out just give us a quick hey uh just so that we also make sure that everything is working so for today space stage directions i am best dude and playing harper amity pitt it's laura hubbard and playing louie lewis probably ironson is michael ross albert hello hey and prior walter is justin otto hello playing roy m cohn is christopher prentiss hello and playing joseph porter pitt sean wilson hello hello and hannah porter pitt is marlo k shaw hi belize is played by steve vargo who will be joining us imminently and the angel and the voice are played by gabby grice this is the voice [Music] and henry and mr lies are played by nicole falgo hello emily is played by melissa wright hi ethel rosenberg by elizabeth morris hello let me just make sure i say this right rabbi isadore uh hey milwitz is pl and prior the second is played by miriam bachman hello and the man in the park martin heller and prior the first is mark crater hi there guys and finally sister ella chapter and the woman in the south bronx played by hilary wardinger hi and thank you for your patience on to act one act one bad news october november 1985. scene one the last days of october rabbi is adored with alone on stage with a small coffin it is a rough pine box with two wooden pegs one at the foot and one at the head holding the lid in place a prayer shawl embroidered with the star of david is draped over the lid and by the head i also the candle is burning hello and good morning i am rabbi israel hamilton of the bronx home for aged hebrews we are here this morning to pay respect to the passing of sarah ironson devoted wife of benjamin ironson also deceased loving and caring mother of her sons marus abraham and samuel and her daughters esther and rachel beloved grandmother of max mark lewis lisa maria uh leslie angela doris luke and eric eric this is a jewish name eric a large and loving family we assemble that we may mourn collectively this good and righteous woman looks at the coffin this woman i did not know this woman i cannot accurately describe her attributes nor do justice to her dimensions she was well in the bronx home of aged hebrews are many like this the old and too many i speak but not to be frank with this one she preferred silence so i do not know her and yet i know her she was not person but a whole kind of person the ones who crossed the ocean who brought with us to america the villages of russia and lithuania and how we struggled and how we fought for the family for the jewish home so that you would not grow up here in this strange place in the melting pot where nothing melted descendants of this immigrant woman you do not grow up in america you and your children and their children with the goyisha names you do not live in america no such place exists your clay is the clay of some lit backsteddle your air the air of the steps because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean in a boat and she put it down on grand concourse avenue or in flatbush and she worked that earth into your bones and you pass it to your children this ancient ancient culture and home you can never make that crossing that she made for such great voyages in this world do not anymore exist but every day of your lives the miles that ver voyage between that place and this one you cross every day you understand me in you that journey is so she was the last of the mohicans this one was pretty soon all the old will be dead scene two same day roy and joe in roy's office roy at an impressive desk bared except for a very elaborate phone system rows and rows of flashing buttons which bleep and beep and whistle incessantly making chaotic music underneath roy's conversations joe is sitting waiting roy conducts business with great energy impatience and sensual abandon gesticulating shouting cajoling crooning playing the phone receiver and hold button with virtuosity and love i wish i was an octopus a [ __ ] octopus eight loving arms and all those suckers know what i mean no i uh you want lunch no that that's okay really i i just roy cohn no no what kind of a greeting is no i thought we were friends eh look mrs silver you don't have to get you're upset you're yelling you'll aggravate your condition you shouldn't yell you'll pop little blood vessels in your face if you yell no it was a joke mrs sofer i was joking i already apologized 16 times for that mrs sofer you this will take a minute to eat already what is this tasty sandwich here it's a sliver or something here pitching the sandwich to joe who catches it and returns it to the platter no i already told you it wasn't a vacation it was business mrs silver i have clients in haiti mr silver i listen aileen you think i'm the only goddamn lawyer in history ever missed a court date don't make such a big [ __ ] old you hack if if this is a bad time bad time this is a good time baby doll uh get me oh [ __ ] wait hello yeah sorry to keep you holding judge hollins i oh mrs hollins sorry dear deep voice you got enjoying your visit she sounds like a truck driver and he sounds like kate smith very confusing nixon appointed him all the geeks are nixon's appointees yeah yeah right good so how many tickets dear seven for what cats 42nd street what no you wouldn't like likage trust me i know oh for god's sake hold uh baby dog get seven for cats or something anything hard to get i don't give a [ __ ] why neither will they you see lakash no i it's fabulous it's the best thing on broadway maybe ever who oh jesus h christ harry no harry judge john francis grimes manhattan family court do i have to do every goddamn thing myself touch the bastard harry and don't call me on this line again i told you not to roy should i wait outside you hold i pay you to hold [ __ ] you harry jerk halfway dickbrain i see the universe joe as a kind of sandstorm in outer space with winds of mega hurricane velocity but instead of grains of sand it's shards and splinters of glass you ever feel that way you ever had one of those days i'm not sure so how's life in the pills how's the judge uh he sends his best he's a good man loyal not the brightest man on the bench but he has manners and a nice head of silver hair he gives me a lot of responsibility yeah like writing his decisions and signing your name his name well he's a nice guy and you cover admirably well thanks roy i i'm just who is this well who the [ __ ] are you old harry 87 grand something like that oh [ __ ] him eat me new jersey chain of porno film stores and um uh weehawken that's harry that's the beauty of the law so baby doll what is it cats cats it's about cats singing cats you'll love it eight o'clock the theater's always at eight [ __ ] tourists oh live a little joe eat something for christ's sake um roy could you what hold a minute mr silver missus damn it the hell where is roy i i really need it could you please not take the lord's name in vain uh i'm sorry but please at least while i'm here and right sorry [ __ ] plain america baby doll tell him to all the [ __ ] off tell him i died you handled mrs sofer tell her it's on the way tell her i'm stooping the judge i'll call her back i will call her i know how much i borrowed she's got 400 times that stuffed up her yeah tell her i said that so joe i'm sorry roy i just no no no really um principles count i respect principles i'm not religious but i like god and god likes me baptist catholic uh mormon mormon delectable absolutely only in america so joe what do you think uh it's crazy life well chaotic well but god bless chaos right um uh mormons i knew mormons in um nevada utah mostly no these mormons were in vegas so how would you like to go to washington to work for the justice department sorry how would you like to go to washington and work for the justice department all i got to do is pick up the phone talk to ed and you're in in what exactly associate assistant something big internal affairs heart of the woods something nice with clout and meese the attorney general oh all i have pick up the phone i i have to think um of course it's a great time to be in washington joe roy it's incredibly and it would mean something to me you understand i i can't say how much i appreciate this roy i'm uh sort of well stunned i'm i mean thanks roy but i have to give it some thought i have to ask my wife the wife of course but i i really appreciate of course talk to your wife scene three later that day harper at home alone she's listening to the radio and talking to herself as she often does she speaks to the audience people who are lonely people left alone sit talking nonsense to the air imagining beautiful systems dying old fixed orders spiraling apart when you look at it from the ozone there from outside a spaceship it looks like a pale blue halo a gentle shimmering oriole encircling the atmosphere encircling the earth 30 miles above our heads a thin layer of three atom oxygen molecules products a photosynthesis which explains the fussy vegetable preference for visible light its rejection of darker rays and emanations danger from without it's a kind of gift from god the crowning touch to the creation of the world guardian angels hands linked like a spherical net a blue green nesting orb a shell of safety for life itself but everywhere things are collapsing lies surfacing systems of defense giving way this is why joe this is why i shouldn't be left alone i'd like to go traveling leave you behind to worry i'll send postcards with strange stamps and tantalizing messages on the back later maybe nevermore mr lies a travel agent appears oh you startled me cash check or credit card i remember you you're from salt lake you sold us the plane tickets when we flew here what are you doing in brooklyn you said you wanted to travel and here you are how thoughtful mr lies of the international order of travel agents we mobilize the globe we set people adrift we stir the populace and send nomads eddying across the planet we are our depths of motion acolytes of the flux cash check or credit card name your destination antarctica maybe i want to see the hole in the ozone i heard on the radio he has a computer terminal in his briefcase i can arrange a guided tour now soon maybe soon i'm not safe here you see things aren't right with me weird stuff happens like well like you for instance just appearing or last week well never mind people are like planets you need a thick skin things get to me joe stays away and now oh look my my dreams are talking back to me it's the price of rootlessness motion sickness the only cure to keep moving i'm undecided i feel that something's going to give it's 1985 15 years to the third millennium maybe christ will come again maybe seeds will be planted maybe there'll be harvests then maybe early figs to eat maybe new life maybe fresh blood maybe companionship and love and protection safety from what's outside maybe the door will hold or maybe maybe the troubles will come and the end will come and the sky will collapse and there will be terrible rains and showers of poison light or maybe my life is really fine maybe joe loves me and i'm only crazy thinking otherwise or maybe not maybe it's even worse than i know maybe i want to know maybe i don't the suspense mr lies it's killing me i suggest a vacation harper here's something that was the elevator i should fix myself up you you you have to go you shouldn't be here you aren't even real call me when you decide no the travel agent vanishes as joe enters buddy buddy sorry i'm late i i was just out walking are you mad i got a little anxious buddy kiss nothing to get anxious about so how'd you like to move to washington scene four same day louis and prior outside the funeral home sitting on a bench both dressed in funeral finery talking the funeral service for sarah ironson has just concluded and lewis is about to leave for the cemetery my grandmother actually saw emma goldman speak in yiddish but all grandma could remember was that she spoke well and wore a hat what a weird service that rabbi a definite find get his number when you go to the graveyard i want him to bury me better head out there everyone gets to put dirt on the coffin once it's lowered in oh cemetery fun don't want to miss that it's an old jewish custom to express love here grandma have a shovel full latecomers run the risk of finding the grave completely filled she was pretty crazy she was up there in that home for 10 years talking to herself i never visited she looked too much like my mother poor lewis i'm sorry your grandma's dead tiny little coffin huh sorry i didn't introduce you to i always get so closety at these family things butch you get butch uh hi uh cousin doris uh you don't remember me i'm lou rachel's boy lou not lewis because if you say lewis they'll hear the syllabant s i don't i don't blame you hiding bloodlines jewish curses are the worst i personally would dissolve if anyone ever looked me in the eye and said fortunately wasps don't say fair though and by the way darling cousin doris is a dyke no really you don't notice anything if i hadn't spent the last four years fellating you i'd swear you were straight you're in a pissy mood cat's still missing not a fur ball in sight it's your fault it is i warned you louis names are important call an animal little sheba and you can't expect it to stick around and besides it's a dog's name i wanted a dog in the first place not a cat he spayed my books he was a female my books male cat cats are stupid high strung predators