He turned, unfurled his coat, went for his gun.
Hollis opened fire, the others too.
I never even flicked my safety off.
He dropped like a puppet with his strings cut.
Dead before he hit the grease!
I have a headache!
Get out of my dream!
Last night I saw Director Hoover
Gloating over my death, dressed as a woman,
Perched like a black crow above my grave.
DILLINGER: And did you read your epitaph on the stone?
PURVIS: Who are you?
DILLINGER: I told you. You forgot.
PURVIS: I’ve used ries to think on this—
DILLINGER: What centuries?
PURVIS: The centuries I’ve wandered
Through this labyrinth with half a head…
[DILLINGER fades from view. PURVIS alone in the void.]
Lay the cinder of your life across
From mine on the balance, and you’ll see which rises.
Witness the consolations of faith—
DILLINGER’S VOICE: You’re dead!
Where’s God? In death it just goes on: still less
And less of anything and more of nothing.
We are the gods, immortal, helpless infants
Watching our minds paint themselves on blackness.
PURVIS: Liar!…Demon!
…Whom do I have the honor of addressing?
BLACKOUT
Scene 4
Spring 1959: An office at KSBC radio, Florence, South Carolina.
PURVIS and JOB INTERVIEWER, both in business attire.
Occasionally we hear the mooing of cows outside.
PURVIS: Coffee…
INT: I’m sorry! I’ll pour you—
PURVIS: Don’t bother, it’s
fine—
INT: No bother a-tall! I’m just a little—
PURVIS: Oops.
INT: I’ll wipe that—God!—here—
PURVIS: Not your handkerchief!
INT: That’s what it’s for!
PURVIS: All right, I’ll have another—
INT: I’m just a little nervous, shall we say.
PURVIS: But I’m the one who’s seeking the position.
INT: Mr. Purvis, you’re a man of character.
PURVIS: Thank you, sir.
INT: And we are out of cream.
I feel we’re lacking.
PURVIS: Not at all. Black’s fine.
INT: I’m sugar and cream. I feel a certain lack!
…It must have been something, fighting those evil gangsters.
Happy…no doubts…evil versus good…
To be able to see it all as black or white.
PURVIS: I believe that’s what it is. Don’t you?
INT: I don’t know. Sometimes it looks to be,
But isn’t that a sort of gift
Of circumstance or something, circumstance,
When right and wrong come clear?
PURVIS: I think it’s the world.
INT: And other times, though? Aren’t some people forced
Beyond unbearably beyond for instance
I don’t know. Sometimes, to jump on any
Means for stealing satisfaction from
This harlot earth, it just about feels sensible.
Or anyway it sort of sometimes I don’t know.
I shouldn’t talk. The dirty harlot world
Has never stressed my character or tried
My soul with anything more than office supplies.
PURVIS: And did you withstand the test?
INT: I paid them back.
PURVIS: We start off seeing black and white. But then
We mix the two and things get murky, don’t they?
INT: But that’s what I mean, I mean, they’re here to use,
For me to use, and so I lug some home,
Because I work at home, you see, sometimes,
So it’s not who or where but how you use
A stapler or—you see how it gets tricky
Just by being stuff don’t hardly count,
Just nickels from the coffee fund to plink
For Coca-Cola, which is practically
The same as coffee, only colder, till
A three-cent stamp grows complicated and
This feeling grabs you that you’re doing something,
Something, yes, murky.—Come to murk:
My daddy used to give this lecture where
He’d talk of cleaning up our insides, pouring
The clarity of goodness over the bilge
And swill—well, you know, kind of like you’d lavish
Good water into a glass of dirty water?—
Until we’re filling up and spilling over?—
And just keep pouring till we stand there clean?
And then God lifts us to his lips, I guess…
PURVIS: I’m sorry—your daddy was a lecturer?
INT: At almost every opportunity!
He doesn’t lecture quite so much these days.
PURVIS: He’s still living?
INT: Bless his soul, I think
He is, barely!…How’d we get on this?
—At least the ice is busted anyways!
Soun’ like time to crack this li’l ol’ flask!
PURVIS: Would that reflect too wisely on my efforts
To land employment here at—
INT: Efforts? Heck,
As far as I’m concerned, the job is yours.
I don’t have final say, but pretty doggone
Near to that, and I say: “Hire the man
Who collared Dillinger.”
PURVIS: Again: I thank you, sir.
INT: Ludicrous you should even interview.
PURVIS: I’m glad to do it.
INT: Fair is fair,
We might as well see every applicant,
But we won’t see a better—no, you’re welcome—
PURVIS: Thank you.
INT: Yes. You’re welcome.
