Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition (18 page)

LOUIS
: Hurry home to the missus.

     
(Points to Joe’s left-hand ring finger)

     
Married gentlemen before cruising the Ramble should first remove their bands of gold.

(Joe stares at his wedding ring.)

LOUIS
: Go if you’re going. Go.

(Joe starts to leave, hesitates, then turns back; he hesitates again, then goes to Louis and hugs him, awkwardly, collegially.)

JOE
: I’m not staying.

LOUIS
(Sniffing)
: What kind of cologne is that?

JOE
(A beat, then)
: Fabergé.

LOUIS
: OH!
Very
butch, very heterosexual high school. Fabergé.

(Louis gently breaks the hug, steps back a little.)

LOUIS
: You smell nice.

JOE
: So do you.

LOUIS
: Smell is . . . an incredibly complex and underappreciated physical phenomenon. Inextricably bound up with sex.

JOE
: I . . . didn’t know that.

LOUIS
: It is. The nose is really a sexual organ.

     
Smelling. Is desiring. We have five senses, but only two that go beyond the boundaries . . . of ourselves. When you look at someone, it’s just bouncing light, or when you hear them, it’s just sound waves, vibrating air, or touch is just nerve endings tingling. Know what a smell is?

JOE
: It’s . . . some sort of . . . No.

LOUIS
: It’s made of the molecules of what you’re smelling. Some part of you, where you meet the air, is airborne.

(Louis steps carefully closer to Joe, who still seems ready, though not
as
ready, to bolt.)

LOUIS
: Little molecules of Joe . . .
(Leaning in, inhaling deeply)
Up my nose.

     
Mmmm . . . Nice. Try it.

JOE
: Try . . .?

LOUIS
: Inhale.

(Joe leans toward Louis, inhales.)

LOUIS
: Nice?

JOE
: Yes.

     
I should—

LOUIS
(Quietly)
: Ssssshhhh.

     
Smelling. And tasting.

     
(Moving in closer)
First the nose, then the tongue.

JOE
(Taking a half-step back, scared)
: I just don’t—

LOUIS
(Stepping forward)
: They work as a team, see. The nose tells the body—the heart, the mind, the fingers the cock—what it wants, and then the tongue explores, finding out what’s edible, what isn’t, what’s most mineral,
food for the blood, food for the bones, and therefore most delectable.

(Louis licks the side of Joe’s cheek.)

LOUIS
: Salt.

(Louis kisses Joe, who holds back a moment and then responds.)

LOUIS
: Mmm. Iron. Clay.

(Louis slips his hand down the front of Joe’s pants, groping him. Joe shudders. Louis pulls his hand out, smells and tastes his fingers, and then holds them for Joe to smell.)

LOUIS
: Chlorine. Copper. Earth.

(They kiss again.)

LOUIS
: What does that taste like?

JOE
: Um . . .

LOUIS
: What?

JOE
: Well . . . Nighttime.

LOUIS
: Stay?

JOE
: Yes.

(They kiss again. Louis starts unbuttoning Joe’s shirt.)

JOE
: Louis?

LOUIS
: Hmmm?

JOE
: What did that mean, ohblahdee ohblah—

LOUIS
: Sssssh. Words are the worst things. Breathe. Smell.

JOE
: But—

LOUIS
: Or if you have to talk, talk dirty.

Scene 3

The same night. The sounds of wind and snow. Mr. Lies sits alone, still in his snowsuit, playing the oboe, in what’s left of Harper’s imaginary Antarctica, which is now bare, grim and grimy
.

Mr. Lies stops playing
.

MR. LIES
: The oboe: official instrument of the International Order of Travel Agents. If the duck was a songbird it would sing like this. Nasal, desolate, the call of migratory things.

(Harper enters dragging a small pine tree which she has felled, its slender stump-end shredded and splintered. The fantasy explorer gear from Act Three,
Scene 3
, of
Millennium
is gone; she is dressed in the hastily assembled outfit in which she fled the apartment at the end of Act Two,
Scene 9
: a thin pullover, a skirt, torn tights, gloves. She’s been outdoors for three days now and looks it
—
filthy and disheveled. Her previous pioneer determination, stretched thin, has become desperate and angry.)

HARPER
: I’m FREEZING!

MR. LIES
(Pointing to the tree)
: Where did you get that?

HARPER
: From the great Antarctic pine forests. Right over that hill.

MR. LIES
: There are no pine forests in Antarctica.

HARPER
: I chewed this pine tree down. With my teeth. Like a beaver. I’m
hungry
, I haven’t eaten in three days! I’m going to use it to build . . . something, maybe a fire.

(She takes a soggy box of matches from under her pullover. She strikes match after match; all dead
.

     
She gives up, and sits on the tree, heavy with despair.)

HARPER
: I don’t understand why I’m not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die. But there’s still the rest of you. There’s your breasts, and your genitals, and they’re amazingly stupid, like babies or faithful dogs, they don’t get it, they just want him. Want him.

