Angels in America (29 page)

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.)

BELIZE
: Behave yourself, cherie, or nanny will have to use the wooden spoon.

(Prior exits.)

BELIZE
(To Joe, dropping scarf disguise)
: I am trapped in a world of white people. That's
my
problem.
(He exits)

Scene 5

The next day. At the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. It's cold, and as the scene progresses a storm front moves in and the sky darkens. Louis is sitting on the fountain's rim. Belize enters and sits next to him
.

BELIZE
: Nice angel.

LOUIS
: What angel?

BELIZE
: The fountain.

LOUIS
(Looking)
: Bethesda.

BELIZE
: What's she commemorate? Louis, I'll bet you know.

LOUIS
: The . . . Croton Aqueduct, I think. Right after the Civil War. Prior loves this—

BELIZE
: The Civil War. I knew you'd know.

LOUIS
: I know all sorts of things. The sculptress was a lesbian.

BELIZE
: Ooh, a sister! That a fact? You are nothing if not well informed.

LOUIS
: Listen. I saw Prior yesterday.

BELIZE
: Prior is
upset
.

LOUIS
: This guy I'm seeing, I'm not seeing him now. Prior misunderstood, he jumped to—

BELIZE
: Oh yeah. Your new beau. Prior and me, we went to the courthouse. Scoped him out.

LOUIS
:
You had no right to do that
.

BELIZE
: Oh did we violate your
rights. (Continue below:)

LOUIS
: Yeah, sort of, and, and—Couldn't you have done this on the phone, you needed to, what? Extract every last drop of, of schadenfreude, get off on how unhappy I am, how—

BELIZE
(Continuous from above)
: You walk out on your lover. Days don't pass before you are out on the town with somebody new. But this—
“Schadenfreude”? (Continue below:)

LOUIS
: I'm
not
out on the—I want you to tell Prior that I—

BELIZE
(Continuous from above): This
is a record low: sharing your dank and dirty bed with Roy Cohn's buttboy.

(Pause.)

LOUIS
: Come again?

BELIZE
: Doesn't that bother you at all?

LOUIS
:
Roy Cohn?
What the fuck are you—I am not sharing my bed with Roy Cohn's . . .

BELIZE
: Your little friend didn't tell you, huh? You and Hoss Cartwright, it's not a verbal kind of thing, you just kick off your boots and hit the hay.

LOUIS
: Joe Pitt is not Roy Cohn's—Joe is a very moral man, he's not even
that
conservative, or, well not that
kind
of a . . . And I don't want to continue this.

BELIZE
(Starting to go)
: Bye-bye.

LOUIS
: It's not my fault that Prior left you for me.

BELIZE
: I beg your pardon.

LOUIS
: You have always hated me. Because you are in love with Prior and you were when I met him and he fell in love with me, and so now you cook up this . . . I mean how do you know this? That Joe and
Roy Cohn
are—

BELIZE
: I don't know whether Mr. Cohn has penetrated more than his
spiritual
sphincter. All I'm saying is you better
hope there's no GOP germ, Louis, 'cause if there is, you got it.

LOUIS
:
I don't believe you
. Not . . .
Roy Cohn
. Joe wouldn't—Not
Roy Cohn
. He's, he's like the polestar of human evil, he's like the worst human being who ever lived, the, the damage he's done, the years and years of, of . . . criminality, that whole era, that—Give me fucking credit for
something
, please, some little moral shred of, of, of
something
, OK sure I fucked up, I fucked up everything, I didn't want to, to face what I needed to face, what life was insisting I face but I don't know, I've always, I've always felt you had to, to take
action
, not sit, not to be, to be trapped, um, stuck, paralyzed by—Even if it's hard, or really terrifying, or even if it does damage, you have to keep moving, um, forward, instead of—I can't just, you know, sit around
feeling
shit, or feeling
like
shit, I . . . cry way too easily, I fall apart, I'm no good unless I, I
strike out
at—Which is easy because I'm so fucking
furious
at my—So I fucked up spectacularly, totally, I've ruined my life, and his life, I've hurt him so badly but but still, even I, even I am not so utterly lost inside myself that I—I wouldn't, um,
ever
, like,
sleep
with someone who . . . someone who's
Roy Cohn's . . . (He stops himself)