ANGEL: Here’s your big chance, baby. What would you like to ask the Angel of the Lord?

MARISOL (Energized): Are you real? Are you true? Are you gonna make the Bronx safe for me? Is it true angels’ favorite food is Thousand Island dressing? Is it true your shit smells like mangoes and when you’re drunk you speak Portuguese?

ANGEL: Honey, last time I was drunk…

          (Marisol gets a sudden, horrifying realization.)

MARISOL: Wait a minute – am I dead?

          (The Woman With Furs grabs the golf club out of Marisol’s hand.)

WOMAN WITH FURS: I know what I’m going to do now. I’m going to turn you in. I’m going to tell the Citibank police you stole my plastic! They’ll like me for that. They’ll like me a lot. They’ll restore my banking privileges!

          (The Woman with Furs starts swinging wildly at Marisol. Marisol dodges the Woman with Furs.)

MARISOL: I am not an animal! I am not a barbarian! I don’t fight at this level!

WOMAN WITH FURS (Swinging): Welcome to the new world order, babe!

SCAR TISSUE: The angel was Japanese. Dressed in armor. Dressed in iron. Dressed to endure the fire of war. She had a scimitar.

MARISOL (Can’t believe it; wanting to): She?

SCAR TISSUE: Kissed me. I almost exploded. I kept hearing Jimi Hendrix in my middle ear as those lips, like two brands, nearly melted me. She was radiant. Raw.

MARISOL AND SCAR TISSUE: Fulgent.

SCAR TISSUE: She told me when angels are bored at night, they write your nightmares. She said the highest among the angels carry God’s throne on their backs for eternity, singing, “Glory, glory, glory!” But her message was terrible and after she kissed me…

MARISOL AND SCAR TISSUE: …I spit at her.

SCAR TISSUE: Was that the right thing to do, Marisol?

MARISOL: I thought it was… but I don’t know.

TOMMY: …the Justice Department statistics show that sixty percent of all rapes are committed by burglars.

GALE: God.

TOMMY: Thirty percent of all assaults.

GALE: I… well those are…

TOMMY: And how can you protect this home 24 hours a day, 365 days a year?

GALE: How?

TOMMY: The S-2448 system.

WAITER: Look, I’ve had about enough. I’ve been treated with contempt by you for the entire evening and frankly, I don’t need this. You treat me like some sort of indentured servant and I’ve got too much dignity and self-respect to be abused by the likes of you. I have a life, you know. To you I’m just a waiter, some bozo bringing you quantities of food that you then shovel in enormous mouthfuls like some barnyard animal into your foul smelling orifices. Well, I have a name, I have a past, I have loves and disappointments and dreams you know nothing about, you rude mass of polyester. How dare you. I hope you step outside this place and are hit by a large twelve wheeled tractor trailer and they have to scrape you off the pavement with a shovel like some viscous squirrel pulp.

HEINRICH: Why don’t you just clear the table and we’ll pay the check and leave.

WAITER: You want me to clear the table? Is that it? Clear the goddamn table? I’ll clear the table. (He overturns the table, sending food and plates to the floor.)

WAITER: There the table is cleared. (He exits.)

RICHIE: And I start to cry, and I look around at the other people in the airport and I notice that all the other people are starting to cry. And some people are on their knees and they’re praying. And everybody is screaming No No, and we drive home and I turn on the T.V. and everybody on the T.V. is crying and praying and saying no, I don’t believe this is happening and I sort of go into shock. Only nobody told me that afternoon John Kennedy had been shot. I thought the entire country had some to a stop because my parents got a divorce.

BLACK WOMAN WITH FRIED DRUMSTICK: Yesterday today next summer tomorrow just uh moment uhgoh in 1317 dieded thuh last black man in thuh whole entire world. Uh! Oh. Dont be uhlarmed. Do not be afeared. It was painless. Uh painless passin. He falls twenty-three floors to his death. 23 floors from uh passin ship from space tuh splat on thuh pavement. He have uh head he been keeping under thuh Tee V. On his bottom pantry shelf. He have uh head that hurts. Dont fit right. Put it on tuh go tuh thuh store in it pinched him when he walks his thoughts dont got room. Why dieded he huh? Where he gonna go now that he done dieded? Where he gonna go tuh wash his hands?

THE FOUNDLING FATHER AS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: There was once a man who was told that he bore a strong resemblance to Abraham Lincoln. He was tall and thinly built just like the Great Man. His legs were the longer part just like the Great Mans legs. His hands and feet were large as the Great Mans were large. The Lesser Known had several beards which he carried around in a box. The beards were his although he himself had not grown them on his face but since he’d secretly bought the hairs from his barber and arranged their beard shapes and since the procurement and upkeep of his beards took so much work he figured that the beards were completely his. Were as authentic as he was, so to speak. His beard box was of cherry wood and lined with purple velvet. He had the initials “A.L.” tooled in gold on the lid.

