Soul of a Whore and Purvis

by Denis Johnson

  Boys, right here in this here pocket I’ve

  Got over a hundred and twenty dollars cash.

  PURVIS: Tempting us with bribes won’t help you, Floyd.

  PATROLMAN: Keep your cash.

  FLOYD: I wasn’t trying a bribe!

  I only wanted to tell you something nice.

  [Sings] Mademoiselle from Armentières,

  Parlez-vous

  Mademoiselle from Armentières,

  Parlez-vous

  She’ll do it for wine, she’ll do it for rum,

  She’ll do it for candy or chewing gum!

  You ever see them tracers in the war?

  PURVIS: I was never in the war.

  FLOYD: You never seen

  A tracer bullet? Man, they look like comets.

  PURVIS: Those are meteors. A comet’s quite

  Another thing.

  FLOYD: They look like shooting stars.

  PATROLMAN: That’s what they are! For golly’s sake,

  Shooting stars are meteors and falling

  Stars are comets!

  FLOYD: Mares eat oats and does

  Eat oats and little lambs eat ivy!—Jeez!

  [Sings] The ring-dang-doo, now what is that?

  It’s round and black like a bowler hat.

  It’s good for me, and it’s good for you,

  And it’s what they call the ring-dang-doo.

  …You know, there ain’t no moon tonight.

  Nor stars, except them meaty-balls…O! Look!

  PATROLMAN:…Mr. Floyd? Say…Pretty Boy?

  PURVIS: What’s this?

  PATROLMAN:…O Lord, his brains is spirtled on the corn.

  I think he’s shot—he’s shot right through his head!

  Who shot him?

  PURVIS: I didn’t hear a shot. Did you?

  PATROLMAN: I heard no shot. Nor did I shoot him, sir.

  PURVIS: Of course not.

  PATROLMAN: Sir, get down. We’d best take

  cover.

  PURVIS:…By Heaven above, I don’t believe such luck.

  This man’s been struck in the head by a meteorite.

  PATROLMAN: God’s bloody stripes! When does that ever happen?

  PURVIS: Never. I’d say of all the men to die,

  This man’s the first to die of a meteor.

  PATROLMAN:…Mr. Purvis, I’d like to go get drunk.

  Here he lays, the criminal the hobos

  Made a song about, who started off

  A knock-knee spittle-slurper farmer boy

  That couldn’t count his toes if he used his fingers,

  And stole a pistol, stole a car, stuck up

  A string of grocers, bought a tommy gun

  And dunked Ohio in a vat of nightmares—

  Slaughtered innocent sucklings at the breast,

  Raped their mothers, killed their fathers—and here

  He lays without a pillow or a dream,

  Assassinated by a shooting star.

  PURVIS: Let’s get him to the road so we can load him.

  PATROLMAN: I’m gonna go get drunk.

  PURVIS: His legs…His legs…

  Put your gun away. That’s right…That’s right…

  Take his legs.

  Soon they find themselves positioned as if staging Caravaggio’s Entombment of Christ.

  BLACKOUT

  Scene 7

  May 1934: A hotel suite on Little Star Lake, Wisconsin.

  JOHN DILLINGER and BABY FACE NELSON: DILLINGER in casual attire, NELSON in shirt, socks, and undershorts, modeling a huge, garish necktie.

  In a corner of the room a woman lies facedown, half-naked, bound and gagged.

  DILLINGER: Since when?

  BABY FACE: Since the invention of the wheel.

  Since the invention of fuck.

  DILLINGER: Yer just a cracker someone hocked and dripped

  A green-and-yellow speckled loogie on.

  BABY FACE: Anyway, is there a law against it?

  Point me in the book where it says a law.

  DILLINGER: Sometimes style is all a man has got.

  BABY FACE: Style is for the girlies!

  DILLINGER: Keep that necktie

  Far from populated areas.

  BABY FACE: Helen’s got a cousin loves this tie.

  Say, she ain’t a feast and a half for these baby blues!

  A variable Oktoberfest, in fact.

  DILLINGER: This vacation has gotta be absolutely

  The final proof that I’m an idiot.

  BABY FACE: Hey, let’s get over to Oktoberfest.

