Nightingale is adjusting a neckerchief about his wasted throat. He enters the writer’s cubicle without knocking. NIGHTINGALE: May I intrude once more? It’s embarrassing—this incident. Not of any importance, nothing worth a second thought. [He coughs.] Oh Christ. You know my mattress is full of bedbugs. Last night I smashed one at least the size of my thumbnail, it left a big blood spot on the pillow. [He coughs and gasps for breath.] I showed it to the colored woman that the witch calls Nursie, and Nursie told her about it, and she came charging up here and demanded that I exhibit the bug, which I naturally . . . [A note of uncertainty and fear enters his voice.] WRITER: . . . removed from the pillow. NIGHTINGALE: Who in hell wouldn’t remove the remains of a squashed bedbug from his pillow? Nobody I’d want social or any acquaintance with . . . she even . . . intimated that I coughed up the blood, as if I had . . . [coughs] consumption. WRITER [stripped to his shorts and about to go to bed]: I think with that persistent cough of yours you should get more rest.
