Angels in America (18 page)

     
(A little pause, then with sudden, violent passion:)

     
And
Theory?
How are we to proceed without
Theory?
What System of Thought have these Reformers to present to this mad swirling planetary disorganization, to the Inevident Welter of fact, event, phenomenon, calamity? Do they have, as we did, a beautiful Theory, as bold, as Grand, as comprehensive a construct? You can't imagine, when we first read the Classic Texts, when in the dark vexed night of our ignorance and terror the seed-words sprouted and shoved incomprehension aside, when the incredible bloody vegetable struggle up and through into Red Blooming gave us Praxis, True Praxis, True Theory married to Actual Life . . . You who live in this Sour Little Age cannot imagine the grandeur of the prospect we gazed upon: like standing atop the highest peak in the mighty Caucasus, and viewing in one all-knowing glance the mountainous, granite order of creation. We were one with the Sidereal Pulse then, in the blood in our heads we heard the tick of the Infinite. You cannot imagine it. I weep for you.

     
And what have you to offer now, children of this Theory? What have you to offer in its place?
(Blistering contempt)
Market Incentives? American Cheeseburgers? Watered-down Bukharinite stopgap makeshift Capitalism! NEPmen! Pygmy children of a gigantic race!

     
Change? Yes, we must must change, only show me the Theory, and I will be at the barricades, show me the book of the next Beautiful Theory, and I promise you these blind eyes will see again, just to read it, to devour that text. Show me the words that will reorder the world, or else
keep silent
.

     
If the snake sheds his skin before a new skin is ready, naked he will be in the world, prey to the forces of chaos.
Without his skin he will be dismantled, lose coherence and die. Have you, my little serpents, a new skin?

     
(An immense, booming command)
Then we dare not, we
cannot
, we MUST NOT move ahead!

Scene 2

The same night as the end of
Millennium Approaches.
Joe and Louis enter Louis's new apartment in the arctic wastes of Alphabetland; barren of furniture, unpainted, messy, grim
.

Tense little pause. Louis embarrassed takes in the room, and begins to gather up the books, newspapers and clothing strewn on the floor, tossing them behind the bed, talking all the while:

LOUIS
: Alphabetland. This is where the Jews lived when they first arrived. And now, a hundred years later, the place to which their more seriously fucked-up grandchildren repair.
(Yiddish accent)
This is progress?

     
(Giving up the housecleaning)
It's a terrible mess.

JOE
: It's a little dirty.

LOUIS
(Defensive): Messy
, not dirty. That's an important distinction. It's dust, not dirt, chemical-slash-mineral, not organic, not like microbes, more like—

     
(He walks toward Joe)
Can I take your tie off?

JOE
(Stepping back)
: No, wait, I'm, um, um, uncomfortable, actually.

LOUIS
: Me, too, actually. Being uncomfortable turns me on.

JOE
: Your, uh, boyfriend. He's sick. And I . . .

LOUIS
: Very. He's not my boyfriend, we—

     
We can cap everything that leaks in latex, we can smear our bodies with nonoxynol-9, safe, chemical sex. Messy, but not dirty.

     
(Little pause)

     
Look I want to but I don't want to beg.

JOE
: No, I—

LOUIS
: Oh come on.
Please
.

JOE
: I should go.

LOUIS
: Fine! Ohblahdee, ohblahdah, life goes on. Rah.

JOE
: What?

LOUIS
: Hurry home to the missus.

     
(Points to Joe's left-hand ring finger)

     
Married gentlemen before cruising the Ramble should first remove their bands of gold.

(Joe stares at his wedding ring.)

LOUIS
: Go if you're going. Go.

(Joe starts to leave, hesitates, then turns back; he hesitates again, then goes to Louis and hugs him, awkwardly, collegially.)

JOE
: I'm not staying.

LOUIS
(Sniffing)
: What kind of cologne is that?

JOE
(A beat, then)
: Fabergé.

LOUIS
: OH!
Very
butch, very heterosexual high school. Fabergé.

(Louis gently breaks the hug, steps back a little.)

LOUIS
: You smell nice.

JOE
: So do you.

LOUIS
: Smell is . . . an incredibly complex and underappreciated physical phenomenon. Inextricably bound up with sex.

JOE
: I . . . didn't know that.

LOUIS
: It is. The nose is really a sexual organ.

     
Smelling. Is desiring. We have five senses, but only two that go beyond the boundaries . . . of ourselves. When you look at someone, it's just bouncing light, or when you hear them, it's just sound waves, vibrating air, or touch is just nerve endings tingling. Know what a smell is?

JOE
: It's . . . some sort of . . . No.

LOUIS
: It's made of the molecules of what you're smelling. Some part of you, where you meet the air, is airborne.

(Louis steps carefully closer to Joe, who still seems ready, though not
as
ready, to bolt.)

LOUIS
: Little molecules of Joe . . .
(Leaning in, inhaling deeply)
Up my nose.

