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[bottom] Whorapy
"A slapstick tragedy"
"The world's oldest profession meets the newest"
By Lee Barton
Dedicated to:
Dr. Michael Picucci, my therapeutic/spiritual salvos
Rachael Adler, my theatrical obelisk
CAST
The Ladies
MADELINE (Late 30's) -- The Madame of Pussyhats, The Queen,
The Mother, voluptuous and sensual, watery, maternal,
haggard, hungry, exuberant, kind, cruel, compassionate, sad.
ZOE (Teens/early 20's) – Youngest Gal at Pussyhat's, It girl
wanna be tragic train wreck consequence who hasn't even been
born yet
CHAMILLE (20's) - Middle Gal, sensible and ambitious
RAMIE (20's - 30's) – Eldest Gal, Creole
Spellcaster/Priestess that sprung from a well in Louisiana,
for all we know
The Gentlemen
EVAN ROCHE (40's) – Mayor of San Francisco, owner of The
Gazette, the largest newspaper. Meat dusk. Gaudy and
classless except for his shaving cream, which comes in
several different colors. Several different colors. And he
is a cartoon myth.
YELLOW (20's) – Journalist who works for The Gazette, a beat
journalist/poet one step away from integrity.
FATHER GENDER (40's-50's) - Middle Aged, mid-lifed, mid
souled Priest who frequents Pussyhats
CARL SUPINE (40's) – Jungian-style Psychotherapist recently
moved next door.
PETER SIMPSON (20's) –Carl's devoted assistant
MEN (30's) – Customers of Pussyhats who commune with Chamille
(played all by one actor)
CHARLEY WHO-HORSE (20's-40's) - Pussyhat's lone resident
musician. Trumpet, he plays. He is African American and half
narrates the piece; i.e., he is the only one to break the
fourth wall. Essentially, he wants to get paid, love his
wife, play his horn.
PRELUDE (OPENING CABARAZZ)
(The play begins in the lobby
of the theater so when
audience members enter, they
are already entering the world
of Pussyhats: misty, subtle,
full of pain. Party favors
hanging off the ceiling, an
American flag from 1927 with
the colors backwards, a little
smokiness. There's a small
bar with Pete, the silent
cigar chomping bartender
serving rum with lumps.
YELLOW, the journalist, is
trolling about, wearing a suit
jacket made of Lucky Strikes
and other obsolete cigs,
yodeling out rolled programs,
which look like newspapers,
to audience members. CHARLEY
WHO-HORSE, the musician, is
also roaming about playing
softy until he BLARES his
trumpet like a peace pipe did
a line of coke, and CHAMILLE,
and RAMIE, two of the girls,
savvy, saucy, sexy, and ready
to mingle, enter. They begin
to flirt with the men and
women in the audience, getting
drinks from Pete to feed them.
They can ad-lib whatever they
want. Chamille has Christmas
lights wrapped around her legs
all the way up her thighs. MAN
approaches Chamille, buttoning
up his judge's robe.)
JUDGE/MAN
Business doin' pleasure with you, Madame!
CHAMILLE
A pleasure doin' justice to you, your honor!
(Chamille uses the following
sayings to those in the
audience that fit the most.)
CHAMILLE
-Our palace is GOLD, our murmurs are wild, our stockings are
sheddings of snakes who have yet to bite!
-Farm and soil and a new breath for the land with every man
who stands and tills his ground! It's such an honest sound,-
-I love the middle man who can wrap his armored hands around
my waist and saw and pound away! Slake away!
-I'll rub your knuckles til golden chariots fall out!
-I can hear that liquor cabinet rattling inside your soul!
(Ramie does the same, cajoling
and seducing.)
RAMIE
-Oh, baby, Ramie say what a brave and hopeless man you are.
- You want a hard and deluxe time? Just take me, touch me,
sport! Snake me cleean! Cancel your airwaves and collect my
ransom. I got it tucked under your belt!
- heyloverheyloverheyclimberheymountainheybiscuitonthebreath,
are you mine?
(Charley blares again and this
time, stops playing, bangs his
foot til everyone's paying
attention and the girls
whistle and hint for silence.
Enter MADELINE with a wallop.
She has Zoe, the youngest and
newest girl, right behind her.
Madeline is coated in colored
velvets with the roll of love
letters sticking out of her
bosom. She limps slightly.
And she has a belt, made of
champagne glasses. She
carries a perfume bottle which
she sprays in cavernous places
every once in a while… She
walks as if she is falling
apart slightly but held
together with fire and smoke.
The following dialogue is for
Zoe, the newest girl a sort of
ritual into the family.)
MADELINE
Girls! GIRLS! GIRLS! Inspection! Line up! Let me see the
legs! (all show legs including Father and Yellow).
This Blue elixir, this hungry salvos!
A powerful blight,
Who gets the prize tonight?
A camera's delight!
Yellow? Where's that camera? Take the pictures, let the men
vote with their eyes and the hands
Until their heart understands!
(YELLOW, with his camera, takes
pictures of the legs.
He runs off stage to have them
developed (and they will be
posted at intermission for
voting). MADELINE pulls a
scroll either out of her bosom
or her garter belt.)
MADELINE
Girls! To Zoe, our newest! From Mt. Olympia! (Reads to Zoe.)
Men! MEN! (She throws a champagne glass somewhere safe.)
Women! Men!
Tucked in the truth of a bigger term, because the truth is
larger than they are!
We're part of the original tempest!
We're the turbines under the man's obsolete clit! That's
what we squeeze so money and their original dance falls out:
change, hardened real sensual locks of bark. So old, this
dance, this Wicked Dance! dance of the Alliance between men
and women!
The waste of reason!
Men created the original sin but the women get the blame and
the credit! Let's get them to share! What do you want,
tonight, girls, in a man?
ZOE
I want three marriage proposals as long as they ain't my
boyfriend or any of his friends! No, four!
CHAMILLE
I want a man to admit he's wrong, especially when he's not
because he really is!
RAMIE
Mmmm, I don't know but tonight gonna be one wicked night!
(Charley plays something
masculine and loud as EVAN
ROCHE enters, the Pimp of
Pussyhats. He's also the
Mayor. He's dressed like a
Crayola Godfather: a
pistachio suit coated in
sequins ith a top hat and some
colored shaving cream at the
sides of his ears.)
EVAN
Let me see those goddamned legs first! Let me see em!
ZOE
Bosswallet! Bosswallet, look, I bought a book! It's a
romance! And I'm gonna be in it when they make the movie!
EVAN
I'd rather you balance a book between your thighs than on
your head!
MADELINE
Evan, leave her alone! She's been here a month!
EVAN
(to Zoe)
She gets it! I want 13 erection minimum in this building and
$50 hanging flapping off the end of each pole like a
surrender flag! I want to wear their money out on my sleeve!
Every drink costs twice their market value-
MADELINE
…and conversation counts as climax! Your every sentence
should end in an ashtray!
ZOE
Sing something, mama!
MADELINE
Oh, my little aperitif, I ache tonight, but I will sing for
you, from the palms of my libretto,
(singing, lightly aching:)
Your pray-tell heart,
Your pray tell heart,
I can tell you when the music starts,
The freelance dance
The last romance,
Is the fire set by your hungry glance.
As long as the flames reach out to me
Let me worry about the tears to set you free!
Because we, WE, WE are titans of luxury!
EVAN
Raise that skull and hipbones! Open those damn doors! Those
damned, greasy beautiful doors! I want no customer caught
with his pants up!
(The doors open and the
customers begin to trickle
inside.)
MADELINE
Free drinks for the first stiff Hoover in Pussyhats!
MAN/JUDGE
Baby, I smell like gasoline! I keep my hard-on lean!
ACT ONE
(MADELINE is in her bedroom. She is
sprawled on her bed like a wet
mushroom, soaking in letters and
velvets. The lights are low so we can
barely see anything else. There is a
bust of Napoleon and it is distorted
with sunken eyes and elongated nose and
there's a perfume bottle laying in one
socket. We can see some sulky light
from the window to the fire escape, and
that's where she is looking when she
speaks at first. Speaking to the angel
there.)
MADELINE
Sex, love, alms, I cannot take it anymore,
The dirty floor that pins me against the morals of a man's
world.
Do I have to sniff the dirt or act menacing,
Like him, and them, to scroll by with a scowl,
A ramming dialogue that cuts the nut out of the cunt!
So I will sprinkle,
My naked eggs on time's thistle,
A spell, a sensitive whistle,
A punishing howl,
To eschew the elite harbors of the soul
With a blow of the sail,
Sending ourselves back to paradise,
Where we belong,
And severed by song of acolytes and bar-whistlers.
I am tired, worn-down, depleted and mustering for love,
Pussy combed and trail whipped,
Wasting fires on filaments of men,
Major and blown,
Advocates of war,
Seeming pilots of peace,
I want a coalescent craw daddy!
A south paw who screams indulgence at my indolence,
Inching towards the islands of crestfallen cadence,
I am a howl backdrafting,
So tonight, my angel,
this last night i pray for my conception
Before i lay my womb next to the rest of my decaying dreams,
when that last man opens the door
He will get simmered and swallowed
By the garnishes of air and fire.
(Lights dim on Madeline's room
as they rise on Pussyhat's
Headwear/Late Century Turn of
the Night Cabaret.
It is 'En Dinge Coloramic Flea
Market', a visual fruit bowl
of several angles of life: a
little musty basement, a
little church, a little
burlesque, a little baroque,
ancient, etc. Colors,
Several tongues all tied
together to somehow form a
veil of taste and visual
history. There are busts of
Napoleon and French strategic
maps dotting this unborn
museum. There's one couch in
the middle for guests to sit.
There are pieces of spray
painted machine parts taped
and glued to the walls.
There is a large colored
barrel with a tap upstage
right in the corner. Two doors
in along the back wall
starting right and moving
center are Chamille/Zoe's room
and then Ramie's next to
theirs. The Left wall of
Pussyhats, a little off
center, has one door leading
to Madeline's bedroom. Left of
that is a small fire escape;
left of that is DR CARL
SUPINES office, downstage
right. The sign "Pussyhat's
Headwear", with a tophat above
the P, stretches across the
top back wall. Above the
aforementioned barrels is a
sign, "I fell in love and I
hardly knew it,
My heart's in a barrel, if you
want to shoot it. CHARLEY WHO
HORSE, the musician, enters
with his trumpet and gives a
blare before he speaks.
CHARLEY
Life is jazz or jazz is life,
Don't ask the devil less' his tail beat in ¾ time! (blares
the trumpet)
We gather up
Harlem's last sticks
And whip the drums with envy of ourselves.
Tell the world we're at war,
And I'll play!
Here At Pusshyhat's, San Fran, the last unknown home of a
black man, 1927!
Speakeasy with a slip!
When do I get paid, when do I get laid, with my wife, my
friend, my lover,
And su hope they all is one!
(He wanders to the side. ZOE
rushes in followed by
Chamille. Zoe is almost in
tears and her tears are in
hysterics.)
ZOE
He says he loves me!
He cries about me! I cry about him!
CHAMILLE
He cries, because he doesn't know how to love you!
That's why he wants to marry you, like so many of 'em do.
ZOE
Oh, Cammy! Oh…I gotta tell you something!
CHAMILLE
What is that?
ZOE
You promise not to tell no one else?
CHAMILLE
If nobody asks.
ZOE
I mean it! you gotta double up swears on it! YOU GOT TO!
CHAMILLE
Okay. Okay. I won't say a word. What is it?
ZOE
…I'm pregnant!
CHAMILLE
(Pause) Damn. Who's the father?
ZOE
Who's the mother?!?? Oh, I wish it was the priest! Then I'd
have a scandal to make it worth the scandal!
CHAMILLE
Does mamma know?
ZOE
I ain't told her! It's all spangled up! Oh, Cammy, how'd it
happen to me?
CHAMILLE
You're hardly the virgin Mary!
ZOE
But Momma says I become one three times a week! Maybe it
slipped in between 'em! I called a doctor!
CHAMILLE
What sort of doctor?
ZOE
I don't know! Something called a therapist! I saw him movin'
into the office next door! And he's coming tonight to help
me tell Mama!
CHAMILLE
You invited him here?
ZOE
He said he would help right after I told him!
He said he wished he were my daughter!
CHAMILLE
All your customers say that.
ZOE
He said I'm his customer! Oh, I ain't ever gonna be in no
pictures! I ain't ever gonna be in black and white!
I can't do this! I'll fall down the stairs or get all dimed
up and run out in the street
and hoochie myself in front of a Model T
and scare this lil' bean outta me!
CHAMILLE
Look, you open in twenty minutes. Just go get yourself ready
for work and i'll think of something. But don't run off to
some wire hack, do you a number on you. 'kay?
(ZOE exits.)
CHAMILLE
The moon comes up, the moon exits!
The spoon hunts and it's a short weeping arm between the
turgid palms of my desires and the hundreds of other palms
that pass through me!
What a lonesome, lonesome coven.
Especially for a bun in an oven!
(CHARLEY approaches.)
CHAMILLE
Are you married, Charley?
CHARLEY
I is.
CHAMILLE
Are you happy?
CHARLEY
Yes I is.
CHAMILLE
You love her?
CHARLEY
Of course! She everything but she's not enough! I cheat on
her, though.
CHAMILLE
With who?
CHARLEY
My trumpet! But she watches me!
One eye open, one eye closed, both seeing! Never have to
squint!
Two mistresses, one swine and one spit! Who gonna turn me
over,
A marvelous wit!
CHAMILLE
You're the only devil without horns!
CHARLEY
A man's horns ain't always on his head! Charley sees
everything the other way. Mirrors got a habit of staring at
me.
CHAMILLE
Let me look at you, then. Hell, you know, I want to quit!
Let's run away together. Me, you, your wife, your music. The
whore, the horne, the musician…and the love of your life.
CHARLEY
My wife left me.
CHAMILLE
You said you were happy!
CHARLEY
I is!
CHAMILLE
You said you love her!
CHARLEY
I do!
CHAMILLE
Then play! Play something for me! I feel like a divine,
broken, spindle of masks!
I love men, Charley!
Love man-handles its fast patterns with so many that walk in
here, so many beautiful, separate beasts that spite the hand
That breeds them! And I want to slow 'em down so I can see
em.
Sometimes bodies feel like ornaments; I just want to keep
proving it.
Charley, can you keep a secret?
CHARLEY
Fuck no! This place could use a good rumor! Especially one
that's true.
CHAMILLE
(Pause) Fair enough. Zoe's pregnant.
CHARLEY
Congratulations and I'm sorry! It wasn't me. Or maybe it was!
CHAMILLE
Maybe not. I wish it were. I'm going to get ready for work.
I got a sense it's going to be a strange night! By the way,
tell Father when he comes that Ramie wants to see him. And
keep your eyes out for someone who looks like he don't belong
here.
(CHAMILLE exits. CHARLEY
plays. FATHER FRIAR GENDER
enters. He waddles more than
he needs to, always
exaggerating the aches and
pains of a 72 year old mind
stuffed in a relatively fit 40
something year old body.)
CHARLEY
Father, Ramie looking for you!
FATHER
Oh Shit. Every time I'm with that woman I have a crisis of
faith!
CHARLEY
Why you lose faith?
FATHER
Ah, Charlie, I gain faith! That's my crisis! Quit the cloth
and start telling the truth! I can't handle it!
CHARLEY
You love her?
FATHER
I'm a priest! Like a right-wing shaman! To overcome the
flesh with desire, that's the Chinese finger puzzle solved
forever...I need to sit, my feet are and legs are killing me.
(He heads to the couch and plops down achingly.)
CHARLEY
What you so afraid of?
FATHER
My chastity! My lack of it! How on devil's time can I
discuss this during Homily?
See, I can think it! But then I have to walk across the altar
with my back to the congregation because I have Proof of my
battle! Oh god, every night, or so, laying in bed, naked,
praying for a way to reach my congregation, God asks a man to
turn his dimes into quarters, and I hold midnight masses
because I am afraid of these shadows that wow my ceiling
every time I blink in the dark.
Drawn in luxury between paradise and the hymns of...drunken
old saints...I see at the foot of my bedpost,
The elixirs for the commotional whims of the soul,
And then i realized Ramie screwed em all!
And then i yearn or divine for the real ways and means to
reach my people!
And when I wake up,
feeling so fallow and so denied and I realize no one should
be alone, including myself! Sometimes I feel like Buddha lost
his girl, so the next best thing was to get enlightened! The
Dark has a loin cloth on it, Charley. A prayer seems to rip
it off. But who has the balls anymore…
The Church is dead and…I need a drink.
(He heads towards the barrel to serve himself.)
CHARLEY
Liquors are the tears of beer!
(Yellow heads in, a headline on
speed with his satchel of
articles)
YELLOW
Extra! Extra! Journalism is deeeeeaaaaaad! What a raving
night out! Bam! Gimme a light, Charley!
CHARLEY
Don't smoke, Yellow!.
YELLOW
What?
CHARLEY
Wait, I do smoke! Had to lie there, for a minute.
YELLOW
Then can I have a light?
CHARLEY
Hell, I ain't got one. Just gave 'em all to Ms. Chamille.
YELLOW
How many matches does she need? Damn! I feel like I'm gonna
burst into a packet of sandals!
CHARLEY
Why's that?
YELLOW
Cause I need something to happen!
I'm alone, dire and all meshed up!
I've got a tremendous hard-on for life and nowhere to stick
it!
That's why I come here! To see Chamille. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
She's a looseleaf prostitute,
A harlot with room in the margins to scribble panoramically!
She weakens the knees, you sees,
Softens the lead until it melts,
Into an overcoat to protect me from my own words!
(He goes to Chamille's door and prostrates before it)
I have it in for you. I have it in for you, and I'll do
anything.
You get it?
I'm in love with you,
You're a bone thermometer, halcyon edges,
You're sweet in smell and perfect bourbon and sweat.
I love you, I have to have you, have to! And I will marry
you, complete, under oath and without it!'
(To Charley)
But she looks at me like I'm a soft spot on a baby's head.
CHARLEY
You ain't her type. You ain't your type.
YELLOW
Why you against me, Charley?
CHARLEY
Oh, hell, it just as well for you to see it that way.
You a crazy writer.
YELLOW
I write articles! The worst sort! Ones that pretend to have
integrity!
CHARLEY
You work for the finest paper in the city!
YELLOW
Come on! That's what makes it sour! Pussy articles, pussy
articles!
You might as well stick a maxi pad up the Gazette once a
month to stop the bleeding of this country!
My office is a shanty town fragment hole!
Full a last minutes souls a scared a death!
But I got marbles on my breath like BULLETS
in pony tails
and fragments on sails,
and I will Blow em across this land!
Tonight I'm going to break the headlines with a heart-backed
crime!
Maybe I'll commit murder, charley!
CHARLEY
That's soft blue, man!
YELLOW
How thinly things work out when they work out! And when they
don't work out, life sucks, it pours it on like it has for me
all my hard luck life and all I want to do is escape the
headlines of tomorrow.