  It’s something the Bohemies do, and do

  They drink? And get so dead blind sozzled

  The girlies almost fuck themselves for ya?

  DILLINGER: I’d like to pose a query.

  BABY FACE: I ain’t queerie, dearie.

  Listen, John, they even grow beer gardens.

  Don’t ask me how they do it, but they do.

  …I’m all ears. Pose as queerly as you want.

  DILLINGER: If you were going to hold Oktoberfest,

  What would be your personal choice of months

  In which to gahdamn sonofabitching hold it?

  …Now, Baby Face, don’t sulk. Don’t pouty-pout.

  BABY FACE: Your corkscrew conversation burns my ass.

  You’re always yinkin’ on a string until

  I swipe, and then “Ha-ha!”

  DILLINGER: You take my point?

  BABY FACE: You mean that thing you’re jagging at me? Yeah,

  I do. It’s that I’m stupid once again.

  Shuffle up them bicycles, Perfesser.

  DILLINGER: Ante five.

  BABY FACE: Goddamn it’s hot. That’s plenty,

  Deal ’em, Johnny.

  DILLINGER: Never call me Johnny.

  BABY FACE: Yeh, you told me that already once

  Or twice I think—You ever go to the zoo?

  You know what a zoo is, don’t you, Johnny D.?

  DILLINGER: I know and I’ve been. Refer to me as John.

  BABY FACE: John, did you ever go to the zoo, perhaps?

  Did you ever go to the toilet at the zoo,

  John? Did you ever go to the john, John?

  OK OK OK. Cheez, what a grouch.

  I gotta go at least a double sawbuck.

  Gimme four.

  DILLINGER: The limit on the draw Is three.

  BABY FACE: Then why do they call it five-card draw?

  DILLINGER:…Three, and four.

  BABY FACE: Christ! Them’s the ones I had!

  DILLINGER: I hate the zoo.

  BABY FACE: I fold. The zoo? How come?

  DILLINGER: Because the animals are all in prison.

  BABY FACE: That’s right! I never thought of that! My deal.

  The ante’s twenty. All or nothing, Ma.

  Can you imagine doing your time and people

  Lug their snot-nose runts around to pepper

  Peanuts and other such garbage at your cell?

  Pointing at your private parts and laughing?

  I mean, because you wouldn’t have no pants?

  Hey, I know the guy who’s got the biggest

  Wallywacker in Chicago. Bet.

  DILLINGER: I guess you got down on your knees and measured.

  BABY FACE: Jimmy Lawrence.

  DILLINGER: Twenty. Never met him.

  BABY FACE: Yeah? Because I’m pretty sure he knows

  Old Anna—fold—and Anna knows him back.

  …She never mentioned Jimmy with a giant

  Rutabaga hanging down right here?

  …When you and her are cuddling do you feel

  As like you’re throwing toothpicks down a well?

  Ah, me.

  DILLINGER: Dollar ante. Ante up.

  BABY FACE: Perfesser, are you dealing out your ass?

  ’Cause shit is all I’m seeing here. Three. Four.

  DILLINGER: Take six!

  BABY FACE: My deal.

  DI
LLINGER: You call that shuffling?

  BABY FACE: Ante up. Uh-uh. One hundred yoo-ess

  Smackeroos, Perfesser. Go on, bet.

  DILLINGER: Screw, chump. I won’t ante half my wallet.

  BABY FACE: John D. ain’t no Rockefeller, huh?

  Ante up, John. Ain’t you got one ball?

  …’Cause Anna Sage and Jimmy Lawrence made

  An item and she used to walk like this.

  WHAT’S OUT THERE!

  DILLINGER: Nothing. Nothing’s out there.

  BABY FACE: I thought Wisconsin was cool beside the lake!

  I’m sweaty-grimy in my creases!

  DILLINGER: Maybe if you didn’t hop around the place

  Like ants was in your asshole.

  BABY FACE: It ain’t ants.

  It’s more invisible than ants. It’s muggy

  Fuggin’ Fahrenheit. It crawls down in—

  And pisses. That’s what sweat is. Sweat is piss

  That crawls out holes all over you.

