Read Soul of a Whore and Purvis Online
Authors: Denis Johnson
JOHN
: Look. I recognized you. You knew that.
I recognized your face a year ago,
My first day on the yard. I watched you stand
Exactly still, more left-out and alone
Than any creature there, not halfway in
Your own skin, more the newcomer
Than meâbut you'd been there two months.
Never saw a prisoner looked so much
Like somebody in prison. Every inch
And ounce of you in bondage. Sure, they had
The background on you, all the Christian bunch,
But nobody could figure out your storyâ
The famous shaman, healer of multitudes,
Standing in the yard with this, like, music
Coming down around your head, this
Jazz falling apart around you, manâ¦
Look, my mother, Iâ¦my mother, sirâ¦
BILL JENKS
: There's nothing I can do to help your mother.
JOHN
: You have the gift, you have the power to heal,
You can help whoever you decide.
Don't you see, you're touched by the same fingers
That turn the earth.
BILL JENKS
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Well, tell the fingers to get
Their claws outa me!â¦I can't help your mother!
MASHA
bangs the receiver against the pay phone unit repeatedly.
MASHA
: WHAT! A BUNCH! A MOTHAH! FUCKIN! COCK-
SUCK!
GAAAAAAAAH!
[
MASHA
strikes the machine harder and harder. She
doesn't stop.
]
WAAAAAAAAH!!!
[
Keeps beating the machine. Sings like Bessie Smith:
]
GIMME A REEFAH
AND A GANG A GIN
SLAY ME 'CAUSE I'M IN MY SIN!
[
She's berserk, assaulting the phone.
]
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!
Simultaneously, the
CLERK
erupts.
CLERK
: I have HAD IT HAD IT HAD IT HAD IT, BOY.
Do you think I'm more than human?
I've only got two hands!
I can't take care of everything at once!
I don't have superstrength and X-ray eyes
To deal with you-all! I'm not Superman!
I'm not Captain Marvel! I'm not the Hulk!
To drag myself each morning from sweet dreams
Into your sleazy Greyhound station nightmare
Of God-forsaken apparitions with
Madness and sadness congealing in their eyes
And sell them TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS!
Look at this!âLook at this woman doing
All a human can to destroy that thing!
Nothing stands between the realm of sanity
And total chaos but myself alone!
I'm all alone at the bulwarks of the world!
MASHA
: HAAAAAAAH!! GAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
MASHA
lifts the nearest standing ashtray. She slings it mightily at the pay phone.
CLERK
stops openmouthed in mid-tirade.
MASHA
repeats the action, going at it full tilt.
She busts the device clean off the wall and attacks it on the floor. Her fit worsens. She collapses, jerking, growling.
OTHERS
: Get her off the floor. Put her on a bench.
Get her lying down.
Get her sitting up!
Get something in between her jaws!
Don't let her bite!
SYLVESTER
enters from street door.
SYLVESTER
[
aside
]: There you are, you little magic thing!â¦
STAND ASIDE, PLEASE, DOCTOR COMING THROUGH.
GIVE WAY, THE DOCTOR'S IN THE HOUSE.
UH UH UH UH DOCTOR COMING THROUGH.
OTHERS
: Thank goodness, Doctor. Hold her! Hold her!
She is strong!
Her spit is foaming like a case of rabies!
SYLVESTER
: Nothing to alarm ourselves about.
CLERK
: It's typical! It's standard stuff! It happens
All day long in here! It's par for the course!
SYLVESTER
: Loosen her uh loosen her uhâ¦clothing.
I deal with this stuff daily, tooâthe human
Body, human physique, the human formâ¦
Did the patient make any predictions?
Often this variety of seizure
Takes them in a way they make predictionsâ
No? Perhaps you didn't recognizeâ
Uh sometimes they uh sometimesâHave a look
Now, at the racing form. Anything sound familiar?
Any of those names of horses there?
OTHERS
: Missy, can you hear?
Somebody get some waterâ
SYLVESTER
: I don't like uh I don't like to seem
Presumptuous, but I'm in charge here now.
Stand back and let me practice medicine!
BILL JENKS
: Where's your bag?
SYLVESTER
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â My bag?
BILL JENKS
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Your bag of tools.
SYLVESTER
: My bag? Where am I, 1882?
I'm not a country doctor. I don't drive
A buggy through the daisies. That's a 'Vette
You'll see out there, you care to look, the blue
Corvette, the '98. And I paid cash.
And anyway we don't need implements.
We're not on the brink of surgery here.
A little air, a couple minutes' rest is all.
But I, myself, could use a little shot.
What're we sippin' behind the desk today?
Spare us an ounce or two, my boy, come on,
Don't balkâwe understand, and we approve:
Only a natural monstrosity
Uh uh uh uh uh
Or penitential masochist endures
Eight hours in the Greyhound totally sober.
CLERK
: I'm in agreement with you there! I quite agree!
SYLVESTER
: Wellâsave a drop for company!
Can't have the citizens dispatched along
The routes by a comptroller in a state
A state of uh uh giddy inebri
ation
â
Who knows uh uh
how
things would uh! end up?
CLERK
: They'd end up just exactly like they are,
With no one getting anywhere. Go on,
Kill it, sir, it's Everclearâ
Seems like she's calmerâ
JOHN
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Honey, just lay back.
