The gallows and dirt from witches’ graves in tiny
Tins tied up with string. And babies dragged out
Dead from their mother’s basket in a whore house.
DILLINGER: Dragged from their mother’s basket?
BABY FACE: Not-yet babies,
Floating in jars of rum!
When I’m buried they’ll come a thousand miles
To steal my marker and my dirt. I’m bad.
Jesus Christ pukes at the sight of me,
And Satan hides in Hell when he sees my shadow.
Every roll I throw, it comes up snake-eyes.
Black cat crossed my path last night and snarled
And died. My mama never even named me—
Only spit in my face and laid a curse.
DILLINGER: Fetuses hunching in formaldehyde…
BABY FACE: Say, Perfesser. Foot-and-a-half-long words.
Remember what your aunt Matilda says—
“Never use words no longer than your whizzer.”
In your case, shrink them down about this size.
Say, now: Jimmy Lawrence—
DILLINGER: I rob banks.
I rob banks, and if they ever catch me—
Which they’ll never—they won’t catch me alive,
I’ll go down fighting.
BABY FACE: What a load a bull!
DILLINGER: I’ll face my chasers and die my death with two
Bollocks full of red blood in my sack
And a couple pounds of government-issue lead
And copper peppering my meat.
BABY FACE: O Jeez,
Somebody hand me the gut wrench before I lose
My breakfast lunch and dinner.
DILLINGER: We are bandits.
BABY FACE: Finally something we agree about.
DILLINGER: Bad and good stand always eye to eye.
The law curses us and blesses them,
But we’re all laboring in Satan’s vineyard.
We take, but they guard bigger takers;
We march on our own orders, they obey
The orders of the big boss criminals;
We commit crimes and do our time like men,
They perpetrate injustices and breathe
Steam on their badges and rub up a shine.—What’s that?
BABY FACE: What’s what.
DILLINGER: Shut up.
BABY FACE: I am.
DILLINGER: Shut up.
BABY FACE: I am.
DILLINGER: What’s going on out there in west Wisconsin?
BABY FACE: It’s just a coupla guys. Them two from Quincy.
DILLINGER: Yeah, but over there—no, there—you see
That shadow leaning against that car?—now that’s
A gun wrapped up in his coat, or I ain’t white.
BABY FACE: You’re white as rice.
DILLINGER: That is a low-down lawman.
BABY FACE: That’s a carload of ’em.
DILLINGER: That ain’t the only car.
What are we gonna do?
BABY FACE: Excuse me, there?
DILLINGER: What’s our plan of escape?
BABY FACE: Excuse? Excape?
We’re gonna shoot it out!
DILLINGER: O no we’re not.
BABY FACE: Do you see this? Observe. Now see that cop?
…Now see the way that cop is sort of dead?
…Get off the floor!
DILLINGER: Don’t talk to me! Don’t talk to me!
BABY FACE: Gee, Ma, it’s rainin’!
DILLINGER: I don’t want to die!
BABY FACE: O looky there, they shot the guy from Quincy!
DILLINGER: I told you next time they’d have Howitzers!
BABY FACE: I’m gonna shoot the other guy from Quincy!
…O jeez, they’re shooting up my brand-new Stutz!
DILLINGER: Look. They’re all around us. Let’s surrender.
BABY FACE:…SEND FOR REINFORCEMENTS, G-MEN BASTARDS!
YOU AIN’T PUTTING ME IN YOUR DIRTY ZOO!
YOU THINK I’M A GIRAFFE? THEN WHAT’S THIS HERE?
DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THE PROPERTY OF A GIRAFFE?
GOD BLESS JOHN THOMAS!
DILLINGER: Who’s John Thomas?
BABY FACE: Didn’t he invent the tommy gun?
DILLINGER: General Thompson invented the tommy gun.
…Nelson, Nelson, you’re just aggravating
Half the U.S. Army. Let’s talk terms.
BABY FACE: What’s yer poison, Johnny? Bullets, or bullshit?
DILLINGER: I’d rather be in prison than the grave.
BABY FACE: Either place, you rot. WE’RE WAITIN’, G-MEN.
DILLINGER: Signal them.
BABY FACE: No white flag, chump.
DILLINGER: Come on!
BABY FACE: Get up off that floor OR I WILL SHOOT YOU.
Johnny, I am waltzing outa here
With a sunshine smile and cunt-hair in my teeth.
DILLINGER: Even if we get downstairs, what then?
BABY FACE: You don’t get it! THIS IS A SHORT RIDE.
We’re in the funhouse—here’s the accelerator.
…All right, Perfesser, point the thing and shoot.
DILLINGER:…Have you done this much?
BABY FACE: Not much.
DILLINGER: How much?
BABY FACE: Not very much at all.
DILLINGER: Me too. How many times?
BABY FACE: Actual face-to-face fighting with bastards with guns Like those?
DILLINGER: I wasn’t made for this.
BABY FACE: I was!
I live at the end of the world!
They’ll never take me alive!
And the angels with a sword to bring it down
Holy moly Molly on my head
And the lion riding backwards on a smoking
Dragon and the Whore from Babylon!
[Sings] Gimme that old-time religion,
Gimme that old-time religion,
Gimme that old-time religion,
It’s good enough for me!
BOTH [singing]: It was good for the Hebrew fathers,
It was good for the Hebrew fathers,
It was good for the Hebrew fathers,
It’s good enough for me!
DILLINGER: Give ’em hell! I love a shooting gallery!
And this is the real McCoy!
BABY FACE: Do you want real?
DO YOU WANT REAL RIGHT UP YOUR ASSHOLE, MELVIN?
