Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition (28 page)

     
Well, goddamn.

     
Ask me how I knew.

LOUIS
: How?

PRIOR
(Furious)
: Fuck you! I’m a prophet!

     
Reasonable? Limits?
Tell it to my
lungs
, stupid, tell it to my lesions, tell it to the cotton-woolly patches in my eyes!

LOUIS
: Prior, I . . . haven’t seen him for days now, I just—

PRIOR
: I’m going, I have limits, too.

(Prior starts to leave. He has an attack of respiratory trouble. He sits heavily on the bench. Louis reaches out to him; Prior waves him away
.

     
Louis cries. Prior looks at Louis.)

PRIOR
: You cry, but you endanger nothing in yourself. It’s like the idea of crying when you do it. Or the idea of love.

     
So. Your
boyfriend
—

LOUIS
: He’s not my—

PRIOR
: Tell me where you met him.

LOUIS
: In the park. Well, first at work, he—

PRIOR
: He’s a lawyer or a judge?

LOUIS
: Lawyer.

PRIOR
: A Gay Mormon Lawyer.

LOUIS
: Yes. Republican too.

PRIOR
: A Gay Mormon Republican Lawyer.
(With scathing contempt) Louis
. . .

LOUIS
: But he’s sort of, I don’t know if the word would be . . . well, in a way sensitive, and I—

PRIOR
: Ah. A
sensitive
gay Republican.

LOUIS
: He’s just company. Companionship.

(Pause.)

PRIOR
: Companionship. Oh.

     
You know just when I think he couldn’t possibly say anything to make it worse, he does. Companionship. How
good
. I wouldn’t want you to be
lonely
.

     
There are thousands of gay men in New York City with AIDS and nearly every one of them is being taken care of by . . . a friend or by . . . a lover who has stuck by them through things worse than my . . . So far. Everyone got that, except me. I got you. Why? What’s wrong with me?

(Louis is crying again.)

PRIOR
: Louis? Are you really bruised inside?

LOUIS
: I can’t have this talk anymore.

PRIOR
: Oh the
list
of things you can’t do. So fragile! Answer me: Inside: Bruises?

LOUIS
: Yes.

PRIOR
: Come back to me when they’re visible. I want to see black and blue, Louis, I want to see blood. Because I can’t believe you even
have
blood in your veins till you show it to me. So don’t come near me again, unless you’ve got something to show.

(Prior leaves.)

Scene 3

Night of the following day. Roy’s hospital room. There are several new machines, monitoring Roy’s condition, which is considerably worse. Roy is sleeping a deep, morphine-induced sleep. Belize enters, carrying a tray and a glass of water. With some difficulty he wakes up Roy
.

BELIZE
: Time to take your pills.

ROY
(Waking, very disoriented)
: What? What time of . . .

     
Water.

(Belize gives him a glass of water. Roy takes a sip.)

ROY
: Bitter.

     
Look
out there. Black midnight.

BELIZE
: You want anything?

ROY
: Nothing that comes from there. As far as I’m concerned you can take all that away.

     
(Seeing Belize)
Oh . . .

BELIZE
: What?

ROY
: Oh. The bogeyman is here.

     
Lookit, Ma, a schvartze toytenmann.

     
Come in, sweetheart, what took you so long?

BELIZE
: You’re flying, Roy. It’s the morphine. They put morphine in the drip to stop the . . . You awake? Can you see who I am?

ROY
: Oh yeah, you came for my mama, years ago.

     
(Confiding, intimate)
You wrap your arms around me now. Squeeze the bloody life from me. OK?

BELIZE
: Uh, no, it’s not OK. You’re stoned, Roy.

ROY
: Dark strong arms, take me like that. Deep and sincere but not too rough, just open me up to the end of me.

BELIZE
(A beat, then gently)
: Who am I, Roy?

ROY
: The Negro night nurse, my negation. You’ve come to escort me to the underworld.
(A serious sexual invitation)
Come on.

(A weight of sadness descends on Belize. He puts down the pill tray and bends close over Roy:)

BELIZE
: You want me in your bed, Roy? You want me to take you away.

ROY
: I’m ready . . .

BELIZE
: I’ll be coming for you soon. Everything I want is in the end of you.

(Belize starts to move away from Roy.)

ROY
: Let me ask you something, sir.

BELIZE
:
Sir?

ROY
: What’s it like? After?

BELIZE
: After . . .?

ROY
: This misery ends.

BELIZE
: Hell or Heaven?

ROY
: Aw, come on . . . Jesus Christ, who has time for these . . . games . . .

BELIZE
: Like San Francisco.

ROY
: A city. Good. I was worried . . . it’d be a garden. I hate that shit.

BELIZE
: Mmmm.

     
Big city, overgrown with weeds, but flowering weeds.

(Roy smiles and nods. Belize sits on the bed, next to Roy.)