babylonians sealed them up in bricks dogs have grains cats have intuition a sharp dog is as smart as a really dull two-year-old child cats know when something's wrong only if you stop feeding them they know that's why sheba left because she knew knew what i did my best shirley booth this morning floppy slippers house coat curlers can of little friskies come back little sheba come back to november and ella riverian jamaica he removes his jacket rolls up his sleeve shows louis a dark purple spot on the underside of his arm near the shoulder see that's just a burst blood vessel not according to the best medical authorities what tell me ks baby lesion number one look at the wine dark kiss of the angel of death oh please i'm a legionnaire the foreign legion the american legion legionnaires disease stop my troubles are legion will you stop don't you think i'm handling this well i'm going to die [ __ ] let go of my own no like go no i can't find a way to spare you baby no wall like the wall of hard scientific fact chaos wham bang your head on that [ __ ] you [ __ ] you [ __ ] you [ __ ] you oh now that's what i like to hear a mature reaction let's go see if the cats come home luis when did you find this i couldn't tell you why i was scared lou of what that should leave me oh bad timing funeral and all but i figured as long as we're on the subject of death i have to go bury my grandma lou then you'll come home then i'll come home scene five same day later on split scene joe and harper at home lewis at the cemetery with rabbi isador femilvitz and the little coffin washington it's an incredible honor buddy and i have to think of course enough you said you were going to think about it i don't want to move to washington well i do it's a giant cemetery huge white graves and mausoleums everywhere we could live in maryland or georgetown we're happy here that's not really true buddy we well happy enough pretend happy that's better than nothing it's time to make some changes harper no changes apply i've been chief clerk for four years i make 29 000 a year that's ridiculous i graduated fourth in my class and i make less than anyone i know and i'm i'm tired of being a clerk i want to go somewhere something good is happening nothing good happens in washington forget church forget church teachings and buy furniture at conrad's and become yuppies i i have too much to do here like what i do have things what things i have to finish painting the bedroom you've been painting in there for over a year i know i it just isn't done because i never get time to finish it that's that doesn't make sense you have all the time in the world you you could finish it when i'm at work i'm afraid to go in there alone afraid of what i heard someone in there metal scraping on the wall a man with a knife maybe there's no one in the bedroom harper not now not this morning either how do you know you are at work this morning there's something creepy about this place remember rosemary's baby rosemary's baby our apartment looks like that one wasn't that apartment in buckland uh no it was um well it looked like this it did then let's move well george sounds worse the exorcist was in georgetown the devil everywhere you turn huh buddy yeah everywhere how many pills today buddy none one three only three why are there just two little wooden pegs holding down the lid so she can get out easier if she wants to i hope she stays put i pretended for years that she was already dead when they called to say she had died it was a surprise i abandoned her shar for v it's unfurnished long isn't them i don't speak yiddish sharper than the serpent's tooth is the ingratitude of children shakespeare can it clear rabbi oh what does the holy writ say about someone who abandons someone he loves at a time of great need why would a person do such a thing because he has to maybe because this person's sense of the world that it will change for the better with struggle maybe a person who has this neo-hegelian positivist sense of constant historical progress towards happiness or perfection or something who feels very powerful because he feels connected to those forces moving uphill all the time maybe that person can't um incorporate sickness into his sense of how things are supposed to go maybe vomits and sores and disease really frighten him maybe he isn't so good with death the holy scriptures have nothing to say about such a person rabbi i'm afraid of the crimes i may commit please mr i'm a sick old rabbi facing a long drive home to the bronx you want to confess better you should find a priest but i'm not a catholic i'm a jew um worst luck for you bubbler catholics believe in forgiveness jews believe in guilt you just make sure those pegs are in good and tight don't worry mister the life she had she'll stay put she's better off look i know this is scary for you but try to understand what it means to me will you try yes good really try i think things are starting to change in the world but i don't wait wait for the good change for the good america has rediscovered itself it's sacred position among nations and people aren't ashamed of that like they used to be this is a great thing the truth restored law restored that is what president reagan's done harper he says truth exists and can be spoken proudly and the country responds to him we become better more good i need to be a part of that i need something big to lift me up i mean six years ago the world seemed in decline horrible hopeless full of unsolvable problems and crime and confusion and hunger seems that way more now than before they say the ozone layer is harper today out the window on atlantic avenue there was a schizophrenic traffic cop who was making this stop it i i'm i'm trying to make a point so am i you aren't even making sense you talk my point is the world seems chest as it only seems that way to you because you never go out in the world harper and you have emotional problems i do so get out in the world you don't you stay in all day fretting about imaginary i get out i do you don't know what i do you don't stay in all day no well yes you do that's what you think where do you go where do you go when you walk and i do not have emotional problems i'm sorry and if i do have emotional problems it's from living with you or i'm sorry buddy i didn't mean to or if you do think that i do you should never have married me you have all these secrets and lies i want to be married to you harper you shouldn't you never should hey buddy hey buddy buddy kiss i heard on the radio how to give a [ __ ] what you want to try you really shouldn't listen to stuff like that mormons can give [ __ ] joe well he was a little jewish lady with a german accent this is a good time for me to make a baby and they went on to a program about holes in the ozone layer over antarctica skin burns birds go blind icebergs melt the world's coming to an end bean six first week of november in the men's room of the offices of the brooklyn federal court of appeals lewis is crying over the sink joe enters oh um uh morning good morning counselor sorry i um i don't know your name oh don't bother word processor the lowest of the low joe joe pitt i'm with justice wilson oh i know that counselor pitt chief clerk um were you are you okay oh yeah thanks what a nice man not so nice what not so nice no nothing you sure you're life sucks [ __ ] life just sucks [ __ ] what's wrong running my nylons sorry forget it look thanks for asking um i i mean is really nice of you so sorry big friend i'm i'm sorry yeah yeah well that's sweet three of your colleagues have preceded you to this baleful sight and you're the first one to ask the others just opened the door saw me and fled i hope they had to pee you real bad look they they just didn't want to intrude reaganite heartless macho [ __ ] lawyers oh that's unfair what is heartless macho reaganite lawyer i voted for reagan you did twice twice well oh boy a gay republican excuse me nothing ah i'm i'm not uh it republican not republican or what what not gay i i'm not gay oh sorry it's just yes well sometimes you can tell from the way a person sounds that i mean you sound like uh no i don't like what like a republican joe knows he's being teased louis knows he knows joe decides to be a little brave do i sound like a what like a republican or do i do you what sound like a like a i i'm confused yes my name is louis but all my friends call me louise i work in word processing thanks for the toilet paper lewis offers joey's hand joe reaches louis faints and pecks joe on the cheek then exits scene seven a week later mutual dream scene pryor is at a fantastic makeup table having a dream applying the face harper is having a pill-induced hallucination she has these from time to time for some reason pryor has appeared in this one or harper has appeared in prior's dream it is bewildering prior alone putting on makeup and examining the results in the mirror i'm ready for my close-up mr demille one wants to move through life with elegance and grace blossoming infrequently but with exquisite taste and perfect timing like a rare bloom a zebra orchid one wants but one seldom gets what one wants does one no one does not one gets [ __ ] over one dies at 30 robbed of decades of majesty oh [ __ ] this [ __ ] [ __ ] this [ __ ] i looked like a corpse a corpse set oh my queen you know you've hit rock bottom when even drag is a drag harper appears are you who are you who are you what are you doing in my hallucination i'm not in your hallucination you're in my dream you're wearing makeup so are you but you're a man the hands and feets gave it away there must be some mistake here i don't i don't recognize you you're not are you my some sort of imaginary friend no aren't you too old to have imaginary friends i have emotional problems i took too many pills why are you wearing makeup i was in the process of applying the face trying to make myself feel better i swiped the new fall colors of the [ __ ] counter at macy's you stole those i was out of cash it was an emotional emergency joe will be so angry i promised him no more pills these pills you keep alluding to valium i take valium lots of valium and you're dancing as fast as you can i'm not addicted i don't believe in addiction and i i never well i never drink and i never take drugs well smell you nancy drew except valium except valium in wee fistfuls it's terrible mormons are not supposed to be addicted to anything and i'm a mormon i'm a homosexual oh well in my church we don't believe in homosexuals in my church we don't believe in mormons i get it i don't understand this if i didn't ever see you before and i don't think i did then i don't think you should be here in this hallucination because in my experience the mind which is where hallucinations come from shouldn't be able to make up anything that wasn't there to start with that didn't enter it from experience from the real world imagination can't create anything new can it it only recycles bits and pieces from the world and reassembles them in divisions am i making sense right now given the circumstances yes so when we think we've escaped the unbearable ordinariness and well untruthfulness of our lives it's really only the same old ordinariness and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth nothing unknown is knowable don't you think that's depressing the limitations of the imagination yes it's something you learn after your second theme party it's all been done before the world finite terribly terribly well this is the most depressing hallucination i've ever had apologies i do try to be amusing oh well don't apologize you i can't expect someone who's really sick to entertain me how on earth do you know oh that happens this is the very threshold of revelation sometimes you can see things how sick you are do you see anything about me yes what you are amazingly unhappy oh big deal you meet a valium addict and you figure out she's unhappy that doesn't count of course i something else something surprising something surprising yes your husband's a homo ridiculous really threshold of revelation oh i don't like your revelations i don't think you into it well at all i mean joe's a very normal man he god oh god do homos take lots of long walks yes we do in stretch pants with lavender coughs i just looked at you and there was a sort of blue streak of recognition yes like you knew me incredibly well yes yes i have to go now get back something just fell apart god i feel so sad i i'm sorry i usually say [ __ ] the truth but mostly the truth [ __ ] you i see something else about you oh deep inside you there's a part of you the most inner part entirely free of disease i can see that is that that isn't true threshold of revelation home she vanishes people come and go so quickly here i don't think there's any uninfected part of me my heart is pumping polluted blood i feel dirty he begins to wipe makeup off with his hands smearing it around a large gray feather falls from up above pryor stops smearing the makeup and looks at the feather he goes to it and picks it up look up hello look up who is that prepare the way i don't see any there is a dramatic change in lighting from above look up look up prepare the way the infinite descent a breath in air floating down glory to hello is that it hello what the [ __ ] poor me poor poor me oh why me why poor poor me oh i don't feel good right now i really don't scene