The English language don't know English worth a damn,
Charley!
I misspell Tuesday, bam, that's how I heard it! That's how it
was said. That's why I'm an excellent reporter! A
Storyteller! When I gotta beat, I gotta rhyme! Pacing and
mad.
I, I can't write articles anymore! I can't live in a
voluptuous cage when I'd rather have dehydrated freedom. Play
something before I leave this wicked spit forever and make
something of myself!
CHARLEY
I got quite a list!
Let's do it, let's see if we can line-up our blues…
(YELLOW heads to the barrel and
sees FATHER.)
YELLOW
Let us pray! Let…us….pray!
God from god,
Light from light
True god from true god!
Besotten but not gotten…laid!
Through Ramie all sins were cast!
And Father will dig 'til he finds em,
With his Sceptor Blast! Ooooh!
Christianity got a habit of running out right at the base of
the Shaft!
Or at least running low and the rest dribble out in the name
of Whatever couldn't fit in the rest of you!
Hmmmph, hmmph, ooh, aaah!
By communion, you need the body of Christ rolled up with a
filter! There's your mass,
Father Gender!
FATHER
Asses are always in Prayer! When something comes out it's
answered! So eat my prayers, Yellow!...Why don't we make a
bet?
YELLOW
You got money?
FATHER
I own a casino and sell confessions! Of course I got money,
you little shadow.
YELLOW
Hmmm…Alright, then. What are we betting?
FATHER
Let's put our invisible balls on the table! You write an
article worth the trouble, and I know you have something you
keep in that little girl sack of yours, and I will give a
sermon worth its fucking salt. Even Gandhi'll want to jerk
off after hearing it..
YELLOW
Helluva bet…but I can handle it. Alright! When?
FATHER
We'll know when the time comes!
YELLOW
Alright! Fine! God to God!
FATHER
Sod to Sod.
YELLOW
My foil's foil!
(FATHER knocks on Ramie's door
and heads in while Yellow
drinks and scribbles with a
pencil in each ear and a
cigarette in each ear, too.)
CHARLEY
Anger, anger swallows the appetite!
As these broken men come down to fight!
Hot damn, a bet! We ain't even opened yet!
(Madeline swoops in as smooth
as a swingset, checking the
curtains, the supply of
champagne, anything that can
be adjusted with the loving
hum of a mother and caretaker
of her lifetime home (at least
as far she cares to
remember).)
MADELINE (TO CHARLEY)
vous frénétique, bête croulante! You frenetic, tumbling
beast!
CHARLEY
I been tossed from heaven every time I see you, miss
Madeline!
MADELINE
Caught by hell!
CHARLEY
Caught in hell!
MADELINE
You might as well play for the devil!
CHARLEY
He pays better! The next best thing work here!
MADELINE
My dear, how are you tonight? As praiseworthy as you are,
this junket must end! Play, play like the frames of your mind
are about to scald off, And the scallious ashes are all you
have left!
CHARLEY
Sometimes, Miss Madeline, ashes hurt worse than the fire!
MADELINE
Between the notes, lies the music, Charley. Well, then,
here's the playlist. (she gives it to him). And when you
play, play it with a harmony that chases the melody.
CHARLEY
These all sad songs.
MADELINE
All songs are sad so far.
CHARLEY
These ones skip the parade! What's wrong, Miss Madelina?
MADELINE
Oh Charley, another dream! Or so it seems!
I see an angel on the fire escape outside my window,
Wearing a buckskin, tapping her fingers on my womb,
Counting my age,
And She whispers to me,
And the message is garbled but clear enough to see
that the message is fertility!
And clay cymbals clasp on the ends of her hands
And I see my child! Unborn, formed and waiting!
My appetite stretches with age like my wrinkling skin,
But unfortunately not my palate!
So I had Ramie cast a spell for me,
A powerful one,
To send me my Napoleonic Jew with half of my future child!
And so tonight we'll see where the willows weep,
Inside my womb or down my cheeks! Play, Charlie. (She
scurries back into her home décor tasks.) Champagne, details,
fix the curtains, details are still in the details!
And where is the Mayor? The fixture of this leaky Cabaret?
(CHAMILLE enters, overhearing.)
CHAMILLE
Fixtures other than us, Mama?
MADELINE
Of course, my Razor Doll.
(ZOE enters, uneasy.)
ZOE
Mama?
MADELINE
What's the matter, my little Zoe?
ZOE
I don't know yet! I don't know.
MADELINE
Have you seen our Emperor?
(Chamille walks to the door and
screams offstage.)
CHAMILLE
Bosswallet! Mama wants yours cans in here!
(Mayor Evan Roche enters,
looking gaudy as described in
the beginning. He is in an
exaggeratedly loud mood.
Chamille grabs a lost Zoe and
drags her into their room.)
MADELINE
Mr. Mayor.
EVAN
What is love to you, My Queen?
MADELINE
I suppose it is a prayer, my Emperor.
EVAN
Or maybe the answer to the prayer! Father, is love the prayer
or the answer?
FATHER
(shouting behind closed door)
Shit if i know!
EVAN
Oh, ma'am, how do I exalt you without worshipping you?
MADELINE
Oh, my Napoleon, that is the difference between murder and
bloody murder!
EVAN
I'm twice Napoleon's height!
MADELINE
Oh, but half his posture, my partner!
EVAN
Must you tease!
MADELINE
In truth we jest!
EVAN
In jest we lie! So what the hell, huh? What the hell
tonight? What are you keeping from me? Other than what
you're not saying?
MADELINE
It's not important…merely vital. (She waits for some
reaction; gets a man's blank stare).
You know what I want! To get married, I want a baby!
EVAN
Damn and damn, in that order! If I see a sperm with a cape,
I'll shoot it down and put it to work!
MADELINE
Then I will find a man who will give me a baby! A Jewish man!
EVAN
What is it about the Jews?
MADELINE
The menorah. I love Jewish men! Smart salt, fishing for Gold
in the Dead Sea. Prominence in all places I prefer! (To
Father Gender offstage) Oh, Father, ask Jesus, to send me a
Jew to persecute this Napoleon!
EVAN
Don't you answer that Father! (To Madeline) This is a
goddamned Speakeasy! Not for any type of baby!
MADELINE
It is a palace!
EVAN
Yes, a palace! And spent on, beyond the means! My Vatican!
But it's hounded by these Napoleon busts and spells and your
vision of a baby and other bad soup that's splashing over the
rim of your imagination! These are whores!
MADELINE
My sacred whores! Sacrificial, sacramental priests!
EVAN
Oh Christ. No one wants to drink from a grail with lip marks
all over the rim!
MADELINE
Cum marks! Grail! No except our Lord Savior Jesus HMS Christ
and all his shipmates! I guarantee that grail was half of
his blood and the other was the orgy of hers! My black heart
is growing a veil, Evan! Oh, maybe I have to have a secret,
fire escape love affair to get a ring!
ROCHE
Then I'll buy you the ring and I'll have the affair! Swallow
that bear rug on your tongue! I don't want to get married!
MADELINE
Marriage is no scapegoat for not getting married! Ohhh!
I can't prop myself on this anymore! Everything is a noose!
I'm too young to never marry and too old to campaign.
Everything is an ache, a Parliamentary ash, I'm sexed down,
depleted and inordinate. I'm just held together by ticker
tape, honey. You stop short of yourself too many times and
I'm getting tired of dragging your ass the rest of the way. I
want a ceremony, bigger than the earthquake! And I want God
steaming clams at the reception! You know what that means?
I need champagne! Oh, my bottles of champagne! In my room!
Look at these curtains!
(She lambasts her way into her
room.)
EVAN
Yellow!
(YELLOW approaches.)
EVAN
Where's the extra rum?
YELLOW
In the back.
EVAN
Bring it to the front! I don't want the gallows thinking
we've run out!
YELLOW
I thought we'd conserve.
EVAN
Conserve? Conserve!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing shackles this country
like a conservative!
Clamp one artery of a man's need to spend and it drives the
heart under ground! Sewers are full of gold in a
conservative city. What's a liberal? A preview of a
conservative! A conservative's a sentimental liberal!
Christ, at least they keep me rich with this sneakin' around.
Now go get the damned barrel. And here's tomorrow's headline.
(Evan hands Yellow a piece of
paper)
YELLOW
Boss, there's a Ku Klux Klan rally down at the Wharf. Thought
I could go. You know, get the buzz on it.
EVAN
Bunch of watered down Nazis! Damn Nazis; a bunch a souped up
Klansmen! Neither of 'em have any fashion sense. Thanks for
the tip. I'll send my finest reporters.
YELLOW
What about me?
EVAN
I need you here! You start printing the truth, I'll kill you!
Worse, I'll fire you! You're the wealthiest reporter in the
City. Now go earn your free salary!
(YELLOW exits to get the
barrel.)
EVAN
Christ, there's nothing worse than an aspiring delinquent
unsure of himself. Father!
(Father peeks out Ramie's
door.)
FATHER
Yes?
EVAN
If you see any men you don't know who look Jewish, convert
em.
FATHER
I'll keep a third, fourth eye out for one.
(Father shuts the door.
Charlie wanders over. Chamille
has entered again as a
customer enters. Chamille
eventually intercepts the
customer.)
EVAN
What is life, Charley?
CHARLEY
Life is jazz!
EVAN
Sounds like a word that never ends. No, no, no. See, the key
to life is to stay one step ahead, pretend you're one step
behind. How do I handle her, Charley? She makes me feel
like a thief out of my own damned pocket! I don't mind a
devil inside her, so long as it's on my payroll. You get paid
this week?
CHARLEY
Tips. I just take what I sees.
EVAN
Great! Then Play something that will give every man here
three left feet and one right wallet! (Mutters to himself).
Conservatives. Jesus, what a real Hoover-mess.
(Evan exits)
CHARLEY (SINGS)
Spit'n'Split!
Spit'n'Split!
When the world's been sent to hell and you with it!
All we need to do is tie our tails together
Then we'll be light as a feather!
And float away to
Father's day and mother's day
Forever!
(He plays his horn as we shift
to CHAMILLE, who is sitting on
the lap of a MAN. YELLOW
enters with the rum and sees
Chamille, keeping his eyes on
her all the while he's
changing the barrel. The MAN
has a beaten suit, with oil
slicks and a hat with a hole
in the rim, change in his
pocket and washers and nuts
around his neck.)
MAN
I'm not married, doll.
CHAMILLE
Uh-huh. It's okay. Just don't break her heart.
MAN
There are twin beds in her heart. I come here to avoid work,
go to work to avoid bein'; home.
Lonely getting chased around. I'm half man and half the
other man, just in case my wife cheats on me.
CHAMILLE
Why shouldn't she?
MAN
I didn't say she shouldn't. I'd prefer she didn't. If she
does, I'll know half of it, being half a man.
CHAMILLE
She's a widow with a shovel, honey. (lifts the empty glass
and gets up to get him another drink) I'll get you another
drink, a chain-smoking slub of rum. Be back soon.
(She struts towards the rum
barrel where Yellow is
waiting, bothered by watching
and overcompensating with zeal
barely a tongue thick.)
YELLOW
(singing in a Ragtime drawl)
She had a singular whit
With a Doublemint clit.
And, oh what fish-net a breath I'd walk away with!
CHAMIILLE
Go the hell away, scalawag.
YELLOW
I'm a muckraker! And I love you!
You are paprika,
Your breasts are soft almonds I want pressed in my mouth!
CHAMILLE
Stop using words marked for poets.
YELLOW
I'm the opposite of what poets write and seek and that makes
me more of poetry! I'm the object that stands behind the
object of poetry! And I want you to marry me!
CHAMILLE
Marry what?
YELLOW
This (pointing out himself), what keeps me united,
In form, in tandem with myself!
What do I need to do?
CHAMILLE
Somethin' scandalous! Somethin' treacherous! Deep from the
fancy derisions of your parched soul.
Discover me another color. Write what ails ya'. I love words
that stay past their bedtime, scalawag. Can you write 'em?
YELLOW
They're called vows, dearie pops! And every time I see you,
you uncover another old vow that I could build a wedding
around!
CHAMILLE
So you're horny.
YELLOW
Tis true, I am! But didya listen to anything I said? Didya?
Anything at all in the canoodle? Or the poochie hoodle?
CHAMILLE
No.
YELLOW
Bultitties! You will!
I want to protect you, darling,
From the harshness of this world!
So, for the fiftieth time, will you marry me?
CHAMILLE
No, for the hundredth! You'll make me a widow!
YELLOW
I know you love me! I'll never stop; I'll kick you with a
white-picket foot til you swing open! Something'll snap in
you!
CHAMILLE
Snap back! You're a white picket idiot. I have to go work,
muckraker...do something treacherous for me.
(Chamille heads towards her
customer.)
YELLOW
Purring machete, that tongue!
Something treacherous, she says. I'll do something keener.
I'll live it up inside myself til you decide to show up,
Chamille! Knives, ropes or wicks,
You are a candle with several flames and I want to taste them
all!
I want to build you a house,
Drag it down,
Rebuild it with a spare room converted from a lonely garage
So your ugly half-sister can stay!
Oh, you are such mangled and musty love,
But love nonetheless!
And when your dust become filaments of unused awareness,
We got ourselves a drama through our hands, like water or
nails, it depends!
And who will be the first to admit
We are no strangers to paradise,
But predators of what dribbles from it!
I just want the chance to prove it!
(YELLOW exits. We shift to
FATHER GENDER and RAMIE inside
her room, both half naked,
crosses and incense and Black
Jesus decorating the little
palace)
FATHER
Martin told me he swindled his employee and I gave him ten
Our Fathers. What did he tell you?
RAMIE
He told me he cheated on his wife and he gave me 20 Hail
Mary's!
FATHER
Christ, you win again. (He begins to dole out cash.) Were
you on the bottom or top?
RAMIE
I's ahead, honey! You owe me $5.
FATHER
$5? How about a kiss instead?
RAMIE
And what beyond it? $5. (He hands her the cash.) Like we got
a golden cord flossin the sins tween us, father!
FATHER
Good! Because i I made a bet with my twin lizard Yellow that
I would give a sermon that'll flip the tip jar! Help me! Cast
a spell for me!
RAMIE
You the only one that I won't!
No tricks! You gotta earn the, earn me, earn me fickle, earn
me strong! You need me on stage and you know it! We gotta
complete the orgy and give women back this peach pulpit,
edible! I want my job back! I got a god loose in me, and I
want me a goddess resting! Only way, baby…
FATHER
I already pack em in every Sunday.
RAMIE
That's because The Blood of Christ is 120 proof! It's the
only legal bar in town!
Besides, I already cast a spell. For Miss Madeline!
FATHER
Oh, Jesus. For what!
RAMIE
Ms. Madeline to get pregnant!
FATHER
Oh, Christ!… oh well. Sometimes you gotta walk with the devil
to get to sacred grounds. So are gonna help me write this
sermon?
RAMIE
Promise you won't be runnin away at the last minute?
FATHER
Goddamnit….alright. (Pause) Let's fuck.
(They start to get busy.
Chamille knocks and yells
through the door.)
CHAMILLE
Ramie, get out here. Mama wants to see you out working. Hey
Father.
(We return to Pussyhat's Main
Lounge. Enter DR. CARL SUPINE
and his assistant PETER
SIMPSON. Carl is dressed
smartly in a suit wavering
with tuxedo. He has a casual
arrogance mixed with a heavy
demeanor and an absorbing
presence that makes it
difficult to tell if he's
merely scanning the room or
trying to count everyone's
wounded sheep, too. He is a
little nervous, as if he'd
anticipating this for weeks.
Carl has two books in his
hand.)
CARL
Welcome to the Luminary of Perversions, Peter.
PETER
It says Pussyhats.
CARL
You must learn to read within the Line. Here, take a book.
We'll pretend we're educated to convince them we're not.
PETER
What are we looking for?
CARL
Admit you know something when you know it before you can
admit you don't know. You're never wrong, Peter.
PETER
We're looking for patients.
CARL
You genius, you preposition, you party hermit! Sometimes
you're right. Yes, patients. Ones with perfumed armpits and
bulldozer thighs! We're looking for one patient in
particular. What are we, Peter? What are we, underneath all
this?
PETER
Therapists.
CARL
Therapists! We're archeologists. Against the endangerment of
truth,
Therapy is the daring transit between the seen and unseen,
those fleshy clanks and the spirits daunting the reasons we
lie. What else?
PETER
Therapy should punish our own boundaries.
CARL
Yes! Admit when your patient has the jungle conquered with
your dimples in it and don't lapse to prevent your own
therapy. We're lusty proverbs, humans. Innocence and
vitality. Love them like wicker. (Spots Zoe) Wait, I see our
girl.
PETER
What are we going to do with her?
CARL
I don't know, Peter. Her dreams are intense.
She's like a crumbling doll house, too young to be weathered;
So wrapped in guilt and wild dreams,
Something tells me she wants this baby and it wants her.
And I don't want to abort her psyche.
My god, Peter, what men do to control women in this time,
Convincing them that choice is a crime!
Well, let's grow some top hats! Go, mingle and take names.
(Peter wanders towards the rum
barrel. Noticed by Chamille
who's with Ramie. Carl heads
towards Zoe, who sees CARL.
Meanwhile, Father quietly
exits Ramie's room and heads
for more rum and to watch the
action.)
ZOE
Doc!
CARL
Hello, Zoe.
ZOE
Thanks for coming!
CARL
How are you feeling?
ZOE
All dinged up,
Lots of voices and loud little noises in my head!
CARL
You're on the verge, Zoe. Demons swell and loiter on the
verge before you realize you're in line at the door of a
costume party of the regular and unobscene. A party!
ZOE
I can't see that good!
CARL
Well, until we can see beyond them, sometimes we just must
abide by our senses.
So, where's your mother?
ZOE
Oh, Doc, she ain't my real mother, til she says she is and
then I get all confused!
CARL
Let's go talk to her.
(ZOE leads him to Madeline's
room. The door is closed.
Inside Madeline is drinking
Champagne steadily and staring
out the Fire Escape, which is
littered with angry, empty
glass chards.
We can see the room more
clearly now: decorated like an
Empress Palace: an old
phonograph on a table; a large
map on the wall and a mirror
covered in a cloth. Velvets
coat the room, messy, ordained
over and over with proof that
she has been through a war or
two. And there is a gun on
her nightstand. She speaks to
her angel.)
MADELINE
As what is in my heart is not my heart,
But is the remains of what I felt long ago
When I was a little more alive,
As love now sounds like a fractured oboe,
Or a glass bowl with rotting fruit.
Where are you, goddamnit angel of my womb?
(Carl knocks on the door.)
MADELINE
I don't recognize the knock, so who the hell? WHO THE HELL?
(She opens the door. Carl and
Madeline are both slightly
affected by each other for a
beat.)
MADELINE
Impregnable, impregnable day! Feathers are plucked from a
cocket of twine.
And at my door's another blowhearted swine!
ZOE
Mama, this is Doc.
CARL
Dr. Carl Supine.
