Soul of a Whore and Purvis (9 page)

About—Don't—don't…Don't hurt him. He's my brother.

BILL JENKS
falls and weeps.

VOICE ON RADIO
laughs hysterically
—
SIMON
joins in.

Are you the demon who prophesies, or not?

Jack

Sprat

Begat Jehosephat.

I coulda had your ass in Huntsville—

Coulda sent you to the Pit. You owe me.

There's something wrong with me or something wrong

With money. Anyhow, we tangle wrong,

Me and the dollar…What a mess, what…All

Those people on the money—can't they see me?

I'd be riding circuit, I'd be praising God

And healing hearts and saving souls

And money'd never touch me long enough

To suck itself inside me like it has.

We've got a hearing set for Wednesday next

To go and file for Chapter—I don't know—

Eleven, Thirteen, Twenty-one—they make

The whole thing sound like Vegas, don't they?

They tap you out as quick as Vegas, too.

But you know me: I'll bet my shorts and socks

And get back in the game, or hitchhike home

As naked as my mama made me. Anyhow,

The institute is broke, but the foundation

Holds several thousand shares of Motorola.

Here's the thing: This Freddie Spendersnap,

The NASCAR racer, wants to make a swap,

My Motorola for a razor-thin

Controlling interest in his hot-dog thing,

His vending franchise thing. It sounds superb,

It's very liquid, totally set up—

I mean, you figure hot dogs are forever—

But Motorola's flirting with Verizon,

The big fat cell-phone company; O, yeah,

Verizon makes my Motorola pretty—

But if the feds resolve to yank tobacco

Sponsorship of NASCAR, man, the brokest

Sucker in the South is gonna be

The guy with fifteen hundred red-and-white

Stripèd hats and fifteen hundred hot-dog carts.

But.
Cell phones give you cancer. They could tank.

My cross in a melting Texas parking lot—

What did he have to endure to get like that?

Remove from me these bonds of self…Release…

Shit. Am I praying to you? Praying to a demon?

Demon
is a term whose definition

Seems to shift its shape as much as we do.

Call me a teenymeanymotherfucker.

Lights up stage left:

Hospital waiting room.
MASHA
at the window.

WILL
enters. Comes up close behind her.

His life away. He's chomping at the bit.

He's straining at the traces. Giddyap,

Ol' hoss. Drag that contraption into

The third millennium. You get farther and farther

From Calvary all the time. Farther and farther

From the place of skulls. Farther from Golgotha.

…An overpowering scent of blossoms on

The air today. Inebriating.

My my, you give a man an appetite.

You're womanly. Dazzlingly. Deeply.

From head to toe three nights a week stark naked,

No matter how you cover up in gray.

I don't forget the times I watched you dance.

First time, I said to my buddies, Hey now, there's

The type I crave, a dancing contradiction:

I crave my women simultaneously

Loose and tight.

You're talking to the moon. Nobody hears you.

And alla that. Sweet Jesus, what a rack.

What a set of pins.

Honey baby lover fucker-doll.

Who's the peep show? Is it really me?

I strut along and toss down feed to you.

You hunch there with your glass of screw-top wine

And all the feelings naked in your face.

You gobble me down with your eyes, but you don't see me.

You see the act, you see your fantasy

And not the person working at a job.

You see me panting for you, but I'm bored,

My ankles hurt, my car got repossessed,

I'd like to move because my rickety

Apartment's on the building's sunny side—

The prancing slut is prancing in your head.

You got me backwards. I'm not undercover.

I never was so hidden as when I was naked.

…And plus fact is I ain't no Norma Jean.

I'm sort of regular, with decent legs.

Dim light, I'm gorgeous.

Decent legs made for indecent dancing.

…Where does he keep you stashed?

I'd put you by the golf course. Weekend nights

We head downtown, see what the action's like.

It smells. It stinks. I mean it reeks.

Faces and the cries of the lunatics.

You've gotta get out of Hawk Hills, swoop down

To Second Street and put the world before you.

Downtown. In the night. That's where you hide.

Do you know what this is?

You never took a little nap for money?

…All I did was watch. Not like the others.

Everybody knows what goes on there.

“They dance till two and then they screw.” That's right.

Sylvester pimped you as a nightly thing.

You sucked and blew and bent and spread and squirmed

For college jocks and gap-tooth farmer boys

And fat-ass salesmen in their Cadillacs.

You gave each other phony names and fucked,

And they were all your dirty little husbands,

And Jesus Christ can strike me down and turn

My guts to pus if I've said one false thing.

Look me in the face and tell me Jesus

Jack is gonna cancel who you are.

…Baby…You are suckin' my cock with your eyes.

…Jesus won't protect you. Hell with him.

You wanna hide? You wanna leave yourself?

You need a stack of credit cards, a beauty parlor,

Stocks and bonds and money in the bank,

A little sports car and a big suburban wagon,

Air-conditioned condo by the golf course,

Fifty inches on your television.

Jesus isn't gonna give you that.

I'm the one who's gonna give you that.

My fingerprints on your velour.

Lights up stage right:

BJ
and
SIMON
as before.

You shit yer pants while pissing on yer shoes.

Didn't I leave you free for fun and travel?

Haven't you had some share of fun and travel?

I've circuited the earth a dozen times,

Entering any soul who offered entrance.

From sin to sin I've wafted like a spore.

I've bent the gambler to his knee,

I've dragged the junkie through the grime,

I've parked the harlot on her corner,

I've sent the rapist on his round.

I've given reasons to the traitor,

Glossy varnish to the liar,

Piety to hypocrites—

And left them hobbled and alone,

Waiting like dogs for any scent of me.

And next, who knows? Some other galaxy.

Prepare for takeoff! Five, four, three, two, one…

In whose name do you cast out spirits, Healer?

We're talking here. We're making simple average

Conversation as we grope toward

An understanding.

A modicum of flexibility—

On both our parts? I let you play with Simon;

You hand me out my standard three predictions.

Today you met your mirror, as I'm sure

You gather. Sometime soon you'll touch a corpse's

Clay and set it throbbing on the slab,

And when, one day, as all men must, you die,

That day an innocent shall be killed.

To get the griddle under. Bankruptcy

For one.

Now, do your worst. I'm all strapped in.

In whose name do you cast out spirits, Healer?