eight that night split scene harper and joe at home prior and lewis in bed where were you out where just out thinking it's late i had a lot to think about burned dinner sorry not my dinner my dinner was fine your dinner i put it back in the oven and turned everything up as high as it could go and watch till it turned black well it's still hot very hot want it you didn't have to do that i know it just seemed like the kind of thing a mentally deranged sex-starved pill-popping housewife would do so i did it who knows anymore what i have to do how many pills a bunch don't change the subject i won't talk to you when you well don't do that i'm i'm fine pills are not the problem not our problem i want to know where you've been i want to know where you're going what's going on what going on with what the job not the job i said i need more time not the job mr cohn i talked to him on the phone he said i had to hurry but i can't get you to talk sensibly about anything so then what stick to the subject i don't know what that is you have something you want to ask me ask me go i can't i'm scared of you i'm tired i'm going to bed tell me without making me ask please this is crazy when you i'm not you come through the door at night your face is never exactly the same way i remembered it i get surprised by something mean and hard about the way you look even the weight of you in bed at night the way you breathe in your sleep seems unfamiliar you terrify me i know who you are yes i'm the enemy that's easy that doesn't change you think you're the only one who hates sex i do i hate it with you i do i dream that you batter away at me till my joints come apart like wax and i fall into pieces it's like punishment it was wrong of me to marry you i knew you it's a sin and it's killing us both i can always tell when you've taken pills because it makes you red-faced and sweaty and frankly that's very often why i don't want to yes well you aren't pretty not like this i have something to ask you then ask ask what in the hell are you a homo are you if you try to walk out right now i'll put your dinner back in the oven and turn it up so high the whole building will fill with smoke and everyone in it will asphyxiate so help me god i will now answer the question what if i then tell me please and we'll see no i'm not and i don't see what difference it makes jews don't have any clear textual guides to the afterlife even that it exists i don't think much about it i see it as a perpetual rainy thursday afternoon in march dead leaves very greco-roman well for us it's not the verdict that counts it's the act of judgment that's why i could never be a lawyer in court all that matters is the verdict you could never be a lawyer because you are over sexed you're too distracted not distracted abstracted i'm trying to make a point namely it's the judge in his or her chambers weighing books open pondering the evidence ranging freely over categories good evil innocent guilty the judge in the chamber of circumspection not the judge on the bench with the gavel the shaping of the law not its execution the point dear the point it should be the questions and shape of a life it's total complexity gathered arranged and considered which matters in the end not some stamp of salvation or damnation which disperses all the complexity in some unsatisfying little decisions the balancing of the scales i like this very zen it's reassuringly incomprehensible and useless we who are about to die thank you you are not about to die it's not going well really two new lesions my leg hurts there's protein in my urine the doctor says but who knows what the [ __ ] that pretends anyway it shouldn't be there the protein my butt is chapped from diarrhea and yesterday i shat blood i really hate this you don't tell me you get too upset i wind up comforting you it's easier oh thanks if it's bad i'll tell you [ __ ] blood sounds bad to me and i'm telling you and i'm handling it tell me more about justice i am handling it well lewis you win trooper of the month i take it back you aren't trooper of the month this isn't working tell me more about justice you are not about to die justice is an immensity a confusing vastness justice is god crier you love me yes what if i walked out on this would you hate me forever prior kisses louis on the forehead yes i think we ought to pray ask god for help ask him together god won't talk to me i have to make people up to talk to me you have to keep asking i forget the question oh yeah um god is my husband stop it stop it i am warning you does it make any difference that i might be one thing deep within no matter how wrong or ugly that thing is so long as i have fought with everything i have to kill it what do you want from me what do you want from me harper more than that for god's sake there's nothing left i'm a shell there is nothing left to kill as long as my behavior is what i know it has to be decent correct that alone in the eyes of god no no not that that's utah talk mormon talk i hate it joe tell me say it all i will say is that i am a very good man who has worked very hard to become good and you want to destroy that you want to destroy me and i'm not going to let you do that i'm going to have a baby liar you liar a baby born addicted to pills a baby who does not dream but who hallucinates who stares up at us with big mirror eyes and who does not know who we are are you really no yes no yes get away from me now we both have a secret one of my ancestors was a ship's captain who made money bringing whale oil to europe and returning with immigrants irish mostly packed in tight so many dollars per head the last shift he captain founded off the coast of nova scotia in a winter tempest and sank to the bottom he went down with the ship le grangest but his crew took 70 women and kids in the ship's only longboat this big open row boat and when the weather got too rough and then the boat was overcrowded the crew started lifting people up and hurling them into the sea until they got the ballast right and they walked up and down the long boat eyes to the water line and when the boat rode too low in the water they'd grab the nearest passenger and throw them into the sea and the boat was leaky see 70 people they arrived in halifax with nine people on board jesus i think about that story a lot now people in a boat waiting terrified while in placable unsmiling men irresistibly strong sees maybe the person next to you maybe you and with no warning at all with no time only for a quick intake of air you are pitched into freezing turbulent water and salt and darkness to drown i like your cosmology baby while time is running out i find myself drawn to anything that's suspended that lacks an ending but it seems to me that that lets you off scot-free what do you mean no judgment no guilt or responsibility for me for anyone it was an editorial you please get better please please don't get any sicker c9 third week in november roy and henry his doctor in henry's office nobody knows what causes it and nobody knows how to cure it the best theory is that we blame a retrovirus the human immunodeficiency virus its presence is made known to us by the useless antibodies which appear in reaction to its entrance into the bloodstream through a cut or an orifice the antibodies are powerless to protect the body against it why we don't know the body's immune system ceases to function sometimes the body even attacks itself at any rate it's left open to a whole horror house of infections from microbes which it usually defends against like caposi sarcomas these lesions or your throat problem or the glands we think it may also be able to slip past the blood-brain barrier into the brain which is of course very bad news and it's fatal in we don't know what percent of people with suppressed immune responses this is very interesting mr wizard but why the [ __ ] are you telling me this well i have just removed one of three lesions which biopsy results will probably tell us is a caposi sarcoma lesion and you have a pronounced swelling of glands in your neck groin and armpits uh lymphatic lymph demethopathy is another sign and you have oral can candiasis and maybe a little more fungus under the fingernails of two digits on your right hand so that's why this disease syndrome whatever it afflicts mostly homosexuals and drug addicts mostly hemophiliacs are also at risk homosexuals and drug addicts so why are you implying that i what are you implying henry i don't i'm not a drug addict oh come on roy what what come on roy what do you think i'm a junkie henry do you see any tracks this is absurd say it say what say roy cohn you are a roy you are a go on not roy cohn you are a drug fiend roy marcus cone you are a go on henry it starts with an h oh i'm not going to with an h henry and it isn't hemophiliac come on what are you doing roy no say it i mean it say roy cohn you are a homosexual i will proceed systematically to destroy your reputation and your practice and your career in new york state henry which you know i can do you have been seeing me since 1958 apart from the facelifts i have treated you for everything from syphilis from a [ __ ] in dallas from syphilis to venereal warts in your rectum which you may have gotten from a [ __ ] in dallas but it wasn't a female [ __ ] so say it right you are you have had sex with men many many times roy and one of them or any number of them has made you very sick you have aids aids your problem henry is that you're hung up on words on labels that you believe that they mean what they seem to mean aids homosexual gay lesbian you think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with but they don't tell you that no no like all labels they tell you one thing and one thing only where does an individual so identified fit in the food chain in the pecking order not ideology or sexual taste but something much simpler clout not who i [ __ ] or who [ __ ] me but who will pick up the phone when i call who owes me favors this is what a label refers to not someone who does not understand this homosexual is what i am because i have sex with men but really this is wrong homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men homosexuals are men who in 15 years of trying cannot get a piss ant and a discrimination bill through city council homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows who have zero clout does this sound like me henry no no i have clout a lot i can pick up this phone punch 15 numbers and you know who will be on the other end in under five minutes henry the president even better henry his wife i'm impressed well i don't want you to be impressed i want you to understand this is not sophistry and this is not hypocrisy this is reality i have sex with men but unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true i bring the guy i'm screwing to the white house and president reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand because what i am is defined entirely by who i am roy cohn is not a homosexual roy cohn is a heterosexual man henry who [ __ ] around with guys okay roy and what is my diagnosis henry you have aids roy no henry no aids is what homosexuals have i have liver cancer well whatever the [ __ ] you have roy it's very serious and i haven't got a damn thing for you the nih in bethesda has a new drug called azt with the two-year waiting list that not even i can get you on to so get on the phone roy and dial the 15 numbers and tell the first lady you need in on an experimental treatment for liver cancer because you can call it any damn thing you want roy but what it boils down to is very bad news act two in vitro december 1985 january 1986 scene one night the third week in december prior alone on the floor of his bedroom he is much worse louis louis please wake up oh god oh well i think something horrible is wrong with me i i can't breathe i'm calling the ambulance no wait i wait are you [ __ ] crazy oh my god you're on fire your head is on fire it hurts calling the ambulance no i don't want to go to the hospital i don't want to go to the hospital please let me lie here just no no god pryor stand up don't touch my leg we have to oh god this is so crazy i'll be okay if i just lie here lou really if i can only sleep a little lewis exits louise no don't you code you send me there i will come back please please lewis i'm dragging you baby please no ass will you shut the [ __ ] up i have oh oh i have to go to the bathroom wait wait just oh oh oh god you [ __ ] themselves prior they'll be here and oh my god i'm sorry i'm sorry i did what i had an accident this is blood baby you shouldn't touch it me i he faints oh help oh help oh god oh god oh god oh god help me i can't i can't scene two same night harper is sitting at home all alone with no lights on we can barely see her joe enters but he doesn't turn on the lights why are you sitting in the dark turn on the light no i heard the sounds in the bedroom again i know someone was in there no one was you'd be actually in the bed under the covers with a knife oh oh boy joe i am i think i'm thinking of going away by which i mean i think i'm going off again you you know what i mean please don't stay we can fix it i pray for that this is my fault but i can correct it you you have to try too he turns on the light she turns it off again when you pray what do you pray for i pray to god for god to crush me break me up into little pieces