Move Over Brando

--This is an autobiography I wrote for the character I performed in
“A Streetcar Named Desire”

I am Stanley Kowalski. I am twenty-nine years old, and I feel like I’m fifty. I stand a little shy of six feet in height, and I weigh an even one-hundred and eighty pounds. I work as an auto parts salesman, here in New Orleans, where I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve seen the horrors of the second World’s war, but nothing more horrible than my damn sister-in-law showing up at my front door. Some people tell me I walk around like a gorilla—swinging my fists and nearly dragging my knuckles on the ground. I say fuck those people—I walk how I walk. Some people think of me as a dud, a big head with no brain inside—those people can go to Hell. I am smart, I am mentally aware, and I won’t have some slut show up, take my wife from me, and live off my wages. I got friends. Good friends. Steve and Mitch and Pablo—good hardworking guys, who ain’t got much going for ‘em. They’re good to hang out with, play poker with. Problem is, I’m going places. I mean, I’m gonna get Stella and our baby a new place, a better place, with a yard, and maybe a garden. I ain’t gonna be no auto parts salesman for too long. I’m gonna start my own thing, and make lots of money, and then all those people can see I got real brains—that there’s something going on inside my head. I love Stella, she’s a real sweatheart. Thing is, she ain’t much when it comes to sense. She kinda takes everyone at their word, believes everyone about everything. Especially that damn whore of a sister she’s got. Oh how I’d like to put her in her place. I ain’t one to be walked on. Nope, I ain’t no doormat, and I ain’t gonna let Stella be one neither. I got two pairs of slacks—one for working, one for going out. I got four shirts—two white undershirts, one flannel work shirt, and another button down for going out. People look at the way I’m dressed and call me unrefined. Or the way I talk, or think, or conduct business, and say I’m unrefined. I happen to think most peoples are just fake. They wear their clothes and talk the way they do to hide their real selves. No one has the balls to just be themself. I believe there is a god, but I ain’t got much to say to him since I seen what happened in that war. Since I seen what kind of poverty some people are forced to live in. I just don’t think he cares too much about us. The year is 1945, and everyone is happy because we beat them damned Nazis. Everyone thinks we got some kinda heaven on earth now. I ain’t seen nothing pleasant since before I stepped on that beach in France. I won’t see nothing pleasant ever again. Even when it’s all sunny outside like today, and those fucking birds are chirping, and the air is pretty cool for it being summer time, it’s still hell on earth. I still gotta get up, go to work, take peoples crap, kiss peoples asses so that I can make goddam business deals. I earned more than this. More than this little dumpy apartment, in this dumpy old neighborhood, with these dumpy old neighbors. I’m damn near thirty and I ain’t got my own home. I ain’t got a shiny car, and I don’t take no damn vacations, either. Some fucking American Dream. New Orleans is a fool’s town. People drink too much, cuss and start fights. It’s a real underground. It’s a place where negros can play sad music they call blues or jazz or whatever it may be. It’s a place where fags can paint and write all sorts of gay poetry. I mean, no wonder every one drinks—you can’t walk five goddam steps without hearing a harmonica, or seeing some homo mark up perfectly good canvas with greasy paint. It’s always hot, too. Some days you wake up and walk outside and you can’t even breathe. The air is so humid and heavy its like trying to inhale honey or something. I ain’t got much for family either. It’s really just me and Stella, and the baby when it comes. My old man used to beat me with whatever was lying around. He’d come home all drunk and angry. Drunk bastard probably got his ass beat at the tavern, and so he’d come home and take it out on me and my mother. She took off when I was just thirteen, and so I left, too. I been doing alright for myself since I was thirteen. Sure I had to lie a little, and steal some food here and there, and do other sorts of bad things, but I survived. Can those things really be all that bad when you are just trying to survive? I’m sure gonna get that dame Blanche. That’s for sure. My buddy at work goes over to Laurel. He told me Blanche was kicked out of town. She was fooling around with the whole town I guess. And she comes here saying she doesn’t know what to do, and that she lost Belle Reve—but she ain’t got no money for us? I’ll tell you Louisiana’s got the Napoleonic Code. Says anything that belongs to someone also belongs to their spouse. I’m gonna put an end to Blanche’s lies and games. She ain’t gonna come here and take my wife and me hostage. She gonna pay for what she did. Soon as I get home I’m gonna tell her a new one, then she can pack her bags and be on her way. I’m Stanley Kowalski. I ain’t no fool.