Angels in America (23 page)

(She takes her hand from his shoulder.)

ANGEL
: I I I I stop down the road, waiting for you.

(Tenderly, she puts her arm about his waist.)

ANGEL
(Almost a whisper)
: You Know Me Prophet: Your battered heart,

              
Bleeding Life in the Universe of Wounds.

(The Angel presses the Book against Prior's chest, then presses her body against his. Together they experience something unnameable
—
painful, joyful, in equal measure. There is a terrible sound.)

ANGEL
: Vessel of the BOOK now: Oh Exemplum Paralyticum:

     
On you in you in your blood we write have written:

     
STASIS!

     
The END.

(She releases Prior, who sinks to the floor. In gales of music, holding the Book aloft, the Angel ascends.)

Scene 3

The bedroom disappears. While this is happening, Prior stands, and, again, with deliberate, unhurried pace, changes into his street clothes. When he's ready he resumes his place beside Belize, who's waiting, thinking, on the street in front of the funeral home
.

Prior and Belize stare at one another, silent for a beat, and then:

BELIZE
: Uh-huh. I . . .

     
Well what do you want me to say?

PRIOR
: It's . . . nuts.

BELIZE
: It's . . .
worse
than nuts, it's— “Don't migrate”? “Don't mingle”? That's . . . kind of malevolent, isn't it, 'cause—
(Continue below:)

PRIOR
: I hardly think it's appropriate for you to get
offended
, I didn't invent this shit it was
visited
on—

BELIZE
(Continuous from above)
: —you know, some of us didn't exactly
choose
to migrate, know what I'm saying, some of us— But it
is
offensive or at least monumentally confused and it's not . . .
visited
, Prior. By who? It
is
from you, what else is it?

PRIOR
: Something else.

BELIZE
: That's crazy.

PRIOR
: Then I'm crazy.

BELIZE
: No, you're—

PRIOR
: Then it was an angel.

BELIZE
: It was
not
an—

PRIOR
: Then I'm crazy. The whole world is, why not me? It's 1986 and there's a
plague
, friends younger than me are dead, and I'm only thirty, and every goddamn morning I wake up and I think Louis is next to me in the bed and it takes me long minutes to remember . . . that this is
real
, it isn't just an impossible, terrible dream, so maybe yes I'm flipping out.

BELIZE
(Angry)
: Stop.

     
(Tough, harsh, very clear)
This is not dementia. And this is not real. This is just you, Prior, afraid of . . . Of what's coming. Afraid of time.

     
But see that's just not how it goes, the world doesn't spin backwards.

(Prior starts to say something. Belize holds up his hand, forbidding, and Prior obeys.)

BELIZE
: Listen to the world, to how fast it goes.

(They listen, and the sounds of the city grow louder and louder, filling the stage, sounds of traffic, whistles, alarms, people, all very fast and very complex and very determinedly moving ahead.)

BELIZE
: That's New York traffic, baby, that's the sound of energy, the sound of time. Even if you're hurting, it can't go back.

     
You better fucking not flip out. There's no angel. You hear me? For me?
(Continue below:)

THE ANGEL'S VOICE
: Whisper into the ear of the World, Prophet.
(Continue below:)

BELIZE
(Continuous from above)
: I can handle anything but not this happening to you.

THE ANGEL'S VOICE
(Continuous from above)
: Wash up red in the tide of its dreams,

     
And billow bloody words into the sky of sleep.

(Prior steps back from Belize, withdrawing.)

PRIOR
: I'm sorry, baby, I . . . I've tried, really, but . . . I can't, it follows me, it won't let me go. So, maybe I'm a prophet. Not me, alone, all of us, the, the ones who're dying now. Maybe the virus is the prophecy? Be still. Maybe the world has driven God from Heaven. Because, because I do believe that, that over and over, I've seen the end of things. And
(He puts his hand near his eyes)
having seen, I'm going blind, as prophets do. Right? It makes a certain sense to me.

THE ANGEL'S VOICE
: FOR THIS AGE OF ANOMIE: A NEW LAW!
(Continue below:)

PRIOR
: Oh,
oh God
how I hate Heaven. But I've got no resistance left.

THE ANGEL'S VOICE
(Continuous from above)
: Delivered this night, this silent night, from Heaven,

     
Oh Prophet, to You.

(Prior kisses Belize good-bye.)

PRIOR
: Except to run.

