AN«;rr,s rN Alrnnlca

rrrron: Maybe Iam a prophet. Not just me, all of us who are
dying now. Maybewe've caught the virus ofprophecy. Be
still. Tc,il no more. MrÉ. the world has driven God ACT THREE:
lrom Heaven, incurred the angels'wrath.
I believe I've seen the end of things. And having seen,
a
I'm going blind, as prophets do. It makes a certain sense
to me.
AI.TGET,,S VOICE:
lBorb 0ry8mx
FORTHIS AGE OF ANOMIE: A NEW LAW! (Tlte Sguirming Facts Exceed tlte Sguamous Mind)
Delivered this night, this silent night, from Heaven,
Oh Prophet, to \bu. February ry86
prìroR: I hate heaven. I've got no resistance left. Except to run.

Scene r
Split scene: a week later, a montlt since the end of Act One.
Joe and Louis in bed, dffirent sheets, tidier, homier. Joe is
awake, Louis is asleep. Joe utatches Harper, in Brooklyn,
dressed in a soiled nightgoun. She remo,ues ber nigbtgown
and stands shiaering in bra and panties and stockings, look-
ing atJoe. Hannah enters in a batltrobe, carrying a dress oaer
her arm and a pair af sboes. She puts the shoes dottn infont
of Harper.

HANNAH: Did you wash up?

(Harper nods.)

HANNAH: Good you're out of that nightdress, it's been three

weeks. It was starting to smell. ll

HARPER(Flat):You're telling me.

HANNAH: Now let's slip this on.

rtlz r83
Arucr,r-s ru Aurnrca Po R o s'r'n or «a

(They put the dress on Harper.) (She crosses into Louis\ bedroom. Jae pulk ltack, artayfrorn
her hut carqful not to uake Louis.)
TTANNAH: Good. It'.s pretty.
Shoes? HARrER: Dont worry, I'm not really here.
I have terrible powers. I see more than I want to see.
(Harfer steps into thetn.) Maybe I'm a witch.
lop: Vru're not.
TIANNAII: (loor1. Now let'.s see alrout the hair HARrER: I could be a witch. Why not? I marricrd a fìriry.
1oe: Please, Flarper, go,just .. .

(tlarpar ltends o{er; Jfdnnah conlts Ilarpers hair.) t,ovrs (tr|bking but not really):Joe . . . ?
You OKI
I{ANNA}I: At iirst it
can tre very lrarcl to accept how clisap- 1or: Yeah, yeah, screwy stornach, nothing.
pointing life is, IJarper, because that's whilt it is and you HARrER (Simultaneously):Talk softer you're waking him rrp.
have to accept it. With faìth and time and har:d work you Why am I here? You called me.
reach a point . . . where the disappointment rloesn't hurt 1oa:Ididnt...
as much, and then it gets actually easy to live with. Qrite HARrER: You called me. Leave me alone if you're so gocl-
easy. Which is in its own way a disalpointment. But. damned huppy.
T'here. Ioe: I clicln't call you.
r-rARpER: I hnte this dress, Mother Pitt. It',s 6ve Ru. I{ARPER:THEN WHYAM I FIEREI
HANNAH: I get there first. I open up.
I leave mess?1[Jes at work. They say lie'.s rrot in but I (Pause. They look at each other.)
know he ìs, but he won't take rny calls. Ife'.s ashanrecl.
HARnER: To see you rrgain. Any way I can.
(Harper s tares at.[oe. ) OH GOD I \[|ISH YOIJ WtrRE. . . . No I don't.
DEAD. Yes, I do.
I{ARPER: I rniss his penis. r.outs:Joe...?
HANNAH: And Iin sure you'll understarul if I dorlt feel com- IIARPER: You love him.
fortnble discussirrg tha.t. ton: I do?
I'11 fix myself now. Ar.rd we can go. HARrER: You cant save him. You never saved anyone. Joe in
love, isn't it pathetic.
(Hannah exits.) IoB: Whatl
HARPER: You're turning into me.
unnrrn: Joe? ,lor: G(J!

r84 185
ANcer,s rN Auenrce Panes::nor re
(She aanishes as Louis usakes uith a start.) nov: No records no records what are you deaf I said I have no
records for their shitty little committee, it's not how I
r,ours: What!? workI...
loE: Morning.
Sleep well? (He has an intedibly bad aùdominal spasm; he! in great
Lours: No. Did you? pain. He holds the phone as)a!, grimaces terribly, curk up
1or: Yup. into a ball and tben uneurk, all the while making no sound.
lours: I had a frea§ nightmare. We were celebrating having Etltel appears in lter hat and coat, zualks to a chair by tbe
spent a month in bed and we'd decided to meet at a bed and sits, ttatcbing Roy, silent. He watcltes her enter and
restaurant, only I wasnt sure it was right to be celebrat- then resuntes his phone call, never taking his eyes offher.)