(Joe enters the scene, dressed in his Temple garment, barefoot. He looks around, uncertain of where he is till he sees Harper.)

MR. LIES
: The Eskimo is back.

HARPER
: I know.

     
I wanted a real Eskimo, someone chilly and reliable, not this, this is just . . . some lawyer, just—

JOE
: Hey, buddy.

HARPER
: Hey.

JOE
: I looked for you. I’ve been everywhere.

HARPER
: Well, you found me.

JOE
: No, I . . . I’m not looking now. I guess I’m having an adventure.

HARPER
: Can I come with you? This isn’t working anymore. I’m cold.

JOE
: I wouldn’t want you to see.

HARPER
: Think it’s worse than what I imagine? It’s not.

JOE
: I should go.

HARPER
: Bastard. You fell out of love with me.

JOE
: That isn’t true, Harper.

HARPER
: Why did you come here? Leave me alone if you’re so goddamned happy.

JOE
: You want me here.

(She nods.)

HARPER
: To see you again. Any way I can.

     
OH GOD I WISH YOU WERE—No I don’t.

JOE
: Please don’t.

HARPER
: DEAD.

     
Come back.

(Little pause.)

JOE
: Oh, buddy, I wish so much that I could. But how can I?

I can’t.

(He vanishes
.

     
Mr. Lies plays the oboe
—
a brief, wild lament. The magic Antarctic night fades away, replaced by a harsh sodium light and the ordinary sounds of the park and the city in the distance.)

MR. LIES
: Blues for the death of Heaven.

HARPER
(Shattered, scared)
: No . . .

MR. LIES
: I tried to tell you. There are no Eskimo in Antarctica.

HARPER
: No. No trees either.

MR. LIES
(Pointing to the chewed-down pine tree)
: So where did you get that?

HARPER
: From the Botanical Gardens Arboretum. It’s right over there. Prospect Park. We’re still in Brooklyn I guess.

(The lights of a police car begin to flash.)

MR. LIES
(Vanishing)
: The Law for real.

HARPER
(Raising her hands over her head)
: Busted. Damn.

     
What a lousy vacation.

Scene 4

The same night. In the Pitt apartment in Brooklyn. A telephone rings. Hannah, carrying the bags and wearing the coat she had on in Act Three,
Scene 4
, of
Millennium Approaches,
enters the apartment, drops the bags, and runs for the phone
.

HANNAH
(Exhausted, grim)
: Pitt residence.

     
No, he’s out. This is his mother. No I have no idea where he is. I have no idea. He was supposed to meet me at the airport, but I don’t wait more than three and three-quarters—

     
I—Yes of course I know her, yes she lives here, what’s—

     
OH MY LORD! Is she—Wait, Officer, I don’t—She did
what
, exactly?

     
Why on earth would she chew down a pine tree?

     
(Severe)
You have no business laughing about it, you can stop that right now. That’s ugly.

     
Apology accepted.

     
I don’t know where that is, I just arrived from Salt Lake and I barely found Brooklyn, I had to give the superintendent money to let me into the—I’ll take a . . . a taxicab.

     
No!
No hospital! She’s not insane, she’s just . . . bewildered, she—I don’t see how it’s any business of yours what she is.

     
Tell her Mother Pitt is coming.

(Hannah hangs up.)

Scene 5

The same night. Prior in his bedroom, alone, asleep in his bed. The room is intact, no trace of the demolished ceiling. Prior is having a nightmare. He wakes up, frightened
.

PRIOR
: OH!
(He looks around)
Oh.

     
(He looks under the covers. He discovers that the lap of his pajamas is soaked in cum)

     
Will you look at this!

     
First goddamn orgasm in months and I slept through it.

(He dials a number on his bedside telephone
.

     
At Belize’s workstation on the tenth floor of New York Hospital, a phone rings. Belize, in a colorful version of scrubs [his design and execution], is busy with paperwork
.

     
Prior, while waiting for Belize to answer, grabs a box of Kleenex and, reaching under the covers, blots himself dry
.

     
Belize answers.)

BELIZE
: Ten East.

PRIOR
: I am drenched in spooj.

BELIZE
(Continuing to work)
: Spooj?

PRIOR
: Cum. Jiz. Ejaculate. I’ve had a wet dream.

BELIZE
: Uh-huh, bound to happen, you’ve been abstemious to excess: Beaucoup de spooj.

PRIOR
: It was a woman.

BELIZE
(Stops working)
: A woman.

PRIOR
: Not a
conventional
woman.

BELIZE
: Grace Jones.

(Prior looks at the ceiling.)

BELIZE
: Hello?

PRIOR
: An angel.

BELIZE
: Oh FABULOUS.

PRIOR
: I feel . . . lascivious. Come over.

BELIZE
: I spent the whole day with you, I
do
have a life of my own, you know.

PRIOR
: I’m sad.