Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition (19 page)

BELIZE
: I thought you were lascivious.

PRIOR
: Lascivious sad. Wonderful and horrible all at once, like . . . like there’s a war inside. My eyes are funny, I . . .

     
(He touches his eyes)
Oh.

     
I’m crying.

BELIZE
: Prior?

PRIOR
: I’m scared. And also full of, I don’t know, Joy or something.

(In the hospital, Henry, Roy’s doctor, enters.)

PRIOR
: Hope.

HENRY
: Are you the duty nurse?

BELIZE
(To Henry)
: Yo.

     
(To Prior)
Look, baby, I have to go—

PRIOR
: Oh no, not yet, I—Sing something first. Sing with me.

BELIZE
(To Prior)
: Wash up and sleep and—

HENRY
(Over the line above)
: Are you the duty nurse?

BELIZE
(To Henry): Yo
, I said.

HENRY
: Then why are you dressed like that?

BELIZE
(To Henry)
: You don’t like it?

     
(To Prior)
I’ll call you in the morning when I—

PRIOR
: Just one little song. Some hymn?

HENRY
:
Nurse. Hang up the fucking
—

BELIZE
(To Henry)
: One moment,
please
. This is an emergency.
(To Prior, singing:)

     
Hark the herald angels sing—

(Prior joins in:)

PRIOR AND BELIZE
:

     
Glory to the newborn king.

     
Peace on earth and mercy mild,

     
God and sinners reconciled—

HENRY
(Over the last line above)
: What’s your name?

PRIOR AND BELIZE
(Belize singing louder)
:

     
JOYFUL all ye nations rise,

     
Join the triumph of the skies!

     
With angelic hosts proclaim:

     
Christ is born in Bethlehem!

     
Hark the herald angels sing,

     
Glory to the newborn king!

BELIZE
(To Prior)
: Call you back. There’s a man bothering me.

PRIOR
: Je t’aime.

(Belize hangs up. He turns to Henry.)

BELIZE
: May I help you?

HENRY
: Nurses are supposed to wear white.

BELIZE
: Doctors are supposed to be home, in Westchester, asleep.

HENRY
: Emergency admit, Room 1013. Here are the charts.

(He hands medical charts to Belize. Belize scans the chart, reads the patient’s name, raises his eyebrows, reads a little more. He looks up at Henry.)

HENRY
: Start the drip, Gamma G and he’ll need a CTM, radiation in the morning so clear diet and—What?

BELIZE
: “Liver cancer.”

HENRY
: Just—Ignore that, just—

BELIZE
: Oncology’s on six, doll.

HENRY
: This is the right floor.

BELIZE
: It says liver can—

HENRY
(Lashing out)
: I don’t give a
fuck
what it
says, I
said this is the right floor.

BELIZE
: Ooooh, testy.

HENRY
: He’s a very important man.

BELIZE
: Then I
shouldn’t
fuck up his medication?

HENRY
: Think you can manage that? And, maybe, you know, confidentiality, don’t share this with your sewing circle.

BELIZE
: Safe home.

(Henry leaves.)

BELIZE
: Asshole.

(He looks at the chart, shakes his head; after a moment’s hesitation he picks up the phone and dials. Prior answers.)

BELIZE
: I have some piping hot dish.

PRIOR
: How hot can it be at three in the—

BELIZE
: Get out your oven mitts.
(Looking around to make sure no one is near, then:)

     
Don’t tell anyone, but guess who just checked in with the troubles?

     
The Killer Queen Herself. New York’s number one closeted queer.

PRIOR
:
Koch?

BELIZE
:
No
, not Koch. Better.
(He whispers into the receiver)

PRIOR
: The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

BELIZE
: Oh indeed. Indeed She do.

Scene 6

The same night, continuous with
Scene 5
. Roy in his hospital bed, sick and very scared. Belize enters, putting on latex gloves
.

ROY
: Get outta here you, I got nothing to say to you.

BELIZE
: Just doing my—

ROY
: I want a white nurse. My constitutional right.

BELIZE
: You’re in a hospital, you don’t have any constitutional rights.

(Belize begins preparing Roy’s right arm for the insertion of an IV drip needle, palpating the vein, disinfecting the skin. He moves to insert the IV needle in Roy’s arm.)

ROY
(Nervous)
: Find the vein, you moron, don’t start jabbing that goddamned spigot in my arm till you find the fucking vein or I’ll sue you so bad they’ll repossess your teeth you dim black motherf—

BELIZE
(Had enough; very fierce)
: Watch. Yourself.

     
You don’t talk that way to me when I’m holding something this sharp. Or I might slip and stick it in your heart. If you have a heart.

ROY
: Oh I do. Tough little muscle.

BELIZE
: I bet.

