Soul of a Whore and Purvis (6 page)

As Jesus promised in the Gospel of Mark

That we shall cast out devils and lay healing

Touches on the sick, I touch you now!

Unloose the string on this man's tongue! Begone!

[
SYLVESTER
calms.
]

…Now tell me, what did Peter Piper pick?

Pay money to see him shove it up your hole…

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled

Rubber baby buggy bumpers—wow.

This Mumble-Stumb's red-dogged my vocalize

From minute one. I had full-on, obscene

Tourette's till Mama whipped it out of me.

But let's just stop this tent revival here—

Before you get me past the point of cure

And on into the tongues and rattlesnakes.

You gotcher cookies. Come, girl, let's go home.

Delight.

Dark Delight at Manor Downs. Fifth race!

Back off now. Give her room. Give me my sheet!

I've lost my light—Don't you turn the lights on?

Of nothing but yourself—it's blasphemy.

Mark says, “In
my
name cast out devils.”

…Jesus Christ, they crucified you, huh?

Holy Jesus, they crucified you good.

Jesus Christ, they threw you in the pit

And fed you meals of Spam and Wonder bread…

But the crucifiers never ride the Greyhound.

Jesus Christ…

[
He falls to his knees.
]

It's Bill Jenks, fresh from prison.

Been out half a day, and my report

Says, Lord, it's still the world they killed you in.

Says, Lord, the world is desperate and mean.

Lord, come on now, turn an ear to me.

Your Catholic priests are pederastic homos.

Your preachers are sluts. They clutch your Book

In one hand green from moneybags and poke

Your Word with fingers reasty from young cunts.

The sonsabitches crucify

Occasionally a savior while revering

Prophets their fathers lynched. The motherfuckers

Live unchallenged, prosper, die unpunished.

God, I hate them. Jesus hated them, too.

Don't dispute me—Jesus Christ reviled them.

He saw who held the hammer and the nails.

He recognized who would and wouldn't hurt him,

And so he palled around with dwarfs and whores,

People everybody hated—tax collectors,

Lepers, urchins, strangers, widows, dummies…

Come on now, Jesus, turn an ear to me.

Jesus Christ, I am a criminal.

I am a tax collector, whore, and midget:

You have nothing to fear from the likes of me,

And nobody else in here is gonna hurt you,

For the crucifiers never ride the Greyhound.

Jesus Christ, I beg you for the power.

I beg you for the power and cry…DEMON!

[
He lays hands on
MASHA;
she writhes and screams.
]

DEMON, I BANISH YOU TO—

…Spare me banishment to the pit of Hell,

But leave me to the world of things and men,

And I will grant you prophecies three.

Spare me the pit, and I will prophesy…

Prophesy away, and walk the world

As long as men and things inhabit here.

I prophesy that you shall meet your mirror.

I prophesy that you shall raise the dead.

I prophesy one more: That like all men

William Jennings Bryan Jenks shall die,

And on his death an innocent shall be killed.

[
BJ
lays his hands on her.
]

I FLEE!

Three predictions worth exactly zero?

Son of a bitch. She could've made you wealthy

Ten times over. What a rube you are.

[
A siren; pulsing red and blue light that continues until blackout.
]

Here comes the ambulance to the whore hospital.

Of mirrors. I don't like their face.

I guarantee I'll never raise the dead.

And naturally I'll die. But all the rest

Is nonsense. Let me see your racing form.

Maybe she's just handicapping horses.

They set your mother's date an hour ago.

Isabel Cassandra: Death by poison!

Lights narrow:
GRANNY
,
the cross, the sign:
SURPLUS STORE.

HT
sings as he enters from Surplus Store.

Boy you better walk right

You better not gamble

And you better not fight

…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.

(Am I a ghost?…I don't remember dying…)

I'm waiting on a friend, a friend—I
know
his voice—

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.

Roller coaster rollin' through the rain

The oceanic shoulders of the throng

Undulating slowly breakfastward

Mobile tit!

Lovely! I'll just crack the jamb before

The hot of the day, so's you can breathe the morning.

…O, Lordy God, it smells so sweet and green

It almost nearly stinks.

Plays the little baby radio

Bare room shaken by a passing train

All your promises

The things you said

Using grand words

Like eternity and love

There's never been a sweeter ride to Hell

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,

Just a tech.

Simon is my brother.

But it's a little early, don't you think?

Official hours—

Been floating on that road since midnight, after

the post-injection wrap-up drinks at Mursky's

Bar and Grill but definitely mostly Bar,

Drifting through the general emptiness

From Huntsville: Seven hours in the rain

and more than slightly drunk, and I saw never

A single car. Or house. Or tree. Or star.

Between and not a whole lot when you get there…

My niece got married to a Huntsville man.

They executed someone there last night!—

Some crazy feller killed his wife and all

His little children…Well, my niece's husband

Thomas Hill works at the Walls. I guess

He goes around confusing people, too,

Looking like the uniform of something else.

…Well now, since you're a tech, you're probably…

There's things to do the
fam
ily might not…

We like to avoid unsightly
sights
—

Why that feller killed them. Well, he did,

And now it's eye for eye and tooth for tooth.

They strapped him to the slab and—life for life.

That's what we do.

A dream of volcanoes rides past on a train

A spider crouched alive betwixt her lungs

His crotch a couple yanks, it shuts him up?

I know! The whole world's highly entertained!

He's quite a favorite hereabouts. A team

From Dallas, on the first of every month,

Descends upon us, specialists from Dallas—

The magic twanger of my brother's scrotum!

My helpless brother's balls! Nurse…Vandermere:

I'm not here visiting the vegetable.

This thing they're gonna do—I'm here for that.

I would assume the staff would know.

At which, for reasons they have not explained,

They want the whole damn family to assemble.

Doesn't make them deaf. They hear us talk,

They understand, and Simon knows what's what.

And
I
was in a coma—I would die!

What's this all about?

He didn't even blink. He kinda sorta

Rolls his eyes around though, doesn't he.

A six-foot-long Señor Potato-Head…

And not one blister, huh? Not one hair singed.

That's what ya git fer smokin'!—might as well

Be ashes, huh?

Smoke inhalation. Very bad for you.

I'm told—and as we've just been demonstrating.

I never heard those voices before.

Did you ever hear those voices before?

Simon's
sister-in-law, which is because

I'm Simon's wife, and she's my sister—Calling

Koala Lumpur! Simon!

In Koala Lumpur when the fire struck

That shopping mall and pumped it full of smoke

And choked him till he got like this! Now, Simon,

Form your thoughts, take all the time you want,

Visiting hours haven't even started—

You're here; he's here; everybody's here.

Now how about a little explanation?

It's still a half an hour till
official
—

Tragedy strikes us anytime it wants,

Even in places like Koala Lumpur—

You can't escape life even by pretending!

A couple minutes, Doc—

We always say he's turned in
to
the lilac!

So, Doctor, when he says I have a
dog
,

He's talking about our actual
universe
,

And an
act
ual dog, also an actual
lilac
.

And even if we don't have a koala bear,

There actually
are
koala bears in China,

Or over there where Kuala Lumpur is.