MADELINE
Yes? Well, what sort of doctor are you?
CARL
I'm a therapist.
MADELINE
Jung or Freud?
CARL
I'm impressed.
MADELINE
Caught awry? Like a cork out of a milk bottle?
CARL
Like milk from a wine bottle.
MADELINE
Hmmm. You retort well enough. Well, I specialize in what
Your Jung and Freud are missing. I study them to ease the
transition of power between myself and my customers.
CARL
Maybe your customers need a new system of governing.
MADELINE
Sweets, we're here to soothe, not solve or burgeon some great
reaper of awareness.
CARL
I believe that but I don't believe you believe that. Can we
speak in private?
MADELINE
Of what?
CARL
Private affairs.
MADELINE
Step into my howling, echoed, strained bedsheet of an office!
Sweets, you wait out here 'til mama's done dispatching this
little zealot.
CARL
It's alright, Zoe, I've had my zealot's mind dispatched
before. It usually ends up doubling my salary.
(Carl enters the room and the
door shuts. Chamille and
Ramie have been watching.)
RAMIE
And there is the logjam that frees the flume! Ha!
CHAMILLE
What the hell are you talking about?
RAMIE
I cast a spell for Miss Madelina!
A dervish,
A flume,
A nightingale.
A curvaceous veil,
These be your wishes,
Your showtime britches!
Hurtin, hurtin, heartin howling heav'n!
Blessed hymns for Satan's weddn'!
…I place a curse on this who knows me well,
tonight we'll get a visit from the bottom of the spells,
a man will enter this tomb,
this run down shit hole upper class toilet bowl.
A splat of rum,
A curried thumb,
A silver nail
Into the shale,
We sustain what's lost in gain!
Oh, guardians of the tooth,
Of the three swords,
Give conception to the womb of Miss Madeline!
CHAMILLE
What is that all about?
RAMIE
Get her pregnant as an African drum!
CHAMILLE
Damn you, Ramie! Always one guy to the left, and now one
womb!
Zoe's pregnant!
RAMIE
Then Zoe's havin' Miss Madeline's baby!
CHAMILLE
Not that I believe in your voodoo shit, but it does seem to
fuck up things once in a while!
And that's the doctor, I'm sure, that's here to tell her. He
looks out of place, so there it is.
RAMIE
So be it! So be the brawny battle about to come! The stars
punch holes in the night
To reach down and rip the tablecloth off the eyes of the
blind!
So be it!
(Ramie heads back to her room.
Chamille grabs her.)
CHAMILLE
Hey, you go over to the barrel and snag that little fetch boy
of his over there, see him? (She motions to Peter, who's
standing alone.) He came in with the doc. I'm going to keep
an eye out for everyone. You and your damn slingshot fetus!
That's the powder talking, too, I bet. Get over there now…
(Ramie approaches Peter, who's
still standing alone, plumbing
his head to the music like a
typical dance club wallflower;
keeping himself from realizing
he's standing alone.)
RAMIE
You royalty? Where's your crown, honey?
PETER
Made of hair.
RAMIE
Well, honey, your
crumpled frown
Is a frumpled crown!
And I'm royalty, too! Ramie, honey, potion princess! My
hand's in my hips, honey, so you gotta' shake one of those!
PETER
(He waves) Nice to meet you.
RAMIE
You and I, both royalty! I sure love instant monarchies! More
useful! She fake fiddles with her slip Damn, my slip's
double knotted. Reach behind or under me and loosen it?
PETER
I'm not a sailor. I don't do knots.
RAMIE
It's a civilian knot, sweetie...When's the last time you get
laid?
PETER
Three years ago.
RAMIE
When was the last time the man in you got laid? (he looks
confused) Look, you a handsome alley rabbit. Put a $20 sail
on your shaft and drift into my room.
PETER
You know, I just want to go back my office.
RAMIE
Your King needs to be alone! His bone gonna get tongue-tied,
honey! And you can help him! I can help you, but you need to
help me, too! Help Ramie bounce the weasels off the walls!
Come back to my room! Come, come, come, ling and strung! And
that tangerine strut! Come! Forget the money, honey.
PETER
Do I strut? Okay, but show and no tell.
(Ramie leads Peter to her room
as Evan enters. Father heads
over to Evan to report what he
sees as the scene shifts to
Madeline's room as Carl is
soaking in the details of the
new surroundings. Madeline
scrounges for a non-empty
champagne bottle. And does so
with pride for her sloppy
room.)
MADELINE
Would you like a drink?
CARL
I don't drink. I'm on the wagon, so to speak.
MADELINE
Well, I'm the bartender on the wagon, and business is slow.
I have champagne, poured from my naval to my leg, like an
isthmus for clumsy, large frigates that have passed through
over the years. Like old Nautelean, Aegean ice chippers! I
drink it so much my urine can be bottled…
As my body is a purifier for such a disgrace.
CARL
Your body?
MADELINE
What's so hollow inside.
CARL
I charge $20/hour for these type of sessions.
MADELINE
I charge $40.
CARL
I owe you $20.
MADELINE
If I feel cured, I'll owe you $20.
CARL
I'll tip you and we'll make it even.
MADELINE
The fisticuffs that surround this room strangle most men that
enter it.
CARL
I am not most men and mostly at times, barely a man.
MADELINE
Why barely?
CARL
(Pause) Okay, then, I think I will have a sport of that
champagne.
MADELINE
I thought you didn't drink.
CARL
Drinking's not drinking to a drinker.
MADELINE
Barely a man,
Barely a drinker,
But a drinking man's what I see.
CARL
That's what you see?
MADELINE
Oh, I don't know! My desire to pry was lost recently long
ago.
So tragic when the heart loses it's plow. Champagne,
champagne! Which country, which continent, tectonic prowl?
Which mood?
(She finally finds a bottle
that sloshes and prepares
glasses, cleaning them out
with whatever cloth is
available during the following
sequence. Carl notices the
gun.)
CARL
Why do you have a gun on the nightstand?
MADELINE
To guard the one under my mattress.
CARL
Are you planning a double murder?
MADELINE
Just waiting to cast the parts.
CARL
How did you find your girls?
MADELINE
They all came to me. Wandered in or out, depending on where
I was. Spread eaglet on my lawn. You should browse the
girls, see if they fit the reasons you're really here.
CARL
How do I really know my reasons? Besides, there are too many
gargoyles in negligee roaming here for one careless building.
So much myth! So much history and lineage banging together in
some perfumed barbeque.
MADELINE
That's what you see in here? What do you see when you look at
me?
CARL
I see two suns, both setting!
MADELINE
And, with you, I see two suns, both rising.
CARL
Well, then between us is High Noon!
MADELINE
It's a good goddamned thing I have both guns! So, why are you
here? Are you in love with Zoe, some fathering thing?
CARL
God no! I'll tell you why after a sip. (she hands him the
champagne). How about a toast! From the world's oldest
profession…
CARL
…to it's newest. To Our Two League of Nations.
MADELINE
Nations breed enemies.
CARL
Then, here's to imports!
(He drinks. He wanders to the
window, looks outside and sees
his office window and realizes
it is probably Madeline that
he has heard singing all of
these weeks.)
CARL
My god.
MADELINE
What?
CARL
There's my office window. Has it been your voice I've been
hearing for the past few weeks singing to me? I mean---
MADELINE
Jungian slip, there, Doc?
CARL
"And sounds become smells
and thoughts enrage dreams."
I could almost smell your song, or maybe it was you.
MADELINE
You've heard me sing? Ha! What a magnate of despair I am!
CARL
No! No. No.
MADELINE
No?
CARL
No. I would look, yes, well, forward to working when you
sing. But your voice is so sad. I've been crawling inside of
it and it…makes me ache…. Like a conversation, an elegy or a
prayer or a beginning.
Your singing gives me combustible eyelids!
MADELINE
(touched)
…well, I, they're…you know, just little hymns, disgraceful
little dustrags I throw…on thoughts…
CARL
(a little excited, they're like
two kids)
I keep a sketchpad and draw when you sing, to imagine what
you would look like.
MADELINE
Are you disappointed?
CARL
No! I think you are….a beautiful woman. Carved from an
anthem.
MADELINE
well….Are you Jewish, Dr?
CARL
Sometimes.
MADELINE
Are you married?
CARL
No.
MADELINE
Are you in love? I mean, have you ever been?
CARL
I know seven solitudes and any woman that finds two of them
is my wife and three of them is my lover and four is my
destiny.
MADELINE
Then you must count to five!
CARL
Well, my work is intense love for me. You know, between your
singing, I would also hear whispers.
MADELINE
Those whispers between songs, it is my dream.
CARL
Do you….write down your dreams?
MADELINE
I can't tell the difference most of the time! You want me to
write down my life when I'm dreaming?
CARL
Good point. You just seem like a confused angel to me.
MADELINE
I do? Then I need more champagne! (She grabs the bottle and
chugs.) Here is my dream, doctor, my echo:
For God to hire my flesh to carry my child,
Beleaguered before birth, maybe this spirit will be,
But it will be mine,
And I will nurse it back to life before it is born!
My body's a melting hour glass that ticks!
Old, benign, lazy,
Partitioned and sanctioned,
To the unenlightened gallows of the soul,
Where woodburning stoves will go to die,
And with me,
A single golden rope,
A spindle of hopes,
A coddled woman,
My womb a last ditch at retaliation,
A hollowed pear for a sweet soul who wants to share
With me.
My baby.
My solitary perfect fruit,
My hymen reborn in a suit!
Or a dress!
CARL
Charlemagne once said "Do not let the fruit hold the basket."
MADELINE
Well then I have no room for him in my décor.
CARL
It is a compliment.
MADELINE
But an infertile one! I want a marriage and my lover will
not give me either! I only have one!
CARL
I see. You have a lover.
MADELINE
Just one! The mayor! Such a vile, sallow snipe.
Like a percolating guardrail, he keeps me in safety or
chains, I can never tell.
CARL
Do you love him?
MADELINE
I love him,
Enough to love him. And what's between that is inviolate!
He carries me through his womb without honoring Mine!
And yet I espouse him,
Without a wedding ring!
Doctor, I am only a whore to my ambitions!
CARL
Why don't you come to my office. To talk.
MADELINE
Please don't squirm, as so many men do.
You walked in tonight and carried the freezing tactics of a
man
Separate from his manhood!
You may have glided in here but you will limp out,
And maybe you'll walk the straighter for it.
Valooooom! I need more, more champagne
Before you rest your elbow on my ass of a mantle and stare,
Gawk, and stoke the dying fire below!
CARL
And what fire has been guarded by so much in mouth, in
tongue?
MADELINE
Please don't tease me! Draw me near and then run!
Unless you can carry homeward what's not been undone.
CARL
I whisper back when I hear you..
MADELINE
What have you been saying to me?
CARL
(Taking her hand) You want a child, I've heard it over and
over.
MADELINE
Here's a stranger who knows me, finally,
And sneaks into the fold with a magnifying cradle!
CARL
Then please let me hold you.
MADELINE
All men want to sneer at my flesh,
Throttle it until it's loose enough for crows to nibble at my
feathers!
CARL
I don't want to dissect you! I just want to hold you. Not
sneer at you, not sneer at you.
MADELINE
Because I'm a wrinkling, rotting---
CARL
Stop this, now! (Holding her until she receives it.)
Your skin feels fresh to me,
Like warm snow off a pine tree.
MADELINE
Tread softly! And ignore the other footprints!
How well do you know me?
CARL
Maybe about an hour well!
MADELINE
Then we are already ahead of time! We're beating time!
I ask you again, what do you see when you soak me? Touch me,
pinch me?
CARL
I see and pinch and soak God, man and woman playing chain
links between a fence, like the bottom of the oven, the
crumbs and the coils that cook.
MADELINE
I feel like still life.
But not still born!
CARL
Just still.
(Finally they kiss.)
MADELINE
I feel like we're two embattled skulls that ricochet off the
same red sky!
Suddenly I feel ashamed of my ravaged Eden.
CARL
(Suddenly remembering what he was supposed to tell her about
Zoe) My god, I have to tell you why I came in here!
MADELINE
Will you conceive my child? That is why you are here!
CARL
I am?
MADELINE
It is, you see,
The percolating gem stone within my misery!
And tonight, you are here.
We have to make love!
CARL
…and how many men have heard this before?
MADELINE
Honestly, quite a few!
But none have listened like you,
Instead of treating me like some clubbed and beaten
thoroughfare!
CARL
What if I couldn't conceive?
I am still here! What about me?
MADELINE
(She's testing him and not admitting it to herself) Does it
matter?
CARL
Yes! As suddenly as a man who feels his oars ticking in the
waters! Yes!
MADELINE
Why did you come here tonight?
CARL
(confessing like a child)
To find the voice! And see if what I saw what from you, or
us, or me. And because I'm aching. And I feel loved right
now. I know you want a baby, and I know you're hurt and I
can't see why but you've been my patient by earshot for six
weeks and my fantasy and my imagination quietly and so, here
I am.
MADELINE
Shhhhh. My love,
My life, my fabrics,
My enervation towards the desire to create a new life within
the old!
I will come to your office in half an hour. Please, leave
through the window!
CARL
There is nothing to hide. Just tell the truth!
MADELINE
Oh honey, there's no worse deception than the truth!
CARL
I'm going out the front door.
MADELINE
Then let me go ahead, Doctor. I always leave my room first,
especially if I'm alone!
(Madeline frees herself, opens
the door and assumes her
public personae, acting more
drunk than she feels with the
heir that she has a man who
will help her break the spell
of her womb. She exits as Evan
sees and senses this.)
MADELINE
It's been fun pistol-whipping the closed alleys of the soul
Doc but I'm fuck-starving as a heart attack and I have
clients to coddle,
Dossiers to fondle!
(Madeline gets a drink and some
food and returns to her room,
slams the door. Carl finds
Zoe, who's mingling alone.)
ZOE
Doc!
CARL
Hardly a good one! I didn't tell her.
ZOE
Oh, she's got you in the clap and the claws!
Mama's spittoon made out of gold and no one can stand the
glare!
This kid in my belly's got my head runnin' mad!;
slike the film keeps running out in my head!
Slappaslappslappa and no one's laughing and no one's cryin!
CARL
But no one's leaving. Be patient. Did you tell anyone else?
ZOE
Yes! Chamille! Cammy! There (she points here out)! See!
CARL
Well, don't tell anyone else until I tell Miss Madeline. Be
the slightly roasted olive that you are, a good soul.
ZOE
Kay, doc.
(CARL head towards the exit.
Evan intercepts him like a
hawk.)
EVAN
Doc! Welcome to Pussyhats!
CARL
Thank you.
EVAN
You've met the Chandelier, my Queen!
CARL
Yes.
EVAN
Were you looking for me? Everything okay in your new office?
CARL
Fine. Actually, one of your girls is my patient and she
suggested I find the Madame.
EVAN
Which girl?
CARL
Zoe.
EVAN
What's wrong?
CARL
That's proprietary. Patient-doctor confidentiality.
EVAN
It is?
CARL
Yes.
EVAN
She's on my payroll.
CARL
Only her time.
EVAN
I'm running a business here. Need to know if something's
wrong.
CARL
Nothing wrong. Zoe is a what i call a 'monster of
sweetness', one frame behind her thoughts, that's all.
EVAN
What kind of doctor are you?
CARL
One on his way back to work. It's been an erstwhile
pleasure.
EVAN
You Jewish?
CARL
Not at the moment.
EVAN
Great! Then have a drink.
CARL
It's illegal, Mayor. Have you seen my assistant?
EVAN
Hell, Ramie's got him in her Voodoo Dollar Lounge.
CARL
Well, good for him! Good night, then.
(Carl exits. Charley walks by
with his trumpet.)
EVAN
That doctor's like a muffled propeller. I hear something,
but I can't hear what the hell it is. How long was he in
there?
CHARLEY
Couple of minutes, at least.
EVAN
Then she's had him twice already and she's saving the second
time! I can feel it and I could smell her on him!
CHARLEY
Jesus could turn wine into water,
But the devil could turn wine into chocolate!"
EVAN
I may be a fool, but I'm sure no moron.
I'll keep a hard eye on him!
(Evan heads towards Madeline's
Room. Father has been drinking
more heavily since Ramie has
been at work with Peter as
Charley approaches, playing
something Hymnal.)
FATHER
(To Charley and himself) To hell with her! I'm going to
write a sermon, and even more daring, a prayer! Myself! No
matter how hard and dark it gets inside the bones of chapel!
And I will coil it around the appetite that's split between
by Congregation and that woman, the Meateater's Paradise! And
squeeze it all into one! Then I will preach it on Sunday! To
hell with her!
(FATHER runs out like he's
streaking. Inside the back
room, Ramie is in her
underwear. Peter has his shirt
off. She's pulling powder out
of a box.)
RAMIE
You know, them nervous hands that cooked up th'earth,
created that wobble so that when Mama Nature stirs herself,
that tiny human circle at the top of the sky is draped at the
edges by the constellations of the zodiac. You know that?
Better tip me for that!
PETER
I told you; I have no money.
RAMIE
But you a doctor! You can prescribe! And for return, I'll
give you the Creole Cum-About!
PETER
You want sex for drugs!
RAMIE
I thought you was an alchemist! Tit for tit, and you get
both!
(Ramie lays out the cocaine and
draws a line while Peter just
looks on uncomfortably.)
RAMIE
AHHHHHH! You see! Cardinal sins are cardinal laws when I's
on!
When the powder backhand you,
Like dynamite,
Make a black man look white!
Make a White man look like the cold nigger switchblade he is!
Ha!
PETER
Can't you get these drugs from any man?
RAMIE
Honey, you new, better looking, and you next door and Ramie
like the drama! Now be a good samaratin and put your finger
where the beggar waits! Do it and i'll talk about your doc,
sweets!
(She helps him put his finger
inside her.)
PETER
Now I really need a cigarette!
RAMIE
We ain't started yet!
PETER
Maybe you haven't!
RAMIE
Will you help Ramie? Will you?
PETER
Alright. I guess I have nothing better to do.
RAMIE
(drawing another line)
You draw a line, too, baby. Come on, your admission slip.
PETER
Well, alright. To save my boss.
(He draws a line.)
RAMIE
Now, Beautiful Lingham Prince, there a baby to be had
And someone got to claim it! And your King drawn to the Pain!
PETER
(rambling) Uh, huh! Yeah, you see, the night wanders
intotheoldbeginningfarmofthe---
(Lights down on Pussyhat's and
up on Carl's Office. Carl
sitting on his window sill,
looking onto the fire escape,
nervous, shaking with brandy
in his snifter in hand, like a
man who knows he's a goner.)
CARL
Silence is a site for sore ears! So this is where Madeline
saw the angel, the devious aberration! Madeline. She limps
and she gallows with the howls of a sage oh but I know love
her, I love her between the cracks and the slivers. She
makes me feel like a miracle! An act between what howls for
premonition and what prays for relief. Pink toed angels can
dance for their god, who's angry with me for relenting but
who will forgive me if I protect her. Suddenly anything less
is a failure. Flesh succumbed to the Bone!