     
Mmmm . . . Nice. Try it.

JOE
: Try . . .?

LOUIS
: Inhale.

(Joe leans toward Louis, inhales.)

LOUIS
: Nice?

JOE
: Yes.

     
I should—

LOUIS
(Quietly)
: Ssssshhhh.

     
Smelling. And tasting.

     
(Moving in closer)
First the nose, then the tongue.

JOE
(Taking a half-step back, scared)
: I just don't—

LOUIS
(Stepping forward)
: They work as a team, see. The nose tells the body—the heart, the mind, the fingers the cock—what it wants, and then the tongue explores, finding out what's edible, what isn't, what's most mineral,
food for the blood, food for the bones, and therefore most delectable.

(Louis licks the side of Joe's cheek.)

LOUIS
: Salt.

(Louis kisses Joe, who holds back a moment and then responds.)

LOUIS
: Mmm. Iron. Clay.

(Louis slips his hand down the front of Joe's pants, groping him. Joe shudders. Louis pulls his hand out, smells and tastes his fingers, and then holds them for Joe to smell.)

LOUIS
: Chlorine. Copper. Earth.

(They kiss again.)

LOUIS
: What does that taste like?

JOE
: Um . . .

LOUIS
: What?

JOE
: Well . . . Nighttime.

LOUIS
: Stay?

JOE
: Yes.

(They kiss again. Louis starts unbuttoning Joe's shirt.)

JOE
: Louis?

LOUIS
: Hmmm?

JOE
: What did that mean, ohblahdee ohblah—

LOUIS
: Sssssh. Words are the worst things. Breathe. Smell.

JOE
: But—

LOUIS
: Or if you have to talk, talk dirty.

Scene 3

The same night. The sounds of wind and snow. Mr. Lies sits alone, still in his snowsuit, playing the oboe, in what's left of Harper's imaginary Antarctica, which is now bare, grim and grimy
.

Mr. Lies stops playing
.

MR. LIES
: The oboe: official instrument of the International Order of Travel Agents. If the duck was a songbird it would sing like this. Nasal, desolate, the call of migratory things.

(Harper enters dragging a small pine tree which she has felled, its slender stump-end shredded and splintered. The fantasy explorer gear from Act Three,
Scene 3
, of
Millennium
is gone; she is dressed in the hastily assembled outfit in which she fled the apartment at the end of Act Two,
Scene 9
: a thin pullover, a skirt, torn tights, gloves. She's been outdoors for three days now and looks it
—
filthy and disheveled. Her previous pioneer determination, stretched thin, has become desperate and angry.)

HARPER
: I'm FREEZING!

MR. LIES
(Pointing to the tree)
: Where did you get that?

HARPER
: From the great Antarctic pine forests. Right over that hill.

MR. LIES
: There are no pine forests in Antarctica.

HARPER
: I chewed this pine tree down. With my teeth. Like a beaver. I'm
hungry
, I haven't eaten in three days! I'm going to use it to build . . . something, maybe a fire.

(She takes a soggy box of matches from under her pullover. She strikes match after match; all dead
.

     
She gives up, and sits on the tree, heavy with despair.)

HARPER
: I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die. But there's still the rest of you. There's your breasts, and your genitals, and they're amazingly stupid, like babies or faithful dogs, they don't get it, they just want him. Want him.

(Joe enters the scene, dressed in his Temple garment, barefoot. He looks around, uncertain of where he is till he sees Harper.)

MR. LIES
: The Eskimo is back.

HARPER
: I know.

     
I wanted a real Eskimo, someone chilly and reliable, not this, this is just . . . some lawyer, just—

JOE
: Hey, buddy.

HARPER
: Hey.

JOE
: I looked for you. I've been everywhere.

HARPER
: Well, you found me.

JOE
: No, I . . . I'm not looking now. I guess I'm having an adventure.

HARPER
: Can I come with you? This isn't working anymore. I'm cold.

JOE
: I wouldn't want you to see.

HARPER
: Think it's worse than what I imagine? It's not.

JOE
: I should go.

HARPER
: Bastard. You fell out of love with me.

JOE
: That isn't true, Harper.

HARPER
: Why did you come here? Leave me alone if you're so goddamned happy.

JOE
: You want me here.

(She nods.)

HARPER
: To see you again. Any way I can.

     
OH GOD I WISH YOU WERE—No I don't.

JOE
: Please don't.

HARPER
: DEAD.

     
Come back.

(Little pause.)

JOE
: Oh, buddy, I wish so much that I could. But how can I?

I can't.

(He vanishes
.

     
Mr. Lies plays the oboe
—
a brief, wild lament. The magic Antarctic night fades away, replaced by a harsh sodium light and the ordinary sounds of the park and the city in the distance.)

MR. LIES
: Blues for the death of Heaven.

HARPER
(Shattered, scared)
: No . . .

MR. LIES
: I tried to tell you. There are no Eskimo in Antarctica.

HARPER
: No. No trees either.