…Mr. Purvis, just this very morning
I poked around—my kid’s got this old lunch box,
Old box full of odds and ends, his wealth:
A beat-up Hohner brand harmonica,
A half a pliers—you know, just one, just one
Plier you know…rocks that must have winked
Beside the crick, but dried off they’re just dull,
Doodads, thingums, hoojiemajiggers, stuff,
Which I was stirring my curious nosy finger
Around amongst, and just you look at this.
PURVIS: You don’t say!
INT: Lodged among the whatnots.
PURVIS: How on earth did he come by such a thing?
INT: That there is mine. I am a Junior G-man.
PURVIS: You mean in thirty-six, I guess, or thirty—
INT: Back when I was a—yep, in thirty-seven.
Must be—twenty-some-odd—twenty-what—
PURVIS: Delivered from the dark, devouring—
INT: I
Was quite an admirer or something.
PURVIS: The swarm of
days.
A Melvin Purvis Junior G-man badge.
INT [British accent]: “Against the gangs of thugs who terrorize
America’s prairie states in the 1930s—
Blood-blind murder-mongers with a thirst
For roadhouse hootch and hungering for cash,
Writing their names in America’s headlines
With bullets from their tommy guns—against
These outlaw cutthroats ONE MAN STANDS TALL—
A G-man’s G-man and a he-man’s he-man,
Melvin Purvis, dedicated agent
Of Uncle Sam’s new law-enforcement army,
The Federal Division of Investigation,
Later to become the FBI.”
PURVIS: Remarkable.
INT: Remarkable…indeed.
They showed a rousing good short subj
ect all
About you in a theater in London—
Or, anyways, about the FBI.
PURVIS:…And you saw London.
INT: I saw France. I saw
Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, also watched
Bavaria from a train after the war.
Snapshots of a land defeated passing…
Yep. I fished it from the cereal.
“Melvin Purvis Junior G-man Corps.”
I was quite an admirer of—you.
I didn’t know who Melvin Purvis was,
Or what he did, I just assumed you were
The emperor of all the G-men—well,
I found out later on—the history,
You wouldn’t even call it history,
I mean it seems so fresh and so alive,
And even to this day, John Dillinger
And Legs and Dutch and Bugsy, names
Like Pretty Boy, Machine Gun, Baby Face…
And I was a Junior G-man and believed
That Melvin Purvis was our king.
PURVIS: O, no,
Not king. The king was Hoover. Was and is.
The king of the G-men, lord of the Junior G-men,
Generalissimo of all the girls
In the Special Junior G-man Girls’ Division;
We all were the trembling subjects of J. Edgar,
Immortal Emperor of Is and Was.
INT: And, Mr. Purvis, what of Baby Face?
Didn’t I read somewhere you caught him, too?
PURVIS: I wasn’t present at his capture.
INT: Was he
Captured?
PURVIS: He was killed. He fought it out.
INT: I’d be honored if I could work with you.
I’ll do everything I can. I’ll go to bat
With all my might and see what we can do.
PURVIS: I’ll be pleased and grateful if
With all your might you’ll see what you can do.
INT: I rose no higher than the junior echelon.
…ONE MAN STANDS TALL.
PURVIS: Remarkable.
…You went to war?
INT: Yes. No. I went, I mean—
The European theater—but never
Witnessed or experienced actual—
Participated in hostilities—
I have a marksman’s badge. It’s not a medal,
Just a, just a badge. For hitting targets.
PURVIS: I never went to war but there:
In Illinois…Wisconsin…In Ohio
Pretty Boy Floyd lay down in a field and died,
Not like an outlaw monster but like any
Baffled youngster with a punctured belly,
Died as I imagine he might have died
In service of his country, that’s to say
I saw the same expression in his eyes
I would have seen if we two had enlisted
And shipped for France together at eighteen
Like some of the boys I went to high school with,
And he’d got shot beside me, and I’d held
His fingers and talked happy while the mud
Engrossed him. No, I never saw a war,
But I saw something real.
INT: Good God.
PURVIS: …You read the account?
INT: I didn’t read—
PURVIS: Recently the officer present says
At my behest he dispatched Charles A. Floyd
With a bullet to the head while Floyd lay helpless.
At my express command.
INT: That’s damnable!
PURVIS: It would have been if I had done.
INT: I mean
To say a thing like that! It’s scandalous.
PURVIS: So long as what he claims is false.
INT: But say!
He stains your name!
PURVIS: Unless, of course,
He tells the truth.
INT: He tells a goddamn lie!
Excuse the color of my speech! But say!
—But coming back to black and white: the notion
This one inhabits goodness, that one’s veins
Beat with Satan’s blood, I mean—
PURVIS: All right,
Of course the certainty drains slowly away.