and start all over again please don't pray for that i had a book of bible stories when i was a kid there was a picture i'd look at 20 times every day jacob wrestles with the angel i don't really remember the story or why the wrestling just the picture jacob is young and very strong the angel is a beautiful man with golden hair and wings of course i still dream about it many nights i'm it's me in that struggle fierce and unfair the angel is not human and it holds nothing back so how could any any one human win what kind of a fight is that it's not just losing means your soul thrown down in the dust your heart torn out from gods but you can't not lose the whole entire world you are the only person the only person i love or have ever loved and i love you terribly terribly that's what's so awfully irreducibly real i can make up anything but i can't bring that away are you are you really gonna have a baby it's my time and there's no blood i don't really know i suppose it wouldn't be a great thing maybe i'm just not bleeding because i take too many pills maybe i'll give birth to a pill that would give a new meaning to pill popping huh i think you should go to washington alone change like you said i'm not going to leave you harper no maybe not but i'm going to leave you scene three 1am the next morning lewis and a nurse emily are sitting in prior's room in the hospital he'll be all right now no we won't no i guess not i gave him something that makes him sleep deep asleep orbiting the moons of jupiter good place to be he plays better than here you his uh yes i'm his uh this must be hell for you it is hell the afterlife which is not at all like a rainy afternoon in march by the way prior a lot more vivid than i'd expected dead leaves with the crunchy kind sharp dry air kind of long luxurious dying feeling that breaks your heart yeah well we all get to break our hearts on this one he seems like a nice guy cute not like this yes he is was whatever weird name prior walter like the walter before this one lots of walters before this one pryor is an old old family name in an old old family the walters go back to the mayflower and beyond back to the norman conquest he says there's a prior walter stitched into the bayou tapestry is that impressive well it's old very old which in some circles equals impressive not in my circle what's the name of the tapestry the bayer tapestry embroidered by lauren mathilde i'll tell my mother she embroiders drives me nuts manual therapy for anxious hands maybe you should try it matild stitched while william the conqueror was off to war she was capable of more than loyalty devotion she waited for him she stitched for years and if he had come back broken and defeated from war she would have loved him even more and if he had returned mutilated ugly full of infection and horror she would still have loved him fed by pity by a sharing of pain she would love him even more and even more and she would never never have prayed to god please let him die if he can't return to be whole and healthy and able to live a normal life if he had died she would have buried her heart with him so what the [ __ ] is the matter with me uh will he sleep through the night at least i'm going it's 1am where do you have to go what time it is a walk night air good for the the park be careful yeah danger tell him i if he wakes up and you're still on tell him goodbye tell him i had to go scene four an hour later split scene joe and roy in a fancy straight bar louis at a man in the ramble in central park joe and roy are sitting at the bar the place is brightly lit joe has a plate of food in front of him but he isn't eating roy occasionally reaches over the table and forks small bites off joe's plate roy is in a tuxedo bow tie loosened joe is dressed casually roy is drinking heavily joe not at all lewis and the man are eyeing each other each alternating interest and indifference the pills were something she started when she miscarried no there were she took some before that she had a really bad time at home like when she was a kid her home was really bad i think a lot of drinking and physical stuff she doesn't talk about that instead she talks about the sky falling down people with knives hiding under sofas monsters mormons everyone thinks mormons don't come from homes like that we aren't supposed to behave that way but we do it's not lying or being two-faced everyone tries very hard to live up to god's scriptures which are very um strict i shouldn't be bothering you with all this no please heart to heart uh one another what is that seltzer the failure to measure up hits people very hard from such a strong desire to be good they feel very far from goodness when they fail what scares me is that maybe what i really love in her is the part of her that's farthest from the light from from god's love maybe i was drawn to that in the first place and i'm keeping it alive because i need it why would you need it there are things i i don't know how well we know ourselves i mean what if i know i married her because she because i loved it that she was always wrong always doing something wrong like like one step out of step in salt lake city that stands out i i never stood out on the outside but inside it was hard for me to pass past yeah passes what oh um well as someone cheerful and strong those who love god with an open heart unclouded by secrets and struggles are cheerful god's easy simple love for them shows in how strong and happy they are the saints but you had secrets secret struggles i wanted to be one of the elect one of the blessed you you feel you ought to be that the blemishes are yours by choice which of course they aren't harper's sorrow that really deep sorrow she didn't choose that but it's there you didn't put it there no well you sound like you think you did i am responsible for her because she's your wife that and i do love her whatever she's your wife and there are obligations to her but also to yourself she'd fall apart in washington don't let her stay here she'll fall apart if i leave her then bring her to washington i can't roy i just can't she needs me listen joe i'm the best divorce lawyer in the business can't washington wait you do what you need to do joe what you need you let her life go where it wants to go you'll both be better for it somebody should get what they want what do you want i want you to [ __ ] me hurt me make me bleed i want to yeah i want to hurt you [ __ ] me hard yeah you've been a bad boy i'm very bad very bad you need to be punished boy yes i do guess what um i yes what boy oh yes sir i want you to take me to your place boy no i i can't do that no what no sir i can't i um i don't live alone sir your lover no you're out with a man tonight boy no sir he uh my lover doesn't know your lover know you let's change the subject okay um can we go to your place i live with my parents oh everyone who makes it in this world makes it because somebody older and more powerful takes an interest the most precious asset in life i think is the ability to be a good son you have that joe somebody who can be a good son to a father who pushes them farther than they would otherwise go i've had many fathers i owe my life to them powerful powerful men walter wintel mitchell edgar hoover joe mccarthy most of all he valued me because i am a good lawyer but he loved me because i was and am a good son he was a very difficult man very guarded and cagey i brought out something tender in it he would have died for me an eye for him does this embarrass you i had a hard time with my father well sometimes that's the way then you have to find other fathers substitutes i don't know the father-son relationship is central to life women are for birth beginning but the father is continuance the son offers the father his life as a vessel for carrying forth his father's dream your father is living um dead he was what a difficult man he was in the military he could be very unfair and cold but he loved you i don't know no no joe he did i know this sometimes a father's love has to be very very hard unfair even cold to make his son grow strong in a world like this this isn't a good world here then i um do you have a rubber i don't use rubbers you should uh here i don't use them forget it then no wait put it on me boy forget it i have to get back home i must be going crazy oh come on please you won't find out it's cold too cold it's never too cold let me warm you up please they begin to [ __ ] relax not a chance it's what i think it broke the rubber you want me to keep going pull out should i keep going infect me i don't care i don't care all right the man pulls out i um look i'm sorry but i think i want to go yeah give my best to mom and dad the man slaps him ow it was a joke the man leaves how long have we known each other since 1980 right a long time i feel close to you joe do i advise you well you've been an incredible friend roy and i want to be family familia as my italian friends call it la familia lovely word it's important for me to help you like i was helped i owe practically everything to you roy i'm dying joe cancer oh oh my god please let me finish few people know this and i'm telling you this only because i'm not afraid of death what can death bring that i haven't faced i've lived life is the worst listen to me i'm a philosopher joe you must do this you must must must love that's a trap responsibility that's a trap too like a father to a son i tell you this life is full of horror nobody escapes nobody save yourself whatever pulls on you whatever needs from you threatens you don't be afraid people who are so afraid don't be afraid to live in the raw wind naked alone learn at least this what you are capable of let nothing stand in your way scene five three days later prior and belize in prior's hospital room pryor is very sick but improving belize has just arrived miss thing marie stella stella for star let me see you look like [ __ ] yes indeed you do what kind of crap is that beats me let's rub it on your poor blistered body and see what it does this is not western medicine these bottles voodoo cream from the botanica around the block and you're a registered nurse beeswax and cheap perfume cut with jurgen's lotion for good vibes and love from some little black cubano witch in miami get that trash away from me i am immune suppressed i am a health professional i know what i'm doing it stinks any word from lewis there is a pause belize starts giving pryor a gentle massage gone he'll be back i know the type likes to keep a girl on edge oh it's been how long i don't remember how long have you been here i don't remember i don't give a [ __ ] i want lewis i want my [ __ ] boyfriend where the [ __ ] is he i'm dying i'm dying where is lewis oh this is a very strange drug this drug emotional ability for starters save a tab or two for me oh no not this drug say nepal por la ju noel a lab this drug she is serious poisonous chemistry my poveresched and not just disorienting i hear things voices voices ah voice saying what i'm not supposed to tell you better tell the doctor or i will no no don't please i want the voice it's wonderful it's all that's keeping me alive i don't want to talk to some intern about it you know what happens when i hear it i get hard oh my come saw and you know i am slow to rise my jaw aches of the memory and would you deny me this little solace betray my concuptions to florence nightingale storm troopers here's the thought my baby they changed the drug just to spoil the fun you and your boner can depend on me [Music] well this girl talk [ __ ] is politically incorrect you know we should have dropped it back when we gave up drag i'm sick i get to be politically incorrect if it makes me feel better you sound like lou well at least i have the satisfaction of knowing he's in anguish somewhere i loved his anguish watching him stick his head up his [ __ ] and eat his guts out over some relatively minor moral conundrum it was the best show in town the mother warned me if they get overwhelmed by the little things you'll be belly up buttsville when something big comes along mother warned me and they do come along but i didn't listen no men obese the absolute lowest i have to go i want to spend my whole lonely life looking after white people i can get underpaid to do it oh you're just a christian martyr whatever happens baby i will be here for you tim satan don't go crazy on me girlfriend i already got enough crazy queens for one lifetime two can't be bothered with dementia i promise ouch ouch indeed why'd they have to pick on you eat more girlfriend you really do look like [ __ ] leaves he's gone are you still i can't stay i will return are you one of those follow me to the other side voices no i am no nightbird i am a messenger you have a beautiful voice it sounds like a viola like a perfectly tuned tight string balanced the truth stay with me not now soon i will return i will reveal myself to you i am glorious glorious my heart my countenance and my message you must prepare for what i don't want to no death no a marvelous work and a wonder we undertake an edifice awry we sink plumb and straighten a great lie we abolish a great error correct with the rule sword and broom of truth what are you talking about i i am on my way when i am manifest our work begins prepare for the parting of the air the breath the ascent glory to scene six the second week of january martin roy