Soul of a Whore and Purvis (21 page)

The impact of the first four or five.

I thought, Now that is what we're up against:

Psychosis of a power to hold a man

Aright and marching like some—

As the bullets fill him—

By the arrows!—

Of anti-authoritarian disrespect.

…I don't care whose side that man was on,

In 1918 they'd have borne his coffin

Draped with glory through the streets of home.

I wish to place a person-to-person call—

Excuse me. Later. I'll—goodbye…[
Into intercom
] Now, Blanche,

Who is ascending? I hear someone ascending.

That whirring again. That whir and thunk. I hear it.

Goodbye. [
On phone
] Hello. Hello. Person-to-person, please,

To the Hoover residence in Washington, D.C.

Temple six eight seven seven eight.

O—Mr. Hoover for Mrs. Hoover. Sorry.

…Mother, how are you?…Mother, put your mouth

Nearer the mouthpiece; that's why they call it that.

Mother, I miss you…It's cold, the rivers are frozen.

This wind will whirl you around and slap your face.

…O, I love you too…O, I miss you sorely.

How are you doing?…How are you doing, Mother?

How are the cats?…How are the cats? The—

How does Snooky Snooker snuggle without me?

O, that's sweet!…He's precious. So are you.

…Mother, I want your prayers today, especially

Today. Go on your knees, dear Mother, and pray

That I find the strength to go about my work.

…I know you do, I know you do, but now

As much as ever, Mother…Thank you.

…There isn't any danger, Mother. I'm just—

…O, O, no no no. The telephone—

The telephone can't hurt you…No no no,

Chicago telephones are harmless, too.

…All right, but never fear. And pray for me.

All right, all right—hello? Hello?—Goodbye.

[
Leaps to his feet.
]

…What's this, my man—a hooligan's switchblade knife?

But I am a servant of the law. And yet

I hold this blade, how sharp, and to what purpose?

Huuuuh! Hrrrrrrh! Haah! Hhm-hhm! Hrrraaggghhh!

They said you had a lot of guts! Quite so!

Let me introduce you to your bowels.

Here's the large, and here the small intestine.

My! What have you been eating?—Eat it again!

Hah-HAH hrrr-hrrr HLLL HLLL haaghr AAH.

How do you look in this year's very latest

Fashionable scarf, the tripe-of-traitor

From deep in the interiors of you?

There! Now I'm the man who collared Purvis!

You're trembling, trembling, let me snug your cravat.

How you blush! Too much? O no, I mustn't

Strangle you, no. No, you're going to spend

Seven long days begging to be strangled!

HAAARGH HUUUH huh huh huh huh huh…

[
Resumes his seat.
]

…Send him in…Hhhhrrrr. Hrrrrhh. Hrrrh. Hrrrh. Hrrrh.

[MELVIN PURVIS
enters.
]

Here's our man, “the man of the hour”! Sit.

Director Hoover.

Firsthand how things are done in the Windy City.

Hacker and stacker and mover of meats, O bold

Encaser of meats, Special Agent Purvis.

Special Agent Purvis: title—

Yes, sir—or, yes, Director Hoo—

Marvin, are you hungry? You look hungry.

[
To intercom
] Is that for us, Blanche?—Lunch is on the way.

[
Two box lunches arrive. Meanwhile:
]

…Well. Quite a year. Quite a half-year—

Five months, more like, what hey? Three villains down.

Dillinger, Baby Face, and Pretty Boy.

Or even names. Nor shrines. Nor histories.

Not even so much as markers on their graves.

Here's to “the man who collared Dillinger”!

…But we aren't cowboys, are we, sir? Or clowns?

We can't be turning handsprings, courting headlines.

He can't lead from behind.

—
May
I call you Marvin?

Swiss cheese, mustard—milk all right?

[
They address their meals. Neither actually succeeds in eating anything. Meanwhile:
]

…What do you make of this Adolf Hitler fellow?

His mind with clarity on all the truly

Modern problems? On the subjugation

Of growing populations, one might say

On swollen populations—one might say

Tumescent throbbing citizenries?

They must be kept in hand, but ever so gently.

We can't accomplish this by deadly force

Of arms. A zealous subtlety is wanted,

Vigilance, subtlety, creativity.

Help me, please.

…We moderns author a language suited to

Our work: the work of faceless entities.

The modern age boils slowly forward on

The inauspicious labors of a multitude,

Comings and goings, routes and dates and times,

Bits and pieces, instruments and engines,

A monstrous undergrowth of pipes and wires,

And, Marvin, what do you suppose prevents

The behemoth from strangling on itself?

Order: tables, lists, charts, graphs,

Indices, appendices,

Inventories, catalogues.

And who shall keep these treasures holy?

The men of the bureaus; we, the Bureaucrats!

We who stalk our shadows in the halls,

We who strum the blades of pages with

The ridges of our fingerprints. In battle

We unsheath the alphabet and drive deep

The Dewey decimal. Quite right—small stuff.

Yet we accomplish in the aggregate

What Hercules and Theseus would've—

Theseus married, as I think you know,

The queen of the Amazons. I shall never marry.

I am wife and husband to this work.

Bureaucrat
. The word makes music.

I am having our branch redesignated:

No more “Division of Investigation.”

Is this a division?—Are we, then, dividers?

No!
Bureau
is the French for “desk”:

Our steed, our tank, our Howitzer.

Our battleship! Dreadnought! Gunboat! Bastard schooner!

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Yes. A bureau. We'll be Bureaucrats!

[
He gathers both their meals together, and lunch is over.
]

…I am holding in my mind the text

Of a lacerating letter to demand

The resignation of a renegade.

Demand, did I say? No. I shall command.

I'll reduce our Mr.—“P”—to pabulum.

But, sir, whereas I taste the very words

Like blood on my tongue, I can't quite redden the page.

O, would you help?

I want somehow to remonstrate and also

Devastate, you see. He must be wounded.

He's grown to quite the prideful peacock,

Fanning and strutting and shimmying, grinding

Under his spurs the faces of his betters.

He's slimy with adulation. It's ungrateful.

—There's the crux, he's just ungrateful, there

You have its full and quivering extent.

The letter of my so-called termination?

Above your name for all the world to see.

The hurt of having been outshone, you see,

The piercing of a beneficiary's

Ingratitude, you see—that corkscrew works

Deeper and deeper—
you
see.

We are the new, soft, strong, gray men, in whom

A kind of soapy equanimity

Is not entirely uncalled for.

The proper bureaucrat must keep

Alert but noncommittal.

—But you've seen photos. We could raise a hundred

In twenty months. A pyramid was called

“The place where men are turned to gods.”

…How do you find Chicago, Agent Purvis?

Isn't winter like a thousand razors?

A million miles from sunny Carolina.

[
Sings
]
I'd walk a million miles

For one of your smiles—

Of days that broke a hundred.

Brutal.

But think of all the killers bred from here:

The Daltons; Frank and Jesse James;

Wyatt Earp grew up in Pella, Iowa,

As I remember reading—