It’s as if the battleground surfaces from the ocean
Of gore and the droplets drain from the faces and then
What you have are silly Midwestern boys
And arrogant men with badges on our breasts.
…My qualifications as a broadcaster—
INT: You pick it up in two, three weeks. I did.
Fact is I studied with an eye on law.
Went to the local college, just three years.
That college right there…
PURVIS: O! Right there! Ah—
INT: A feller couldn’t get more local than that!
PURVIS: I thought it was a—sanitarium,
A lunatic’s retreat, or lazar house.
INT: Ha-ha-ha-ha, isn’t that a place
For pestilential leper sorts of folks?
A lazar house?
PURVIS: Yes. That is, it looks—
INT: No, a college—well, it used to be
A mental hospital, but ever since
I’ve known of it, it’s been the Baptist college.
Say now, what on earth’s the difference?
Either one, you’d have to be crazy to go there.
PURVIS: O, now—
INT: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
…You wonder about the kids: how do they choose—
I didn’t know where to head for, so one day
I walked in through that door and interviewed,
Right like you right now. That was a turn in the road.
Prelaw…I almost tried philosophy…
I nearly majored in theology.
I was drawn to it because…I feel a lack.
I missed my call, I reckon. Yes, right there
I reached a turn in the road. Do you have children?
PURVIS: Children?
INT: Yes.
PURVIS: —For goodness’ sake, of course,
You got me thinking. Yes. I have three sons,
All grown up and on their own. And you?
…O, yes, the—Sorry, yes, the…lunchbox.
INT: I swore I wouldn’t do this, Mr. Purvis,
But I have actually brought the original—
Would you do me the honor of an autograph?
PURVIS: “Official Bulletin from Melvin Purvis!”
Thanks—I’ve got a—sure—I’ll—thanks—
INT: Use mine!
“A special greeting to all Junior G-men!”
…“Purvis”—that’s like “Elvis.”
PURVIS: I’m not Elvis.
INT: Elvis Presley.
PURVIS: Yes. I know, the—
INT: The—
PURVIS: Hillbilly singer.
INT: Gosh. I’m talking crazy.
I’m just so nervous. Right—I do have kids.
…“In the days when I was a Junior G-man…”
“Confidential from Melvin Purvis.” Well—
It’s sort of an intoxicating honor,
I mean to me you’re big, as big as Elvis
Would be to my—I have a son, a daughter…
PURVIS: Elvis Purvis!
INT: Ha ha ha ha ha…
Young women mystify and terrify me.
Have you seen the way they wear those peasant blouses,
And they pull the elastic down to expose their white
And mystifying and terrifying shoulders?
PURVIS: Ha ha ha ha ha.
INT: Elvis Purvis, ha ha ha ha ha.
…Is it true that Dillinger, you know, had
A monstrous, you know, had a monstrous—
PURVIS: Yes.
In an attempt to minister to his wounds
They cut his clothing from him in the van
As I was watching. Never such a one<
br />
On any human being. There was gathered
All the animal evil in him, coiled
And burgeoning.
INT: I see. I shouldn’t—well.
—I am that very ordinary bird called
The Carolina Pot-gut Button-popper.
Middle-aged old rooster with his wings clipped.
Tell the truth I wouldn’t be surprised
One morning if I laid a egg! Rr-rr
Rr-roo! My wife thinks I’m a clumsy oaf.
I’m no longer the graceful oaf she married.
…Never a G-man. Naught but a Junior G-man.
I haven’t got what it takes to be a G-man.
PURVIS: Now, now, you were what?—Eight? Seven?
INT: Seven or eight, I guess—
PURVIS: Yes, you were young,
You did your very best, I’m sure you made—
INT: I licked the bottom drops of my resolve—
PURVIS: Made every effort—
INT: Every, yes, I did—
PURVIS: Made every effort conceivable in a boy,
A child of seven or eight—
INT: I’m still a child.
…O, I had that pamphlet memorized!
“Tips for shadowing suspects.” “Secret codes.”
“About disguises.” “How to surround a house.”
Sometimes I feel, do you ever feel, I feel
At night as if my own house is surrounded.
The nights don’t give me my rest like they should.
I’m startled awake by noises that aren’t there.
I hear the wind, and I can feel the night
Lying over everything.
I can smell the ashtrays in the rooms.
I listen to my wife’s breathing,
And sometimes it stops for long intervals,
Sometimes I count as high as eighteen, twenty,
Then she takes a breath. And I realize:
O, my Lord, I’m actually going to die.
Someday these thoughts will end—
I roll out of bed in terror and I fall
To my knees beside the bed
And I call out for anything at all
To hear me, and I shape a clear resolve
Soul of a Whore and Purvis: Two Plays in Verse Page 14
