i beg your pardon?
just bill, please.
why thank you, son, how kind. bein' occupied here in the worship of mammon, i haven't had the chance yet to see your play –
yes, mistuh fink, some of the news reaches us in hollywood.
all of us undomesticated writers eventually make their way out here to the great salt lick. mebbe that's why i allus have such a powerful thrust.
a little social lubricant, mistuh fink?
so be it.
you are drippin', suh.
mistuh fink, they have not invented a genre of picture that bill mayhew has not, at one time or othuh, been invited to essay. i have taken my stabs at the wrastlin' form, as i have stabbed at so many others, and with as little success. i gather that you are a fresh-man here, eager for an upperclassman's council. however, just at the moment.
i have drinkin' to do. why don't you stop at my bungalow, which is numbah fifteen, later on this afternoon.
and we will discuss wrastlin' scenarios and other things lit'rary.
honey!! where's m'honey!!
where are you, dammit! where's m'honey!!
if i close m'eyes i can almost smell the live oak.
well, m'olfactory's turnin' womanish on me – lyin' and deceitful.
still, i must say. i haven't felt peace like this since the grand productive days. don't you find it so, barton? ain't writin' peace?
mmm. wal, me, i just enjoy maikn' things up. yessir. escape.  it's when i can't write, can't escape m'self, that i want to tear m'head off and run screamin' down the street with m'balls in a fruitpickers pail. mm.
this'll sometimes help.
your writing? son, have you ever heard the story of soloman's mammy-
so now i'm s'posed to roll over like an ol' bitch dog gettin' ger belly scratched.
and what would that be, son?
no son, thisahere moonshine's got nothin' to do with shuttin' folks out. no, i'm usin' it to build somethin'.
i'm buildin' a levee. gulp by gulp, brick by brick. raisin' up a levee to keep that ragin' river of manure from lappin' at m'door.
m'honey pretends to be impatient with me, barton, but she'll put up with anything.
am i? maybe to a schoolboy's eye. people who know about the human heart, though, mebbe they'd say, bill over here, he gives his honey love, and she pays him back with pity – the basest coin there is.
the truth, m'honey, is a tart that does not bear scrutiny.
breach my levee at your peril!
stumbling off down the dusty road, muttering to himself and waving his bottle of wild turkey.
i'll jus' walk on down to the pacific, and from there i'll.  improvise.
silent upon a hill in darien!
he is very distant now, weaving but somehow dignified in his light summer suit. "old black joe" floats back to us in the twilight.
sons of bitches! drown 'em all!
drown all those rascals.
i said drown 'em all! who is that?
who is that?! gaddamn voices come into the house.  sons of bitches.
goddamn voices.  drown 'em!
hesh up! be still now! drown 'em! drown 'em! drown –