and joe in a fancy manhattan restaurant it's a revolution in washington joe we have a new agenda and finally a real leader they got back to the senate but we have the courts by the 90s the supreme court will be block solid republican appointees and the federal bench republican judges like landlines everywhere everywhere they turn affirmative action take it to the court boom landmine and we'll get our way on just about everything abortion defense central america family values a live investment climate we have the white house locked until the year 22 000 and beyond a permanent fix on the oval office it's possible by 92 we'll get the senate back and in 10 years the south is gonna give us the house it's really the end of liberalism the end of new deal socialism the end of ipso facto secular humanism humanism whatever the dawning of a genuinely american political personality modeled on ronald wilson reagan it sounds great mr heller martin martin and justice is the hub especially since ed meese took over he doesn't specialize in buying points of lies yeah he's a flat foot cop he reminds me of teddy roosevelt i i can't wait to meet him oh too bad joe he's been dead for 60 years teddy roosevelt he said you want to little joke little joke uh it reminds me of this story about the shut the [ __ ] up martin you see that mr heller here is one of the mighty joseph in dc he sitteth on the right hand of the man who sitteth on the right hand of the man and yet i can say shut the [ __ ] up and he will take no offense loyalty he martin yes grab my back roy no no really a sore spot i get them all the time now these rub it for me darling would you do that for me martin rubs roy's back they both look at joe how do you think a handful of bolsheviks turned saint petersburg into linen grad in one afternoon comrades who do for each other marx and engels lenin and trotsky joseph stalin and franklin delano roosevelt comrades right martin this man joe is a saint of the right i know mr heller i and you see what i mean martin you see what he's special right don't embarrass him roy gravity decency smarts his strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure and he's a roy boy 100 we're on the move joe on the move mr heller i we can't wait any longer for an answer oh um i uh joe's a married man yeah with a wife she doesn't care to go to dc and so joe cannot go and keeps us dangling we've seen that kind of thing before haven't we these men and their wives oh yes beware i really can't discuss this under then don't discuss say yes roy now say yes i will now now i'll hold my breath until you do i'm turning blue waiting no god damn it roy calm down it's not stop [ __ ] it read came today joe reads the first paragraph then looks up roy this is this is terrible you're telling me a letter from the new york state bar association martin they're gonna try and disbar me oh my why why martin revenge the whole establishment their little rules because i know no rules because i don't see the law is dead an arbitrary collection of antiquated dictums thou shall thou shalt not because because i know the law is a pliable breathing sweating organ because because because he borrowed half a million from one of his clients yeah well there's that and he forgot to return it roy that's you borrowed money from a i'm client ashamed roy you know how much i admire you well i mean i know you have unorthodox ways but i'm sure you only did what you thought at the time you needed to do and i have faith that not so damp please i'll deny it was alone she's got no paperwork can't put a [ __ ] thing more things but he's the menu roy i really appreciate you telling me this and i'll do whatever i can to help i'm about to be tried joe by a jury that is not a jury of my peers the disbarment committee gentile gentlemen brahman lawyers country club men i offend them to these men i'm what martin some sort of filthy little jewish troll oh well i wouldn't go so far as oh well i would very fancy lawyers these disbarment committee members these lawyers fancy lawyers with fancy corporate clients and complicated cases anti-trust suits deregulation environmental control complex cases like these need justice department cooperation like flowers need the sun wouldn't you say that's an accurate assessment martin i'm not here roy i'm not hearing any of this no no of course not without the light of the sun joe these cases and these fancy lawyers who represent them will wither and die a well-praised friend someone in the justice department say can turn off the sun cast a deep shadow on my behalf make them shiver in the cold if they overstep they would fear that roy i i don't understand you do you're not asking me careful even if i said yes to the job it would be illegal to interfere with the hearings it's unethical no i i can't un ethical would you excuse us martin excuse you take a walk martin for real i can leads unethical are you trying to embarrass me in front of my friend well it is unethical you are really something what the [ __ ] do you think this is sunday school no but roy this is a this is this is gastric juices churning this is enzymes and acids this is intestinal is what this is bowel movement and blood red meat this stinks this is politics joe the game of being alive and you think you're what above that above alive is what dead in the clouds you're on earth god damn it plant a foot stay a while i'm sick they smell i'm weak they want blood this time i must have eyes injustice injustice you will protect me why can't mr heller come on joe the administration can't get involved but i'd be part of the administration the same as him not the same martin's eds man and so martin's reagan's man and you're mine this will never be understand me i'm going to be a lawyer joe i'm going to be a lawyer joe i'm going to be a goddamn [ __ ] legally licensed member of the bar lawyer just like my daddy was to the last bitter day on earth joseph until the day i die ah martin's back so are we agreed joe i will think about it i will it's the fear of what comes after the doing that makes the doing hard to do amen but you can almost always live with the consequences scene seven that afternoon on the granite steps outside the hall of justice brooklyn it is cold and sunny a sabret wagon is selling hot dogs luis in a shabby overcoat is sitting on the steps contemplatively eating one joe enters with three hot dogs and a can of coke can i oh sure sure crazy cold sun have to make the best of it how's your friend my oh he's worse my friend is worse i'm sorry yeah well thanks for asking it's nice you're nice i can't believe you voted for reagan i hope he gets better reagan your friend he won't neither will reagan let's not talk politics okay you're eating three of those well i'm hungry they're really terrible for you full of rat poo and beetle legs and wood shavings and [ __ ] and um iridium i think something toxic you're eating one well the shape i can't help myself plus i'm trying to commit suicide what's your excuse i don't have an excuse i should have pepto-bismol yeah i know but then i wash it down with coke are you are you always like this i've been worrying a lot about his kids who's reagan's maureen and mike and little orphan patty and miss ron reagan jr the you should pardon the expression heterosexual ron reagan jr is not you shouldn't just make these assumptions about people how do you know about him what what he is you don't know well darling he never sucked my [ __ ] but look if you're going to get vulgar no really i mean what's it like to be the child of the zeitgeist to have the american animus as your dad it's not really got family reagan's i read people there aren't any connections there are no love they don't ever even speak to each other except through their agents so what's it like to be reagan's kid inquiring minds want to know you can't believe everything that you but i think we all know what that's like nowadays no connections no responsibilities all of us falling through the cracks that separate what we owe to ourselves and what we owe to love you just whatever you feel like saying or doing you don't care you just do it what it whatever whatever it is you want to do are you trying to tell me something no i'm just observing that you impulsive yes i i mean it must be scary you just land of the free home of the brave call me irresponsible it's kind of terrifying yeah well freedom is heartless too oh you're not heartless you don't know finish your weenie he bats joe on the knee and starts to leave um lewis turns looks at him joe searches for something to say yesterday was sunday but i've been a little unfocused recently and i thought it was monday so i came here like i was going to work and the whole place was empty and at first i couldn't figure out why and i had this moment of incredible fear and also it just it just flashed through my mind the whole hall of justice it's empty it's deserted it's it's gone out of business forever the people that make it run have up and abandoned it creepy well yes but i felt that i was going to scream not because it was creepy but because the emptiness felt so fast and well good uh a happy scream i just wondered what a thing it would be if if overnight everything you owe anything to justice or love had really gone away free it would be heartless terror yes terrible and very great to shed your skin every old skin one by one and then walk away unencumbered into the morning i can't go in there today and don't i can't go in i i need i can't be this anymore i need a change uh i should just want some company for whatever sometimes even if it scares you to death you have to be willing to break the law know what i mean yes i moved out i moved out on my i haven't been sleeping well me neither lewis goes up to joe licks his napkin and dabs at joe's mouth antacid mustache maybe the court won't convene ever again maybe we are free to do whatever children of the new morning criminal minds selfish and greedy and loveless and blind reagan's children you're scared so am i everybody is in the land of the free god help us all scene eight late that night joe at the pay phone phoning hannah at home in salt lake salt lake city mom joe hi you're calling from the street it must be four in the morning what's happened nothing nothing i it's harper it's harper joe joe yeah hi no harper's fine well no she's not fine how are you mom what's happened i just wanted to talk to you i um i wanted to try something out on you joe you haven't have you been drinking joe yes ma'am i'm drunk oh that isn't like you no i mean who's to say why are you on the street at 4 a.m in that crazy city it's dangerous actually mom i'm not on the street i'm near the boathouse in the park what park central park central park oh my lord what on earth are you doing in central park at this time of night are you joe i think you ought to go home right now call me from home joe i come here to watch mom sometimes just to watch watch what what's there to watch it for in the mom did dad love me what diddy you gotta go home and call from there answer oh now really this is maudlin i don't like this conversation yeah well it gets worse from here on joe mom mama i'm a homosexual mama boy does that come out awkward hello hello i'm a homosexual please mama say something you're old enough to understand that your father didn't love you without being ridiculous about it what you're ridiculous you're being ridiculous i'm what you really ought to go home now to your wife i need you to go to bed this phone call we will just forget this phone call mom no more talk tonight this drinking is a sin a sin i raised you better than that c9 the following morning early split scene harper and joe at home lewis and pryor in pryor's hospital room joe and lewis have just entered this should be fast and obviously furious oh i'm sorry oh god oh the moment of truth has arrived harper i'm going to move out the [ __ ] you are harper please listen i still love you very much you're still my best buddy i'm not going to leave you no i don't like the sound of this i'm leaving i'm leaving i already have please listen stay this is really hard we have to talk we are talking aren't we now please shut up okay bastard sneaking off while i'm flat out here that's low if i could get up now i beat the holy [ __ ] out of you did you take pills how many no pills bad for the you aren't pregnant i called your gynecologist i'm seeing a new gynecologist you have no right to do this that's ridiculous no right it's criminal forget about that just listen you want the truth this is the truth 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 there ought to be a law there is a law you'll see i'm losing ground here i go walking you want to know where i walk i 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 i need some privacy well that's new everything's new prior i try to tighten my heart into a knot a snarl i try to learn to live dead just numb but when i see something i want and it's like a nail like a hot spike right through my chest and i know i'm losing apartment too small for three louis and pry are comfy but not lewis and pryor and pryor's disease 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 bang bang bang this court will come to order i mean let's talk practicalities schedules i'll come over if you want spend nights with you when i can i can has the jury reached a verdict i'm doing the best i can