  DILLINGER: Amen.

  BABY FACE: Workin’ the Loozyanna voodoo on me.

  Givin’ me the hoodoo heebie-jeebies.

  DILLINGER: You’re a pistol. You’re a sketch.

  BABY FACE: My ass.

  When your little Anna was hooked on Jimmy Lawrence

  She sparkled in her eyes and walked around

  Like she was bent from riding on a ox.

  Ha ha ha ha ha! Shut up! Shut up.

  —I mean it, John. Shut up. There’s something out there.

  Jeez! I got a headache up my ass tonight.

  DILLINGER: We’re supposed to be having fun, remember?

  BABY FACE: I know—I got a bad condition, Doc.

  Since when I was small and caught a dose

  Of chicken rabies.

  DILLINGER: Chicken rabies, is it?

  BABY FACE: That’s the stuff. There ain’t no remedy.

  DILLINGER: Course not. All creation knows the dreaded

  Chicken rabies gets you permanent.

  BABY FACE: I got it at the carnival.

  DILLINGER: Alas!

  BABY FACE: There’s nothing as worse as carnival chicken rabies.

  WHO’S OUT THERE?

  DILLINGER: Sit down! There’s no one there!

  BABY FACE: I SMELL YOU VOODOO BASTARDS.

  DILLINGER: Put that down.

  —Two-bit Tommy and his tommy gun.

  BABY FACE: I GOT A WALAPALOOZA OF A HEADACHE.

  DILLINGER: WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?

  BABY FACE: I don’t know! The doctor says

  I’m cracked from my caboose to my cabeza.

  DILLINGER: You don’t need a gun. You need a girl.

  BABY FACE: You gonna lend me Anna? She’s too…roomy.

  DILLINGER: Is she? Well, at least she didn’t bolt.

  BABY FACE: Aah, Helen hadda see her mudder.

  DILLINGER: See her out of two black eyes.

  BABY FACE: She yakked and I smacked her lightly. Seems to me

  She’s one of those bleeders. It’s inherited.

  Lucky for her a gentleman just employs

  The open hand. There ain’t no stand-up women.

  I miss Suzette Petunia. My one true love.

  —Hilarious, I’m sure. Your deal.

  DILLINGER: Your deal.

  BABY FACE: I ain’t letting go of my Sweet Suzette.

  I named this baby after her. Deal faster!

  DILLINGER: Wasn’t she thirteen?

  BABY FACE: I been a dirty old man

  Ever since I was a little boy.

  Shit! I want three cards.

  DILLINGER: O yaz O yaz.

  BABY FACE: You gonna bet? You sure? You out of eggs

  Between your legs?

  DILLINGER: You’re out of dollar bills.

  BABY FACE: I’m sitting there, Suzette’s in her brand-spang nightie,

  Got one leg up on the coffee table,

  I can see it all, her pretty package,

  I’m counting over a mess of gems from a little

  Deal I made with a jeweler over in Hammond,

  Swapped him a forty-four pellet in his ass,

  She’s showing me her beauteous clam and saying,

  “Everything you gaze upon is yours.”

  I say, “And this stuff too, my lovely prostidoot,

  This which you gaze on, all these jewels are yours.”

  She don’t know what a prostidoot means.—The cops

  Break in! They got us by the hair, “OK,

  Explain us who belongs to these bright baubles.”

  Suzette replies, “Them jewels is all mine, boys.”

  “They’re stolen. Where’d you get ’em, sis?”

  “Well, if they’re stolen, I must’ve stole ’em, huh?”

  —Yeah. She took the rap.

  DILLINGER: You’re proud of it.

  BABY FACE: Judge in Hammond threw her five years flat.

  …She says, “It all belongs to you, sweet boy.”

  DILLINGER: Jesus Christ. I don’t think you’ve got

  Not one stray speck of decency in your blood.

  —That’s right, there’s a blank pan for you.

  No idea what I’m talking about.

  BABY FACE: Man O man, she fit me like a sock.

  I’ll ride that filly like a dandy little jock!

  Oooooo she suck me like a Model O.

  A suction sweeper. Hoover. Model O.

