Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition (20 page)

(Belize snaps, turns, exits. Roy calls after him:)

ROY
: Any more of your lip, boy, and you’ll be flipping Big Macs in East Hell before tomorrow night!

     
(He picks up his bedside phone)

     
And get me a real phone, with a hold button, I mean look at this, it’s just one little line, now how am I supposed to perform basic bodily functions on
this?

     
(He lifts the receiver, clicks the hang-up button several times)

     
Yeah who is this, the operator? Give me an outside line. Well then dial for me. It’s a medical emergency,
darling, dial the fucking number or I’ll strangle myself with the phone cord.

     
202-733-8525.

     
(Little pause)

     
Martin Heller. Oh hi, Martin. Yeah I know what time it is, I couldn’t sleep, I’m busy dying. Listen, Martin, this drug they got me on, azido-methatalo-molamoca-whatchamacallit. Yeah. AZT.

     
I want my own private stash, Martin. Of serious Honest-Abe medicine. That I control, here in the room with me. No placebos, I’m no good at tests, Martin, I’d rather cheat. So send me my pills with a get-well bouquet,
PRONTO
, or I’ll ring up CBS and sing Mike Wallace a song:
(Sotto voce, with relish)
“The Ballad of Adorable Ollie North and His Secret Contra Slush Fund.”

     
(He holds the phone away from his ear; Martin is screaming)

     
Oh you only
think
you know all I know.
I
don’t even know what all I know. Half the time I just make it up, and it
still
turns out to be true! We learned that trick in the fifties. Tomorrow, you two-bit scumsucking shitheel flypaper insignificant dried-out little turd. A nice big box of drugs for Uncle Roy. Or there’ll be seven different kinds of hell to pay.
(He slams the receiver down)

ACT TWO:

The Anti-Migratory Epistle

(For Sigrid)

January 1986

Scene 1

Three weeks after the end of Act One. Prior and Belize stand outside a dilapidated funeral parlor on the Lower East Side. They’ve just left the funeral of a mutual friend, a major New York City drag-and-style queen. Belize is in defiantly bright and beautiful clothing. Prior is dressed oddly, a long black coat over black shirt and pants, and a large, fringed, black scarf draped like a hood around his head, capped off with black sunglasses; the effect is disconcerting, vaguely suggesting adherence to a severe, albeit elegant, religious discipline
.

Belize has been deeply moved by the service they’ve just attended. Prior is closed off in some place as dark as the costume he’s wearing
.

PRIOR
: It was tacky.

BELIZE
: It was divine.

     
He was one of the Great Glitter Queens. He couldn’t be buried like a
civilian
. Trailing sequins and incense he came into the world, trailing sequins and incense he departed it. And good for him!

PRIOR
: I thought the twenty professional Sicilian mourners were a bit much.

     
A great queen; big fucking deal. That ludicrous spectacle in there, just a parody of the funeral of someone who
really
counted. We don’t; faggots; we’re just a bad dream the real world is having, and the real world’s waking up. And he’s
dead
.

(Little pause.)

BELIZE
(Concerned, irritated)
: Lately, sugar, you have gotten very strange. Lighten up already.

PRIOR
: Oh I
apologize
, it was only a for-God’s-sake funeral, a cause for fucking
celebration
, sorry if I can’t join in with the rest of you death-junkies, gloating about your survival in the face of that . . . of his ugly demise because unlike you I have nothing to gloat about. Never mind.

(Angry little pause.)

BELIZE
: And you
look
like Morticia Addams.

PRIOR
: Like the Wrath of God.

BELIZE
: Yes.

PRIOR
: That is the intended effect.

     
My eyes are fucked-up.

BELIZE
: Fucked-up how?

PRIOR
: Everything’s . . . closing in. Weirdness on the periphery.

BELIZE
: Since when?

PRIOR
: For three weeks. Since the night when—
(He stops himself)

BELIZE
: Well what does the eye doctor say?

PRIOR
: I haven’t been.

BELIZE
: Oh for God’s sake.
Why?

PRIOR
: I was improving. Before.

     
Remember my wet dream.

BELIZE
: The angel?

PRIOR
: It wasn’t a dream.

BELIZE
: ’Course it was.

PRIOR
: No. I don’t think so. I think it really happened.

     
I’m a prophet.

BELIZE
: Say what?

PRIOR
: I’ve been given a prophecy. A Book. Not a
physical
book, or there was one but They took it back, but somehow there’s still this Book. In me. A prophecy. It . . . really happened, I’m—almost completely sure of it.

     
(He looks at Belize)

     
Oh stop looking so . . .

BELIZE
: You’re scaring me.

PRIOR
: It was after Louis left me. Every night I’d been having these horrible vivid dreams. And then . . .

(Little pause.)

BELIZE
: Then . . .?

PRIOR
: And then She arrived.

Scene 2

Three weeks earlier. The Angel and Prior in Prior’s bedroom. The wrecked ceiling, Prior in bed, the Angel in the air
.

