, I wanna see ya. I got a surprise for you, boys.

  BIFF [offstage]: Whatta ya got, Dad?

  WILLY: No, you finish first. Never leave a job till you’re finished—remember that. [Looking toward the “big trees”] Biff, up in Albany I saw a beautiful hammock. I think I’ll buy it next trip, and we’ll hang it right between those two elms. Wouldn’t that be something? Just swingin’ there under those branches. Boy, that would be . . .

  [YOUNG BIFF and YOUNG HAPPY appear from the direction WILLY was addressing. HAPPY carries rags and a pail of water. BIFF, wearing a sweater with a block “S,” carries a football.]

  BIFF [pointing in the direction of the car offstage]: How’s that, Pop, professional?

  WILLY: Terrific. Terrific job, boys. Good work, Biff.

  HAPPY: Where’s the surprise, Pop?

  WILLY: In the back seat of the car.

  HAPPY: Boy! [He runs off.]

  BIFF: What is it, Dad? Tell me, what’d you buy?

  WILLY [laughing, cuffs him]: Never mind, something I want you to have.

  BIFF [turns and starts off ]: What is it, Hap?

  HAPPY [offstage]: It’s a punching bag!