ing and when I got there it wasnt a restaurant, it was the

funeral parlor of some sort of creepy temple, and it was nov: Those notes were lost. LOST. In a fire, water damage, I
you and me and some furiously angry woman, and it cant do this any. . .
turned out that you were a member of some bizarre reli-
gious sect, like a Moonie or a Rajnishi or a Mormon or (Belize enters uith a pill tray)
something, and you hadnt told me, and it was like I didnt
know you at all. xov (Tb Belize):Ithrew:up fifteen tìmes today! | COUNTED.
Joe? (Pause. Tb Ethel)What are you looking at?
(Tb Belize) Fifteen times. (He goes back to the phone)
(Little pause, Joe stares at Louis.) Yeah?
ruLrzr; Hang up the phone, I have to watch you take these . . .

loe:Iam. IamaMormon nov:The LIMO thing? Oh for the love of Christ I was acquit-
rous (A beat, tlten):I{uh. ted twice for that, they're trying to kill me dead with this
harassment, I have done things in my lifè but I never
killed anyone.
(Tb Ethel) Present company excepted. And you
deseroed it.
Scene z (Tb Belize) Get the fuck outta here.
(Back to tlte phone) Stall. It can't start tomorrow if we
Same m.orning, stillfve
"ttr,t. Roy in bis hospital room. The dont show, so dont show; I'll pay the old harridan back.
pain in his gut is nou constant and gettittg roorse. Ife is on I have to have a. . .

the phone, a more elaborute phorue than in the preaious sc(ne. BELtzÈ,i Put down the phone.

r 8(r 187
 ilu

Ar.r<;rls rN Avrnrca Penosrnor «a

nov: Suck my dick, Mother'lbresa, this is life and death xov (Trying to remember): Acid something.
BELlzp.i Put down the.,, BELrzEi Azidothymedine?
nov: Gesundheit.
(Ray snatches the pill cup afftbe tray and throus the pilk on
(Roy tosses a ring of hey to Belize.)
thefoor. Belize reacltesfor the phone. Roy slams doun the
receiaer and snatches the pltone au;a!)
BELtzEi AZT? You got. .. ì
nov: You touch that phone and I'll bite. And I got rabies.
(Belize unlocàs tbe ice box; it\full of bottles ofp;lls.)
And from now on, I supply my own pills. I already told
'em to push their jujube s to the losers down the hall.
nov: One-hundred-proof elixir vitae.
BELIZE: Your own pills.
Give me the keys.
nov: No double blind. A little bird warned me. The vulhrres . . .
rELtzEi You scored.
(Anotber sel)ere s4asn . This time he makes noise) Jesus
nov: Impressively.
God these crampsr now I know why women go beserk
BELtzE. Lifetime supply.
once a. ... AH FUCK! There are maybe thirty people in the whole country
who are getting this drug.
(He has another spasm. Ethel laughs.) Rov: Now there are thirty-one.
BELtzE There are a hundred thousand people who need it.
nov: Oh good I made her laugh. Look at you. The dragon atop the golden horde. Itt
(Tlte pain is sligbtly less. Hei a little calmer) not fair, is it?
I dont trust this hospital. For all I know Lillian fuck- not: No, but Jimmy Carter said, neither is life. So put your
as

ing Hellntan is down in the basement switching the pills brown eyes back in your goddam head, baby, I am not
around-no, wait, she's dead, isrt't she. Oh boy, memory, moved by an unequal distribution of goods on this earth.
it's-hey Ethel, didnt Lillian die, did you see her up It's history I didnt write it though I flatter myself I am a
there, ugly, ugly broad, nose like a . . . like even a Jew footnote. And you are a nurse, so minister and skedaddle.
should worry mit a punim like that. You seen somebody rELTzE: If you live fifty more years you wont swallow all these
fitting that description up there in Red Heaven? Hahl pills.
She wont talk to me. She thinks she's some sort of a (Pause)
deathwatch or something. I want some.
BELrzEi Who are you talking tol nov: That's illegal.
nov: I'm self-medicating. BELTzE: Ten bottles.
BELTzE: With what? nov: I'm gonna report you.

r lltì r89

I
Arucals rN Alre nrce Penesrnor ra
lil

BELTIE: There'.s a nursing shortage. I'rn in a union. I'm real BuLtzE (Overlapping starting on'\pade"): Shit-for-brains
scared. filthy-mouthed selfish motherfucking cowardly cock-
I have frìends who need thern. Bad. sucking cloven-hoofed pig.
nov: Loyalty I adrnire. But no. xov (O tterlaTping): Mongrel. Dinge. Slave. Ape.
BELIzE (Amazed, ofi'guatd): Why? snLrzo: Kike.
Rov: l/azu you're talking!
(Pause.) BELrzEi Greedy kike.
Rov: Now you can hirve a bottle. But only one .