  Mmmmm, my Hoover got the Quadraflex:

  “It agitates for double the brushing action!”

  “It beats as it sweeps as it cleans.” I say!

  DILLINGER: Hoover’s gonna suck you up one day.

  Say, Rubert, can’t you see the age has turned?

  These guys are coast to coast with all state lines Erased.

  BABY FACE: That Hoover hasn’t got a gun!

  These G-bums ain’t allowed to carry weapons.

  “Hello, Nelson.” “Howdy, Hoover”—BOOM!

  It don’t seem fair! But I don’t make the rules.

  DILLINGER: If he needs a gun, they’ll vote him a Howitzer.

  BABY FACE: Every time one thing goes wrong they pass

  Some kind of law.

  DILLINGER: It’s goddamn infantile.

  BABY FACE: Exactly. What a buncha swaddling children.

  DILLINGER: Give me men for my enemies!—not these

  Schoolgoers and churchgoers and voters

  Suckling on a giant perpetration.

  BABY FACE: What what WHAT are we discussing, John?

  DILLINGER: The lie, the fraud, the giant fairy tale.

  Our entire history. For instance,

  The possibility that John Wilkes Booth

  Is innocent of any crime would merit

  Scrutiny.

  BABY FACE: Well, you can scrutalize

  The page from Sears and Roebuck I just wiped with.

  DILLINGER:…It’s not my deeds that poison me. It’s all

  The mucus of the slugs like you my deeds

  Surround me with. I pass out drunk and wake

  with you and Hoover wriggling over my lips.

  BABY FACE: Mmmmm, lovah boy! Kiss my wriggle!

  DILLINGER: We’re revolutionaries.

  BABY FACE: O yeah? Where’s

  The revolution? You can just point.

  DILLINGER: We stand up for the man with empty pockets.

  BABY FACE: I’d pick his pockets, if they wasn’t empty.

  That’s my whole philosophy in a nutshell.

  DILLINGER: The nutshell’s on your shoulders.

  BABY FACE: Mi mi mi,

  [sings] O, the G-men had no guns in Kansas City,

  Mowed ’em down like wheat before the scythe,

  The G-men had no guns in Kansas City,

  And that’s why there’s three less of ’em alive.

  DILLINGER: That Pretty Boy Floyd, he fixed their stuff, all right.

  BABY FACE: Floyd was not the guy in Kansas City.


  They’re after him for what he never did.

  They’ll end up catching him, too, and then he’ll swing.

  DILLINGER: Or fry.

  BABY FACE: Or sizzle.

  DILLINGER: Or stretch.

  BABY FACE: His eyes will bug.

  DILLINGER: He’ll get as purple as a summer grape.

  BABY FACE: He never shot those guys. Tough luck.

  DILLINGER: Who did the deed?

  BABY FACE: The world’s so scared

  Nobody’s talking, John, but I know for dead

  That one of ’em was Big-dick Jimmy Lawrence.

  DILLINGER: Jimmy Lawrence?

  BABY FACE: Anna’s paramoor!

  He laid ’em down like wheat before the wind.

  DILLINGER: So if the G-men spiced old James with lead

  That’d only be the simplest form of justice.

  BABY FACE: Shut up! Guys like you and me should never

  Call for justice. What if the Devil hears?

  DILLINGER: There ain’t no Devil…What are you looking at?

  BABY FACE: Look into my eyes. There’s nothing here.

  There ain’t no soul. Just two black dots. O yeah!

  DILLINGER: Can that noise, Prince Albert. You’re not Lucifer.

  BABY FACE: I ain’t Lucifer, I’m just the proof

  He walks the night and steals the souls

  And gnashes them down laughing—FREEZE! I SEE YOU!

  DILLINGER: It’s two a.m. What could be out that window?

  BABY FACE: Nighthawks.

  DILLINGER: Nighthawks?

  BABY FACE: Werewolfs.

  DILLINGER: Werewolves?

  BABY FACE: Look,

  It’s voodoo doctors out to rob me of

  My guts and oysters for their ceremonies.

  We’re too near the Mississippi River!

  DILLINGER: What? Take yourself a slug and get a grip.

  BABY FACE: That Creole sorcery!—with roots from under