Angels in America (12 page)

     
I knew this when I married you. I've known this I guess for as long as I've known anything, but . . . I don't know, I thought maybe that with enough effort and will I could change myself . . . but I can't . . .

PRIOR
: Criminal.

LOUIS
: There oughta be a law.

PRIOR
: There is a law. You'll see.

JOE
: I'm losing ground here, I go walking, you want to know where I walk, I . . . go to the park, or up and down 53rd Street, or places where . . . And I keep swearing I won't go walking again, but I just can't.

LOUIS
: I need some privacy.

PRIOR
: That's new.

LOUIS
: Everything's new, Prior.

JOE
: I try to tighten my heart into a knot, a snarl, I try to learn to live dead, just numb, but then I see someone I want, and it's like a nail, like a hot spike right through my chest, and I know I'm losing.

PRIOR
: Apartment too small for three? Louis and Prior comfy but not Louis and Prior and Prior's disease?

LOUIS
: Something like that.

     
I won't be judged by you. This isn't a crime, just—the inevitable consequence of people who run out of—whose limitations—

PRIOR
: Bang bang bang. The court will come to order.

LOUIS
: I mean let's talk practicalities, schedules; I'll come over if you want, spend nights with you when I can, I can—

PRIOR
: Has the jury reached a verdict?

LOUIS
: I'm doing the best I can.

PRIOR
: Pathetic. Who cares?

JOE
: My whole life has conspired to bring me to this place, and I can't despise my whole life. I think I believed when I met you I could save you, you at least if not myself, but . . .

     
I don't have any sexual feelings for you, Harper. And I don't think I ever did.

(Little pause.)

HARPER
: I think you should go.

JOE
: Where?

HARPER
: Washington. Doesn't matter.

JOE
: What are you talking about?

HARPER
: Without me.

     
Without me, Joe. Isn't that what you want to hear?

(Little pause.)

JOE
: Yes.

LOUIS
: You can love someone and fail them. You can love someone and not be able to—

PRIOR
: You
can
, theoretically, yes. A person can, maybe an editorial “you” can love, Louis, but not
you
, specifically you. I don't know, I think you are excluded from that general category.

HARPER
: You were going to save me, but the whole time you were spinning a lie. I just don't understand that.

PRIOR
: A person could theoretically love and maybe many do but we both know now you can't.

LOUIS
: I do.

PRIOR
: You can't even say it.

LOUIS
: I love you, Prior.

PRIOR
: I repeat. Who cares?

HARPER
: This is so scary, I want this to stop, to go back.

PRIOR
: We have reached a verdict, Your Honor. This man's heart is deficient. He loves, but his love is worth nothing.

JOE
: Harper . . .

HARPER
: Mr. Lies, I want to get away from here. Far away. Right now. Before he starts talking again. Please, please—

JOE
: As long as I've known you Harper you've been afraid of . . . of men hiding under the bed, men hiding under the sofa, men with knives.

PRIOR
(Shattered; almost pleading; trying to reach him)
: I'm dying! You stupid fuck! Do you know what that is! Love! Do you know what love means? We lived together four and a half years, you animal, you idiot.

LOUIS
: I have to find some way to save myself.

JOE
: Who are these men? I never understood it. Now I know.

HARPER
: What?

JOE
: It's me.

HARPER
: It is?

PRIOR
: Get out of my room.

JOE
: I'm the man with the knives.

HARPER
: You are?

PRIOR
: If I could get up now I'd kill you. I would. Go away. Go away or I'll scream.

HARPER
: Oh God . . .

JOE
: I'm sorry.

HARPER
: It is you.

LOUIS
: Please don't scream.

PRIOR
: Go.

HARPER
: I recognize you now.

LOUIS
: Please . . .

JOE
: Oh. Wait, I . . . Oh!

     
(He covers his mouth with his hand, gags, and removes his hand, red with blood)

     
I'm bleeding.

(Prior closes his eyes and screams.)

HARPER
: Mr. Lies.

MR. LIES
(Appearing, dressed in Antarctic explorer's apparel)
: Right here.

HARPER
: I want to go away. I can't see him anymore.

MR. LIES
: Where?

HARPER
: Anywhere. Far away.

MR. LIES
: Absolutamento.

(Harper and Mr. Lies vanish. Joe looks up, sees that she's gone.)

PRIOR
: When I open my eyes you'll be gone.

(Louis leaves.)

JOE
: Harper?

PRIOR
(Opening his eyes)
: Huh. It worked.

JOE
(Calling)
:
Harper?

PRIOR
: I hurt all over. I wish I was dead.

