Angels in America

by Tony Kushner

  PRIOR: Threshold of revelation. Now: Ask me how I know he’s a Mormon.

  (Louis stares, shocked; Prior’s as surprised as Louis.)

  PRIOR: Is he a Mormon?

  (Little pause, then impressed and frightened:)

  Well, goddamn.

  Ask me how I knew.

  LOUIS: How?

  PRIOR (Furious): Fuck you! I’m a prophet!

  Reasonable? Limits? Tell it to my lungs, stupid, tell it to my lesions, tell it to the cotton-woolly patches in my eyes!

  LOUIS: Prior, I . . . haven’t seen him for days now, I just—

  PRIOR: I’m going, I have limits, too.

  (Prior starts to leave. He has an attack of respiratory trouble. He sits heavily on the bench. Louis reaches out to him; Prior waves him away.

  Louis cries. Prior looks at Louis.)

  PRIOR: You cry, but you endanger nothing in yourself. It’s like the idea of crying when you do it. Or the idea of love.

  So. Your boyfriend—

  LOUIS: He’s not my—

  PRIOR: Tell me where you met him.

  LOUIS: In the park. Well, first at work, he—

  PRIOR: He’s a lawyer or a judge?

  LOUIS: Lawyer.

  PRIOR: A Gay Mormon Lawyer.

  LOUIS: Yes. Republican too.

  PRIOR: A Gay Mormon Republican Lawyer. (With scathing contempt) Louis . . .

  LOUIS: But he’s sort of, I don’t know if the word would be . . . well, in a way sensitive, and I—

  PRIOR: Ah. A sensitive gay Republican.

  LOUIS: He’s just company. Companionship.

  (Pause.)

  PRIOR: Companionship. Oh.

  You know just when I think he couldn’t possibly say anything to make it worse, he does. Companionship. How good. I wouldn’t want you to be lonely.

  There are thousands of gay men in New York City with AIDS and nearly every one of them is being taken care of by . . . a friend or by . . . a lover who has stuck by them through things worse than my . . . So far. Everyone got that, except me. I got you. Why? What’s wrong with me?

  (Louis is crying again.)

  PRIOR: Louis? Are you really bruised inside?

  LOUIS: I can’t have this talk anymore.

  PRIOR: Oh the list of things you can’t do. So fragile! Answer me: Inside: Bruises?

  LOUIS: Yes.

  PRIOR: Come back to me when they’re visible. I want to see black and blue, Louis, I want to see blood. Because I can’t believe you even have blood in your veins till you show it to me. So don’t come near me again, unless you’ve got something to show.

  (Prior leaves.)

  Scene 3

  Night of the following day. Roy’s hospital room. There are several new machines, monitoring Roy’s condition, which is considerably worse. Roy is sleeping a deep, morphine-induced sleep. Belize enters, carrying a tray and a glass of water. With some difficulty he wakes up Roy.

  BELIZE: Time to take your pills.

  ROY (Waking, very disoriented): What? What time of . . .

  Water.

  (Belize gives him a glass of water. Roy takes a sip.)

  ROY: Bitter.

  Look out there. Black midnight.

  BELIZE: You want anything?

  ROY: Nothing that comes from there. As far as I’m concerned you can take all that away.

  (Seeing Belize) Oh . . .

  BELIZE: What?

  ROY: Oh. The bogeyman is here.

  Lookit, Ma, a schvartze toytenmann.

  Come in, sweetheart, what took you so long?

  BELIZE: You’re flying, Roy. It’s the morphine. They put morphine in the drip to stop the . . . You awake? Can you see who I am?

  ROY: Oh yeah, you came for my mama, years ago.

  (Confiding, intimate) You wrap your arms around me now. Squeeze the bloody life from me. OK?

  BELIZE: Uh, no, it’s not OK. You’re stoned, Roy.

  ROY: Dark strong arms, take me like that. Deep and sincere but not too rough, just open me up to the end of me.

  BELIZE (A beat, then gently): Who am I, Roy?

  ROY: The Negro night nurse, my negation. You’ve come to escort me to the underworld. (A serious sexual invitation) Come on.

  (A weight of sadness descends on Belize. He puts down the pill tray and bends close over Roy:)

  BELIZE: You want me in your bed, Roy? You want me to take you away.

  ROY: I’m ready . . .

  BELIZE: I’ll be coming for you soon. Everything I want is in the end of you.

  (Belize starts to move away from Roy.)

  ROY: Let me ask you something, sir.

  BELIZE: Sir?

  ROY: What’s it like? After?

  BELIZE: After . . .?

  ROY: This misery ends.

  BELIZE: Hell or Heaven?

