Soul of a Whore and Purvis by Denis Johnson Read Free Book Online

the news:
    They set your mother’s date an hour ago.
    Isabel Cassandra: Death by poison!
    JOHN wails.
    Lights narrow: GRANNY , the cross, the sign: SURPLUS STORE.
    HT sings as he enters from Surplus Store.
    HT : If you ever get to Houston
    Boy you better walk right
    You better not gamble
    And you better not fight
    â€¦What’s all the fuss? Where’d everybody go?
    Ma’am, I heard my friend I’m waiting on
    Raising his voice in here. I know his voice.
    GRANNY wakes to see HT standing before the cross.
    GRANNY BLACK: Whose ghost are you? Which one? Which murdered angel?
    HT : Do I look like a ghost? I’m not a ghost.
    (Am I a ghost?…I don’t remember dying…)
    I’m waiting on a friend, a friend—I know his voice—
    GRANNY BLACK : Harold Thomas Watson! I see you!
    I feel your fangs sinking into my soul!
    I didn’t tell him to! Nobody told him!
    Demons sent and fetched him, slapped him, rocked him—
    Everybody knew he’d kill somebody.
    I’m the one he should have killed—he loved me!
    I’m the one he should have killed—I loved him!
    I swear I’m leaving town. I’m bound for Dallas.
    I won’t be here among your children nor
    Your children’s children on the Huntsville streets—
    They’ll never have to look at me again!
    Leave this poor old woman to the black
    And miserable damnation love has earned her.
    Her wailing blends with ambulance’s siren.
    BLACKOUT

Part II
    About a year later.
    Split scene: Left, hospital waiting room. Right, hospital room.
    Lights up stage right:
    Hospital room. Early summer morning. Dark but for the light of the monitors, and a bit of dawn.
    SIMON lies in bed, a silhouette.
    Â 
    SIMON : I have kissed your prayers kissed your prayers
    Roller coaster rollin’ through the rain
    The oceanic shoulders of the throng
    Undulating slowly breakfastward
    Mobile tit!
    NURSE has entered. She opens the window.
    NURSE :                 A lovely one is coming!
    Lovely! I’ll just crack the jamb before
    The hot of the day, so’s you can breathe the morning.
    â€¦O, Lordy God, it smells so sweet and green
    It almost nearly stinks.
    SIMON :                                  Soft fuck-me music
    Plays the little baby radio
    Bare room shaken by a passing train
    NURSE : The little baby radio. That’s cute.
    She turns on radio. While she fluffs his pillows, records his vitals, etc.:
    JIMMY BOGGS [ sings on radio ]:
    All your promises
    The things you said
    NURSE : That Jimmy Boggs is just untalented.
    JIMMY BOGGS [ sings on radio ]:
    Using grand words
    Like eternity and love
    NURSE : A singing voice like garbage cans turned over.
She cuts the radio.
    SIMON : Your holy pussy your precious cunt
    There’s never been a sweeter ride to Hell
    NURSE : How quiet and delicious is the air.
    Like anything can happen in the world.
    What an atmosphere…Ah, God. Ah, God…
    They mow the lawns, it drags me back to Dallas…
    I wish they had the ice-cream trucks again… Meanwhile,
    WILL BLAINE has entered in medical smock.
    WILL : You wish they had the ice-cream trucks again.
    SIMON : The generous wide feet of pachyderms
    NURSE : We’re almost done here, Doc.
    WILL :                                           I’m not a doctor.
    Just a tech.
    NURSE :                 Blood?
    WILL :                               In a sense.
    NURSE :                                            Let’s see—
    SIMON : Geezing bugspray in the slimy night
    NURSE :—Do you have orders? I don’t seem to have—
    WILL : Uh—no. I’m not your colleague. Actually,
    Simon is my brother.
    NURSE :