Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Tony Kushner
LOUIS: Will you stop.
PRIOR: Don’t you think I’m handling this well?
I’m going to die.
LOUIS: Bullshit.
PRIOR: Let go of my arm.
LOUIS: No.
PRIOR: Let go.
LOUIS (Grabbing Prior, embracing him ferociously): No.
PRIOR: I can’t find a way to spare you, baby. No wall like the wall of hard scientific fact. K.S. Wham. Bang your head on that.
LOUIS: Fuck you. (Letting go) Fuck you fuck you fuck you.
PRIOR: Now that’s what I like to hear. A mature reaction.
Let’s go see if the cat’s come home.
Louis?
LOUIS: When did you find this?
PRIOR: I couldn’t tell you.
LOUIS: Why?
PRIOR: I was scared, Lou.
LOUIS: Of what?
PRIOR: That you’ll leave me.
LOUIS: Oh.
(Little pause.)
PRIOR: Bad timing, funeral and all, but I figured as long as we’re on the subject of death.
LOUIS: I have to go bury my grandma.
PRIOR: Lou?
(Pause)
Then you’ll come home?
LOUIS: Then I’ll come home.
Scene 5
Same day. Split scene: Joe and Harper at home, as before; Louis at the cemetery after his family has gone, lingering behind, staring down at Sarah Ironson’s coffin in her open grave.
HARPER: Washington?
JOE: It’s an incredible honor, buddy, and—
HARPER: I have to think.
JOE: Of course.
HARPER: Say no.
JOE: You said you were going to think about it.
HARPER: I don’t want to move to Washington.
JOE: Well I do.
HARPER: It’s a giant cemetery, huge white graves and mausoleums everywhere.
JOE: We could live in Maryland. Or Georgetown.
HARPER: We’re happy here.
JOE: That’s not really true, buddy, we—
HARPER: Well happy enough! Pretend-happy. That’s better than nothing.
JOE: It’s time to make some changes, Harper.
HARPER: No changes. Why?
JOE: I’ve been chief clerk for four years. I make twenty-nine-thousand dollars a year. That’s ridiculous. I graduated fourth in my class and I make less than anyone I know. And I’m . . . I’m tired of being a clerk, I want to go where something good is happening.
HARPER: Nothing good happens in Washington. We’ll forget church teachings and buy furniture at, at, Conran’s and become yuppies. I have too much to do here.
JOE: Like what?
HARPER: I do have things.
JOE: What things?
HARPER: I have to finish painting the bedroom.
JOE: You’ve been painting in there for over a year.
HARPER: I know, I— It just isn’t done because I never get time to finish it.
JOE: Oh that’s . . . That doesn’t make sense. You have all the time in the world. You could finish it when I’m at work.
HARPER: I’m afraid to go in there alone.
JOE: Afraid of what?
HARPER: I heard someone in there. Metal scraping on the wall. A man with a knife, maybe.
JOE: There’s no one in the bedroom, Harper.
HARPER: Not now.
JOE: Not this morning either.
HARPER: How do you know? You were at work this morning.
There’s something creepy about this place. Remember Rosemary’s Baby?
JOE: Rosemary’s Baby?
HARPER: Our apartment looks like that one. Wasn’t that apartment in Brooklyn?
JOE: No, it was—
HARPER: Well, it looked like this. It did.
JOE: Then let’s move.
HARPER: Georgetown’s worse. The Exorcist was in Georgetown.
JOE: The devil, everywhere you turn, huh, buddy.
HARPER: Yeah. Everywhere.
JOE: How many pills today, buddy?
HARPER: None. One. Three. Only three.
(At the cemetery: Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz, heading home, walks past Louis, who is still staring into the grave. Louis stops the Rabbi with a question.)
LOUIS: Why are there just two little wooden pegs holding the lid down?
RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ: So she can get out easier if she wants to.
LOUIS: I hope she stays put.
I pretended for years that she was already dead. When they called to say she had died it was a surprise. I abandoned her.
RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ: “Sharfer vi di tson fun a shlang iz an umdankbar kind!”
LOUIS: I don’t speak Yiddish.
RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ: “Sharper than the serpent’s tooth is the ingratitude of children.” Shakespeare. Kenig Lear.
LOUIS: Rabbi, what does the Holy Writ say about someone who abandons someone he loves at a time of great need?
RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ: Why would a person do such a thing?
LOUIS: Because he has to.
Maybe because this person’s sense of the world, that it will change for the better with struggle, maybe a person who has this neo-Hegelian positivist sense of constant historical progress towards happiness or perfection or something, who feels very powerful because he feels connected to these forces, moving uphill all the time . . . Maybe that person can’t, um, incorporate sickness into his sense of how things are supposed to go. Maybe vomit . . . and sores and disease . . . really frighten him, maybe . . . he isn’t so good with death.
RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ: The Holy Scriptures have nothing to say about such a person.
LOUIS: Rabbi, I’m afraid of the crimes I may commit.
RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ: Please, mister. I’m a sick old rabbi facing a long drive home to the Bronx. You want to confess, better you should find a priest.
LOUIS: But I’m not a Catholic, I’m a Jew.
RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ: Worse luck for you, bubbulah. Catholics believe in Forgiveness. Jews believe in Guilt.
(The Rabbi turns to leave.)
LOUIS: You just make sure those pegs are in good and tight.
(The Rabbi stops, looks down into the grave, then at Louis:)
RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ: Don’t worry, mister. The life she had, she’ll stay put. She’s better off.