(Return to Pussyhats Main
Lounge.
Chamille is with MAN, while we
hear some occasional moaning
and climax coming from Ramie
and Peter behind closed doors.
And we also hear occasional
arguing from Madeline and Evan
behind closed doors in her
bedroom. ZOE is in the
corner, by the barrel, not
with anyone, looking jumpy,
checking her stomach. Chamille
is with a customer but
distracted by Zoe, who looks
adrift and barely together.
Charley is still towing
about.)
MAN
Work pounds! I get home, I keep pounding my wife, in the bed,
like a jackhammer! I gotta wear ear plugs so I don't hear it!
a million pieces and screws in me. America pounds, America
pounds! I don't know what kind of living I'm carvin
But when I get home I'm always starvin'
And I don't know left what to do!
CHAMILLE
(finally needing to get to Zoe)
I gotta leave before I fall in love with you, socket wrench
cowboy. I'll getcha another drink, so stay right here and
till the couch, my farmer.
(CHAMILLE walks over to the
barrels, where ZOE is
curdled.)
CHAMILLE
How are you?
ZOE
I ain't got a clue yet! But Mama still don't know! She got
that doc all in a row!
CHAMILLE
He didn't tell her?
ZOE
He probably don't know anymore!
CHAMILLE
I'll tell her.
ZOE
No!
CHAMILLE
Honey, you best tell mama before she realizes she already
knew! Let's go over now!
ZOE
No!
CHAMILLE
You keep standing in the corner doing nothing,
Bosswallet's gonna sound like a gorilla without the money you
steal from his hat! You gotta work!
ZOE
I can't! I can't! I'm going out! I'm gonna do this all over
again and this time,
It ain't gonna end with something else startin!
CHAMILLE
Come on, we're going to Mama's room and tell her the truth!
ZOE
It's a funeral! Bosswallet'll kick me out! This is all I got!
And film!
CHAMILLE
Zoe, honey, you're not----I'll protect you, come on.
(As she begins to drag ZOE
over, Madeline bursts from her
room and Evan follows her
out.)
MADELINE
My pussy's the only chaste member of my household, do you
hear me, you cat burglar!
EVAN
What an arrangement! What a deal! What a lover! What a cold
furnace!
CHAMILLE
Mama!
MADELINE
I have a doctor's appointment, Chamille! Mind the Show while
I'm gone.
CHAMILLE
We gotta talk!
MADELINE
Drapes fall out loud, out loud! In this mammoth cloud!
You make sure everyone is walking the purse strings while I'm
gone!
Be good; we'll chatter when I return!
(Madeline whisks her way across
(she has a bottle of champagne
tucked in her person;
hopefully it rattles) and out
the door. Chamille steps in
front of Evan, who stops while
Zoe exits, breaking free of
Chamille's grip.)
CHAMILLE
Bosswallet, am I your favorite?
EVAN
You want to know, right at this moment?
CHAMILLE
Yeah, at this one.
EVAN
I don't know! Oh, hell, sure. Why?
CHAMILLE
Cause I need to hear it. Here, sit and talk to me bout what's
bothering you.
(She leads him to sit.)
EVAN
Christ, I'm convinced that man's purpose on this planet's to
serve women. And damned if they don't do everything to stop
you!
There are reasons I follow women around, my girls!
Sometimes to lead, sometimes for loss of anything else to do!
But I know! And I don't know what else to do with her, what
else! I want to saw the snow in half with dynamite!
CHAMILLE
Mama's had nights with other men, you know, Bosswallet!
EVAN
She's had them! But this night's swinging from wall to wall
picking up all the personalities I spend on! And there
shouldn't be any room for anyone else to dance without my
permission! A chokehold on her. I always think I got a
chokehold on her, til I start strangling. My woman's
intuition tells me to do something.
CHAMILLE
Why don't you marry her?
EVAN
Hell no! Having one of those moments where I wish my wife
were dead so I could freely strangle my lover! I got a hell
of a Pontius fist And I'll keep swiping at this mist of this
situation, til bullets falls outta my knuckles!
CHAMILLE
You ain't a killer or shooter or hitter or violent.
EVAN
Sometimes I am. I just don't have a weapon nearby when it
happens.
CHAMILLE
I'll help you.
EVAN
How can you help me?
CHAMILLE
I can do lots. Talk to the Doc.
EVAN
About what?
CHAMILLE
Bout my problems. I saw him give me the eye. I'll slow-burn
him.
EVAN
Ah, hell, all this sneaking around. Why do you care?
CHAMILLE
I want to do what mama does! I want to be the queen! If you
marry her,maybe she'll retire,
You know.
EVAN
She won't quit even if she did marry me.
CHAMILLE
She'll quit. She's got to.
EVAN
Why is that?
CHAMILLE
Bosswallet, I gotta tell you something. I shouldn't.
EVAN
Then don't tell me, don't sell me,
Hell just turn the words into something I can use besides a
damn secret!
CHAMILLE
But you have to know and you have to promise not to tell
Mama!
EVAN
Oh Christ, a promise riding a secret!
CHAMILLE
I can't help it; it's going to grow into something bigger if
I don't tell you! Aren't you curious, now. A little?
EVAN
Hell yes, I am. It's growing by the second.
CHAMILLE
You want to know or not?
EVAN
My wallet says no.
CHAMILLE
It's no, then.
EVAN
It's not no.
CHAMILLE
Oh, Why is it I keep crying and weeping in my room, you know,
Every time you skip off to the gallows with mama to lose
yourself in some scheme to get her and I'm tellin' you, you
can have her, right now!
I got the secret temptation, right here in the bottle of my
tongue.
EVAN
Hell, I can feel the stubble falling off my beard,
Right into that little colored steam river 'tween your heart
and your legs,
Assuming your heart ain't in your legs!
CHAMILLE
You don't pay me to keep it in my chest;
It slides like a trombone, up and down
And every time it does,
Music and money and now a secret come out!
And you gotta hold 'em all like the father you are!
Please, just hold your ear steady. I'm scared enough as it is
'doin this.
EVAN
Bull.
(She whispers in his ear that
Zoe is pregnant.)
EVAN
Pregnant? Jesus, I run a family here! I want a business!
Whose damned hallowed genitals did it?
CHAMILLE
We don't know! Maybe it was the slime off the barrels!
EVAN
What a mess!
Jesus, jesus! Fisting destiny,
Right here, a baby!
Backlash pornography in a speakeasy!
CHAMILLE
What are we gonna do?
EVAN
I'll ship her back to Oklahoma,
Get her out of here before we know anything else about this!
We'll tell your Mama that she ran off and got married.
CHAMILLE
Oh, but Bosswallet, the Doc knows! He's supposed to tell
Mama.
EVAN
Well, then, why the hell did you stop me from stopping her?
CHAMILLE
I don't know! I wanted you to know first! (pause)
I love you some, that's why.
EVAN
And it rattles around in you
And out comes a lie!
CHAMILLE
It's a truth!
EVAN
A truth's a lie when it doesn't come out on time!
Where's Zoe?
CHAMILLE
I don't know.
EVAN
Let's go deal with this. Come on.
(EVAN gets up and CHAMILLE goes
also. CHARLEY is the last on
stage. As he plays, the scene
shifts to Carl's Office,
Charley's trumpet clearly
heard through the alley. The
office austere, calm and
intense, perfectly opened and
shelved books and a quietly
wild small plant or two; the
whole thing decorated is as
if the Northern Lights Went to
School for Philosophy and
Interior Decorating. No
corners; everything is rounded
superbly, discrete and
revealing to the refined eye.
There is a suit hanging on the
doorway/wall with two or three
bow-ties and suspenders
dangling; gallant, elegant,
erudite clothing yet there's a
feeling of a red, whistling
piranha swimming around inside
the room.
There's a box, unpacked,
beside the desk. There is an
empty champagne bottle with
glasses on the desk. Carl
Supine and Madeline are
intertwined on a traditional
therapy Couch. They are
embraced, in rapture, done
loving, just resting, in
accord with each other, for a
few moments, silences lost,
silences found.)
CARL
(as he traces her face)
I have to ask...Why do you limp?
MADELINE
(knowing he wants a story, not
falling for her own lie)
One of my legs shortens after three glasses!
Or the other grows! In any case,
It's punishment for celebration, you see, for
Living so blindly in quiet infamy!
For some of the mouths I've bled! Men I've left for dead!
CARL
You talk of yourself through some elegant riddles.
MADELINE
Taking notes, Dr? You'll say to me, one day,
my life is a big, disgusting,
Fragrant disguise,
Stuffed like a turkey full of watery lies!
(They hear Charley playing through the window, ricocheting in
the fire escape.)
Listen to my Charley play that uncircumsized trumpet? Can you
hear it change colors?
Ah, I love the simple ethics of a fire escape! Better housing
for lost souls! You see!
Oh, Kiss me, kiss my wounds, kiss my secret sins,
And agonize and pray at those places.
Right now Doctor,
Before the sun and stars start to cave in on us!
(He kisses her)
Come closer, again, without getting too much excited,
too much in triumph,
before we start realizing too much! Quickly!
CARL
Slowly. A demon's just a pine tree when you merely stroll
past it.
MADELINE
Slow, fast,
It depends on what you'd rather see!
CARL
You have to be still
You have to be still,
For such…loving surgery.
(He puts his hand up her thigh and
more. Use the words to drive the
movements between them.)
MADELINE
This is where you enter me,
But it let be not where you exit. Ohh.
It's a flume littered with distress,
My hip's sore, I'm a scarred up mess,
Are you sure you want to do this?
CARL
(Smiling and probing) Yes. I feel you too well!
So soothing, for a lonesome old frigate like me. it sounds
crazy, but I feel like i've waited a thousand years for this.
That's how it feels to me. You and I, feels like a deep
wound, past the bounds of time; way past,
Like out bodies are...just stones skipping on some suddenly
awful, flat, jugular timeline.
MADELINE
I feel that too.
CARL
So what do we do?
MADELINE
Just pretend you're Jewish for a moment!
CARL
I'll bend every cross into a menorah.
MADELINE
How many men have I healed without touching?
Or touched without healing,
Now I may have both in one! Know it is true!
I may want a child, but nobody makes me speak like you.
CARL
That makes me so happy to hear! I do believe your child waits
for you, to loosen the..hardened fossils inside you.
MADELINE
...I don't know if that's true…I have to tell you…i'm barren
doc, I'm barren!
CARL
How do you know that you are barren?
MADELINE
Because I am cursed, more than barren! And that's worse!
What god or even what devil would let a soul inside my body
other than my own?
For what I have done over the years?
Oh, I don't deserve a child!
And all I've done lately is rely on Miracles,
If no miracles,
Then champagne!
Then the thinning hair on my head!
Then the guns at my bed!
Then howling, and my heart has lungs,
And I want a child so desperately I'm afraid I'll still do
the worst to get one!
A woman has to fight time, doctor!
A man just his concentration.
CARL
Well, how on Earth can a sperm fight its way through all
that?
MADELINE
I don't know, Doctor! But with you, with you,
You scratch me down to my flea ridden bones.
And All my scars melt away for a while.
CARL
You have to trust me. We have to trust each other, as wide as
a desert. (pause) I was wondering if you would ever consider
leav--
MADELINE
(Anticipating the question) It takes a lot, doctor, to pull a
woman away from her home, like plucking her skin from her
flesh, even if that skin feels ironed on! I cannot leave my
job, my home, my family, my children. What's felt so true
for most of my life!
CARL
(Defeated, hurt) I see. Well, that's...okay. It seems rash
anyway.
MADELINE
That's what frightens me. You see? (Silence.)
Such bombastic silence! Such a wretch I am! (Trying to cover
up the silence of knowing she ain't leaving nothing.)
I wish you had a sacrifice to make,
You handsome, handsome, mansome soul,
Like a blue devil in a china Bowl!
Now tell me something cruel!
CARL
(Hurt) Why? (Pause. No response as she does not wish to
share. Now he's ready to tell he Zoe is pregnant.) I do have
a secret, of sorts.
MADELINE
A secret! The only way to find out if it's secret is to
confess! Well?
CARL
Madeline…
MADELINE
That felt like a waste of my name.
Now, I don't want to hear it.
CARL
I will have to tell you anyway.
MADELINE
(starting to wriggle away) No, no.
CARL
One of my patients…happens to be one of your girls.
And she, well, here, she's…
MADELINE
I don't want to hear it! Damn it! Don't tell me---
CARL
Pregnant. Zoe's pregnant. I shouldn't be sorry, but I am.
MADELINE
Stunned, on the night of her last vigil. Oh, here I am! Some
howling maudlin sacrifice,
So full of vice,
And I pay!
And now she has my baby!
CARL
It is her baby, not yours.
MADELINE
I can't hold hers without knowing if it's mine!
CARL
It is not yours, my dear.
I love Zoe too,
I love all of my patients.
That's what a healer does and you should know that.
MADELINE
Well, I'm a goddamned healer, too!
One of us just happens to be legal!
Oh, god, if Evan knows…
CARL
He doesn't know. Well, I'm not sure actually. But please…
Damn it, I shouldn't be saying this, but look…Zoe's had some
dreams and before she decides what she wants to do, I'd like
to---
MADELINE
(Gathering herself) I have to go home.
CARL
Please please, Stay here with me for a while. Please.
MADELINE
Once a woman loses her fertility,
Then remains her marriage,
And if none,
Her mystery.
And what's that to me? What?
CARL
Please, I love you! Please!!
It's cautious, but true.
There's silences that fault the listener,
And without you here,
I'll be prey to the worst! Please don't leave!
MADELINE
It's been figured! It's been done!
Solution's over, now the crime's begun!
(She exits and then Peter
enters, looking on the
downside of an all night
cocaine and sex binge.)
CARL
Oh, Peter! Beauty is, as beauty cracks,
And now there's a baby stuck in the fragment of my lawn!
These are some serious, woven, multitudes of garments I have
no idea how to wear or sew together. There is no telling what
she'll do! And what happened to you?
PETER
Nothing.
CARL
My life is about to go all up in milk! I need a drink…
(Their office dims as Charley
begins to play and sing/talk.)
CHARLEY
Cut me a vinly rug, toot salt, toot salt.
Lucifer drop his horns on earth,
While on the way to hell.
I picked it up! (Plays hard lick.)
Cause there's a story to tell!
Oh, oh, oh,
I'm an ordinary, ordinary, coronary joe!
All my ducks get shot
When they lined up in a row!! All lined up in a row, eatin'
American Crow, like permanent snow….
(CHARLEY exits.)
End of ACT I
Intermission!
Remember to maintain the integrity of the atmopshere.
Ideas:
-burlesque male/female dancer moving to Leonard Cohen's
"Don't Go Home With Your Hard On"
-Charley wandering about,
- A new program/newssheet (with updated articles) for ACT II
left on the seats or handed out by Yellow to reflect what's
happened so far. OR what Evan has done???
-Leg contest reults are posted. Fictitious, in cas audience
is timid.
-Bartender/Whiskey Pete/ tending bar, taking bets perhaps. A
new sign above the corner bar:
"Booze: Liquid aphorism,
Early morning saltine hurricane,
menstrual paint thinner."
Yellow comes in and flickers the lights himself for start of
Act II. He waves the new headlines, a summary of act i to be
given to the audience.
YELLOW
Extra, extra, getcha getcha slow roasted, talc-and tums
tested extra!
Gallant throes of marginal men slipped to the dogs of rags!
Get it here, get it sickly here,
All night, I pounded and waited,
Man oh man, I gathered up a wild, long wait,
I weighted a tired gait;
Gave insults to readers who crowned themselves with glory
every time
I wrote a story!
Now I see it!
Gotta beat, gotta rhyme!
Extra! Extra! why it's the test of time!
(Chamille whips through the
galley with a man as Yellow
sees)
YELLOW
And there she is, Sweet, sweet, solstice summer brings,
At first you may feel a little sting,
But after her two-step flip-a-dilly swing,
Even a nazi could love anything!
ACT II
(The same morning. The set is
identical to Act I, except
Pussyhats is a little grayer,
like a post-volcanic rainbow,
a little ashy, but unstained
underneath. There are no
customers left. But everyone
will feel their place when
they enter; all will be
struggling for some profuse
cause within and among
themselves, like charred up
disciples walking on water
made of whiskey and sweat.
Charley enters, playing and
speaking as he heads onstage.
There's a mute on his horn.)
CHARLEY
Oh, Mama Podbury
BEAT my ass every Thursday!
So I knew when it was Sunday!
And that's how I got rhythm! But oh,
She got a blue-note bounty on my soul, soul
And the briquettes on the pit so Old, so old!
Like big ole shots of sour mold!
Some times the music come from out-o-town,
And some day I don't know what to play,
This ole cotton suit
Turn wool one day!
Wash all them unwhipped sins away!
Til then I gotta play!
(He plays.)
CHARLEY
The world, she let you know,
What you aught, aught not do!
You spit on the world,
She spit double- down- twice back at you!
I too old to be bitter,
I too good to complain,
But still find time to be cruel, be cruel!
Love the world,
If it still spit,
Show your grit and stay in love with it!
(He plays, on stage by now.)
Welcome back to Pussyhats headwear
and designer foot-legged chandeliers with tears!
Pussyhats, where the rum's got lumps but the gravy smooth!
Oh, Act II, ActII,
We gonna have a har-le-que!
Some ancient stuck-ole tongue bout to come unglued!
Oh, what a few hot strokes of love can do!
Set off a war or two!
Who get kissed, get killed,
Bought, caught and shot, pay their dues, pay their dues…
(Charley plops on the couch to
snooze as Chamille enters.
She's glossed up but real
haggard. A MAN follows her
in with putrid mileage on his
body.)
MAN
I got knocked out in every round tonight. And once 'tween.
And every left uppercut
was for you;
every cigarette butt.
Though you look all beat in the ass too.
Did I fight you?
CHAMILLE
No honey, takin' a Double shift. Go ahead follow the silence
to the bedroom. Here, over there, yeah, now walk to the
beat, honey.
(MAN heads towards the back
room. Chamille flops on couch
next to Charley wakes up.)
CHARLEY
Hey, there's a face with too many expressions! Why you here
so early, or late?
CHAMILLE
Zoe skipped out. So I had to make two livings tonight! Why
you here?
CHARLEY
Last customer just left half hour ago, half hour ago or more.
Gotta wind down fore I get home.
CHAMILLE
I gotta go to work. If Zoe comes in 'fore you leave,
Blow your horn so I know. Don't want her goin' too much to
her head.
(She exits into the back room.
Madeline enters, she's limping
heavily.)
MADELINE
Charley! Where's my morning Chablis?
CHARLEY
Put it in the drawer under the lamp, Miss Madeline.
MADELINE
Okay. Where's Zoe?
CHARLEY
Ain't seen her.
MADELINE
Anyone else awake?
CHARLEY
Miss Chamille. She busy. Miss Ramie be….sleepin' in her own
way.
MADELINE
We need to find Zoe, Charley, we need to protect her! My Zoe!