Rov: llecause you repulse ttre."Wl{Y?" \bu'll be begging f-or

(Belize tasses the key.t at Roy, hard. Roy catrhas them. lltlize
it next. "[441Y2" Be«:ause I hate your guts, and your
takes a battle oJ'the pills, then anotber, tbcn a thinl, ond
friends' gl.!ts, tlìat's u h1. " () t nmr.:! " S o gocld a rr r:red enti --
/eaae.r.
tled. Sirch a shock when the bill comes dtrc.
As soon as Belize is out af the room Roy is utrat:ked ,toith a
BELTIE: Iìrom what I read you never paìd a fucking bill in your
series of'spasms; /te\ been holding thern in.)
life.
Roy: -A/a onehas worked harcler than me.'Ib end r4r knocked
nov: GOD I thought he'd never go!
flatina... (7b Ethel) So what? Are you going to sit there all
REr,rzEi Yeah well thir.rgs are torigh all over.
night?
nov: And )rou come heretooT<ng{or.fairness? ('lo Ethel)T'hey
ETHEL: Till morning.
couldn't touc/t me when I was alive, a.nd now when I am
nov: Uh huh. The cock t:rows, you go back to the swarnp.
dying they try this: (IIe gralts uf all the palteruorh in two
EIHEL: No. I take the 7:o-5 to Yonkers.
lsly' NowlWhen I'm a . . . (Bacft to Belixe) That's fair? noy: What the fuck's in Yonkers?
What am I? A dead rnan!
ETHET.: The disbarrnent committee hearings. You been hock-
(A terriltle spasm, rluick and ztiolent; he donbles ult)
ing about it all week. I'll have a look-see.
Iruck! What was I saying Oh God I can't remember
nov: They won't let you in the front door. You're a convicted
any....C)hyeah,dead.
and executed traitor.
I'm a gocllam dead rnan.
ETI{!r,r.: I'11 walk through a r,vall.
BEt; z.E: You expect /zly?
xol, (A beat, then): I expect you to hancl oyer those keys and (She starts to laugh He.ioins her.)
move your nigger ass out of my rcxrrn.
BF.LrzEt What did you s:ry. tov: Iìr,rcking SUCCUBLIS! Fucking bloodsucking old bat!
nov: Move yxrr nigger cunt spade laggot lackey ass out of my (Roy licks up the phone, punr:hes a couf>le of bttttons ond
room. then puts the receioer back, de.leùedl1)

r90 t9r
AxcBr-s ln AuenrcR Pnnesrnorxe
The worst thing about being sick in America, Ethel, willhave a special message for you. Please refrain from
is you are booted out of the parade. Americans have no smoking, and food and drink are not allowed. (A chiming
use for sick. Look at Reagan: He's so healthy het hardly tone)Welcome to the Mormon Visitor's . . .
human, he's a hundred if he's a day, he takes a slug in his
chest and two days later he's out west riding ponies in his (The tape lurches into oery bigh speed, tlten smears into
PJ's. I rnean who does that? That's America. It's just no incomprebensibly lou speed, then stops, mid-message, with
country for the infirm. an unpromising metallic blat, zuhichfrightens Prior.)

HAReER: They're having trouble with the maclrincry,

Scene j (Sbe rips o?en a bag of naeho-faoored Doritos and ffirs

thern to Prior)
l,ater the same day. Tbe Diorama Roon of the Monnon
pRroR: You're not supposed to eat in the ..
Vùitor! Center. The diarama ù in a little prasceniutn. the' .

atre; tbe cu.rtains are drawn shut. BeÌtind tltent is a classit
t»agon-train tableau posed before a painted baehdrop: a cozt-
ered wagon and a MormonJàmily in the desert on the great
trekfrom Missouri to Salt Lake. Tltefamily members are his-
torically drused mannequins: two sons, a ntother and a
daugbter, and the father (who is actually the attor playing
HARpER: I can. I live here. Have we met before?
pRIoR: No, I dont . . . think so. You liaehere?
HARrER (Pointing to the-father dummy):There's a dummy fam-
ily in the diorama, you'll see when the curtain opens. The
main dummy, the big daddy dummy,looks like my hus-
band,Joe. When they push the buttons he'll start to talk.

JoQ. There are nice seatsfor the audience; and Harper is in You cant believe a word he says but the sound of him is
one of tbem, dressed the sarne as in ber last scene. She has bags reassuring. lt's an incredible resemblance.
of potato cbips and MUM'r and cans of soda scattered all PRIoR: Are you a Mormon?

around. Ilannah enters uith Prior HARPER: Jack Mormon.

PRIoR: I beg your pardon?
HANNAH: This is the Diorama Room. Henern:JackMormon. It means I'm flawed. Inferior Mormon
(Tb Harper) I thought we agreed that you werent . . . Probably comes from.iack rabbit, you know, I
(Tb Prio) I'll go see if I can get it started. l::1"".
pRIoR: Do you believe in angels? In the Angel Mormon?
(She exits. Prior sits. The lights in tbe roorn din. A Voice on HARnER: Moroni, not Mormon, the Angel Moroni. Ask my
tape intones:) mother-in-law, when you leave, the scary lady at the
reception desk, if its name was Moroni why dont they lm

voICE: Welcome to the Mormon Visitor's Center Diorama call themselves Morons. It's from comments like that
Room. In a moment, our show will begin. We hope it you can tell I'm jack Mormon. Youte not a Mormon.

192 193

il