BELIZE
: On every corner a wrecking crew and something new and crooked going up catty-corner to that. Windows missing in every edifice like broken teeth, fierce gusts of gritty wind, and a gray, high sky full of ravens.

ROY
: Isaiah.

BELIZE
: Prophet birds, Roy.

     
Piles of trash, but lapidary like rubies and obsidian, and diamond-colored cow-spit streamers in the wind. And voting booths.

ROY
: And a dragon atop a golden horde.

BELIZE
: And everyone in Balenciaga gowns with red corsages, and big dance palaces full of music and lights and racial impurity and gender confusion.

(Roy laughs softly, delighted.)

BELIZE
: And all the deities are Creole, mulatto, brown as the mouths of rivers.

(Roy laughs again.)

BELIZE
: Race, taste and history finally overcome.

     
And you ain’t there.

ROY
(Shaking his head no in happy agreement)
: And Heaven?

BELIZE
(A beat, then)
: That
was
Heaven, Roy.

ROY
: The fuck it was.

     
(Suspicious, frightened)
Who are you?

(Belize stands up.)

BELIZE
(Soft, calming)
: Your negation.

ROY
: Yeah. I know you. Nothing. A stomach grumble that wakes you in the night.

(Ethel enters.)

BELIZE
: Been nice talking to you. Go to sleep now, baby. I’m just the shadow on your grave.

Scene 4

The next day. Joe in his office at the courthouse in Brooklyn. He sits dejectedly at his desk. Prior and Belize enter the corridor outside
.

PRIOR
(Whisper)
: That’s his office.

BELIZE
(Whisper)
: This is stupid.

PRIOR
(Whisper)
: Go home if you’re chicken.

BELIZE
:
You’re
the one who should be home.

PRIOR
: I have a hobby now: haunting people. Fuck home. You wait here. I want to meet my replacement.

(Prior goes to Joe’s door, opens it, steps in.)

PRIOR
: Oh.

JOE
: Yes, can I—

PRIOR
: You look just like the dummy. She’s right.

JOE
: Who’s right?

PRIOR
: Your wife.

(Pause.)

JOE
: What?

     
Do you know my—

PRIOR
: No.

JOE
: You said my wife.

PRIOR
: No I didn’t.

JOE
: Yes you did.

PRIOR
: You misheard. I’m a Prophet.

JOE
: What?

PRIOR
: PROPHET PROPHET I PROPHESY I HAVE SIGHT I
SEE
.

     
What do
you
do?

JOE
: I’m a clerk.

PRIOR
: Oh big deal. A clerk. You
what
, you file things? Well you better be keeping a file on the hearts you break, that’s all that counts in the end, you’ll have bills to pay in the world to come, you and your friend, the Whore of Babylon.

     
(Little pause)

     
Sorry wrong room.

(Prior exits, goes to Belize.)

PRIOR
(Despairing)
: He’s the Marlboro Man.

BELIZE
: Oooh, I wanna see.

(Joe is standing, perplexed, when Belize enters the office. Belize instantly recognizes Joe.)

BELIZE
:
Sacred
Heart of Jesus!

JOE
: Now what is—

     
You’re Roy’s nurse. I recognize you, you’re—

BELIZE
: No you don’t.

JOE
: From the hospital. You’re Roy Cohn’s nurse.

BELIZE
: No I’m not. Not a nurse. We all look alike to you. You all look alike to us. It’s a mad mad world. Have a nice day.

(Belize exits, runs back to Prior.)

PRIOR
: Home on the range?

BELIZE
: Chaps and spurs. Now girl we
got
to get you home and into—

PRIOR
: Mega-butch. He made me feel beyond nelly. Like little wispy daisies were sprouting out my ears. Little droopy wispy wilted—

(Joe comes out of his office.)

BELIZE
: Run! Run!

JOE
: Wait!

(They’re cornered by Joe. Belize averts his face, masking his mouth and chin with his scarf.)

JOE
: What game are you playing, this is a federal courthouse. You said . . . something about my wife. Now what . . . How do you know my—

PRIOR
: I’m . . . Nothing. I’m a mental patient. He’s my nurse.

BELIZE
: Not his nurse, I’m not a n—

PRIOR
: We’re here because my will is being contested. Um, what is that called, when they challenge your will?

JOE
: Competency? But this is an appellate court.

PRIOR
: And I am
appealing
to anyone, anyone in the universe, who will listen to me for some . . . Charity . . . Some people are so . . .
greedy
, such pigs, they have everything, health,
everything
, and still they want more.

JOE
: You said my wife. And I want to know, is she—

PRIOR
: TALK TO HER YOURSELF, BULLWINKLE! WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR?

     
(To Belize)
Oh, nursey dear, fetch the medication, I’m starting to rave.

BELIZE
: Pardons, Monsieur 1’Avocat, nous sommes absolument Desolée.

(Prior blows a raspberry at Joe.)