(He limps away. Belize watches him go.)

ACT THREE:

Borborygmi

(The Squirming Facts Exceed the Squamous Mind)

January 1986

Scene 1

Several days after the end of Act Two. Split scene: Joe and Louis in bed in Louis's apartment, which is tidier, homier. Louis is sound asleep. Joe is awake, sitting up, watching Harper, who is in the living room of their Brooklyn apartment. She's dressed in a soiled nightgown. Returning Joe's stare, she removes her nightgown; she stands shivering, facing him in her bra, panties and stockings
.

Hannah, in a bathrobe, enters the Brooklyn living room, carrying a dress over her arm and a pair of shoes. She puts the shoes down in front of Harper
.

HANNAH
: Good you're out of that nightdress, it was starting to smell.

HARPER
: You're telling me.

HANNAH
: Now let's slip this on.

(They put the dress on Harper.)

HANNAH
: Good.

HARPER
: I hate it.

HANNAH
: It's pretty.

     
Shoes?

(Harper steps into them.)

HANNAH
: Now let's see about the hair.

(Harper bends over; Hannah combs Harper
'
s hair.)

HANNAH
: It can be very hard to accept how disappointing life is, Harper, because that's what it is, and you have to accept it. With faith and time and hard work you reach a point where . . . where the disappointment doesn't hurt as much, and then it gets easy to live with. Quite easy. Which . . . is in its own way a disappointment. But.

     
There.

HARPER
: In my old life, my previous life, I never used to get up at five
A.M.

     
(To Joe)
This is a nightmare.

HANNAH
: I said I'd open up.

HARPER
(Fake admiration)
: You volunteered.

HANNAH
: I can't sit around, idle.

HARPER
: You just got here, you could . . . sightsee, you could—

HANNAH
: I didn't come for fun.

HARPER
: You came to the right place.

HANNAH
: I leave messages for him at work. They say he's not in but I know he is, but he won't take my calls. He's ashamed.

JOE
: She's right.

HANNAH
: I'll fix myself.

JOE
: I am.

HANNAH
: And we can go.

(Hannah exits.)

HARPER
: You're in love with him.

(She crosses into Louis's bedroom. Joe shrinks from her, afraid, but he's careful not to wake Louis.)

JOE
: I am?

HARPER
: Don't ask
me
. Are you?

JOE
: How're you doing?

HARPER
: Huh. Maybe you're not in love with him. If you were, you wouldn't ask me that. You wouldn't be brave enough. You'd know.

LOUIS
(Still asleep, starting to wake)
: Joe . . .?

(Louis is asleep again.)

HARPER
: I have terrible powers. Maybe I'm a witch.

JOE
: You're not a—

HARPER
: I see more than I want to see. You can't do that. I could be a witch. Why not? I married a fairy. Anything's possible, any awful thing.

JOE
: Leave, Harper.

HARPER
: I knew you'd be with someone. You think of yourself as so lonely all the time, but you've never been alone.

JOE
: Oh that isn't . . . You don't know. I have felt very alone.

HARPER
: Till now.

(Harper puts her hand under Louis's head, and pushes up; Louis startles awake.)

LOUIS
: Who are you . . .?

JOE
(To Louis)
: I—It's nothing, just . . .

     
(To Harper)
Go.

(She vanishes.)

JOE
(To Louis)
: Morning.

     
Sleep well?

LOUIS
: No.

     
Did you?

JOE
: Soundly.

LOUIS
: How do you manage that? These fucking dreams, every . . .

     
Don't you have—

JOE
: I don't dream.

LOUIS
: Everybody dreams.

JOE
: I don't.

LOUIS
:
Ever?

JOE
: Not that I can remember.

     
Not since I started, um, being here, with you.

LOUIS
(A beat, then)
: You're a conundrum.

JOE
: Solve me.

     
(Embarrassed)
Sorry, that was really—

LOUIS
: But you can't—

JOE
: Weird, that was really—

LOUIS
: You can't
solve
conundrums, they're . . . bafflements, you can only, um . . .

JOE
: Conjecture.

(Louis nods.)

JOE
: So ask me something.

LOUIS
: Like . . .?

JOE
: Something you've never asked me before.

     
It should be easy, you haven't asked much.

(Louis looks around the room, as if not recognizing any of it, then he stares hard at Joe. A beat, then:)

LOUIS
: Who
are
you?