I need a sip of something!
Oh Charley, we're going to have a baby!
What would Mrs. Napoleon do?
CHARLEY
Don't know. colorz and music's all I see!
Don't know much 'bout no strategies!
But you don't worry, miss Madeline.
You find a way.
MADELINE
I want someone to find me the way, for once.
(She heads to the drawer and
gets out some champagne. She
pops it and grabs a glass and
heads to her room, shuts the
door. Yellow bursts in like he
has an invisible posse and he
has a bundle of newspapers.)
YELLOW
Blow that fucking bugle, Charley!
Where's Chamille, that little misty eel?
CHARLEY
She too busy for you.
YELLOW
(upset and shakes it off)
...I see. well, Fine! Fine! fine!
I'm so nervous, charley, I could fly and drown in this crusty
air,
Abominable, beautiful, slug-air!
CHARLEY
What got up into you this time?
YELLOW
Not this time! The time!
I found me courage!
I found me ease!
Like I had a bugle strapped to my lips my whole life and no
one told me it was there!
Gonna print my article of truth.
Charmed and extreme!
that's the edges of the corner I'll seam!
(He heads to Chamille's door,
knocks. We hear the faint
rumblings of sex on the other
side.)
YELLOW
You know, Charley…it hurts to hear this, man to man.
CHARLEY
Mmmm.
(He knocks harder. He becomes
exceedingly more intense, a
picture of suspenders and a
soapboax; america's first slam
journalist)
YELLOW
(to Chamille's door)
I'm gonna kick this door down!!!!!! Buuuuurn it
down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Slammmin it down. Slammin it down,
Real Love sounds! And how do I get that in a newspaper?
(to Charley and the world)
All of these are articles are ones I ain't had the kookas to
publish over the years,
Washed up in someone else's fears,
Like my editor or my mayor or my bank account!
Toss these old papers, like sad combs on an empty sea!
(He tosses them all over the
place.)
YELLOW
Do you know what i know?
I got the paper proof, here (pointing to paper) of Mr.
Mayor's illegal bootleggings, (pointing) of a death funded by
this place, at least one I know of! Killing someone cause
they tried to steal Miss Madeline, or had somethin' on her, i
couldn't tell! Three years ago, i know.
A murder starts illegal here but it's legal by the time the
murder's done! Last night, finally called my witness to the
crime! Been waitin' for three years, his name and address on
my mirror so i could never see all of me without goin'
through him! and I did it! and tomorrow I'm gonna print it!
But you know what else I found out?
Zoe's pregnant! In my office, quiet,
Thumbin through my usual lies, you know,
Waitin for my appetite to grow
And in comes the Mayor,
And i hear him callin up a friend of a friend of an enemy,
(Quietly to Charley)
And he's fixin' to fix Zoe, you know? then send her far away,
Then accidentally burn this place down!
He didn't hear me there,
And now Zoe's the golden goose,
A little hoblet in a noose.
I'll get to this story,
And I'm gonna get the grime down! Get the grime down on page!
So I'm gonna do it!
CHARLEY
What are you gonna do?
YELLOW
I'm gonna give birth to that baby before she does!
CHARLEY
You gonna mock it!
You gonna milk it!
YELLOW
No! See, it's sensational by effect, not cause! There's
something there, you know? My gut came alive for the first
time! a hunch! When was the last time a reporter in America
had a hunch!
There's something strange, holy about this father ain't even
seen!
Like an unburied corset,
Waiting to shine,
Coast to coast!
I have the great American goose-bump ready to blow inside
Zoe!
The baby is special! Maybe the second coming! Maybe a birth
of births, Charley!
Maybe this kid will become President, 1000 years ahead of
it's time,
years behind!
Maybe the summit to break open America for the first time!
People are starving for something, Charley.
Might as well tell the truth!
We're fresh off one war, you know, Charley,
We're fresh in the decade of prosperity!
Maybe the 30's can be even better!
I just need to dig with this!
(He reads nervously from his paper) "There have always been
slaves in America, You gotta chase the clever chains, chase
em, And that's what a real journalist does, He always chases
the invisible chains until he finds the keys. America's a
great haunted house and it needs an opportunity, an American
opportunity, to free the slaves again and again!
America's being fought for, right here in this pit! It may
being negotiated elsewhere, but the power is still here, with
the trash and dead soil and the sick mechanical men (putting
down paper) and that's why I love Chamille, Cause she loves
'em real! It almost hurts to steal her away from them.
But there's more, you see. The mayor's going to propose to
Madeline! Today!
CHARLEY
You crazier than a loon.
YELLOW
Maybe! See, they may think I'm crazy when I say that a magic
baby's being born,
But when I mingle it with hard facts of Mayor Roche's scorn
of the law,
They'll see, maybe, I know what the hell I'm talking about. I
am reputed in this city; I'm going to use it.
Every journalist knows his time, Charlie.
Well, then, ferment me a tune!
Then play it when Chamille gets done so part of me sneaks its
way into her.
Crack open that crackin tombstone smile of hers.
I'll be back.
Got some shoppin' and some snoopin' to do.
(He begins to exit and turns
back to Charlie.)
YELLOW
I've felt ashamed of myself for so long. Every article now
feels like a poem! A prayer!
CHARLEY
You getting' finer, Yellah.
YELLOW
Don't tell Father I pray! I don't need his razzin'!
(He bangs on Chamille's door as
he sprints out. Chamille's
door opens and the man hastily
exits.)
CHAMILLE
Charley, where's that scalawag?
CHARLEY
He jus' left.
CHAMILLE
I heard what I heard! Okay, then. I need my coat.
(She runs into her room and
Madeline enters. She
intercepts Chamille as she
comes back out her room and
slaps her wicked.)
MADELINE
Did you tell the Mayor Zoe was pregnant?
CHAMILLE
Yes I did.
MADELINE
Why?
CHAMILLE
I don't know!
MADELINE
Then you do. You're starting to swerve around your answers
like the boys!
CHAMILLE
Then tell me what else to do. I don't know!
MADELINE
Stop admitting so much! Tell me the truth!
CHAMILLE
I guessed you already knew.
MADELINE
Don't leave me so sure! (frustrated) We tease, we famish each
other. What did the Mayor say?
CHAMILLE
I don't know. He just left all in a huff and puff. You know
how he is.
MADELINE
Where's Zoe?
CHAMILLE
I really don't know! I'm really all the way around the bend
on this too, mama!
MADELINE
I rely on you, Chamille. I'm grooming you! And I know that
pleases you.
You watch where all these strings go, golden, purse,
Apron, all of them!
You're my switchboard operator,
my Hello Girl for the mice and geese and fragments that call
in here!
Can I keep trust you not trusting you?
CHAMILLE
I'm your dirty border angel, mama! I am!
MADELINE
Go freshen yourself better than you are, and we're going to
find Zoe.
(She kisses Chamille on the
forehead as Evan Roche enters
with Zoe in hand. He hands
Zoe to Chamille. He is more
upset than anyone's seen him.
Differently so.)
MADELINE
My baby! My darling little Zoe!
Let mama see you!
EVAN
Take her to your room, Chamille.
MADELINE
No!
EVAN
Do it! Damn it, this is my house! Do it! NOW! Goddamnit,
right now before there's a fucking storm over my damned
hands! GO!
CHAMILLE
Sure, Bosswallet. Come on, Zoe.
(They exit into the back room.)
EVAN
I'm sending Zoe to a doctor to take care of this, then a
train to New York. I'm tired of this bullshit. Wickedness and
alliances in my house!
MADELINE
In your house? My house and she's staying here!
EVAN
You go to hell! She wants to go to New York! I'll ship her
to New York!
MADELINE
On your words? She'll crash in Omaha!
EVAN
It's on my actions, not my words!
This is a brothel, not a goddamned maternity ward! Have some
sense!
She can't stay here! She's already starting to think she's a
mother!
MADELINE
I'm not tossing her away!
And not taking the baby!
It is my palace! And you make me feel like a slave!
You fed me my slavery over the years,
Convinced me it was freedom,
Like cheap table wine!
Now I'm lost again!
EVAN
You ain't worth it to me, anymore!
Now you're worthy of me, sweet pea!
So you feel free to leave any time! Well? (Silence) Hell, and
I'm still here too. Christ, Father has his Church but he
doesn't own the building and stock it with pregnant, simple
girls like I do, idiot I am!
MADELINE
(sensing the power shift to
back to her)
She's not simple!
EVAN
Damn you, I love you but you're holding on too long to other
people's problems! Hell, what a eulogy to this conversation!
What an overture!
MADELINE
An overture? To what?
EVAN
Napolean, jews, moods, Christ, you've given me too much for
one man to handle.
Yet I've bailed you out of your scars how many times! How
many mistakes?
Or casualties, madame?
MADAME
Don't you hold anything over me!
EVAN
It's just destiny, honey. Christ, I love you, dollsweets,
But it's high time to get a move on to a, different ground.
I take your bumps and old shadows and we'll…use 'em for
something.
But this is what I'm saying, now,
(He pulls out a box with a
ring.)
EVAN
It's 18th Century French cuisine
For the finger of a queen.
Hell, marry me!
I'll leave my wife!
You can stay here, keep the little trainwreck here, if you
want to, but we deal with that pregnancy thing the right way!
MADELINE
Do you mean it? I thought you were through with me.
EVAN
Hell, how you know it goes. Look, I had this damned ring
smuggled and bootlegged a while ago even though it was legal,
Just for the sport of it.
MADELINE
Why are you asking me now? Why now?
EVAN
My senses came to themselves,
Whistling I suppose all over my doubts.
MADELINE
And what doubts are those, my Emperor?
EVAN
Well, hell. Usual jitters.
MADELINE
Then ask for something else.
EVAN
Like what? A funeral?
MADELINE
That's what I want! A casket! Some place else to stick this
veil!
EVAN
What's your trouble?
MADELINE
I don't know, I can't figure it out!
EVAN
It's that doctor! He's stealing your mind and convincing you
it's your heart or that manger in your bedroom you're trying
to fill! And that's the blackest thing you can do to a woman!
MADELINE
Get your hands out of Napoleon's pants, Evan! No one steals
me! And you don't know what you're talking about! (Pause)
I think I love this man, too. And I have no idea what to do!
I don't know! i don't know!
EVAN
Then you tell me what to do!
Marry you two?
MADELINE
I don't know! I don't know!
EVAN
It's the third degree every time a man comes to me
Through you. And this one's the worst!
Hell, you're lucky I care that much!
MADELINE
You are a rattled, useless marsh of a man!
Clogged spigot you are!
EVAN
Honey, there are darkened, blackened things in you,
I don't pretend to see,
But I sure as hell know you're too good for me.
(Madeline is touched at his
slip of the heart.)
MADELINE
Oh, baby, Why do you say things like this, to make me fall
for you again!
You stupid, half-Napoleon! I know all the good's rattling
around! I know it hurts when you can't squeeze it through
something precious sounding! Get a whiff of me, get a wild
whiff of me and let me love you by leaving.
EVAN
Leaving?
MADELINE
Yes, leaving! Just for a few hours. Getting these reems of
vettle and harmony through the first, best moments of my
life. And I feel so sad. But I love you for that. Very much.
I do. Let's set the date for three days from now. Three
days.
EVAN
I still have to divorce my wife!
MADELINE
You're the mayor. Divorce her after the wedding!
Oh, The wedding here, in my Church!
Give my linens a chance to show off,
We have the music, and the church!
And the décor! And I want more!
I want an enormous wedding, a want a circus of vows and
confusion!
EVAN
Circus is three rings, wedding's one, hon. For a damned good
reason!
I don't want some loud masquerade. I want it feverishly
quiet!
MADELINE
That's it, I promise, you have it here. Please, please,
On my champagne knees,
Please have it here! And then I will retire, I will stop my
habits.
EVAN
Fine, we'll do it here. But what about your doctor?
MADELINE
I don't know. He is my doctor. And, before you speak, he has
helped me and his presence has gotten you to marry me. So
please. Have some patience and trust me.
EVAN
This is fucking crazy lunatic. Do whatever you want. But
you're all mine in three days time.
MADELINE
I know.
(Evan leaves.)
MADELINE
What color dress?
What deviance! I feel confused,
And sprung from aging,
And so old! I feel like two people,
Engraved on two sides of a mirror,
Masquerading as a plentiful setback for love,
Love as it pounds at me with fists I don't recognize,
Except for the hair of my angel.
And my angel, where are you,
Howling at me from some burnt out hilltop,
Taking aim at the growing split in my heart!
I love and I will marry but where will they settle?
Zoe, Chamille, Ramie, tear down the curtains! And close your
eyes!
You can't see the dawn before the bride!
(Lights fade on Pussyhats as
they come up on Dr. Supine's
office. It is two days later
and his space is a disheveled
slop. There are papers
everywhere, there is a map of
France on the wall, with
markings. He is staring out
the window, listening for the
occasional song or champagne
glass, but he hears nothing.
He begins the scene speaking
as if he's recording it. Carl
has two bow ties strapped
around his neck. He's a wreck,
almost rambling to himself,
pacing and fringed.)
CARL
Where is she??!!! What did I do? For every day inside this
woman,
there are about three nights!
And her darkness is my light!
And yet i know how I love the dark.
She's the Queen of the Underworld,
Of solemn duty,
Of Repose and Final Beauty.
I just never thought I'd meet her in the flesh. But I fear
I'm nothing without her!
(Peter enters, slightly
africanized with a voodoo
necklace mixed with the same
clothes he's been wearing
since the beginning of the
play. He's looking for drugs.)
CARL
BUT WHERE IS HER VOICE? IT'S BEEN TWO DAYS!
PETER
(Overhearing the last sentence) She's getting married, Sir.
Tomorrow.
CARL
Married?!???? A wedding? To whom?
PETER
The mayor and it's going to be at Pussyhats.
CARL
What am I going to do? What am I going to do?
PETER
I don't know, but it's freezing in here.
CARL
I believe the Mayor's gradually reducing the heat supply.
PETER
Three more patients cancelled. You need to work. If you
don't work, you're dead. Even worse you're unreasonable.
CARL
I am working!
(He begins to search for more
Brandy. Peter finds some
cocaine and does a line while
Carl is speaking. When he
speaks he is affected.)
PETER
You came here to quit drinking.
CARL
Take off your goddamned apron strings Peter! (He finds the
Brandy and the snifter.) There we are!
PETER
Don't get on my ass! So what are you going to do? What are
you going to do,man? jesus--
CARL
Tell myself a story of elegance with a happy ending! Then
change the ending and see if it still works. If it does, I'm
in love.
PETER
You know what I think?
CARL
Of course not!
PETER
She'll do what she wants, man, not what's honorable to you.
So you better do the honorable thing before it gets rusty!
CARL
And what is that? What's the honorable thing? All that goes
right out the window here. It's a matter of sinning, Peter.
A sin. I'm squinting into her, but I can't see her! Damn it,
I can't see it! She's so full of habit i don't know where to
start.
(Peter finds some drugs and
does a line real quick.)
PETER
Fuck! Are you trying to cure her or love her? Cure her or
love her? Cure---
CARL
Is there a difference? I don't know. I'm just doing what I
do.
PETER
It's a fucking waste, man. Fucking waste. what a cunt up
situation this is, man. waste.
CARL
Waste in love is still love, Peter. And why are you-
PETER
(Talking from his Ramiefied place) It got you all mess'd
inside, baby!
Black man in me, he come alive! We're all black,
We're all jews, at one time or another,
So we better get used to it, you know? gotta twitch, gotta
run, jism squad...
CARL
(knowing what's going on)
Peter! My god! (Pause) Never mind, we'll discuss it later.
(Zoe and Chamille enter. Zoe's
a wreck, as usual. Dr. Supine
perks up, suddenly trying to
straighten everything. Back at
the work he loves.)
CARL
Well, hello, Zoe! Peter…help Zoe find a seat in this wild
mess. (To Chamille) And we haven't formally met.
(Peter dusts off a chair for
Zoe, who sits.)
CHAMILLE
Chamille.
CARL
Dr. Carl Supine. Lovely to meet you.
PETER
I'll be next door.
CARL
Peter—okay.
(Peter exits. Chamille notices
the mess.)
CHAMILLE
Your office don't look like a doctors.
CARL
I don't want their patients thinking I'm their patient.
CHAMILLE
Why not?
CARL
Because I am. Because I'm not. And I don't want to admit
that. It's my office in a box. I unpack slowly, and as soon
as I'm completely done, I leave.
CHAMILLE
How is anyone supposed to be completely here?
CARL
...Well, what can i do for you?
CHAMILLE
Doc, I'm sort of going behind Mama's back,
Which is usually okay with her but this time, with this baby,
Mama's getting a little crazy, some havin' to do with you,
But Zoe needs help too, cause Mama's obsessing all over,
convincin' Zoe that Baby's really Mama's!
CARL
Please sit.
CHAMILLE
No, thanks, I'll lay.
(She lays on the couch.)
CARL
(turns to Zoe)
Okay, Zoe what do you want me to do?
ZOE
I decided I wanna to get rid of this baby!
I found someone who wants it for 'nough dough to get me to
leave the city fore mama hurts me!
CARL
Why would she hurt you?
ZOE
Cause it's hers and if I kill it,
She'll kill me!
CARL
Who's helping you?
ZOE
Bosswallet.
CARL
The Mayor?
ZOE
Yeah.
CARL
Zoe, I can help you but you have to decide what you want with
this child. What's your angel say?
ZOE
What?
CARL
The voice you spoke of before, the one that talks when you're
quiet. The guide.
ZOE
He ain't here.
CARL
He's here, he's...quiet and nice and peaceful enough to be
here when you're tempted to smoke or confess or run away.
Listen for a minute. Listen.
ZOE
I hate not talking! It keeps me busy while I got things to
say!
CARL
Listen. Gimme your hand. (he takes it gently)
ZOE
I can't. I see things I don't wanna see! There's a hawk that
shows up on my shoulder.
CARL
Is it friendly? Has it attacked you, bitten you?
ZOE
No! it's got no reason to bite.
CARL
Then why are you afraid of it?
ZOE
Cause it keeps the mirror clear.
CARL
That's what mirrors or for. What's the mirror keeping from
you? What does the hawk want you to see!
ZOE
Nothin'! Nothin'!
CARL
The hawk's to deliver, perhaps. Or to protect you.
ZOE
Why ain't it a pretty bird? One that'll tell me it's mama's
baby!
CARL
You need a clever, fierce bird. In this situation.
ZOE
(trancelike)
No, I can't have this dream!
Baby's trying to swim upstream! Right outta my throat!
Screaming marigold and amulets, and save me! Save me!
And I can hear em sing!
The hawk says the baby's spec'l! he shows me the mirror and I
ain't seen nothing but all these lights from my belly! And I
get so scared and I want to give him up! No, I have to keep
him! I want to keep him! And that's all! He's mine! Hawk
swirling like he's gonna eat me, gonna save me!
CHAMILLE
What the fuck?