pathetic who cares 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 at least if not myself but i don't have any sexual feelings for you harper and i don't think i ever did i think you should go where washington doesn't matter what are you talking about without me without me joe isn't that what you want to hear yes you can love someone and fail them you can love someone and not be able to you can theoretically yes a person can maybe an editorial you can love lewis but not you specifically you i don't know i think you are excluded from that general category you're going to save me but the whole time you were spitting lie i i just don't under i just don't understand that a person could theoretically love and maybe many do but we both know now you can't i do you can't even say it i love you prior i repeat who cares this is so scary i want this to stop to go back we have reached a verdict your honor this man's heart is deficient he loves but his love is worth nothing harper mr lies i want to go get away from me here far away right now before he starts talking again please please 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 i'm dying you stupid [ __ ] do you know what that is love do you know what that means we lived together for four and a half years you animal you idiot i have to find some way to save myself who are these men i never understood it now i know what it's me it is get out of my room i'm the man with the knives you are if i could get up now i'd kill you i would go away go away or i'll scream oh god i'm sorry that is you please don't scream i recognize you now please i wait i oh he covers his mouth with his hand gags and removes his hand red with blood i'm bleeding mr lies mr lies right here i want to go away i can't see him anymore where anywhere anywhere far away absolutely harper and mr lies vanish joe looks up sees that she's gone when i open my eyes you will be gone huh it worked harper oh i heard all over i wish i was dead scene 10 the same day sunset hannah and sister ella chapter a real estate saleswoman hannah pitt's closest friend in front of hannah's house in salt lake city look at that view view of heaven like the living city of heaven isn't it just fairly glimmers in the sun slimmers even the stone and brick it just shimmers and glitters like heaven in the sunshine such a nice view you get perched up on a canyon rim some kind of beautiful place it's just salt lake and you're selling the house for me not to me i like to work up an enthusiasm for my properties just get me a good price well the market's off at least 50. 40 be more like it 50. i wish you'd wait a bit well i can't oh i wish you would hear about the only friend i got oh well now you know why i decided to like you i decided to like you because you're the only unfriendly mormon i ever met your wig is crooked fix it had a straight to sister ellis wig new york city all they got there is tiny rooms i always thought people have to stay put that's why i got my license to sell real estate that's a way of saying have a house stay put it's a way of saying traveling is no good plus i need the cash she takes a pack of cigarettes out of her purse lights one and offers the pack to hannah not not out here anyone could come by been days i've stood at this ledge and thought about stepping over it's a hard place salt lake fake 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 is there gas in the well of course not uh libby's a fool because i'd have to include that in the description there's no gas ella okay give a puff she takes a fruitive drag of alex cigarette put it away now so i guess it's goodbye it'll be all right ella i wasn't ever much of a friend i'll say something but don't laugh okay this is the home of saints godliest place on earth they say and i think they're right that means there's no evil here no no evil's everywhere sins everywhere but this is the spring of sweet water in the desert the desert flower every step a believer takes away from here's his steps fraught with peril i fear for you hannah pitt because you were my friend stay put this is the right home of saints latter-day saints only kind left 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 donning january 1986 scene one late night three days after the end of act two the stage is completely dark pryor is in bed in his apartment having a nightmare he wakes up sits up and switches on a nightlight he looks at his clock seated by the table near the bed is a man dressed in the clothing of a 13th century british squire who are you my name is walter pryor prior walter my name is prior walter i know that explain you're alive i'm not we have the same name what do you want me to explain a ghost an ancestor not the prior walter with the bayou tapestry prior walter his great great grandson the fifth of the name i'm the 34th i think actually the 32nd not according to my mother she's including the two bastards then i say leave them out i say no room for bastards the little things you swallow pills pills for the pestilence i too pestilency you too what the pestilence in my time was much worse than now all villages of empty houses you could look outdoors and see death walking in the morning do dampening and ragging a ragged ham of his black robe plain as i see you now oh you died of the plague a spotty monster like you alone i'm not alone you have no wife no children i'm gay so be gay dance and you're all together for all i care what's that to do with not having children gay homosexual not barney blithe and never mind i had 12 when i died the second ghost appears this one dressed in the clothing of an elegant 17th century londoner and i was three years younger than him oh god another one fry walter prior to you by some 17 others he's counting the bastards are we having a convention you've been sent to declare her fabulous incipients they love a well-paved entrance with lots of heralds and the message to come prepare the way the infinite the scent of breath in air they chose us i suspect because of the mortal affinities in a family as long descended as the walters there are bound to be a few carried off by plague the spotty monster blackjack came from a water pump half the city of london can you imagine his came from fleas yours i understand is the lamentable consequence of vinery these are rats but who knew that am i going to die we aren't allowed to discuss when you do you don't get ancestor to help you through it you may be surrounded by children but you die alone i'm afraid you should be there aren't even torches and the paths rocky dark and steep don't alarm him there's good news before there's bad we too come to rose petal and palm leaf before the triumphal procession prophet sierra revelator it's a great honor for the family uh he hasn't got i knit for the walters for the family in the largest sense all i want is a room somewhere far away from the cold cold air calm calm this is no brain fever pryor calms down but keeps his eyes closed the lights begin to change distant glorious music as an a at an a even now daughter of light daughter of splendors floral phosphor lumen candle even now from the bright mirror bright halls of heaven across the cold and lifeless infinity of space the messenger comes trailing orbs of light fabulous incipient oh profit to you prepare [Applause] the infinite descent a breath a feather glory to they vanish scene two the next day split scene louis and belize in a coffee shop pryor is at the outpatient clinic at the hospital with emily the nurse she has him on a pentamedean iv drip why has democracy succeeded in america of course by succeeded i mean comparatively not literally not in the present but what makes for the prospect of some sort of radical democracy spreading outward and growing up why does the power that was once so carefully preserved at the top of the pyramid by the original framers of the constitution seemed drawn inexorably downward and outward in spite of the best effort of the right to stop this i mean it's the really hard thing about being left in this country the american left can't help but trip over all these petrified little fetishes freedom that's the worst you know gene kirkpatrick for god's sakes will go on and on about freedom and so what does that mean the word freedom when she talks about it or human rights you're a bush talking about human rights and so what are these people talking about they might as well be talking about the mating habits of the nutrients these people don't begin to know what ontologically freedom is for human rights like they see these bourgeois property based rights of man type rights but that's not enfranchisement not democracy not what's implicit what's potential within the idea not the ideal with blood in it that's just liberalism the worst kind of liberalism really bourgeois tolerance and i think and what i think is that what aids shows us is the limits of tolerance that it's not enough to be tolerated because when the [ __ ] hits the fan you find out just how much tolerance is worth nothing and underneath all that tolerance is intense passionate hatred well don't you think that's true it is power is the object not being tolerated [ __ ] assimilation but i mean in spite of all this the thing about america i think is that ultimately we're different from every other nation on earth in that with people here of every race we can't ultimately what defines us isn't race of politics not like any european country where there's an insurmountable fact of the kind of racial or ethnic monopoly or monolith like all dutchmen i mean all dutch people are well dutch and the jews of europe were never europeans just a small problem facing the monolith but here and there are so many small problems it's really just a collection of small problems the monolith is missing oh i mean of course i suppose there's the monolith of white america white straight male america which is not unimpressive even among monoliths well no but when the race thing gets taken care of and i don't mean to minimalize how major it is i mean i know it is this is a really really incredibly racist country but it's like well the british i mean all these blue-eyed pink people and it's just weird you know i mean i'm not all that jewish looking or well maybe i am but you know in new york everyone is well not everyone but so many are but so in england in london i walk into bars and i feel like sid be it you know i mean like woody allen and annie hall with the paius and the gabardine coat like never never anywhere so much i mean not actively despised not like they're germans who i think are still terribly anti-semitic and racist too i mean black racist they pretend otherwise but anyway in london there's just at one point i met this black gay guy from jamaica who talked with a lilt but he said his family been living in london since before the civil war the american one and how the english never let him forget for a minute that he wasn't blue eyed and pink and i said yeah me too these people are anti-semites and he said yeah but the british jews have the clothing business all sewed up and blacks there can't get a foothold and it was an incredibly awkward moment of just i mean here we were in this bar that was gay but it was a pub you know the beams and the placer and those horrible little like two day old fish and egg sandwiches and just so british so old and i felt well there's no way out of this because both of us are right now too much immersed in this history hope is dissolved in the sheer age of this place where race is what counts and there's no real hope of change it's the racial destiny of the brits that matters to them not their political destiny whereas in america here in america race doesn't count no no that's not i mean you can't be hearing that i it's look race yes but ultimately race here is a political question right racists just try to use race here as a tool in a political struggle it's not really about race like the spiritualists try to use that stuff are you enlightened are you centered channeled whatever this reaching out for a spiritual past in the country where no indigenous spirits exist only the indians i mean native american spirits and we killed them off so now there are no gods here no ghosts and spirits in america there are no angels in america no spiritual past no racial past there's only the political and the decoys and the ploys to maneuver around the inescapable battle of politics the shifting downwards and outwards of political power to the people power to the people amen look at the time oh my goodness will you look at the time i got a do you you think that this is what racist or naive or something well it's certainly something look i just remembered i have an appointment what i mean i really don't want to like speak from some position of privilege and i'm sitting here thinking eventually he's got to run out of steam so i let you battle on and on saying about maybe seven or eight things i find really offensive what but i know you louis i know the guilt fueling this particular tirade is obviously already swollen bigger than your hemorrhoids i don't have hemorrhoids i hear differently may i finish yes but i don't have hemorrhoids so finally when i have pryor told you he's an [ __ ] he shouldn't have you promised lewis pryor is not a subject you brought him up i brought up hemorrhoids so it's indirect passive aggressive unlike i suppose banging me over