Death of a Salesman_ Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem - Miller, Arthur [33]
WILLY: And when you come home you . . .
HOWARD: You can come home twelve o’clock, one o’clock, any time you like, and you get yourself a Coke and sit yourself down, throw the switch, and there’s Jack Benny’s program in the middle of the night!
WILLY: I’m definitely going to get one. Because lots of time I’m on the road, and I think to myself, what I must be missing on the radio!
HOWARD: Don’t you have a radio in the car?
WILLY: Well, yeah, but who ever thinks of turning it on?
HOWARD: Say, aren’t you supposed to be in Boston?
WILLY: That’s what I want to talk to you about, Howard. You got a minute? [He draws a chair in from the wing.]
HOWARD: What happened? What’re you doing here?
WILLY: Well . . .
HOWARD: You didn’t crack up again, did you?
WILLY: Oh, no. No . . .
HOWARD: Geez, you had me worried there for a minute. What’s the trouble?
WILLY: Well, tell you the truth, Howard. I’ve come to the decision that I’d rather not travel any more.
HOWARD: Not travel! Well, what’ll you do?
WILLY: Remember, Christmas time, when you had the party here? You said you’d try to think of some spot for me here in town.
HOWARD: With us?
WILLY: Well, sure.
HOWARD: Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember. Well, I couldn’t think of anything for you, Willy.
WILLY: I tell ya, Howard. The kids are all grown up, y’know. I don’t need much any more. If I could take home—well, sixty-five dollars a week, I could swing it.
HOWARD: Yeah, but Willy, see I—
WILLY: I tell ya why, Howard. Speaking frankly and between the two of us, y’know—I’m just a little tired.
HOWARD: Oh, I could understand that, Willy. But you’re a road man, Willy, and we do a road business. We’ve only got a half-dozen salesmen on the floor here.
WILLY: God knows, Howard, I never asked a favor of any man. But I was with the firm when your father used to carry you in here in his arms.
HOWARD: I know that, Willy, but—
WILLY: Your father came to me the day you were born and asked me what I thought of the name of Howard, may he rest in peace.
HOWARD: I appreciate that, Willy, but there just is no spot here for you. If I had a spot I’d slam you right in, but I just don’t have a single solitary spot.
[He looks for his lighter. WILLY has picked it up and gives it to him. Pause.]
WILLY [with increasing anger]: Howard, all I need to set my table is fifty dollars a week.
HOWARD: But where am I going to put you, kid?
WILLY: Look, it isn’t a question of whether I can sell merchandise, is it?
HOWARD: No, but it’s a business, kid, and everybody’s gotta pull his own weight.
WILLY [desperately]: Just let me tell you a story, Howard—
HOWARD: ’Cause you gotta admit, business is business.
WILLY [angrily]: Business is definitely business, but just listen for a minute. You don’t understand this. When I was a boy—eighteen, nineteen—I was already on the road. And there was a question in my mind as to whether selling had a future for me. Because in those days I had a yearning to go to Alaska. See, there were three gold strikes in one month in Alaska, and I felt like going out. Just for the ride, you might say.
HOWARD [barely interested]: Don’t say.
WILLY: Oh, yeah, my father lived many years in Alaska. He was an adventurous man. We’ve got quite a little streak of self-reliance in our family. I thought I’d go out with my older brother and try to locate him, and maybe settle in the North with the old man. And I was almost decided to go, when I met a salesman in the Parker House. His name was Dave Singleman. And he was eighty-four years old, and he’d drummed merchandise in thirty-one states. And old Dave, he’d go up to his room, y’understand, put on his green velvet slippers—I’ll never forget—and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. ’Cause what could be more satisfying than to be