Angels in America (26 page)

HANNAH
(Continuous from above)
: But I know my duty when I see it, and if you and Joe could say the same we—

HARPER
(Continuous from above, to Prior)
: My mother-in-law! She sold her house! Her son calls and tells her he's a homo and what does she do? She sells her house! And she calls
me
crazy!
(To Hannah)
You have less of a place in this world than
I
do if that's possible.

PRIOR
(To Harper)
: Am I dreaming this, I don't understand.

HARPER
: He saw an angel.

HANNAH
: That's his business.

HARPER
: He's an angelologist.

PRIOR
: Well don't go blabbing about it.

HANNAH
(Losing the little cool she came in with; to Prior)
: If you aren't serious you shouldn't come in here.

HARPER
: Either that or he's nuts.

PRIOR
(To Hannah, also losing it)
: It's a
visitors
' center; I'm
visiting
.

HARPER
: He has a point.

HANNAH
(To Harper)
: Quiet!

     
(To Prior)
It's for serious visitors, it's a serious religion.

PRIOR
: Do they like,
pay
you to do this?

HARPER
: She volunteers.

PRIOR
: Because you're not very hospitable. I did see an angel.

HANNAH
(Blowing up!)
:
And what do you want me to do about it? I have problems of my own
.

     
The diorama's closed for repairs. You have to leave.

     
(To Harper)
Clean up this mess.
(She exits)

(Harper and Prior look at each other.)

PRIOR
: Oh God, I'm exhausted.

HARPER
: You don't look well. You really should be home in bed.

PRIOR
: I'll die there.

HARPER
: Better in bed than on the street. Just ask anyone.

(Prior gathers his things. He looks around the Diorama Room, and then at the trash around Harper's seat, and then at Harper.)

PRIOR
: Maybe you should leave, too.

HARPER
: I'm waiting.

PRIOR
: For what?

(Harper points to the Mormon Mother in the diorama.)

HARPER
: His wife. His mute wife. I'm waiting for her to speak. Bet her story's not so jolly.

(Prior looks at Harper, afraid. He remembers where they've met.)

PRIOR
: Dreaming used to be so . . . safe.

HARPER
: It isn't, though, it's dangerous, imagining to excess. It can blow up in your face. Threshold of revelation.

(Prior startles; then, as he searches for something to say:)

HARPER
: Till we meet again.

(Prior leaves
.

     
Harper sits alone for a bit, then, addressing the Mormon Mother:)

HARPER
: Bitter lady of the Plains, talk to me. Tell me what to do.

(The Mormon Mother turns to Harper, then stands and leaves the diorama stage. She gestures with her head for Harper to follow her
.

     
Harper goes to the diorama, gets in the Mormon Mother's seat.)

HARPER
(To the dummy father)
: Look at us. So perfect in place. The desert the mountains the previous century. Maybe I could have believed in you then. Maybe we should never have moved east.

     
(To the Mormon Mother)
I'm stuck. My heart's an anchor.

MORMON MOTHER
: Leave it, then. Can't carry no extra weight.

HARPER
: Was it a hard thing, crossing the prairies?

MORMON MOTHER
: You ain't stupid. So don't ask stupid. Ask something for real.

HARPER
(A beat, then)
: In your experience of the world. How do people change?

MORMON MOTHER
: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice.

     
God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he
insists
, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.

HARPER
: And then get up. And walk around.

MORMON MOTHER
: Just mangled guts pretending.

HARPER
: That's how people change.

(They exit.)

Scene 4

Late that afternoon. Split scene: Joe and Louis at Jones Beach, and later, Prior in his apartment, and Louis at a Brooklyn payphone
.

Joe and Louis are sitting shoulder to shoulder in the dunes, facing the ocean. It's cold. The sound of waves and gulls and distant Belt Parkway traffic. New York Romantic. Joe is very cold, Louis as always is oblivious to the weather
.

LOUIS
: The winter Atlantic. Wow, huh?

     
There used to be guys in the dunes even when it snowed. Nothing deterred us from the task at hand.

JOE
: Which was?

LOUIS
: Exploration. Across an unmapped terrain. The body of the homosexual human male. Here, or the Ramble, or the scrub pines on Fire Island, or the St. Mark's Baths. Hardy pioneers. Like your ancestors.

JOE
: Not exactly.

LOUIS
: And many have perished on the trail.

     
I fucked around a lot more than he did. No justice.

(Little pause.)

JOE
: I love it when you can get to places and see what it used to be. The whole country was like this once. A paradise.

LOUIS
: Ruined now.

JOE
: It's still a great country. Best place on earth. Best place to be.