CARL
Please, be quiet. Zoe, what do you want me to do?
ZOE
And I feel so shamed up! I don't want Bosswallet sellin' him,
Or mama takin him! I ain't so stupid! This is my baby! My
lil' charm! Please help me! Mine! MINE! MINE! I'm so ashamed!
Ramie made a spell for Mama and mama wants it, she whispers
to me! It's my baby!!!!
CARL
Okay Zoe. Hawks and mirrors and angels and pre-natal carry
ons. You're a busy girl!
I want you to just relax for a minute, then we'll set a time
tomorrow and we'll discuss---
CHAMILLE
I figured, you come to the wedding, and take her right after,
There won't be a feud.
CARL
She can't wait. She's not going to that wedding and neither
am i!
CHAMILLE
Zoe, leave me and the doc alone. But don't wander off. Stay
right outside that door!!
ZOE
Don't tell no-one, Doc!
(Zoe exits.)
CHAMILLE
Doc, she's crazy! I think she's gotta give that baby up! Why
are you telling her about hawks and things you can't see?
CARL
It's the ferocity of which she tells me!
A baby's already wounded with pride
To be a motherless child. especially when the mother has
powerful visions like Zoe.
CHAMILLE
Choices are for breezes, doc! Choices just chop up the truth.
Ya pick one, ya get part of the truth!
CARL
That sounds a little hopeless;
CHAMILLE
I want you to be my date at this wedding, be my lover for the
public, for a night.
CARL
No.
CHAMILLE
You don't like me?
CARL
We're talking around each other and just happening to be
borrowing the same conversation. Please tell me why you
want to take me.
CHAMILLE
Look, doc, I got a hundred reasons to be here, you know,
Some like spurs inside a dungeon,
Some like river snow,
Some I don't even want to know!
But above all, Doc, all my selfish pricks,
Is that I don't want Zoe to get hurt. I don't want to see
what I seen before!
CARL
Like what have you seen before?
What do you know about Madeline?
CHAMILLE
I just suspect, lots of things, Mama's done.
So I can prove myself, too, Stead of feeling like some old
million times tried on weathery shoe.
CARL
You're the easiest patient I've ever had.
CHAMILLE
I ain't really your patient. I got problems but I enjoy em
too much to bother them.
You love mama?
CARL
That's not the issue.
CHAMILLE
Get over there and make an issue! Maybe I can help you get
mama, you know,
By getting to know you!
Here's a chance to gallop without getting on the horse, you
know?
By letting me get to know you!
Maybe I can tell you a thing or two,
If you dance and have dinner with me!
Mama thinks I'm going to have you anyway.
CARL
Enough games! What can you tell me about Madeline? I want to
help her, heal her. I can tell you need to tell me!
CHAMILLE
Okay. But I won't let you take Zoe today,
But you better come tomorrow!
Or you better come sooner,
Before facts become rumours!
CARL
Alright, I'll escort you then!
I'll escort you to this wedding. We'll hush Zoe out after
the vows. But you come right back and tell me what you know
about Madeline.
CHAMILLE
…Okay, Doc. I guess I have to take that deal for Zoe. But at
least we might get a little romance in our house.
(Chamille exits.)
CARL
But I don't want to show up unexpectedly.
I need to come up with a strategy. I need my derby hat…
(Lights fade on Carl as we
return to Pussyhats. It's
deadly quiet and dimly lit.
The room's decorations are
reflective of an oncoming
ceremony but again, we can
barely see them; The whole
thing is alight in sanctimony,
perjury and restlessness, like
a ship the night before a
great battle. Charley Who
Horse enters, stone cold
quiet, shuffling and he begins
a slow, calm riff, as if our
national anthem were played as
a nursery rhyme to a sleeping
child. Yellow enters; he
looks haggard, like he's slept
in a garbage dump.)
YELLOW
Lost my desk at work, Charley!
Then my house got ransacked,
Then I got ransacked
Then I got threatened after I got ransacked!
My witness gone missing right after i seen him!
But I still got his testimony. God, i don't wanna feel
responsible!
I talked to Zoe, know she wants to keep the baby,
Know what the Mayor's doing to get rid of her after the
wedding,
Know the aarson gonna be set by the fire Marshall! no
suspects, that way.
Ah, but I got no money, no job, and that means no wife.
I don't know what to do.
(Evan Roche enters. They both
know what's going on and won't
admit it to the other.)
EVAN
Yellow!
YELLOW
Yes, boss?
EVAN
Need you to do something for me.
YELLOW
Yes, boss?
EVAN
Need you to hold this,
An insurance policy.
(He shows Yellow a gun; it's
decorative.)
YELLOW
I…what do you want me to do with this thing?
EVAN
It's a pistol, goddamnit, take it with you everywhere you go,
Until tomorrow, after the wedding.
It's my personal Betty. It's Spanish.
I treat myself with some fancy imports, too.
It's like holdin' a dead, pregnant, quail, isn't it?
YELLOW
Never knew you were into firearms.
EVAN
Never needed to tell, before. Never trusted anyone with it
before;
But you've lived in the underside of my nails,
You know what's there, don't you? You know what's there,
But I sure as hell know I can count on you, with a little to
spare.
I don't trust myself with it,
And yet I need to know it's close by;
If certain doctor parties appear tomorrow,
With an alibi in mind,
I want to make sure we're not walking blind.
YELLOW
I can't shoot anybody!
EVAN
Just keep my Betty nearby,
In case the pistol needs to try.
Napoleon was no fool and neither am I!
YELLOW
Boss, I --- okay. Okay. (He takes Betty.) It feels like hard
lice. Gotta wrap it in something to keep myself clean.
(Yellow pulls out a piece of
newspaper and wraps it. Carl
enters. He is cleaned up,
sharp looking, wearing a derby
hat. He finds Evan, whom he
is looking for and has a
bottle of Brandy.)
CARL
Mr. Mayor, I am sorry to interrupt.
YELLOW
Nothing interruptin', doctor.
(Yellow skirts back and
surreptitiously gets out a
notebook.)
EVAN
Can I do for you, doc?
CARL
I'd like to, offer my congratulations on your wedding.
EVAN
Long time comin'.
CARL
Why now?
EVAN
Long time comin'.
CARL
Well, here (handing him the Brandy). I know you don't drink,
But when salvation forgets to wink, for me, at least,
A little Brandy is a firm substitute.
EVAN
I'll put it to use. Well-
CARL
I'd like to offer my services at the ceremony, tomorrow.
EVAN
It's a wedding; don't need a doctor.
CARL
I'd like to be your best man. Or a best man, in the party,
somehow.
EVAN
You serious?
CARL
Very much so.
EVAN
I barely know you.
CARL
Yes, well, that probably means you can trust me more than
most of those you surround yourself with. True?
EVAN
Have you even been invited?
CARL
Well, yes, Chamille offered to escort me.
EVAN
She did? Well. Why the hell do you want to be in this
wedding?
CARL
I'm in love with your wife, you see.
EVAN
I see.
CARL
Well, she's not your wife until tomorrow,
But, for as long as you've apparently known, each, let's
assume.
But she loves you.
EVAN
Yes, she does.
CARL
It's in your world she fits,
She functions,
She enervates her more, common desires.
I'm not a violent man;
I am a passionate one,
And what better way for you to keep an eye on me,
As I imagine you want to prevent a sick situation on your
hands,
and to almost, immortalize your victory,
than to allow me the humiliating dignity to see her one last
time. One last time. You can frisk me, follow me. Please,
it's my humiliating plea.
EVAN
...Alright then, I got a few best men, why not one more.
CARL
Thank you. This is a wedding, not a battlefield! You
understand what I am saying?
EVAN
I got a feeling I know what you're talking about. But I have
things to attend to, so if you excuse me.
CARL
No, excuse me. I will leave you to your preparations.
(Carl exits. Yellow finishes
scribbling and hides his
notebook furiously.)
EVAN
I get the sense he still got a strategy,
Holdin' out this or that on me.
Admits he loves my bride to be!
Double barreled asshole or idiot, we'll damn well see.
Shit, Sometimes I trust my enemies more than my friends.
He is coming to this ceremony, for certain,
Yellow, You keep that Betty loaded 'til the final curtain.
YELLOW
Loaded?
EVAN
Yes! And I will make the sure the devil brings a dark dress
to hang over that man's head;
It'll be my obsession until the rivalry's dead.
Damn, that Chamille!
(Evan exits as Charley gets up
from behind the couch and
starts playing.)
YELLOW
Holy shits, that doc's in trouble!
Jack, slack ,man, it's all outta hand!
Fuck it, anyway, I can feel Evan swinging to a darker moon!
I feel we're all getting' lost in a sea of motives, and I'm
gonna drown!
What's a man supposed to do, Charley?
CHARLEY
You a man, ask yourself!
(Chamille leaves her room.)
YELLOW
Baby, just the thing I need to see!
Favor for me.
CHAMILLE
No way, scalawag! I got too much to do,
And I got too much going on, and I heard what you were going
to print,
I know you're acting like a dog!
YELLOW
My tongue's hot off the press, honey,
And it's like this:
The Mayor's got a gun,
And he gave it to me,
To use on the doc if needs need be!
Gave it to me like a last minute bribe,
Something to hurt my chances, make 'em slim, for me to
Say what I got to say!
S'long as I have you and you know it!
So help me, help me talk to Zoe, can't get much out of her
without you there to calm her down!
Plus I know you've had a man or two at the paper.
And i need you to help me get this material to print!
CHAMILLE
This is one article I'm asking you to refrain.
YELLOW
No way, jellybee! I ain't got nothin' to lose.
And neither do you!
CHAMILLE
What do you mean?
YELLOW
Evan's gonna burn this place up right after the vows go down,
Especially after he found out you invited the doc to the
wedding!
He turned strange colors, like Autumn in Spring!
So you'll be out of a job, out on your can-cans, honey.
CHAMILLE
You're lying.
YELLOW
You know I never lie to you.
What are you gonna do?
CHAMILLE
Mama would kill him! He's crazy.
YELLOW
This ain't exactly the house of rationality!
Your doc spilled some of his guts to the Mayor and now the
Doc is the best man!
Which makes you the Maid of Honor, and I bet the most
despised one in quite a while!
And, to boot, The Mayor's gonna whisk Zoe secretly away, ship
her somewhere.
CHAMILLE
Everything's starting to crumble away,
I can feel it. I'm panicking! I don't panic.
I can't shake, I can't stir, star-lit homes are waiting for
me, always,
A man behind, a man in front of me!
YELLOW
Maybe you get one beside you, one of these days when you're
free. But why you invited the doc, got me.
CHAMILLE
I don't know why I did what I did!
What am I going to do? Mama's going crazy,
She made two dresses,
One for her wedding and another in case!
I'm scared of her, for the first time. Things are coming out
her,
Out of her eyes, make me feel uneasy, like she knows I'm lyin
about a lie I ain't told yet!
YELLOW
Now, you told to write what ails me!
In every war there's a lot of no one who takes sides. I
convince them they do!
I pick the right side most of the time! And this baby is
something and i Wanna help her! If I can get her in the
pages, we can protect her!
CHAMILLE
Give me the gun, and you'll have only your bravery. maybe you
would kill for me.
YELLOW
(getting tired of her
diversions)
I can't give you the damned gun! stop tempting me!
Bravery loses about a dollar on a share when there's nothing
to lose.
The arc of integrity gets pretty jagged at the top, 'mlady.
Listen! (Reading from a paper) "For Zoe's baby:
Nothing means nothing without love.
And that paradise begins in the womb.
It's like a tragic harmonica on the way out.
It's the stretch and yawn of a moving soothing
Little breath, off to fetch its destiny." (Stops reading)
See? It ain't usin her! I feel we can set fire to this place
before it burns down, Chamille! And my hands are already
shakin'.
CHAMILLE
Fine. Meet me and Zoe at 5pm. You better not twist up the
truth or I'll blow your warehouse doors to the zodiac!
YELLOW
About hot goddamned time!
(Yellow smiles and as he exits
with a top hat minstrel
stride)
YELLOW
America don't come cheap, does it Charley?
CHARLEY
No sir. Some days, feel like stained pillows and no Lincoln
in here!
(Yellow exits.)
CHAMILLE
Gone through a chain link of boners, some of 'em soft, over
the years, hoping I could run this palace of fine arts,
Charley! Now I got nothin'! no sevr'nce pay, even! Play
something for me, Charley!
(He plays as lights dim a bit
on Pussyhats and they come up
on Ramie's room, where Ramie
and Father are together, Ramie
fussing over him tenderly,
whispering to him.)
FATHER
She's pregnant? And Madeline's in love with some doctor? Why
hasn't anyone gone to confession so I can keep track of this
shit?
RAMIE
You gonna run the show tomorrow, baby?
FATHER
If I don't, The Mayor's trapdoor friends'll play
Sailor's dice with my balls!
So I guess I'm doing it!
RAMIE
What about your sermon, darling? The one that would flip the
tip jar?
FATHER
I can't, Ramie! I couldn't! I swore I didn't need you and it
was a lie! And nothing came to me! Last night was worst!
I sat up all night, laid naked on the altar, screaming this
is it, old man!!
And then I was alone.
I became a priest because i figured that's the last place God
would look!
And finally Faith has abandoned me! ha!
RAMIE
Baby, you don't see?
Candle width's a praise all you need!
You know, tomorrow, you and Ramie,
You and me, we're both holding the ceremony!
FATHER
What? Both of us? Are you kidding me?
RAMIE
And the Archbishop is coming
honey, and he a guest of mine!
FATHER
Jesus Fucking Christ, woman,
What are you trying to do to me!
RAMIE
Trying to get a sermon outta you!
Trying to keep your mouth open, baby!
Ramie'll sprinkle a little powder on you!
See, baby, when that Bishop see you and me up there together—
FATHER
The Bishop
Is going to scapegoat and red herring me! I gave my soul up
last night so I had some peace, some security. Now you're
forking it back?
I'm too old to have nothing! My body's falling apart like a
wet jigsaw! My kidneys hurt, my liver sloshes around when I
walk. I'm just going to perform the ceremony, and slither to
the rum barrel.
RAMIE
Don't be a slut to me, honey! You asked for this, you prayed
for this, hundred time in ramie's little room of chimes! And
all the gods they all hear you, so now you gotta do what you
said you were gonna do!
Naked relms of madness,
About to to follow you!
And I hold your hand, every way!
So, tomorrow we be there, shivering together!
New costumes and all!
Now, let us pray, fadder!
Who gonna drink with the dead, my sweet?
Who gonna give a right eye to the blind?
FATHER
But what kind of man am i?
RAMIE
You a good man! You a fine man! You a supernatural spy!
FATHER
Ramie, don't abandon me tomorrow!
RAMIE
I won't baby. Let me soothe you,
Embalm you, do some spicy shit.
(She puts balms on him, does
some spicy shit which feels
good, like a massage.)
FATHER
African scents, African doll, African tree.
Such a relief to me.
RAMIE
(rubbing his hair, a good lot)
Now, you just shhhhhhh, you start talking slow to Ramie.
Start talking slow and we'll get the sermon outta you…
(She strokes to calm him down
and he speaks once he has
reached the base of his
tranquility.)
FATHER
We destroy what we love the most…
RAMIE
That's right, baby….
(The lights dim and come up on
Madeline, who's with Zoe, in
the corner, trying to keep it
together. Madeline is wearing
her wedding dress while
matching fabrics for an
alternate dress. The room is
awash in letters and even more
champagne.)
MADELINE
This room is sick, to me!
It feels like a slum, or bribery!
I'm so happy! I'm so miserable!
Oh Zoe, hand mama a needle.
ZOE
You don't sew, mama!
MADELINE
I know, sweet ! You know what I mean: hand mama that bottle
of champagne.
ZOE
I can't mama,
I wanna cry up my whole life!
I feel sick, I feel dizzy. I think I need the doc!
MADELINE
Oh, no, baby! Just sit there,
Let me help you.
(She comes over to Zoe and puts
her hand on her flat stomach,
cooing it and Zoe with her
hand while Zoe tries not to
shudder.)
MADELINE
Oh, honey, it's already kicking! It wants champagne!
It's rich and balmy, what'll come out of you!
He's floating in our milk!
So soon, my little accidental reprieve,
A daughter inside a daughter, we'll be free!
Full of happy bones, of what nature has denied me!
(ZOE backs away, unable to take
it anymore)
ZOE
You can't touch him, Mama!
MADELINE
What? Why are talking like this?
Oh, honey, You know you have been chosen to have him.
So i can raise him,
You realize that.
ZOE
...Of course, Mama. I feel sick. Can we please call the doc?
MADELINE
Just take a sip of water, honey. My, all I have is
champagne. Here,
Just help Mama make this dress!
Hold this fabric, turn the green to emerald, baby.
ZOE
Okay, mama.
MADELINE
Mama's making two dresses, my little Zoe,
One for the bride,
One for the dying bride inside.
ZOE
Mama-
MADELINE
Mama was once your age, and then your age a few more times,
And well, I have a chance to come to walloping terms right
here, my sweet:
I love you girls, all of you.
And yet I know you're taken from me, when my eyes have
seemingly pecked away at your youth, or my mouth like a
frozen zipper holding grudges to bear that you just don't
understand, but I love you all three, my little trinity.
ZOE
Please mama don't make me feel worse!
MADELINE
Oh, no! I just want you to feel complete, so the baby comes
Out clean. A sin is a crime until the crime's complete,
And then our bones will be carved out of wheat.
No more stones on my back.
Thanks to you, my sweet.
Now let's make your dress!
(She gets up and tears down a
curtain, and there's Dr.
Supine, waiting for her, on
the fire escape. He is tired,
glazed over but still
ravishingly elegant.
The fire escape is steamy,
neon lit, like a suspension
from Earth.)
ZOE
Doc! Oh, hello, Doc!
CARL
How are you feeling, Zoe?
ZOE
Dizzy! Crazy, spazzed up!
CARL
You want to come see me?
MADELINE
Just throw her some therapy! You stay there, my sweet.
CARL
Your mama's retaliating, for what she's doing to me.
MADELINE
How can you be so cruel to me?
CARL
(To Madeline)
Which dress are you wearing, the one for the wedding or the
one underneath?
MADELINE
Were you eavesdropping?
CARL
I only heard everything. Zoe, just lay down, honey, breathe,
use the images I gave you to use. Go ahead, lie, calm, free.
(She does so, and she quiets.)
CARL
(to Madeline)
Come out here, for a moment, please.
Before my words turn to…forgeries. Please.
MADELINE
Why?
CARL
Because...you are the vermin,
And you are the fury that binds the scorn together to form
the net. You are the collage of masterpieces---
MADELINE
Please stop!
CARL
I pass through your flesh and smell a garden,A valise,
Where the colonies of men have laminated chunks of your soul!
Now, get out here!
( The lights dim on Zoe, as she
is in a relaxe state. She
comes out and he grabs her,
all over her. And they start
to screw on the fire escape.
so they're doing it while the
next bit of dialogue takes
place.)
CARL
Which dress is this, his or mine?
