Angels in America (19 page)

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.

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.