DILLINGER: TAKE THAT, PURVIS! This is glorious!
BABY FACE: Gunplay is funplay! Come on, Johnny.
DILLINGER: Where do you think you’re going, idiot?
BABY FACE: You think I’m staying here and going to jail?
DILLINGER: We can’t escape from here. But I escaped
From jail last March. And I can do it again.
BABY FACE: They don’t want us jailed, they want us dead,
And that’s what they’ll get! And them dead too!
He exits walking backwards while firing toward the window.
BABY FACE [singing]: It’s gonna take us all to Heaven,
It’s gonna take us all to Heaven,
It’s gonna take us all to Heaven,
It’s good enough for me.
DILLINGER is alone with the bound young woman.
DILLINGER: One more drum, Ma, then it’s back to prison.
[Fires out the window. Then all is quiet. After a pause, he sings.]
’Twas midnight and moonlight the hour I departed
And left her to fend for her own
My horses and all that I had on the earth
I’d have wagered that I would return.
G-MAN’S VOICE [O.S., through megaphone]: DILLINGER AND NELSON! (God, that’s loud.)
COME OUT. YOU’RE SURROUNDED. THERE IS NO ESCAPE.
DILLINGER [singing]: Hands with a touch
That could calm the little lambs
Voice like a chime in the churchyard
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Eyes the same color
As her straw-colored hair
I’ll never forget you I swear.
G-MAN’S VOICE [O.S., through megaphone]:
TWO MINUTES, THEN WE’RE COMING IN. GIVE UP!
COME OUT BACKWARDS WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!
DILLINGER [singing]: The shape of her shadow so soft in the moonglow
Did waltz on the frost on the ground
The tears on her cheeks shone like diamonds
She mourned but she made not a sound.
[Meanwhile, BABY FACE reenters very stealthily by the same way he exited, with his tommy gun and a white, wet lily. In silence he waits for the song to end.]
Hands with a touch
That could calm the little lambs
Voice like a chime in the churchyard
Eyes the same color
As her straw-colored hair
I’ll never forget you I swear.
BABY FACE: Grandma taught me Father Who Art in Heaven,
And I felt it right down in, this feeling of being saved,
Like all the world was rescued, like as if
Angels with wings swooped down here and
Carried us away from these guns through the stars.
Grandma taught me to pray,
“Let me awaken as Jesus in every last part
Of my body.” Whattaya think of that?
DILLINGER:…Do you realize for two and a half long days
You’ve done nothing but drink my booze and talk
About your pecker and his pecker and her pecker?
BABY FACE: Listen to what I’m telling you.
This is the news that I’m bringing.
There’s nobody out behind the place!
I went all the way to the lake and had a piss.
The coppers never even heard me tinkle.
Maybe there is a God to love us, John.
DILLINGER: Bull. Go out for real, and see what happens.
BABY FACE: I went out, John. I tiptoed out and took
A whizzer in the lake and shook it off
And tiptoed back to tell ya.
I brung you a lily, John.
DILLINGER: I am goddamned.
BABY FACE: Them G-men don’t know how to surround a house!
G-MAN’S VOICE [O.S., through megaphone]: SIXTY SECONDS, BOYS, AND THEN IT’S OVER!
COME OUT BACKWARDS WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!
BABY FACE: They’re spreading out! We gotta move, or else!
They tiptoe out, leaving the young woman bound and alone in the room.
G-MAN’S VOICE [O.S., through megaphone]: THE HOUSE IS
COMPLETELY SURROUNDED. GIVE IT UP.
AS SURE AS YOU’RE BORN, WE’RE GONNA GET YOU.
DON’T TRY TO THWART THE LAW. WE JUST KEEP COMING.
AS SURE AS YOU’RE IN THAT ROOM, WE’RE GONNA GET YOU.
BLACKOUT
-END-
Also by Denis Johnson
Fiction
Train Dreams
Nobody Move
Tree of Smoke
The Name of the World
Already Dead: A California Gothic
Jesus’ Son
Resuscitation of a Hanged Man
The Stars at Noon
Fiskadoro
Angels
Nonfiction
Seek: Reports from the Edges of America and Beyond
Poetry
The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium
General Assembly: Poems, Collected and New
The Veil
The Incognito Lounge
Plays
Shoppers: Two Plays by Denis Johnson
Cindy Lee Johnson
Denis Johnson
Soul of a Whore and Purvis
Denis Johnson is the author of nine novels, three collections of poetry, and one book of reportage. Between 2000 and 2010, during his stint as Playwright in Residence for the Campo Santo Theater Company at San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts, he wrote six productions for the stage, all premiered by Campo Santo. His novel Tree of Smoke was the 2007 winner of the National Book Award.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2012 by Denis Johnson
All rights reserved
Soul of a Whore was previously published, in slightly different form, in McSweeney’s. Purvis was previously published, in slightly different form, in The Iowa Review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Denis, 1949–
[Soul of a whore]
Soul of a whore; and, Purvis: two plays in verse / Denis Johnson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-374-70965-5
1. Verse drama, American. I. Johnson, Denis, 1949– Purvis. II. Title. III. Title: Soul of a whore, and, Purvis. IV. Title: Purvis.
PS3560.O3745 S58 2012
812'.54—dc23
2011046069
www.fsgbooks.com
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that all material in this book is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid upon the question of readings, permission for which must be secured from the author’s agent in writing. Inquiries concerning all rights should be addressed to Robert Cornfield Literary Agency, 145 West 79th Street #16C, New York, NY 10024, attn: Robert Cornfield.
Soul of a Whore and Purvis Page 18