SYLVESTER
: Entranced and uncommunicativeâ¦
MASHA
: LEMME DO THE HULA FOR YOU, BABY.
SYLVESTER
:â¦She's fainted.
JOHN
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Doctor, why is her
voice
like thatâ
SYLVESTER
: She's coming out of the physical part of it now.
We're entering the most important phase,
Prognostications, uh uh
sooth
sayingâ
BILL JENKS
: Soothsaying? Buddy, what the hell is sooth?
SYLVESTER
: We'll see a period of trancelike, “twilight
Semi-consciousness” we uh uh uh
Physicians like to call it, during which
âDoes anybody have a racing form?
âI happen to have a racing form myself!
âI'm going to whisper names and races so
Our patient hears them in her twilight state
And then I think you'll uh uh be
intrigued
â
Intrigued
, I sayâall right, we've got the fifth
At Manor Downs. A lovely uh uh uhâ
Outside of Austin there. They'll go the mile.
THE FIFTH AT MANOR DOWNS. THE FIFTH. Luke's Luck.
Blue Streak, Destroyer, Dark Delight, Shazam.
MASHA
: Idiot of ages!
SYLVESTER
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Idiotâ”
Uh, no, the six: Shazam. Shazam, in fact,
Is six, and number five is actuallyâ
MASHA
: Idiot idiot idiot! This one heals!
SYLVESTER
: Settle down and pick me out a winnerâ
JOHN
: This is William Jennings Bryan Jenksâ¦
SYLVESTER
: Jenks! The Shameful Shaman! Traveling?
I do enjoy a Greyhound trip myself.
It's magical. You get to
see
the country.
BILL JENKS
: Who are you?
SYLVESTER
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â I asked you first.
BILL JENKS
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â I didn't hear you ask.
MASHA: SYLVESTERâ¦
BILL JENKS
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â O! Sylvester!â
SYLVESTER
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Uuh uh uhâ
BILL JENKS
: Sylvester's Big-As-Texas Topless Lounge!
SYLVESTER
: Back off!â
Who is it now addresses me?
MASHA
: You know me.
SYLVESTER
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Give me now predictions three.
MASHA
: Nothing for you.
SYLVESTER
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Nothing? Uh. Huh. Huhâ
MASHA
: You've let her go, you fool. She's found the healer.
SYLVESTER
: This guy? uh uh uhâthis guy's a fraud.
Predictions threeâ¦
MASHA
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Get rid of him.
SYLVESTER
:
Give me now predictions three.
MASHA
: Get rid of him, or I abide in silence.
SYLVESTER
: Aw, come on, demon! Gimme couple
races
!
Look at the odds on uh uh Dark Destroyer!
â¦We're getting nothing here. [
To
BJ
] You'll have to leave.
Now
, please. You'll have to uh uh uh to leaveâ
BILL JENKS
: Sucker, I been trying to leave all day.
You put me on a bus, I'll disappear.
JOHN
: This is a
demon
, brother! You can
heal
her.
SYLVESTER
: You are jinxin' my routine! Now blow!
GRANNY BLACK
wakes.
GRANNY BLACK:
Hot! Hot! Why do they say it's air-conditioned?
BILL JENKS
: I wish I could nap as sound as you, young lady.
CLERK
: Go grubbing on a grave all night;
Gnaw the dirt above a killer's corpse
While Huntsville lies in bed. Next day you'll nap.
GRANNY BLACK:
I never grubbed on a grave! You slander me!
I think you're addled by the heat!
I think you're positively shatterpated!
MASHA
: ARLENE.
GRANNY BLACK: Â Â Â
Lonnie?
MASHA
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ARLENE.
GRANNY BLACK:
                   Is itâ¦Â ?
Lonnie
â¦
MASHA
: I'll see you tonight.
GRANNY BLACK:
         Lonnieâ¦
MASHA
: Sleep, sleep, Arlene. I'll see you tonight.
GRANNY BLACK:
All right, Lonnie. Yes, my loveâ¦
SYLVESTER
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â My Lord.
I've never seen her do like that. Uhâ¦Uhâ¦
BILL JENKS
: DEMON!â¦DEMON!â¦DEMON! NAME YOURSELF!
MASHA
: In whose name do you cast me out, Healer?
SYLVESTER
: That's a damn good question. Who exactly
Asked you to the party, anyway?
In whose name do you cast out demons?
BILL JENKS
: I cast out demons in my own damn name.
JOHN
: That ain't gonna work.
BILL JENKS
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â You'll watch it work!
SYLVESTER
: Now uh uh this disturbed young gal and I
Have got a sort of system up and running,
And your insertion of uh uh yourself
Is absolutely unacceptable.
BILL JENKS
: NAME YOURSELF!
SYLVESTER
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â JACKHAMMER!
BILL JENKS
:                                  â¦What?
I beg your pardon? Demon name yourself?
SYLVESTER
: Jackhammer Jake! I batter this man's throat.
SYLVESTER
howls and shakes.
BILL JENKS
: To tell the truth, I wasn't expecting this.
Hold him down, John.âDon't let go of
her
!â
Pry them jaws. Widerâ¦Jackhammer Jake!
BJ
spits on his finger and touches it to
SYLVESTER
'
s tongue.
SYLVESTER
: Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh
BILL JENKS
: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Jackhammer Jake!