     
Now I’ve been doing drips a long time. I can slip this in so easy you’ll think you were born with it. Or I can make it feel like I just hooked you up to a bag of Liquid Drano. So you be nice to me or you’re going to be one sorry asshole come morning.

ROY
: Nice.

BELIZE
: Nice and quiet.

(Belize puts the drip needle, painlessly, in Roy’s arm. Roy’s impressed, but doesn’t show it.)

BELIZE
: There.

ROY
(Fierce)
: I
hurt
.

BELIZE
: I’ll get you a painkiller.

ROY
: Will it knock me out?

BELIZE
: I sure hope so.

ROY
: Then shove it. Pain’s . . . nothing, pain’s life.

BELIZE
: Sing it, baby.

ROY
: When they did my facelifts, I made the anesthesiologist use a local. They lifted up my whole face like a dinner napkin and I was wide awake to see it.

BELIZE
: Bullshit. No doctor would agree to do that.

ROY
: I can get anyone to do anything I want. For instance: Let’s be friends. Jews and coloreds, historical liberal coalition, right? My people being the first to sell retail to your people, your people being the first people my people could afford to hire to sweep out the store Saturday mornings, and then we all held hands and rode the bus to Selma. Not me of course, I don’t ride buses, I take cabs. But the thing about the American Negro is, he never went Communist. Loser Jews did. But you people had Jesus so the reds never got to you. I admire that.

BELIZE
: Your chart didn’t mention that you’re delusional.

ROY
: Barking mad. Sit. Talk.

BELIZE
: Mr. Cohn. I’d rather suck the pus out of an abscess. I’d rather drink a subway toilet. I’d rather chew off my tongue and spit it in your leathery face. So thanks for the offer of conversation, but I’d rather not.

(Belize starts to exit, turning off the light as he does.)

ROY
: Oh forchristsake. Whatta I gotta do? Beg? I don’t want to be alone.

(Belize stops.)

ROY
: Oh how I fucking
hate
hospitals, nurses, this waste of time and . . . wasting and weakness, I want to kill the—

     
’Course they can’t kill this, can they?

(Belize says nothing.)

ROY
: No. It’s too simple. It knows itself. It’s harder to kill something if it knows what it is. Like pubic lice. You ever have pubic lice?

BELIZE
: That is none of your—

ROY
: I got some kind of super crabs from some kid once, it took twenty drenchings of Kwell and finally shaving to get rid of the little bastards.
Nothing
could kill them. And every time I had to itch I’d smile, because I learned to respect them, these unkillable crabs, because . . . I learned to identify. You know? Determined lowlife. Like me.

     
You’ve seen lots of guys with this.

(Little pause.)

BELIZE
: Lots.

ROY
: How do I look, comparatively?

BELIZE
: I’d say you’re in trouble.

ROY
: I’m going to die. Soon.

     
That was a question.

BELIZE
: Probably. Probably so.

ROY
: Hah.

     
I appreciate the . . . the honesty, or whatever . . .

     
If I live I could sue you for emotional distress, the whole hospital, but . . .

     
I’m not prejudiced, I’m not a prejudiced man.

(Belize just looks at him.)

ROY
: These racist guys, simpletons, I never had any use for them—too rigid. You want to keep your eye on where the most powerful enemy really is. I save my hate for what counts.

BELIZE
: Well. And I think that’s a good idea, a good thing to do, probably.

     
(Little pause. Then, with great effort and distaste:)

     
This didn’t come from me and I
don’t
like you but let me tell you a thing or two:

     
They have you down for radiation tomorrow for the sarcoma lesions, and you don’t want to let them do that, because radiation will kill the T-cells and you don’t have any you can afford to lose. So tell the doctor no thanks for the radiation. He won’t want to listen. Persuade him. Or he’ll kill you.

ROY
: You’re just a fucking nurse. Why should I listen to you over my very qualified, very expensive WASP doctor?

BELIZE
: He’s not queer. I am.

(Belize winks at Roy.)

ROY
: Don’t wink at me.

     
You said “a thing or two.” So that’s one.

BELIZE
: I don’t know what strings you pulled to get in on the azidothymidine trials.

ROY
: I have my little ways.

BELIZE
: Uh-huh.

     
Watch out for the double blind. They’ll want you to sign something that says they can give you M&Ms instead of the real drug. You’ll die, but they’ll get the kind of statistics they can publish in the
New England Journal of Medicine
. And you can’t sue ’cause you signed. And if you don’t sign, no pills. So if you have any strings left, pull them, because everyone’s put through the double blind and with this, time’s against you, you can’t fuck around with placebos.

ROY
: You hate me.

BELIZE
: Yes.

ROY
: Why are you telling me this?

BELIZE
: I wish I knew.

(Pause.)

ROY
(Very nasty)
: You’re a butterfingers spook faggot nurse. I think . . . you have little reason to want to help me.

BELIZE
: Consider it solidarity. One faggot to another.