  ROY: Aw, come on . . . Jesus Christ, who has time for these . . . games . . .

  BELIZE: Like San Francisco.

  ROY: A city. Good. I was worried . . . it’d be a garden. I hate that shit.

  BELIZE: Mmmm.

  Big city, overgrown with weeds, but flowering weeds.

  (Roy smiles and nods. Belize sits on the bed, next to Roy.)

  BELIZE: On every corner a wrecking crew and something new and crooked going up catty-corner to that. Windows missing in every edifice like broken teeth, fierce gusts of gritty wind, and a gray, high sky full of ravens.

  ROY: Isaiah.

  BELIZE: Prophet birds, Roy.

  Piles of trash, but lapidary like rubies and obsidian, and diamond-colored cow-spit streamers in the wind. And voting booths.

  ROY: And a dragon atop a golden horde.

  BELIZE: And everyone in Balenciaga gowns with red corsages, and big dance palaces full of music and lights and racial impurity and gender confusion.

  (Roy laughs softly, delighted.)

  BELIZE: And all the deities are Creole, mulatto, brown as the mouths of rivers.

  (Roy laughs again.)

  BELIZE: Race, taste and history finally overcome.

  And you ain’t there.

  ROY (Shaking his head no in happy agreement): And Heaven?

  BELIZE (A beat, then): That was Heaven, Roy.

  ROY: The fuck it was.

  (Suspicious, frightened) Who are you?

  (Belize stands up.)

  BELIZE (Soft, calming): Your negation.

  ROY: Yeah. I know you. Nothing. A stomach grumble that wakes you in the night.

  (Ethel enters.)

  BELIZE: Been nice talking to you. Go to sleep now, baby. I’m just the shadow on your grave.

  Scene 4

  The next day. Joe in his office at the courthouse in Brooklyn. He sits dejectedly at his desk. Prior and Belize enter the corridor outside.

  PRIOR (Whisper): That’s his office.

  BELIZE (Whisper): This is stupid.

  PRIOR (Whisper): Go home if you’re chicken.

  BELIZE: You’re the one who should be home.

  PRIOR: I have a hobby now: haunting people. Fuck home. You wait here. I want to meet my replacement.

  (Prior goes to Joe’s door, opens it, steps in.)

  PRIOR: Oh.

  JOE: Yes, can I—

  PRIOR: You look just like the dummy. She’s right.

  JOE: Who’s right?

  PRIOR: Your wife.

  (Pause.)

  JOE: What?

  Do you know my—

  PRIOR: No.

  JOE: You said my wife.

  PRIOR: No I didn’t.

  JOE: Yes you did.

  PRIOR: You misheard. I’m a Prophet.

  JOE: What?

  PRIOR: PROPHET PROPHET I PROPHESY I HAVE SIGHT I SEE.

  What do you do?

  JOE: I’m a clerk.

  PRIOR: Oh big deal. A clerk. You what, you file things? Well you better be keeping a file on the hearts you break, that’s all that counts in the end, you’ll have bills to pay in the world to come, you and your friend, the Whore of Babylon.

  (Little pa
use)

  Sorry wrong room.

  (Prior exits, goes to Belize.)

  PRIOR (Despairing): He’s the Marlboro Man.

  BELIZE: Oooh, I wanna see.

  (Joe is standing, perplexed, when Belize enters the office. Belize instantly recognizes Joe.)

  BELIZE: Sacred Heart of Jesus!

  JOE: Now what is—

  You’re Roy’s nurse. I recognize you, you’re—

  BELIZE: No you don’t.

  JOE: From the hospital. You’re Roy Cohn’s nurse.

  BELIZE: No I’m not. Not a nurse. We all look alike to you. You all look alike to us. It’s a mad mad world. Have a nice day.

  (Belize exits, runs back to Prior.)

  PRIOR: Home on the range?

  BELIZE: Chaps and spurs. Now girl we got to get you home and into—

  PRIOR: Mega-butch. He made me feel beyond nelly. Like little wispy daisies were sprouting out my ears. Little droopy wispy wilted—

  (Joe comes out of his office.)

  BELIZE: Run! Run!

  JOE: Wait!

  (They’re cornered by Joe. Belize averts his face, masking his mouth and chin with his scarf.)

  JOE: What game are you playing, this is a federal courthouse. You said . . . something about my wife. Now what . . . How do you know my—

  PRIOR: I’m . . . Nothing. I’m a mental patient. He’s my nurse.

  BELIZE: Not his nurse, I’m not a n—

  PRIOR: We’re here because my will is being contested. Um, what is that called, when they challenge your will?

  JOE: Competency? But this is an appellate court.