the head with your theory that america doesn't have a race problem oh to be fair i never said that not exactly but i said but it was close enough because if it had been that blunt i'd i would have just walked out and you deliberately misinterpreted stop i haven't been able to let me no what talk you've been running your mouth non-stops that i got here yadda yadda blah blah blah up the hill down the hill playing with your monolith and girlfriend would have joined in at any time instead of girlfriend it was truly an awesome spectacle but i better i got better things to do with my time than sitting here listening to this racist [ __ ] just because i feel sorry for you that i am not a racist oh come on so maybe i am a racist but i really hate that it's no fun picking on you luis you're so guilty it's like throwing darts at a glob of jello there's no satisfying hits just quivering the darts just blop in and vanish i just think when you are discussing lines of oppression it gets very complicated and oh is that a fact you know we black drag queens have a rather intimate knowledge of the complexity of the lines of x black drag queen actually xx you're doing drag again i don't maybe i don't have to tell you i think it's sexist i didn't ask you well it is the gay community i think has to adopt the same attitude towards drag as black women have to have to take towards black women blues singers or we are walking dangerous tonight well it's all internalized oppression right i mean the masochism the stereotypes the lewis are you deliberately trying to make me hate you no i i mean are you deliberately transforming yourself into an arrogant sexual political stuntless racist flag waving thug for my benefit you know what i think what you hate me because i'm a jew i'm leaving it's true you have no basis except your louis it's good to know you haven't changed you're still an honorary citizen of the twilight zone and after your pale pale white polomix on behalf of rachel insensitive you have a flaming [ __ ] of a lot of nerve calling me an anti-semite now i really got to go you called me lou the jew that was a joke i didn't think it was funny it was hostile it was three years ago so you just called yourself said the yid that's not the same thing see the year it is different from ju lou the jew yes someday you'll have to explain that to me but right now you hate me because i you hate black people i do not but i do think most black people are anti-semitic most black people that's racist louis and i think most jews louis barracon ed [ __ ] jesse jackson oh really lewis this is hi me town hi me town you voted for jesse jackson you sent checks to the rainbow coalition i'm ambivalent the checks bounced all your checks bounce louis you're ambivalent about everything what's that supposed to mean you may be dumber than [ __ ] but i refuse to believe you can't figure it out try i was never ambivalent about prior i love him i too i really do nobody said different love and ambivalence are real love isn't ambivalent real love isn't ambivalent i swear that's a line from my favorite best-selling paperback novel in love with the night mysterious except i don't think you ever read it i never read it no you ought to instead of spending the rest of your life trying to get through democracy in america it's about this white woman whose daddy owns a plantation in the deep south in the years before the civil war the american one and her name is margaret and she's in love with her daddy's number one slave and his name is thaddeus and she's married but her white slave owner has aids antebellum insufficiently developed sex organs and there's a lot of hot stuff going down when margaret and thaddeus can catch a spare torrid 10 under the cotton pick and moon and then of course the yankees come and they set the slaves free and the slaves string up old daddy and so on historical fiction somewhere in there i call margaret and somewhere in there i recall margaret and thaddeus find the time to discuss the nature of love her face is reflecting the flames of burning passion you know the way white people do and his black face is dark in the night and she says to him thaddeus real love isn't ever ambivalent in a little pause emily enters and turns and turns off the iv drug patties looks at her he's contemplating her thesis and he isn't sure he agrees treatment number four oh pharmaceutical miracle lazarus breathes again is he how bad is he you want the laundry list shirt off let's check the fire takes his shirt off she examines his lesions there's the weight problem and the [ __ ] problem and the moral problem only six that's good pants he drops his pants he's naked she examines and he thinks he's going crazy looking good what else oh ankles sore and swollen but the legs better nausea is mostly gone with the little orange pills bms pure liquid but not bloody anymore for now my eye doctor says everything's okay for now my dentist says yuck when he sees my fuzzy tongue and now he wears his little condoms on his thumb and forefinger and a mask so what my dermatologist is in hawaii and my mother well leave my mother out of it which is usually where my mother is out of it my glands are like walnuts my weights holding steady for week two my friend died two days ago of bird tuberculosis bird tuberculosis that scared me i didn't go to the funeral today because he was an irish catholic and it's probably open casket and i'm afraid of something the bird tb or seeing him or so i guess i'm doing okay except for of course i'm going nuts we ran the talks of plasmosis series and there's no indication i know i know but i i feel like something terrifying is on its way you know like a missile from outer space and it's plummeting down towards the earth and i'm i'm ground zero and i am generally known where i am known as one cool collected queen and i am ruffled there's really nothing to worry about i think that uh lord i think that's sho sin bam roman ham say menuco muchano al canfei hashino what everything's fine bemalos kidoshim udhorum kezohar horikiya mazhiram oh i don't understand what you're saying has chorus niche mosso why are you doing that stop it stop stop it what you were just weren't you just speaking in hebrew or something hebrew i'm basically italian-american no i don't speak in hebrew oh no oh god please i really think i i am look i i'm sorry i have a waiting room full of i think you're one of the lucky ones you'll live for years probably you're pretty healthy for someone with no immune system are you seeing someone loneliness is a danger a therapist no i don't need to see anyone i just well think about it you aren't going crazy you're just under a lot of stress no wonder she starts to write in his chart suddenly there is an astonishing glaze of light a huge cord sounded by a gigantic choir and a great book with steel pages mounted atop a molten red pillar pops up from the stage floor the book opens there is a large aleph inscribed on its pages which bursts into flames immediately the book slams shut and disappears instantly under the floor as the lights become normal again emily notices none of this writing prior is a god bro prior fleas help me i beg your pardon you're a nurse give me something i don't know what to do anymore i last week at work i screwed up the xerox machine like permanently and so i then i tripped on the subway steps and my glasses broke and i cut my forehead here see and now i can't see much and my forehead it's like the mark of cain stupid right but it won't heal and every morning i see it and i think biblical things mark of cain judas iscariot and his silver and his noose people who in betraying what they love betray what's truest in themselves i feel nothing but cold from myself just cold and every night i miss him i miss him so much but then the sores and the smell and where i thought it was going i could be i could be sick too maybe i'm sick too i don't know please tell him i love him can you do that i've thought about it for a very long time and i still don't understand what love is justice is simple democracy is simple those things are un ambivalent but love is very hard and it goes bad for you if you violate the hard law of love i'm dying he's dying you just wish you were oh cheer up lewis look at that heavy sky out there purple purple boy what kind of homosexual are you anyway that's not purple mary that color up there is move all day today it's like thank it felt like thanksgiving soon this ruination will be blanketed white you can smell it can you smell it smell what softness compliance forgiveness grace no i can't help you learn that i can't help you lewis you're not my business he exits lewis puts his head in his hands inadvertently touching his cut forehead how [ __ ] he stands slowly looks towards where belize exited smell what he looks both ways to be sure no one is watching that inhales deeply and is surprised huh snow scene three same day harper in a very white cold place with a brilliant blue sky above a delicate snowfall she is dressed in a beautiful snow suit the sound of the sea faint snow ice mountains of ice where am i i feel better i do i feel better there are ice crystals in my lungs wonderful and sharp and the snow smells like cold crushed peaches and there's something there's some current of blood in the wind how strange it has that iron taste ozone ozone wow where am i the kingdom of ice the bottomless part of the world antarctica this is antarctica cold shelter for the shattered no sorrow here tears freeze antarctica antarctica oh boy oh boy look at this oh i must have really snapped the tether huh apparently that's great i want to stay here forever set up camp build things built a city an enormous city made up of frontier forts dark wood and green roofs and high gates made of pointed logs and bonfires burning on every street corner i should build a river where are the forests no timber here too cold ice no trees details i'm sick of details i'll plant them and grow them i'll live off caribou fat i'll melt it over the bonfires and drink it from a long curved goat horn cup it'll be great i want to make a new world here so that i never have to go home again as long as it lasts ice has a way of melting no forever i can have anything i want here maybe even companionship someone who has desire for me you maybe it's against the bylaws of the international order of travel agents to get involved with clients rules are rules anyway i'm not the one you really want there isn't anyone maybe an eskimo who could ice fish for food and help me build a nest for when the baby comes there are no eskimo in antarctica and you're not really pregnant you made that up well all of this is made up so if the snow feels cold i'm pregnant right here i can be pregnant and i can have any kind of baby i want this is a retreat a vacuum its virtue is that it lacks everything deep freeze for feelings you can be numb and safe here that's what you came for respect the delicate ecology of your delusions you mean like no eskimo in antarctica correcto ice and snow no eskimo even hallucinations have lost well then who's that an antarctic eskimo a fisher of the polar deep there's something wrong with this picture the eskimo beckons i'm going to like this place it's my own national geographic special i think i felt her kicking maybe i'll give birth to a baby covered with thick white fur and that way she won't be cold my breasts will be full of hot cocoa so she doesn't get chilly and if she gets really cold she'll have a pouch i can crawl into like a marsupial we'll mend together yeah that's what we'll do we'll mend scene four same day an abandoned lot in the south bronx a homeless woman is standing near an oil drum in which a fire is burning snowfall trash around hannah enters dragging two heavy suitcases excuse me i said excuse me can can you tell me where i am is this brooklyn do you know a pineapple street it is there some sort of bus or train or i'm lost i i just arrived from salt lake utah i took the bus that i was told to take and i got off well it was the very last stop so i had to get off and i asked the driver was this brooklyn and he nodded yes but he was from one of those foreign countries where they think it's good manners to nod at everything even if you have no idea what you're nodding at and in truth i think he spoke no english at all which i think would make him ineligible for employment on public transportation the public being english-speaking mostly do you speak english woman nods i was supposed to be met at the airport by my son he didn't show and i don't wait more than three and three quarters hours for anyone i should have been patient i guess but it is this rox is that the bronx well how in the name of heaven did i get to the bronx when the bus driver said i was clear will you just stop this disgusting slurping you just got thanksgiving feeding animals being yourself being yourself what would it matter to you or to anyone if you just stopped beating and died can can you just tell me where i can i was that polish bridge named after a polish man i i i don't know what you're talk that was a joke for pete's sake is there anyone else who it's [ __ ] cold out here and i that's right because it was supposed to have been a tunnel it's not very funny have you read the prophecies of nostradamus some guy i went out with once somewhere nostradamus prophets have cast lies like scary [ __ ] he just