MADELINE
Pretend they're both, sweetheart, see if they come out one
color and size!
CARL
Oh, stop giving me hope!
Back and forth!
Back and forth!
In and out of you and you and you!
Like sawing a mystery in half,
Like a thousand years of light and darkness falling out,
Cumming inside you.
MADELINE
My tongue--
CARL
Your Jerusalem.
MADELINE
Oh, honeysalts, that's where wars start in me.
CARL
I don't want to stain your dress!
MADELINE
It's too late, sweetheart. Too late.
(They climax here, still
intertwined.)
CARL
I love you, wooden bowl. and i want you to be happy.
MADELINE
My Permeable oak, I know I love you.
I want to sleep soundly again.
CARL
I do too...Here are my private, fire escape wedding vows:
I feel most at home when I'm with you;
I feel monstrous, poetic, calm, bedeviled, frightened,
At peace, at once. So calm, raging calm.
MADELINE
Here are my vows to you: we are a date, we are a marriage!
we've shoveled into these cracks of platitudes that we've
enslaved,
And yet my tears for you soothe those cracks!
And sting them,
And this hour glass of my body becomes a soft illusion,
Smothering the battered moments that howl tremendously to the
stars!
CARL
So what on earth are you doing tomorrow? Are you getting
married?
MADELINE
Yes.
CARL
I see...I will be there. In Evan's wedding party, the best
man.
MADELINE
Oh, why? Why?
Why would you do that to me?
CARL
To see you one last time. Because
You dismiss me like ashes on a mantelpiece!
And I don't think I can take that from you.
And I don't want you to sleep tonight!
MADELINE
Oh, Please don't come
Or I'll come undone!
That's what you want to do to me!
Isn't it? You bastard!
There's a calm apple that dangles from the middle of your
chest,
Which you may think a shield,
And I will rip it from your soul,
Make my little emperor whole!
Because that apple has the seed!
CARL
And who is your Emperor?
MADELINE
Fine! Fine. We women can cause wars but we don't need to
fight them.
I don't know how much more you can take,
But if you need to come, come.
CARL
Please don't disown me with comments like that.
And I don't know what's keeping you here. Other than fear and
habit...And your past.
MADELINE
What do you know of it? Did someone say something?
CARL
I have to go.
MADELINE
Please don't leave yet!
I can't stand how these memories of you are starting to
begin! Can't we just keep meeting---
CARL
No ma'am. I'm not a backroom attendant. I love you. And I
hate to see you alone and all curled up inside all of these
velvets and silly behaviors...i will see you tomorrow on the
battlefield...Be good to Zoe.
(Carl exits and the light fades
and back up on Madeline and
Zoe in her room, Madeline.)
MADELINE
What does he know? What does he know?
My god, my Zoe,
At least I have you,
All I have is you!
ZOE
You got the bosswallet, too and Cammy—
MADELINE
No! Oh, baby, I don't know what the Mayor will do,
But that Doctor's a fool, too! A goddamned darling dip-shit
of a fool!
But I got you, my Zoo. I got to protect you!
(She gets the gun out of her
drawer. It's a delicate,
saucy piece.
She spritzes it with the
perfume from Napoleon's eye
socket. She finds her garter
belt with a holster and straps
it around her ankle and puts
the gun on it. She gets her
letterbox with Napoleon love
letters and takes out a few,
spreads them out on the bed.)
MADELINE
What is this, then? Love, is it so odorous that a wedding's a
wedding with a funeral in mind?
At least I will try to get some sleep tonight!
My letters from Napoleon!
And Lulu on my shin!
(Lights fade. they come up on
Pussyhats. It's engulfed in
twice the décor and status
that it had before. There are
chairs set about for the
guests, there are streamers
and boas and garland littering
the virile nest, a boat to
slaves about to be freed into
the mystery, all of them
affected and the ritual
setting has to reflect that.
Ramie is responsible for much
of the décor, as Madeline had
left it to her. Therefore,
there are candles and dark,
earthen tones inscribing the
rest of the scenery-this
should be like Cirque de
Soleil's unkempt twin in the
basement. Yellow wakes up from
the couch, looking as if he's
been sleeping there. Charley
trickles in with his horn,
lookin' spiff.)
YELLOW
Jeeps, Charley,
I look barely here!
But you look spiff'd!
CHARLEY
Something my wife picked out!
YELLOW
You know, I'm takin' bets on how this'll turn out!
Whether she runs off with the doc or the Mayor.
CHARLEY
I'll be damn'd? I want in!
YELLOW
Okay, but first I gotta get cleaned up.
There's a wedding on the growl!
I got the Mayor's gun, Charley.
CHARLEY
That's soft blue, man!
YELLOW
He gave it to me! He's been as dark and strange the last few
hours as I've seen him.
I thought he caught-a-wind-a-me and my shenanagins,
And was ready to do me in, but he's so distracted by the doc
and Madeline,
It's like there's no more to him!
CHARLEY
Good thing you got the gun!
YELLOW
Yea. Gotta pen, too Charley. And gotta run.
(Yellow exits. Charley plays a
little while the band sets up
in the foreground. Lights up
on Charley's office. Carl's
got his Brandy, been drinking
but he looks sharp, his best
suit; he's trying to pick a
tie and he snifts his brandy.
He has two snifters and keeps
deciding which to sip
throughout the scene. Peter
enters. He's wearing a strange
looking African quilt-coat.)
CARL
Jesus, Peter, what a mess! Me on the inside, you showing it
off in dress! Where's the rest of the cocaine?
PETER
I don't know.
CARL
You do know! Please!
Peter, Peter, my sonbrotherprince. You're a miracle, Peter!
A confusing miracle!
She's taught you so much!
But, goddamn it, I need you one more time! Please,
Before my generous coattails whither.
PETER
One more fight.
CARL
We can part when the universe parcels us politely. It can be
a sneaky handshake without slipping into the tenors of the
ego. Please. One more?
PETER
(considers) Okay. What do I need to do?
CARL
All I need you to do, if you can keep your head bout you, is
whisk Zoe away,
After the rings are exchanged…and they say…I do. Bring her
to this location. (He hands Peter a piece of paper) It is a
friend of mine. She'll help. I would do it, but I don't trust
myself in the face of everything else.
PETER
I'll try.
CARL
My boy. Peter, I suddenly feel absolved!
PETER
From what?
CARL
I don't know! I've never felt absolved before sinning
before.
PETER
That's usually your style.
CARL
Now I have to go commit the sin. Do you know what I'm
saying? I've committed a large forgiveness! So what sin?
You've been a good son to me, Peter. Get going.
(Peter grabs his cocaine supply
and exits. Chamille enters.
She looks like a red amulet,
An Indian Queen and Belly
Dancer. Gorgeous, in lights,
mild sequins, etc. She has
Mercedes logo in her hand.)
CARL
Radiance flings about you like polished Absinthe, my dear,
You look beautiful, mad beautiful, like the new American
dream. What's the matter?
CHAMILLE
Can I trust you? Drinking and in love!
CARL
Of course. What's the matter!
CHAMILLE
Mayor's gonna take Zoe I don't know where! Then he's gonna
burn this place down!
CARL
Who told you this?
CHAMILLE
Yellow, the journalist. He loves me, he always tells me the
truth.
CARL
Well I have it all arranged. So let me worry.
CHAMILLE
Don't drink no more! Here, this is for you. (pulls out a
Mercedes emblem).
It's from one of my one of my fellahs,
Tried to give it to me.
I don't take anything that comes free.
The three points mean land, water, and air. That leaves the
fire for the driver, I guess. Figured you could use it.
CARL
Thank you. I'll be there shortly.
CHAMILLE
You better, or I don't know what I'll do!
I still want to dance with you!
(Chamille exits.)
CARL
...just howling and hissing at the stars
Like they were nothing but cheap decorations!
I have a job to do,
Picking out a good tie, for starters...
(He continues to choose a tie
as lights fade and come back
up on Pussyhat's. The guests
are men**or shadows of men,
mostly for for Chamille, all
wrap'd in their steel hands
and bodies.
Charley's dazzed up in clothes
as before and Yellow is there,
dressed like a French soldier
attacking a rainbow: dark
blue turncoat like suit with
color trims. He's taking
money and scribbling down
numbers from various guests:
taking bets. He has a satchel
with him, inside of which is
Betty, the gun, and his
articles, which he plans to
submit as soon as this
ceremony is over. But he also
has a ring in his pocket,
which makes him even more
nervous. Father enters and
he's dressed as a traditional
wedding priest. Turn it inside
out and there is a color
slammed garb that's to be
revealed later. Charley comes
up the aisle and reaches the
"top", the end of a red carpet
where Evan and Madeline are to
be married.)
CHARLEY
Welcome to the informal, formal dream!
The most resplendent, vile and vitriolic wedding I ever seen!
"If wine's the blood of Christ,
Then rum's his spit!
And after a fifth,
You can't see no split
tween heaven and hell,
I know too well,
so we gotta keep the devil in mind
when we pray in kind
to God! Father! Amen!"
Ladies and gentleman,
The Mayor Napoleon!
(He continues to play as Evan
enters with his men. Evan is
dressed like Napoleon; hat and
all. He is edgy, looking
parched and nervous, like he
matches under his sleeve and
is walking on gasoline. He
motions for Yellow to come
over.)
EVAN
Goddamnit, I'm not Napoleon!
She's in love with a dead Emperor
More than she's in love with me!
But he's dead,
At least.
(Yellow arrives to Evan.)
EVAN
Where's that damn doctor?
He's in danger of making a fashionable entrance.
YELLOW
I haven't seen him.
EVAN
Where's Betty?
YELLOW
I ---- I have it. Right here; in this sack. Kept it with me
every minute.
EVAN
That's the way to do it, then!
Close to you like an egg to a hen!
Keep it with us at all time.
I have such a headache in this outfit,
This hat, this stupid head-sling!
But, for my Madeline, anything.
(They reach the top, the altar,
built of a rum barrel and a
drum. Father and Charlie are
there, Father as nervous as
all the other men.)
EVAN
Why are you sweating? I'm the one getting married!
FATHER
It is preposterous, isn't it? Only my career is on the line!
Why the hell should I be nervous?
EVAN
You got nothing to worry about.
FATHER
Of course……You want me to hear your confession before your
wedding?
EVAN
Why? I Feel honest as a fucking tightrope!
I'm just nervous, is all. Am I acting? Am I lying? I don't
know!
I act when I'm telling the truth!
When I'm honest I'm lying. See?
Christ, this country needs another war.
YELLOW
Why?
EVAN
Take my mind off this one! Now, where is she?
Smoking or drinking or sewing herself to the wall.
FATHER
I'll go check on her.
(He goes to Madeline's room and
knocks.)
FATHER
Madeline? It's Father here.
Checking in.
(We hear tears and a champagne
glass break, then another,
swiftly.)
FATHER
Days like this you wanna crawl back to the womb
And ask for a different room!
(He just opens the door and
shuts it quickly behind him.
Madeline, in her colored gown,
is in a scurvy at the fire
escape, howling mad and in
tears at whatever she sees and
Father acts as though he can
see it too, like a ghost.)
MADELINE
He's laughing at me! My angel,
He's changed colors,
He dips, swings,
A red devil with white wings,
So every dead chorus sings! Mocks me! Shatters me! I want to
be shattered!
YOU HEAR ME?
(She chucks a champagne glass
at him. She tries to scream.
Evan peeks in.)
EVAN
What the hell is going on?
FATHER
She saw a mouse!
EVAN
So what?
FATHER
It was a flying mouse! Get out! Bad luck for you to see the
bride, even for this ceremony!
Please, Mr. Mayor, shut the goddamned door!
(Evan, surprised at Father's
vehemence, shuts the door.)
FATHER
One sin
Can really do you in, Madeline.
You sure you don't want to talk about it? I'll hear your
confession.
MADELINE
There's no time! I'll be married in one hour and getting
curtains back in two! Right? But if you see it, too, father,
than you have to save me!!!!!
FATHER
What can I do?
MADELINE
I don't know! Can you, or are you at shame, too? How can you
heal me? You can't heal me, can you? So why should I tell you
anything, when you know what sins you have to deal with! (She
finally composes herself.) Well, now, here comes the flood of
Paradise, buckling at half-price,
At this wedding hiss, I'm a monster in a headdress! a hung
over bliss! Get Charley for me!
FATHER
Okay, my dear. I'm sorry. (He shuts the door.)
I failed again, failed again.
MADELINE
This is no longer my home,
This is a condition.
(Charley enters.)
CHARLEY
Miss Madelina,
The tears have been thinning their hair on your cheeks!
Why cry? If you could laugh instead of cry, why cry?
MADELINE
For the first time in my life, Charley,
I feel like a whore.
(Chamille and Zoe arrive, both
elaborate and upset inside
their costume-gowns.)
MADELINE
Oh, my girls, my Zoe!
Why are you sweating, my little garden-nest? Why, when love
has cast its nest into you! Our child! Oh, Charley, now I'm
ready, I feel inducted, grown, preserved! Let's begin!
ZOE
Mama, I don't wanna wear white!!!!
I'm scared a white! I'm allowed to wear what I want! You
can't make me!
MADELINE
Chamille, what are you doing to her?
CHAMILLE
Me? Mama, I'm scared too!
MADELINE
Scared? What are you not telling me?
CHAMILLE
Nothin, mama. I don't know! I just don't know!
MADELINE
It's the Doctor, isn't it? You invited him, didn't you?!
What's he going to do?
CHAMILLE
Other than love you?
I don't know! I got fifty men out there love me too,
And every one'll come to my end with me.
You can't heal us from shifting. Or loving or killing.
MADELINE
Are you threatening me?
CHAMILLE
No! Yes? No! Stop it! He loves you
And you're a fool, and that's all! And you turned me into
nothin'!
And that's what I have! Nothin'! everything's crumblin'…
(Chamille walks out.)
MADELINE
Always, my girls, peeling from me
sneaky little shavings of my entropy!
You call sweetness but in the end,
you peel and peel from me until your Mother is naked and
helpless! (Pointing to her shin)
Oh, Zoe, Lulu won't let me down!
The doc comes in, I'll wipe him down! One shot! I have to, I
have no choice;
ZOE
Mama, don't hurt the doc! Please, you can't!
Or I'll hate you!
MADELINE
Zoe! Don't let me down, too!
(The action focuses on the main
room as Charley begins the
introductions.)
CHARLEY
Let the ladies begin!
Miss Chamille!
She an amber tambourine,
A tourniquet for the bleedin' sunrise in a man,
A cat's meow, a belly dancer queen!
Like a soldier wish he could dream!
Every man's ever-been!
Miss Chamille!
(Chamille enters as Charley
plays, and we hear hollers
from the men, one or two who
carry her in, beautiful in her
gown. She arrives at the
altar.)
YELLOW
My god, you honey brow fornicator!
You beautiful sonnet rose fotograph!
Little snapshot train track!
CHAMILLE
Give me that goddamned gun!
Or else you shoot someone; or you lose me!
YELLOW
What happened? You look rattled!
CHAMILLE
I got rattled, so what! Damn it.
CHARLEY
And now, Sweet miss Zoe,
A wild reel to reel silhouette,
A monster of sweetness,
A brave sordid red herring express
Dying to be born yet!
Miss Zoe!
(Zoe enters, clopped in white
gowns, whiter than white, and
gets lost on her way to the
altar, and Chamille rushes to
guide her.)
CHARLEY
And now! To
Put a start to this heaving enterprise!
The Harlequin Nightmare,
Petruchio's only divorce,
The Very Very Late Ms. Napoleon,
A bride once to be again,
Miss Madeline!
(Charley begins to play as
Madeline enters with
Napoleon's love letters tucked
in her bosom. As she
approaches Charley begins to
sing:)
CHARLEY
"OHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The devil got a keen eye for real estate!
He park his Model-T outside the Pearly Gates
Wait-wait-wait 'til you hesitate!
Convince you that you too late!
Take all that love, oh, turn it to hate!
Mortgage your faith at high-int'rest rate,
OH, the devil, the devil got a keen eye for real estate!"
EVAN
What the fuck kind of wedding song is that?
FATHER
(whispering to Yellow)
Okay, Put $20 down for the Doctor.
YELLOW
What 'bout our bet? You just want to forget it?
FATHER
Maybe. I don't know. Yet.
YELLOW
Don't know either.
My headlines are all breakin' a sweat.
(Madeline arrives at the
altar.)
EVAN
You're late.
MADELINE
So what? I'm always on time for being late, my Emperor.
YELLOW
(to the Mayor)
Incidentally, I put $20 down for you.
EVAN
What the hell are you talking about?
YELLOW
Your wedding gift.
EVAN
Well, thank you. What are we waiting for, Father?
FATHER
Right. Here it is. Madness, in store!
Ramie, the Priestess,
The Jungle-pierced whore!
(Just then we hear ranting from
her room as we shift focus to
it. Ramie is in full Priestess
garb and Peter is there with
her, almost naked. They're
awash in white powder and
confusion.)
RAMIE
You almost my sacrifice! Almost, baby! What we gonna do?
PETER
Hey tapioca bamboo,
gonna put my milky canoe
Right 'tween them harvest moons!
RAMIE
Don't be no wasteland Eskimo,
Or my frozen pie mantra will stick to your tongue!
Naked men and women bout to come undone…in America,
Black and white unsolvent America!
White powder inDISCRETION, WHITE, powder indiscretion, white
power indiscretion, white power all the way, moxie chic!
Now, Ramie gotta go do her first American mass!
(Ramie rolls out of the room)
EVAN
What the hell is this? What is this?
FATHER
(looking at the Bishop)
Well….Ramie is going to marry you.
From Madeline's side!
EVAN
Sides, who's taking sides? God has to choose?
FATHER
Well, yes! Today, he damn well does!
RAMIE
Here we are!
At this jaundiced, black peppered, refried wedding! In
unMexicated style!
What is man?
A fulcrum of destiny,
Built around a tawdry little sausage!
A pope put the wedding in the church
And we'll ride the wave of unsung cum-jism right back out!
Yeah!
EVAN
Then let's get on with it, please!
FATHER
Ramie, what do I do?
RAMIE
Baby, you gotta throw the eyes in Christ back in you!
Like burning dice, baby! Trial by fire!
EVAN
(To Madeline) What is the matter with you in there?
Your eyes look a hundred feet from your skull!
MADELINE
Most of me is better than nothing at all!
Father, do you dare continue?
FATHER
I welcome you all,
To celebrate with me.
This union, this feast, this new tapestry,
Woven of two old souls in a ceremony.
What could this marriage be?
Love flows through man,
Love flows through woman,
A torn wine sack.
Let us pray. Prayer is listening.
As to listen is closest to love...
I now open the floor for…some opening prayers,
Or vows, or confessions.
EVAN
What the hell are you doing?
CHAMILLE
This is our wedding, too, bosswallet!
MADELINE
You keep your mouth shut!
EVAN
No one has any prayers, except my wife to be and me!