BRAZIL: Him and Her would sit by thuh lip uhlong with thuh others all in uh row cameras clickin and theyud look down into that Hole and see – ooooo – you name it. Ever-y-day you could look down that Hole and see – ooooo you name it. Amerigo Vespucci hisself made regular appearances. Marcus Garvey. Ferdinand and Isabella. Mary Queen of thuh Scots! Tarzan King of thuh Apes! Washington Jefferson Harding and Millard Fillmore. Mistufer Columbus even. Oh they saw all thuh greats. Parading daily in thuh Great Hole of History.

CHAIRMAN FRANCIS: Our church is the street, our faith is the people, and our laws are constantly changing. If a law offends us, we pluck it out. If a minister offends us, we pluck him out and elect a new minister who is young and strong and can recognize evil’s ever-changing face. We don’t believe in miracles, we believe in action. But action takes money. Mr. Chairman, the church of Democratic Progression needs your financial support. Now, Mr. Chairman, how much would you pay to nip evil in the bud? Now I’m not talking about wiping out evil entirely, just your own little personal dark speck. Would you pay forty dollars, Mr. Chairman? Thirty dollars? Twenty dollars, the price of four filthy movies? NO. Mr. Chairman, for just fifteen dollars a month you can keep a chairman, like myself, on the streets fighting evil on your behalf.

RON HUBER: Lady. What’s this doing here?

CASHIER: What? That’s cream.

RON HUBER: Yeah, well where’s the Coffee Mate?

CASHIER: We ran out so we had to use real cream.

RON HUBER: Christ. First the cinnamon triangles and now this. This place is going to hell. What? What, am I supposed to put that liquid shit in perfectly good coffee?

CASHIER: Look, cream is better that powder. It’s more healthy for you.

ROB HUBER: You think I come to SA for my health. Now you march to the back and get me some Coffee Mate, young lady. I got a bus waiting.

STEVE: So, this morning we were at the doctor’s office and Steve wanted to show how smart he was ‘cause he knows they’re thinking about locking us up. So, he starts going through the K-Marts beginning with “A”. Well, I read this morning in the paper they’re opening a new K-Mart in Burnsville. I’m sitting there nice and quiet and polite the whole time he and the doctor are talking and then Steve starts reciting and gets to the “B’s” and ooops – he missed Burnsville. So, I calmly say, “Burnsville.” ‘Cause I didn’t want Steve to look bad in front of the doctor. I was only trying to help and Steve said, “What?” And I said, “Burnsville, Steve.” And he said, “What about it?” And I said, “There’s a K-Mart in Burnsville.” Steve goes “Huh uh” and I go “Uh huh” and Steve goes “Huh uh” and I go “Uh huh, I just read it in the paper today.” And then Steve really lost his cool…

GIRL: This was a protestant region. The killings were political, not religious. Why –

BROADCASTER: The story must be told by means of every truth there is. Radio plays through you, my one. You tell.

GIRL: When they were killing the children, they threw the loud ones down a well. The children filled a deep well. The children are in the aquifer. Although you cannot hear them, their blood comes up roses; the blood of 75,000 martyrs rises, every weed a rose. I awake with a fist’s worth of dirt from El Mozote in my pocket, now bright red. (She pulls dirt from her pocket and scatters it.)

DAD: Where’s Miss Mouse? Where’s my Mouse Knuckles? (Lights on. The flayed and burned corpse of his daughter in among stuffed animals on the white lace coverlet of her bed. Lights off.) Where’s Miss Mouse? Where’s Mouse Knuckles? (Lights up. The corpse is gone. He calls off.) Honey, we must have a word about Liz. I can’t – I can’t keep – Lights off, lights on. I could swear she was there. Face in the lamp shade. Body in the chair. Walk through these halls, lights off, lights on. Every shape in the shadows, tells me she’s gone. Light off, lights on, doesn’t matter to me. Every flick of the switch dumps eternity.

NARRATOR: Barbara was locked in a tower by her father when she had her first period. Her father believed that if she was grounded, if she was on the ground and her blood was allowed to enter the earth, that she would conduct electricity, that she would attract powerful forces. So her father suspended her between heaven and earth. But she required neither heaven nor the earth. Barbara learned genius from secret women. From Jo Arrington, the wife of the Indian who built the world’s first radio in Barbara’s tower. Barbara’s hair grew at a fantastic rate during her time of the month, and this is how Jo climbed up.

MIKE: Let’s see…there’s this one poem I’ve been working on for over seventeen years.

pause

It’s a long poem. It’s an epic. They teach you about epics in school?

