Read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for Free Online

have someone catch me at it? I'm not that stupid. Oh, I might
     sometime cheat on you with someone, since you're so insultingly eager to have
     me do it! But if I do, you can be damned sure it will be in a place and a
     time where no one but me and the man could possibly know. Because I'm not
     going to give you any excuse to divorce me for being unfaithful or anything else . .
     . .
    BRICK:
    Maggie, I wouldn't divorce you for being unfaithful or anything else.
     Don't you know that? Hell. I'd be relieved to know that
     you'd found yourself a lover.
    MARGARET:
    Well, I'm taking no chances. No, I'd rather stay on this hot tin
     roof.
    BRICK:
    A hot tin roof's ‘n uncomfo'table place t’ stay on . . .
     .
    [ He starts to whistle
     softly. ]

    MARGARET [ through
     his whistle ]:
    Yeah, but I can stay on it just as long as I have to.
    BRICK:
    You could leave me, Maggie.
    [ He resumes whistle. She wheels about to
     glare at him. ]
    MARGARET:
    Don't want to and will not! Besides if I
     did, you don't have a cent to pay for it but what you get from Big Daddy and
     he's dying of cancer!
    [ For the first time a realization of Big
     Daddy's doom seems to penetrate to Brick's consciousness, visibly,
     and he looks at Margaret. ]
    BRICK:
    Big Mama just said he wasn't, that the report was
     okay.
    MARGARET:
    That's what she thinks because she got the same story that they gave Big
     Daddy. And was just as taken in by it as he was, poor ole things . . . .
    But tonight they're going to tell her the truth about it. When
     Big Daddy goes to bed, they're going to tell her that he is dying of
     cancer.
    [ She slams the dresser
     drawer. ]
    —It's malignant and it's terminal.
    BRICK:
    Does Big Daddy know it?
    MARGARET:
    Hell, do they ever know it? Nobody says,
     “You're dying.” You have to fool them. They have to fool themselves.

    BRICK:
    Why?
    MARGARET:
    Why? Because human beings dream of life
     everlasting, that's the reason! But most of them want it on earth and
     not in heaven.
    [ He gives a short, hard laugh at her touch
     of humor. ]
    Well. . . . [ She touches up her
     mascara. ] That's how it is, anyhow . . . . [ She looks about. ] Where did I put down my
     cigarette? Don't want to burn up the home-place, at least not
     with Mae and Gooper and their five monsters in it!
    [ She has found it and sucks at it greedily.
     Blows out smoke and continues: ]
    So this is Big Daddy's last birthday. And Mae and Gooper, they
     know it, oh, they know it, all right. They got the first
     information from the Ochsner Clinic. That's why they rushed down here with
     their no-neck monsters. Because. Do you know something? Big
     Daddy's made no will? Big Daddy's never made out any will in
     his life, and so this campaign's afoot to impress him, forcibly as possible,
     with the fact that you drink and I've borne no children!
    [ He continues to stare at her a moment, then
     mutters something sharp but not audible and hobbles rather rapidly out onto the
     long gallery in the fading, much faded, gold light. ]
    MARGARET [ continuing her liturgical chant ]:
    Y'know, I'm fond of Big Daddy, I am
     genuinely fond of that old man, I really am, you know .
     . . .
    BRICK [faintly, vaguely ]:
    Yes, I know you are . . . .

    MARGARET:
    I've always sort of admired him in spite of his coarseness, his
     four-letter words and so forth. Because Big Daddy is what he is, and he makes no bones about
     it. He hasn't turned gentleman farmer, he's still a Mississippi
     redneck, as much of a redneck as he must have been when he was just overseer here on
     the old Jack Straw and Peter Ochello place. But he got hold of it an’ built
     it into th’ biggest an’ finest plantation in the Delta. I've
     always liked Big Daddy . . . .
    [ She crosses to the
     proscenium. ]
    Well, this is Big Daddy's last birthday. I'm sorry about
     it. But I'm facing the facts. It takes money to take care of a drinker and
     that's the office that I've been elected to lately.
    BRICK:
    You don't have to