As the scene shifts, Prior changes out of his prophet garb and into his pajamas onstage. He does this quietly, deliberately, forcing himself back into memory, preparing to tell Belize his tale
.

At first, Belize watches from the street, but soon he’s drawn into the bedroom
.

ANGEL
: Greetings, Prophet!

     
The Great Work Begins:

     
The Messenger has arrived.

PRIOR
(Terrified)
: Go away.

ANGEL
: Attend:

PRIOR
(Still terrified)
: Oh God there’s a thing in the air, a thing, a thing.

ANGEL
: I I I I

     
Am the Bird of America, the Bald Eagle,

     
Continental Principality,

     
LUMEN PHOSPHOR FLUOR CANDLE!

     
I unfold my leaves, Bright steel,

     
In salutation open sharp before you:

     
Prior WALTER

     
Long-descended, well-prepared.

PRIOR
(Even more terrified)
: No, I’m not prepared, for anything, I have lots to do, I—

ANGEL
(With a gust of music)
: American Prophet tonight you become,

     
American Eye that pierceth Dark,

     
American Heart all Hot for Truth,

     
The True Great Vocalist, the Knowing Mind,

     
Tongue-of-the-Land, Seer-Head!

PRIOR
: Oh, shoo! You’re scaring the shit out me, get the fuck out of my room. Please, oh please—

ANGEL
: Now:

              
Remove from their hiding place the Sacred Prophetic Implements.

(Little pause.)

PRIOR
: The
what
?

ANGEL
: Remove from their hiding place the Sacred Prophetic Implements.

     
(Little pause)

     
Your dreams have revealed them to you.

PRIOR
: What dreams?

ANGEL
: You have had dreams revealing to you—

PRIOR
: I haven’t had a dream I can remember in months.

ANGEL
(Stern)
: No . . .
dreams
, you—Are you sure?

PRIOR
: Yes. Well, the two dead Priors, they—

ANGEL
: No not the heralds, not them. Other dreams.

     
Implements, you must have—

     
One moment.

PRIOR
:
This
, this is a dream, obviously, I’m sick and so I—well OK it’s a pretty spectacular dream but still it’s just some—

ANGEL
(A flash of anger)
: Quiet. Prophet. A moment, please, I—
(Looking up, addressing unseen forces; severe)
The disorganization is—

     
(She coughs, looks up, rises higher in the air)

     
Yes.

     
(To Prior)
In the kitchen. Under the tiles under the sink.

PRIOR
: You want me to, to tear up the kitchen floor?

ANGEL
: Get a shovel or an axe or some . . .
tool
for dislodging tile and, and grout and unearth the Sacred Implements.

PRIOR
: No fucking way! The ceiling’s bad enough, I’ll lose the lease, I’ll lose my security deposit, I’ll wake up the downstairs neighbors, their hysterical dog, I—

     
Do it yourself.

ANGEL
(A tremendous, unearthly voice)
: SUBMIT, SUBMIT TO THE WILL OF HEAVEN!

(An enormous gust of wind knocks Prior over. He glares at her from the floor and shakes his head no. A standoff. The Angel coughs a little. There is a small explosion in the kitchen offstage. A cloud of plaster dust drifts in.)

PRIOR
: What did you— What . . .?
(Exits into the kitchen)

ANGEL
: And Lo, the Prophet was led by his nightly dreams to the hiding place of the Sacred Implements, and—Revision in the text: the Angel helped him to unearth them, for he was weak of body
(Pissed-off)
though not of will.

(Prior returns with an ancient leather suitcase, very dusty.)

PRIOR
: You cracked the refrigerator, you probably released a whole cloud of fluorocarbons, that’s bad for the, the environment.

ANGEL
: My wrath is as fearsome as my countenance is splendid. Open the suitcase.

(Prior does. He reaches inside and produces a pair of bronze spectacles with rocks instead of lenses.)

PRIOR
: Oh, look at this.

     
Like, wow, man, totally Paleozoic.
(He puts them on)

     
This is—

     
(He stops suddenly. His head jerks up. He is seeing something)

     
OH! OH GOD NO! OH—
(Horror-stricken, he rips off the spectacles)

     
That was terrible! I don’t want to see that!

ANGEL
: Remove the Book.

(Prior removes a large Book with bright steel pages from the suitcase. There is a really glorious burst of music, more light, more wind.)

ANGEL
: From the Council of Continental Principalities

     
Met in this time of Crisis and Confusion:

     
Heaven here reaches down to disaster

     
And in touching you touches all of Earth.

(Music. She points to the spectacles.)

ANGEL
: Peepstones.

(Prior retrieves them. He’s understandably reluctant to put them on.)

ANGEL
: Open me Prophet. I I I I am

     
The Book.

     
Read.

(Prior starts to put on the peepstones and then stops.)

PRIOR
: Wait. Wait.

     
How come . . . How come I have this, um, erection? It’s very hard to concentrate.