LOUIS
(Staring at him a beat, then)
:
OY
. A
Mormon
.

JOE
: You never asked.

LOUIS
: So what else haven't you told me?

     
Joe?

     
So the fruity underwear you wear, that's . . .?

JOE
: A temple garment.

LOUIS
:
Oh my God
. What's it for?

JOE
: Protection. A second skin. I can stop wearing it if you—

LOUIS
: How can you stop wearing it if it's a skin? Your past, your beliefs, your—

JOE
: I know how you feel, I keep expecting Divine Retribution for this, but . . .

     
I'm actually happy. Actually.

LOUIS
: You're not happy, that's ridiculous, no one is happy. What am I doing? With you? With
anyone
, I should be
exterminated but with
you
: I mean politically, and, and you're probably bisexual, and, and I mean I really
like
you a lot, but—

(Joe puts his hand over Louis's mouth.)

LOUIS
: So, like,
this
is kind of hot . . .

JOE
: Shut up, OK?

(Louis nods. Joe takes his hand off Louis's mouth and, after looking all around, kisses him, deeply.)

JOE
: You know why you find the world so unsatisfying?

(Louis shakes his head no.)

JOE
: Because you believe it's perfectible.

LOUIS
: No I—

JOE
: You tell yourself you don't, but you do, you cling to fantasies of perfection, and, and kindliness, and you never face the sorrow of the world, its bitterness. The parts of it that are bitter.

LOUIS
(Intrigued)
: Huh.

JOE
: You have to reconcile yourself to the world's unperfectibility.

LOUIS
(Nodding)
: Reconcile. And . . . And how do you do that?

(Joe kisses Louis again, begins to unbutton Louis's shirt.)

JOE
: By being thoroughly in the world but not of it.

LOUIS
: You, you mean like a like an Emersonian kind of kind of thing? I don't see how that's um workable, practical, given, you know,
emotions
and—

(Joe bites Louis's nipple.)

LOUIS
: Oh God . . .

JOE
: You have to accept that we're not put here to make the entire earth into a heaven, you have to accept we can't. And accept as rightfully yours the happiness that comes your way.

LOUIS
: But . . .
Rightfully?
That's . . . so . . . Republican, it's—Bite my nipple again.

(Joe does. Louis responds. Joe starts to unzip Louis's pants. Louis stops him.)

LOUIS
: No, wait, fuck, I'm like lost in an ideological leather bar with you. I want my, my
clarity
back, what little I ever possessed, it's been stolen by, I mean, I mean I wish you weren't so, so . . .

JOE
: Conservative.

LOUIS
: No. So fucking gorgeous.
And conservative!
Though if you were gorgeous and your politics didn't horrifically suck I'd really be in trouble here, but yes, I do sort of wish you weren't responsible for everything bad and evil in the world.

JOE
(Not taking the bait, trying to keep the sex going forward)
: You give me way too much credit.

LOUIS
: Right, I mean, Reagan deserves his fair share.

(Joe playfully pulls Louis's hair, but Louis shakes his hand away. Louis's withdrawal is beginning to make Joe apprehensive: something's up.)

JOE
: You're obsessed, you know that? If people like you didn't have President Reagan to demonize, where would you be?

LOUIS
: If he didn't have people like me to demonize where would
he
be? Upper-right-hand square on
The Hollywood Squares
.

JOE
(Seriously)
: I'm not your enemy. Louis.

LOUIS
: I never said you were my—

JOE
: Fundamentally, we both want the same thing.

(Little pause. Louis nods his head yes, then:)

LOUIS
: I don't think that's true.

JOE
: It is.

     
What you did . . . When you walked out on him, that was, it must've been hard. To do that. The world may not understand it or approve but . . . You did what you needed to do. And, and since I first met you, I . . . I consider you very brave. I don't think I've ever met anyone as—

LOUIS
: Nobody does what I did, Joe. Nobody.

JOE
: But maybe many want to.

     
This is so . . . This isn't . . . But.

     
(Beat)

     
I. I'm maybe . . . falling in—

(Louis laughs, embarrassed and alarmed.)

LOUIS
: No you're not.

JOE
(Angry)
: Don't laugh at— Don't say that. I am. I'm—

LOUIS
: You're not! You can't be, it's only been two weeks.

     
(Continue below:)

JOE
: Three, actually, and what difference does that— I've never felt so, um, so happy to, so
hungry
for anyone before, it's like all the time I—

LOUIS
(Continuous from above)
: It takes
years
to . . . feel like that, love, love, ohmygod,
love
, if there even is such a
thing as, as— You
think
you do but that's just the, the gay virgin thing, that's—