Dick from "Spring Storm" by Tennessee Williams (2)

No! I won't take it! (He catches her shoulders.) Honey, it takes a pair of boots and a flannel shirt to make me feel like a man. I'm sick of bath salts and spirits of ammonia. An' I wouldn't like cotton much better. Cotton's soft. It's fuzzy stuff that sticks to your fingers. I wouldn't like that. I want to get my hands on something hard and tough that fights back, like the river. When you're fighting a river you're fighting something your size. Don't you see? They've put out flood warnings up at Friar's Point. She's rose six feet since morning. Fifty-nine, that's flood stage, and God only knows when she'll stop. They'r fighting like crazy to hold her back but she keeps on coming, big an' yellow an' daring 'em all to try an' make her stay put. She'll win this time maybe. Push right through their sandbags an' run 'em out of the county, tearin' down sharecroppers' houses an' drownin' the stock. If the people are lucky they'll climb on top of their roofs an' we'll take 'em off in boats. But some of 'em won't be lucky. Ole Mammies with breakbone fever ain't good at roof climbing. The river'll catch 'em at night an' they won't have a chance. But maybe next time we'll win. we'll catch her an' tame her an' make her stay in her place. That's a big job, honey, the kind of job that I want!