Scene 10

The same day, sunset, in front of Hannah's house in Salt Lake City. Hannah and Sister Ella Chapter, a real-estate saleswoman and Hannah Pitt's closest friend
—
although Hannah is never friendly and Ella is severely intimidated by her
.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Look at that view! A view of Heaven. Like the living city of Heaven, isn't it, it just fairly glimmers in the sun.

HANNAH
: Glimmers.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Even the stone and brick it just glimmers and glitters like Heaven in the sunshine. Such a nice view you get, perched up on a canyon rim. Some kind of beautiful place.

HANNAH
: It's just Salt Lake, and you're selling the house
for
me, not
to
me.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: I like to work up an enthusiasm for my properties.

HANNAH
: Just get me a good price.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Well, the market's off.

HANNAH
: At least fifty.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Forty'd be more like it.

HANNAH
: Fifty.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Wish you'd wait a bit.

HANNAH
: Well I can't.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Wish you would. You're about the only friend I got.

HANNAH
: Oh well now.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Know why I decided to like you? I decided to like you 'cause you're the only unfriendly Mormon I ever met.

HANNAH
: Your wig is crooked.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Fix it.

(Hannah straightens Ella's wig.)

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: New York City. All they got there is tiny rooms.

     
I always thought: People ought to stay put. That's why I got my license to sell real estate. It's a way of saying: Have a house! Stay put! It's a way of saying traveling's no good. Plus I needed the cash.

(She takes out a pack of cigarettes from her purse, lights one, offers the pack to Hannah.)

HANNAH
: Not out here, anyone could come by.

(Ella smokes. Hannah looks out over the ledge.)

HANNAH
: There's been days I've stood at this ledge and thought about stepping over.

(This is news to Ella.)

HANNAH
: It's a hard place, Salt Lake: baked dry. Abundant energy; not much intelligence. That's a combination that
can wear a body out. No harm looking someplace else. I don't need much room.

     
My sister-in-law Libby thinks there's radon gas in the basement.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
(Immediately alarmed)
: Is there gas in the—

HANNAH
: Of course not. Libby's a fool.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
(Still alarmed)
: 'Cause I'd have to include that in the description.

HANNAH
(Ending it): There's no gas, Ella
.

     
(Little pause, then)
Give a puff.

(Hannah takes a furtive drag of Ella's cigarette. Then she hands the cigarette back to Ella.)

HANNAH
: Put it away now.

(Ella carefully knocks the ash off the cigarette, extinguishes it and returns it to the pack. Desolate, she looks at Hannah.)

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: So I guess it's good-bye.

HANNAH
(Uncomfortable)
: You'll be all right, Ella, I wasn't ever much of a friend.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: I'll say something but don't laugh, OK?

     
(Tentative, careful)
This is the home of saints, the godliest place on earth, they say, and I think they're right. That mean there's no evil here? No. Evil's everywhere. Sin's everywhere. But this . . . is the spring of sweet water in the desert, the desert flower. Every step a Believer takes away from here is a step fraught with peril. I fear for you, Hannah Pitt, because you are my friend. Stay put. This is the right home of saints.

HANNAH
: Latter-day saints.

SISTER ELLA CHAPTER
: Only kind left.

HANNAH
: But still. Late in the day . . . for saints and everyone. That's all. That's all.

     
Fifty thousand dollars for the house, Sister Ella Chapter; don't undersell. It's an impressive view.

ACT THREE:

Not-Yet-Conscious
,

Forward Dawning

December 1985

Scene 1

Late night, several days after the end of Act Two. Prior's bedroom, completely dark. Prior is in bed, having a nightmare. He wakes up, sits up in bed, and switches on a lamp. He looks at his clock. Seated by the table near the bed is a man, fierce and gloomy, dressed in the clothing of a thirteenth-century British farmer/squire, carrying a scythe. Prior is terrified
.

PRIOR
: Who are you?!

PRIOR 1
: My name is Prior Walter.

(Little pause.)

PRIOR
: My name is Prior Walter.

PRIOR 1
: I know that.

PRIOR
: Explain.

PRIOR 1
: You're alive. I'm not. We have the same name. What do you want me to explain?

PRIOR
: A ghost?

PRIOR 1
: An ancestor.

PRIOR
: Not
the
Prior Walter? The Bayeux tapestry Prior Walter?

PRIOR 1
: His great-great-grandson. The fifth of the name.

PRIOR
: I'm the thirty-fourth, I think.

PRIOR 1
: Actually the thirty-second.

PRIOR
: Not according to Mother.

PRIOR 1
(Angry!)
: She's including the two bastards, then; I say leave them out. I say no room for bastards! The little things you swallow . . .