  PRIOR: And I am appealing to anyone, anyone in the universe, who will listen to me for some . . . Charity . . . Some people are so . . . greedy, such pigs, they have everything, health, everything, and still they want more.

  JOE: You said my wife. And I want to know, is she—

  PRIOR: TALK TO HER YOURSELF, BULLWINKLE! WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR?

  (To Belize) Oh, nursey dear, fetch the medication, I’m starting to rave.

  BELIZE: Pardons, Monsieur 1’Avocat, nous sommes absolument Desolée.

  (Prior blows a raspberry at Joe.)

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

  (Prior exits.)

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

  Scene 5

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

  BELIZE: Nice angel.

  LOUIS: What angel?

  BELIZE: The fountain.

  LOUIS (Looking): Bethesda.

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

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

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

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

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

  LOUIS: Listen. I saw Prior yesterday.

  BELIZE: Prior is upset.

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

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

  LOUIS: You had no right to do that.

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

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

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

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

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

  (Pause.)

  LOUIS: Come again?

  BELIZE: Doesn’t that bother you at all?

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

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

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

  BELIZE (Starting to go): Bye-bye.

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

  BELIZE: I beg your pardon.

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

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

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

  BELIZE: Buttboy.

  LOUIS (In complete despair, quietly): Oh no.

  BELIZE: You know what your problem is, Louis? Your problem is that you are so full of piping hot crap that the mention of your name draws flies. You don’t even know Thing One about this guy, do you?

  (Louis shakes his head no.)

  BELIZE: Uh-huh. Well ain’t that pathetic.

  Just so’s the record’s straight: I love Prior but I was never in love with him. I have a man, uptown, and I have since long before I first laid my eyes on the sorry-ass sight of you.

  LOUIS: I . . . I didn’t know that you—

  BELIZE: No ’cause you never bothered to ask.

  Up in the air, just like that angel, too far off the earth to pick out the details. Louis and his Big Ideas. Big Ideas are all you love. “America” is what Louis loves.

  (Louis is looking at the angel, not at Belize.)

  LOUIS: So what? Maybe I do. You don’t know what I love.

  You don’t.

  BELIZE: Well I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you.

  The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word “free” to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me.

  You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I’ll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean.

  (A rumble of thunder. Then the rain comes. Belize has a collapsible umbrella, and he raises it. Louis stands in the rain.)

  BELIZE: I live in America, Louis, that’s hard enough,
I don’t have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something.

  (Belize leaves.)

  LOUIS (Quiet, resolved): Everybody does.

  Scene 6

  Same day. Hannah sits alone at the Visitors’ Center reception desk. It’s dark outside, and raining steadily. Distant thunder.

  Joe enters.

  They look at each other for a long moment.

  JOE: You shouldn’t have come.

  HANNAH: You already made that clear as day.

  JOE: I’m sorry. I . . . I . . . don’t understand why you’re here.

  HANNAH: For more than two weeks. You can’t even return a simple phone call.

  JOE: I just don’t . . . have anything to say. I have nothing to say.

  HANNAH: You could tell me so I could tell her where you are. You’ve been living on some rainy rooftop for all we knew. It’s cruel.

  JOE: Not intended to be.

  HANNAH: You’re sure about that.

  JOE: I’m taking her home.

  HANNAH: You think that’s best for her, you think that she should—

  JOE: I know what I’m doing.

  HANNAH: I don’t think you have a clue. You can afford not to. You’re a man, you botch up, it’s not a big deal, but she’s been—

  JOE: Just being a man doesn’t mean . . . anything.

  It’s still a big deal, Ma. Botching up.

  (Tough, cold, angry, holding it in) And nothing works. Not all my . . . oh, you know, my effortful clinging to the good, to what’s right, not pursuing . . . freedom, or happiness. Nothing, nothing works anymore, nothing I try fixes anything at all, nothing, I’ve got nothing, now, my whole life, all I’ve done is make . . . botches. Just . . .

  (He looks down, shakes his head; he can’t continue. Then:)

  I’m really . . . um . . . (This is not the word he wants to say) bewildered . . .

  (Little pause. Hannah looks at him; he wants consolation, but something stops her.)

  HANNAH (Quietly but firmly): Being a woman’s harder. Look at her.

  (Little pause.)

  JOE: You and me. It’s like we’re back in Salt Lake again. You sort of bring the desert with you.

  Is she . . .?

  HANNAH: She’s not here.

  JOE: But . . . I went to the apartment. She isn’t . . .

  HANNAH: Then she’s escaped.

  I think maybe motion’s better for her right now, being out and away from—

  JOE: It’s raining. She can’t be out on her own.

  HANNAH: Can I help look for—