CURATOR: Yes.

MIKE: There’s the Odyssey. They teach you about the Odyssey?

CURATOR: Yes.

MIKE: Of course, I’m not saying my epic’s as good as the Odyssey. For one thing, it’s not written in Greek.

MIKE: This poem is called “Untitled.”

pause

No, sorry, “Kitchen Window”—I just changed my mind. “Kitchen Window.”

I’m standing

next to your bedroom window

and you don’t even know it.

When you hear a twig snap and look outside

all you see is darkness.

I’m long gone.

When you finally see me, you are really seeing where I was.

There are objects missing

from your

tool shed

You’ll never notice they’re gone.

I took them.

Stuff I have waited—

No. Hang on. Wait a minute.

I want to change that “stuff “ to “amulets.” It’s a better word, “amulets.” Amulets. Am-u-lets. It’s more poetical. By the way, did I tell you I heard from—I forget now. Anyway, I can change these poems at the last minute, right? It’s all right for me to work on them?

CURATOR: I’d rather you wouldn’t.

MIKE: I killed somebody once. On the back of a Greyhound bus.

pause

It was a kindness, mind you. Fella actually paid me to do it. Had me hold him like you would a baby.

pause

Well, anyway, if we’re predestined to have one secret, then I guess that’s mine. Of course, if you went and told somebody that I’d killed a fella, I’d just deny it.

pause

CURATOR: You want to tell me about it?

pause

MIKE: Maybe I’ll give you his hat someday.

NARCISSUS: it’s like it’s like

ECHO: it’s like it’s like

NARCISSUS: it’s like this, check it out: i meet this guy, right, and we go to his place and it’s phat it’s plush

ECHO: it’s phat it’s plush

NARCISSUS: it’s all glass and chrome

ECHO: glass and chrome

NARCISSUS: black leather, plush pile, big-screen tv with surround sound

ECHO: surround sound

NARCISSUS: mirrors everywhere, on the walls, in the hall, on the ceiling, looking at myself

ECHO: looking at myself

ORPHEUS: when you sleep, i read your mind. it’s like we’re lying real close, skull to skull, and our brains meld, they become all siamese twin like, and i’m like sucking the thoughts right out of your head, swirling them around, seeing how they taste

EURYDICE: yeah, and how do they taste?

ORPHEUS: good

EURYDICE: yeah?

ORPHEUS: juicy

NARCISSUS: when i was a little kid, the building where i lived at, it caught on fire, mmhm, and my mother, she held me out of the window, and she was all like: “fly away fly away fly away, little bird,” and then she let go – only thing was, i wasn’t no little bird, and i didn’t fly, i fell, and i don’t know what the bitch was smokin, cause if i didn’t die from the fire, i shoulda straight up died from the fall – ‘cept the thing being i landed on this big old mattress somebody threw out with the trash - fuckin fate, man, was on my ass – and then later this old wino found me, and took care of me for a while till his liver gave out, and then i was on my own, i was all alone, and that is the truth, i swear to god –

DE MARTINI: What did this company do?

GINA: Oh, you know, bad baby formula.

DE MARTINI: No, I certainly don’t know about that. Where did you hear it?

GINA: I don’t remember… somebody… just some friends of mine knew and they wondered how I could work here. Ethically you know, morally.

DE MARTINI: Yes.

GINA: But I hope… it was just accidental. Right? Maybe… Bad judgment. Some misunderstanding which caused… some death, some babies to die. Some, hundreds of babies. Am I right?

DE MARTINI: People here don’t talk about that.

GINA: The truth is, I love working here. I’ve learned a million things about the world, from typing, from data entry, from filing. Everything inside those files represents something. Something immense.

            Tons and tons of powdered formula. Thousands of cows and people and grass and land. The trucks that drive there. And I get to see it all through the computer. Millions of people buying and selling all over this country. It’s like a giant crystal ball. Even this building, it’s more than a building. All that glass and marble and steel. The way it juts up into the sky, so erect, so shiny and hard. I get this feeling it’s almost alive, and it’s trying to say something to us.

DE MARTINI: I really just need to see the contents of your briefcase Gina.

GINA: …no matter what this company’s done, this building is standing up there gleaming. It’s there to tell people

            I AM HERE.

            I’M BIGGER THAN YOU.

            I’M STANDING UP.

            AND YOU’RE DOWN THERE FLAT.

DE MARTINI: I know a certain executive here, he told me—he senses the presence of a bloodthirsty force. He says that we don’t see the blood. It’s like they have a vacuum that sucks it up and bleaches it white. There are bones in the walls. He says, sometimes it’s as if this whole building is breathing.