YELLOW
(Quietly, to Chamille)
I can feel the stitchin'
Coming off the hems in this place,
Can't you?
CHAMILLE
Don't provoke me.
FATHER
Fine. Then, let us have the rings.
(Evan motions to Yellow, who
pulls out two rings, wrapped
in velvet and hands them to
Father.)
EVAN
Two more imports. For my empress bride.
FATHER
Okay, then. Madeline, place the..sacred ring upon his finger.
(Father hands her a ring, and
then she slips it onto his
finger, slowly.)
FATHER
And your vow.
MADELINE
I wrote my own. (She pulls our one of her Napoleon love
letters from her bosom and reads.)
"A sliver behind the whip is all but a drip,
In these monumental elevations to paradise.
What's lost is found,
It's torn through flesh to rebuild it,
Hollowed bells are planted and rung when the seed forms
inside.
What to do, now? When so much wisdom and love will drown
In the cares of the world."
FATHER
Thank you, Madeline. Now, Evan, place the ring upon her
finger. (Evan does so.) And your vow?
EVAN
Well, I'm not a man of, luxurious words----
(Carl enters as Father says his
last line; Carl is drunk on
Brandy.)
CARL
I have a vow!
RAMIE
Here we go!
EVAN
You better leave, now!
CARL
Oh, no! I love to interrupt fiction with life!
This…wedding…this…how shall we say….discrete alimony
Is priceless!
To those who care about love
Or it's true curators, anyway.
How many marriages are dead at the altar?
CHAMILLE
Doc, you better go!
ZOE
Don't leave, Doc!
CHAMILLE
Zoe, shut up!
MADELINE
Why are you here?!??
CARL
To sew...your...faces...together, my dear!
To be the stitches, and the seamster!
And gauge you again and again!
Until you bleed out the last of Napoleon
And all of other your dead sins!
EVAN
What the hell is he talking about?
MADELINE
I don't know! Get out or you'll get hurt, you'll be hurt!
CARL
No! I've been poor, a slum and you've exposed my poverty! My
poverty's finally revealed! This is my vow! And my sin!
I will almost hope that keeping love like this inside is
deadly! A growing boulder, a dead cathedral, A spiritual dry
hump right in my soul!
EVAN
Yellow, give me that damned Betty! Give it to me!
FATHER
Let the man have his say!
EVAN
Excuse me?
FATHER
Goddamnit, he's drunk and you're on the altar! You got the
upper hand! Calm down.
EVAN
He loves my wife! He loves my wife! He loves her! She loves
him!
Crazy bastard slapped me in the face with his tongue!
Now all of his lies, all of them about to be undone!
FATHER
(holding Evan back lightly)
Is this your confession?
EVAN
I don't have a damned confession!
CARL
God forgive me, Madeline! I'm so, so sorry to hurt you when
so many have. My soul is crazy for you to leave it.
Madeline, You are the burden and the sin
Come to haunt me again.
Love. You love me. I love you.
That love is the foundation for ritual,
For symmetry, for gain and restoration!
MADELINE
You promised to leave this on the fire escape!
CARL
No I didn't! Then how does he love you in return, how much
of your garden has he roamed, much less watered, how much
freelancing he can do in your pious nature. How much
cheating, how much fairness, and what's left ungrown when you
howl for him!
Your poor, poor abundance, hiding in other's scarcity!
How much of my own death inside you,
Inside bliss!
(Peter runs out of the room,
crazy and haggard.)
PETER
I'm here to steal Zoe!
CARL
Peter, doing it probably would have been a better idea than
saying it!
MADELINE
Oh, you callous killers!
EVAN
That's right, you motherfucker,
Stealing our baby!
YELLOW
What are you talkin'?
PETER
I love you, but let this shit, go, Sir! Let it go!
To hell with the lady!
Get the fuck out of here!
You paid the price,
And I don't want you to become a sacrifice!
(He kisses Doctor Supine on the
lips like an old comrade.)
PETER
You all have a lot of fucking therapy to begin!!!!!!!!!
RAMIE
Baby, you is, you is my African tomahawk!
PETER
I is! Confessions, confessions, everywhere! Get a fucking
notepad, Father! Notepad, a notepad. Iseeitseeitseeit!
SEEITTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!! Men hold you down, ladies!
Men hold you down, men!
FATHER
(Catching on) Sea of healing set to begin!
RAMIE
Yea!
PETER
Confess, confess!
FATHER
Yes, yes, yes! A sick hymn!
Ceremonies upon ceremonies upon ceremonies!
I can't stand it anymore!
RAMIE
Baby, whisper to me!
And make them see what you see!
FATHER
God is witness to fire! God is witness to sin!
God is witness to the violence within!
And I cannot wear these clothes anymore. I cannot! I-
(He tears his shirt thing open)
And semen became milk,
And adam and eve wove themselves silk!
And this murky world began!
Because we wanted to get laid!
And ever since, we've been running from it!
I'm too goddamned tired to run!
Fire in a rose scurries to it's command, the soil!
RAMIE
Baby, who cast the woman out on the street!
FATHER
Men did! And God is chewing through this
old man's crankshaft heart!
Do you really want to marry each other? Do you?
The Church must die; obliterated,
Like me! Like me! Praying every day that destiny chooses
someone else
To describe the colors of fires flinging against my teeth,
and crucified RAGE that have already destroyed my happy life
as a priest and all I want to do is weep and cry! At last!
And none of you are getting away with sneaking under a
ceremony!!!!!! This is no wedding!
This is a warning! This is a warning!
RAMIE
Baby, the world is gonna beat again! America gonna get black
fore it get brown,
Settle down! Hold me, take me, feel me, hold me, like my
breath wanna be!
(They embrace, in a sexual
frenetic rapture until Father
has an orgasm.)
FATHER
Ramie, I just came! Without shame.
RAMIE
Hallelujah!
FATHER
Madeline is haunted by ghosts and I saw those ghosts and I
said nothing!
Slithering away in shame to an altar, for Christ sakes!
Forgive me! Because forgiveness is the return of strength!
If nothing to hide, if really, you can pound away at your
soul for a few moments,
Like I have for the past thirty years,
Then I will marry you.
EVAN
I will not confess shit!
FATHER
Then fuck you both! And fuck you Bishop, for spying on me in
the Bathtub! You sick, marble eyed deathbed!
MADELINE
Ramie, marry us, please!
RAMIE
Love, love be the quarrel!
And Love be the solution. i wait years for this!
I ain't lettin' your wedding get in the way of my baptism!
FATHER
(hopping around free now)
We destroy what we love the most!
Sex-love-healing is the purest, dirtiest enterprise;
To balance the heart between the mind and the eyes!
EVAN
Everyone shut the fuck up!
Everyone shut up! Yellow!
YELLOW
It's so infectious, it's too much for a headline! Too much!
(Evan grabs Yellow.)
YELLOW
You slambam me til I can't walk without a limp!
But I just confessed for both of us!
Every article I wrote but didn't have the balls'n hammer to
print,
I paid to flood the streets with my own mint! Your money!
And I know you plan to burn this palace down,
That's right, Miss Madeline, he's gonna nail you down with a
wedding gown!
Take your baby---
EVAN
He's lying!
(Evan hits him before he can
say more. Yellow sprawls
backward. Chamille runs over
to him.)
CHAMILLE
When did you get so brave, you dumbass!
YELLOW
When he gave me that gun!
Courage,it's a vital stallionese.
Baby, that's what I speaketh now, stallionese.
CHAMILLE
Give me the gun!
YELLOW
No way, hon!
(Evan pushes him to the ground
and takes Betty. He tries to
fire at Carl and nothing comes
out.)
YELLOW
Only one kind of bullet
And it got a high heel attached to it!
Dropped all your metal ones in the toilet!
(Evan starts to hit Yellow, who
is smiling at it, making Evan
more enraged. Chamille rushes
over and Evan knocks Chamille
down.
Then Yellow becomes enraged as
do the several men.)
YELLOW
You dictator-motherfucker, don't touch my lady!
(He gets out one bullet and
puts it in clumsily and aims
it at Evan.)
CHAMILLE
Yellow, don't!
YELLOW
Kill him for you!
CHAMILLE
You ain't gone nothin to nowhere if you do this! And I, I
love you, goddamnit!
And If you love me, you'll put that square gun down in the
ground, and howl to me!
Give me the gun, please! Howl at me! Every piece of me, every
piece in unity!
(After a moment, Yellow hands
her the gun. She takes out
the bullet and chucks it. And
the gun.)
YELLOW
America's begun,
Not with a gun.
With this, for me.
(Yellow pulls out a ring for
Chamille, all full of blood
and dirt. Lights dim on
others.)
YELLOW
Here's my confession. My proposal:
The junkyard of my life becomes a flea market,
A sea market,
A water-air science fair;
A beautiful engagement in restaurants built for
This reason;
It takes battle courage to marry fully,
So that diamond huck is an extension
of the coal
squeezed at the core of a soul
of a man by his partner, when he lets her burn and cool it.
burn and cool. Like Litho-dynamite for the rest of their
life!
And all the mixed signals between
The origins of the raw feeling materials of wheat, steel,
steady alloys, must be brushed aside, or gently churned away,
Or glased with the reflections of this Glass Rock,
The steadiest of all the criminal ores.
To salvage the soul at the dinner table;
That the arm holding the ring's a snakeskin, a feral armor,
Holding galaxies and jungles and all my desires,
and I sweat til the marbles wet and that diamond can
sliiiiiiiide,
down my arm, A sword, spiked at the end with the
craftmansship of a true alchemist,
a concession and homage, mixed together sleeeeevishly to
endlessness, the entrance to all and evermore,
Some Gallant and Dangerous Palace of Safety that is you.
A man in this world is a beautiful dustrag,
When tending to the protection of this,
The task of holding eternity inside a castle of flesh,
A Clinging garment rack,
To the water inside the fire
The quiverous stare into the angel's eyelash, my fiancée!
You, who is, by accepting the ring,
Accepting courage and even more responsibility!
You must honor the effort of forging of this sword, ring,
with the sadness of fruit,
Rest of grains,
Floating perfection on the harbors of mist
And perserverence,
Gallows in the haze,
You are the Homage, and Complete Season, Change and
Changelessness.
You must not covet the ring,
But calmly, simply accept it,
Placed to you breast
To puncture and plug, puncture and plug
Til we're tipsy, balanced, floating, opposing easels in the
sky,
Erasing and scribbling and protecting myths without excuses.
Quest for momentary immortality with a sexy friend. I love
you.
(He gives her the ring.)
CHAMILLE
I don't know what to say. But you're hurt and bleeding!
YELLOW
I feel fucking terrific! But Don't answer now.
Let's just get the hell out of here!
(Yellow is helped up by
Chamille as they exit.)
ZOE
I have to confess! I gotta confess too, Padre!
This baby's mine, mama!
He speaks to me!
He speaks to me! He talks and talks and I won't let him down!
He's mine, cryin' at me, his tears comin' outta my eyes! He's
mine,
Every film I ever do gonna be for him! Be brave for my baby!
This baby's gonna make the world sing, mama! I can hear him
singin' already, 'fore I sing to him!
I'm sorry, mama! I'm sorry, mama, I let you down! But I know
he's mine, I know!
PETER
Let's go, Zoe!
(Peter grabs Zoe and they
exit.)
MADELINE
Zoe, no! Evan , stop him! STOP HIM! STOP THEM!
EVAN
What the hell do you want me to do?
CARL
Sour as sour praise goes,
Surrounded by these manifold woes!
Peter is right about all this!
God bless him! I have to go!
MADELINE
Don't you take Zoe!
CARL
You asked for this!
Get your new Emperor to sift through it.
MADELINE
Don't run from me!
I need you! I NEED YOU! I NEED YOU! I need him! I don't need
him!
CARL
I feel like a coward, full of strength.
I wish you would have told me a thing or two
About you! I just had to see for myself who you really are.
MADELINE
Don't you pity me!
CARL
Pity is scorn. I don't want to scorn you!
You said I wished I had a sacrifice to make. This is it!
This is it! and it hurts worse than… You assumed it wouldn't
affect you, my dear. So sewn are the oats.
(She pulls out her gun Lulu.)
MADELINE
You took my baby!!!
CARL
You're not going to shoot me!!!!!!!
You shoot a man in his back,
You destroy an archway to your salvation.
You know the rules of etiquette.
Try to follow one. Start here. Return to me,
With an ounce of integrity, and we can forget history.
Sleep soundly. Until then, I have to go, I have to leave!
goodbye.
MADELINE
There are better ways to saying goodbye than goodbye!
CARL
I know! I do know!
But I'm still unable to see! With you,
Rescue, revenge, unity are all the same to me!
I have to face my life, my sweet.
I leave you, in homage, freedom, despair and defeat
Thank you, Madeline, for healing me!
(Carl exits and Madeline is
frozen for a moment, like
she's standing naked in front
of herself and everyone else
for the first time.)
RAMIE
One can't live without the other but you can't have both!
MADELINE
(Screaming at offstage, then
onstage.)
You liar, you hypocrite!
How dare you and you! How dare it all!
FATHER
Incendiary circumstances dictate we close this wedding.
If anyone sees due reason why these two should not be
married,
Unload your gun,
then you can pistol-whip your tongue!
See you later.
(Father starts to exit)
RAMIE
Baby, you gotta stay! So the ritual all the way!
FATHER
I want to die a gardener's death, Ramie, not a martyr's,
So lay off the Beelzebubbin!
EVAN
(To Madeline) What was he saying to you?
MADELINE
I am a monster! A murderer! A mother, a healer!
I know who I am! I know who I am, Napolean!
I'm a coil, betrayed by my children! I am a Warrior!
I am a whore! And I am a victim!! I
I AM JOSEPHINE!
I am betrayed and wounded and forced to sin!!!! ALWAYS!
A mouse, a dead buried beast, laid for waste!
NAPOLEON, WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME! WHY? (To Evan)
And you, STEAL MY CHILD! BURN DOWN MY PALACE!!!!
EVAN
Hell, I ----
(Madeline begins to get
rampant. Father tries to
intervene but Ramie keeps him
back. Madeline is destroying
all of the stage and set, the
champagne, she swats at the
devil she sees, in tears and
rage. Her confession flies out
in the midst.)
MADELINE
Do you SEEEEEEE HIM? DO YOU SEEE HIM? CARVING THROUGH ME,
ALL OF THE CHILDREN I'VE PUT TO SLEEP,
JEALOUS MOTHERS! I KILLED HIM,
I KILLED THE BABY,
I KILLED HER, I KILLED THE MOTHER,
IN THEIR SLEEP! OUT OF PITY! OUT OF JEALOUSY!
OUT OF LONELINESS!
BECAUSE NO ONE WOULD LISTEN TO THEM!
SHE WAS RAPED AGAIN AND AGAIN! AND NO MAN
HAD THE NERVE TO KILL THEM!
THEY WERE STARVING AND CAME TO ME!
A LITTLE GIRL! MY ZOE! MY FIRST ZOE!!!!!!
AND HERE SHE IS, BACK WITH HORNS, FLYING AT ME! WHY?
AND NAPOLEON IS MY LOVE, NAPOLEON PROTECTS ME!
WHO THREW THE WOMAN OUT ON THE STREET! WHO THREW THE WOMAN
OUT ON THE STREET!
FATHER
This poor woman, I see!
This poor woman! She's baptizing me!
(Evan stands, frozen, never
seeing her like this. He
attempts to touch her, slow
her down. She recoils. She
pulls Lulu from her calf.)
EVAN
You can shoot me, honey, but please don't hurt me!
(She fires and he falls. She
rushes over to him and pulls
out her Napoleonic love
letters and stops the bleeding
with them. He struggles to
speak as he begins to die.)
EVAN
What would you name your child? This is my oath!
MADELINE
Shhhh...my Emperor....shhhhh....
(He stops rattling as he dies.
Father and Ramie watch.)
MADELINE
I loved him so much,
I had to kill him!
Shoot him, at least!
Murder and abduction are nothing to me,
As all of my men have gone willingly
And left the sentence for me!
To serve in exchange for their dignity.
My Emperor, My baby, my love…..
Fallacious, hand-bred, mortified, I'll sing to you now,
My nascient torpedo, my withered west-end credo….
(She begins to sing as the
lights darken on her voice
that overlaps on the lights
going up on Carl's Office,
where he is packing. Peter
enters, looking haggard but in
his street clothes.)
CARL
Did you see Zoe?
PETER
She's fine. I'm going to stay here for a while.
CARL
That's noble of you.
PETER
What about you?
CARL
I may go to Europe, spend a few years there in between wars.
PETER
What about Miss Madeline?
CARL
Well, Peter, there were no...confessed witnesses to the
shooting. So Miss Ma---she will be fine. i feel respons--
you know, let's talk over some tea,
Before i start sifting through all these burnt offerings.
They are not anything but smoke signals,
Our behaviors. Is that beautiful or sad?
PETER
I don't know, sir. At this point, I'm just holding out for a
hobo's intellect. What a tragedy, though?
CARL
Tragedy is tragic to the tragic, Peter.
Come on, my honorary son, let's convene with some trees.
(They exit as we see lights up
on Pussyhats but it is now
called "Charley Who-Horses."
Charley is fixin it up as
Father, Ramie, Chamille and
Yellow look on.)
CHAMILLE
How'd you afford this, Charley?
CHARLEY
I bet me that one get shot, one get free
And there be no ceremony!
Got me enough money to buy this factory!
Not bad for a black jazz cat caught in history!
FATHER
My God, Ramie,
who will come listen to me?
Now that i'm banned from the Church.
RAMIE
When the Church crumble, baby,
you be safe here with me.
YELLOW
Well, I'm going to start my own newspaper. (To Chamille) But
I can't do this alone.
CHAMILLE
What about my past?
RAMIE
Honey, the future in the past,
And yet the parts barely cast!
YELLOW
Fate assigns us;
It does'nt define us!
Sides, i marry for potential. i'll wait.
Now let's get ourselves a wappy-hopped sodee-pop!
(He takes her hand.)
CHAMILLE
What is your real name, Scalawag?
YELLOW
Gregory Paul Slattering Holmes.
CHARLEY
Helluva name!
YELLOW
My grandfather used to say a great name has about three or
four other good names rattling inside it. (Pause) So, what
turns you on Charley?
CHARLEY
Nice fucking people! I dig nice folk!
CHAMILLE
Amen! Charley, play us something, a novice hymn.
(He grabs his horn and starts
to play as they all exit the
stage, Charley last to leave
with a new jazz in hand.)
CHARLEY
America born,
Inside the horn, a Note at a time!
"Oh, let's get famished and full!
Cause we're Fools in the sea! Fools in the sea.
Limitless and perfect are we!
She always been
My single malt tapestry,
Woven just for me,
Full of history and tempest forgery.
I love her through and through,
Even what I can't see!
So i Play my horn, Love my wife,
Grow my food, Al'thr's to life!
Maybe a friend a two,
The rest -
All just hubbaloo
Give us something to do! Just a hubballooo, just a hubba-ding
three-two…
Curtain.
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