shut up please i want you to stop jabbering for a minute and pull your wits together and tell me how to get to brooklyn because you know and you're gonna tell me because there is no one else around to tell me and i am wet and i am cold and i am very angry so i am sore you're psychotic but just make the effort take a deep breath do it they breathe together that's good now exhale and they do now how do i get to brooklyn don't know never been sorry want some soup manhattan maybe you know i don't suppose you know the location of the mormons visitor center 65th and broadway you i go there all the time three movies boring but you can stay all day well so how do i get there take the d train next block make her right thank you i knew century i think we will all be insane scene five same day joe and roy in the study of royce brownstone roy is wearing an elegant bathrobe he has made a considerable effort to look well he isn't well and he hasn't succeeded much in looking it i can't the answer is no i'm sorry well apologies i can't see that there's anyone asking for apologies i'm sorry roy oh well apologies my wife is missing roy my mother's coming in from salt lake to to help look i guess i'm supposed to be at the airport now picking her up but i i just spent two days in the hospital roy with a bleeding ulcer i was spitting up blood blood huh look i'm very busy here and it's just a job a job a job washington dumb utah mormon hit [ __ ] roy washington when washington called me i was younger than you you think i said oh [ __ ] no i can't go i got two fingers up my [ __ ] and a little moral nosebleed to boot when washington calls you my pretty young punk friend you go or you can go [ __ ] yourself sideways cause the train is pulled out of the station and you are out nowhere out in the cold [ __ ] you mary jane get out of here just let me explain ephemera you broke my heart explain that explain that i love you roy there is so much that i want to be what you see in me i want to be a participant in the world in your world roy i want to be capable of that i've i've tried i really i have but i can't do this not because i don't believe in you but because i believe in you so much in what you stand for at heart the order the decency i would give anything to protect you but there are laws i can't break it's too ingrained it's not me there's enough damage i've already done maybe you're right maybe i'm dead you're not dead boy you're a [ __ ] you love me that's very moving i'm moved it's nice to be loved i warned you about her didn't i joe but you don't listen to me why because you say roy is smart and roy is a friend but roy well he isn't nice and you want to be nice right a nice nice man you know what my greatest accomplishment was joe in my life what i'm about to when i'm able to look back on and be the proudest of and i have helped make presidents and unmake them and mayors and more goddamn judges than anyone in nyc ever and several million dollars tax-free and what do you think means the most to me you ever hear of ethel rosenberg huh joe uh yeah yeah i i guess i uh yes yes yes you have heard of ethel rosenberg yes maybe you even read about her in the history books if it wasn't for me joe ethel rosenberg would be alive today writing some personal advice column for ms magazine she isn't because during the trial joe i was on the phone every day talking with the judge roy every day doing what i do best talking on the phone making sure that timid yid nebish on the bench did his duty to america to history that sweet unpre-possessing woman two kids reminded all of us of our little jewish mamas she came this close to getting life i pleaded till i wept to put her in the chair me i did that i would have [ __ ] pulled the switch if they'd have let me why because i [ __ ] hate traitors because i [ __ ] hate communists was it legal [ __ ] legal am i a nice man [ __ ] nice they say terrible things about me in the nation [ __ ] the nation you want to be nice or you want to be effective make the law or subject to it choose your wife chose a week from today she'll be back she knows how to get what she wants maybe how to send her to washington i don't believe you gospel you can't possibly mean what you're saying roy you were the assistant united states attorney on the rosenberg case ex-parte communication with the judge during the trial would be censurable at least probably conspiracy and in a case that resulted in execution it's what murder you're not well is all what do you mean not well who's not well you said no i didn't i said what roy you have cancer no i don't you told me you were dying what the [ __ ] are you talking about joe i never said that i'm in perfect health there's not a goddamn thing wrong with me jake joe hesitates he holds out his hand to roy roy pulls joe into a close strong clinch it's okay that you hurt me because i love you baby joe that's why i'm so rough on you roy releases joe joe backs away a step or two prodigal son the world will wipe its dirty hands all over you it already has roy now go roy shoves joe hard joe turns to leave roy stops him turns him around no no i'll always be here waiting for you then again with sudden violence he pulls joe close what did you want from me what was all this what do you want treacherous ungrateful little joe very close to belting roy grabs him by the front of his robe and propels him across the length of the room he holds roy at arm's length the other arm ready to hit transgress a little joseph joe releases roy there are so many laws find one you can break joe hesitates then leaves backing out when joe is gone roy doubles over in great pain which he's been hiding throughout the whole scene with joe yes andy andy get in here andy the door opens but it isn't ending a small jewish woman dressed modestly in a 50s hat and cold stands in the doorway the room darkens who the [ __ ] are you the new nurse the figure in the doorway says nothing she stares at roy a pause roy looks at her carefully gets up crosses to her he crosses back to the chair sits heavily ethel you don't look good roy well ethel i don't feel good you lost a lot of weight that suits you you were heavy back then soft tick me tips i haven't been heavy since 1960. we were all heavier back then before the body thing started now i look like a skeleton they stare the shit's really hit the fan roy well the funds just started what is this ethel halloween you're trying to scare me well you're wasting your time i'm scarier than you any day of the week so beat it ethel boo better dead than red somebody try to shake me up from the throne of god in heaven to the belly of hell you can all [ __ ] yourselves and then go jump in the lake because i'm not afraid of you or death or hell or anything be seeing you soon roy julia sends his regards yeah well send this to julius there's the bird in her direction stands and moves toward her halfway across the room he slumps to the floor breathing laboriously in pain you're a very sick man roy hey he doesn't hear you i guess we should call the ambulance it goes to the phone huh buttons such things they got now what do i dial roy 911 it sings yes you should please send an ambulance to the home of mr roy cohn the famous lawyer what's the address roy 244 east 87th 244 east 87th street no apartment number he's got the whole building my name ethel greenglass rosenberg me no i'm not related to mr cohn an old friend they said a minute i have all the time in the world you're immortal i'm immortal ethel i have forced my way into history i ain't never gonna die history is about to crack wide open millennium approaches scene six late that night prior's bedroom prior one watching prior in bed who is staying back at him terrified sorry tonight prior the first is dressed in weird alchemical robes and hat over his historical clothing and he carries a long palm leaf bundle tonight's the night aren't you excited tonight she arrives right through the roof hadam agudor lumen phosphor floor candle an unending billowing of scarlet garlic a beer holy water a crucifix [ __ ] off get the [ __ ] out of my room go hard as a hickory nom i'll bet he all too mess when they approach we wax full like moons dance yes stand up damn it give us your hands dance listen alone oboe begins to play a little dance tune delightful sound catch dance please leave me alone please just let me sleep you want someone familiar a partner who knows his steps close your eyes imagine i don't close your eyes fire does now open them prior does lewis appears he looks gorgeous the music builds gradually into a full-blooded romantic dance tune blue dance with me i can my leg it hurts at night are you a ghost blue no just spectral lost to myself sitting all day on cold park benches wishing i could be with you dance with me babe prayer stands up the leg stops hurting they begin to dance the music is beautiful now i see why he's got no children he's a sodomite be quiet medieval no but let them dance i'm not interfering i've done my bit hooray hooray the messages come now i'm blowing off i don't like it here prior one vanishes the 20th century dear world has gotten so terribly terribly old prior two vanishes lewis and pryor waltz happily lights fade back to normal lewis vanishes pryor dances alone then suddenly the sound of wings fills the room scene seven split scene prior alone in his apartment lewis alone in the park again a sound of beating wings oh don't come in here don't come in lewis no my name is prior walter i am the scion of an ancient line i am abandoned i no no my name is pryor and i live here and now and in the dark in the dark the recording angel opens its hundred eyes and snaps the spine of the book of life and hush hush i'm talking nonsense i no more mad scene hush louis in the park on a bench joe approaches stands at a distance they stare at each other then lewis turns away do you know the story of lazarus lazarus lazarus i can't remember what happens exactly i don't um well he was dead lazarus and jesus breathed life into him he brought him back from death come here often no yes yes back from the dead you really you believe that really happened i don't know anymore what i believe this is quite a coincidence us meeting i followed you from work i have i followed you here you followed me you probably saw me that day in the washroom and thought there's a sweet guy sensitive cries for his friends in trouble yes you thought maybe i'll cry for you yes well i fooled you crocodile tears nothing joe reaches tentatively to touch lewis's face what are you doing don't do that sorry i'm i'm sorry i'm just not i think if you touch me your hand might fall off or something worse things have happened to people who have touched me please oh boy um can i i want to touch you can i please just touch you um here he puts his hand on one side of lewis's face and holds it there i'm going to hell for this big deal you think it could be any worse than new york city he puts his hand on joe's hand he takes joe's hand away from his face holds it for the moment then come on where home with me this makes no sense i i mean i i don't know you likewise and what you do know about me you don't like the republican stuff well yeah for starters i don't not like that i hate that so why on earth should we lewis goes to joe and kisses him strange bad fellows i don't know i never made it with one of the damned before i would really rather not have to spend tonight alone i'm a pretty terrible person louis lou no i really really am i don't think i deserve being loved there see we already have a lot in common who stands begins to walk away he turns looks back at joe joe follows the exit prior lessons at first no sound then once again the sound of beating wings frighteningly near oh that sound that sounded what is that like birds or something like a really big bird i'm frightened i no no fear find the anger find them anger my blood is clean my brain is fine i can handle pressure i am a gay man and i'm used to pressure to trouble i am tough and strong oh my goodness i he's washed over by an intense sexual feeling oh oh i'm hot i'm so oh jeez what is going on here oh i must have a fever the bedside lamp flickers wildly as the bed begins to roll forward and back there is a deep bass creaking and groaning from the bedroom ceiling like the timbers of a ship under immense stress and from above a fine rain of plaster dust oh please oh please oh something's coming in here i'm scared i don't like this at all something's approaching and i oh there is a great blaze of triumphal music hell heralding the light turns an extraordinary harsh cold pale blue then a rich brilliant warm golden color then a hot bilious green and finally a spectacular royal purple then silence god almighty very steven spielberg a sound like a plummeting meteor tears down from very very far above the earth hurtling at an incredible velocity towards the bedroom the light seems to be sucked out of the room as the projectile approaches as the room reaches darkness we hear a terrifying crash as something immense strikes earth the whole building shutters and a part of the bedroom ceiling lots of plaster and lathe and wiring crashes to the floor and then in a shower of unearthly white light spreading great opalescent gray silver wings the angel descends into the room and floats above the bed greetings prophet the great work begins the messenger has arrived blackout end of part one