Angels in America: Part I - Millennium Approaches (2017) - full transcript

- Who are you?

- My name is Prior Walter

My name is Prior Walter

- I know that

- Explain

You're alive. I'm not. We have the same name.

What do you want me to explain?

- A ghost?

- An ancestor

Not the Prior Walter?

The Bayeux tapestry Prior Walter?

- His great-great-grandson. The filth of the name

- I'm the thirty-fourth, I think

- Actually the thirty-second

- Not according to Mother

She's including the two bastards.

I say leave them out. I say no room for bastards

- The little things you swallow...

- Pills

- Pills. For the pestilence. I too...

- Pestilence... You too what?

The pestilence in my day was much worse than now.

Whole villages of empty houses

You could look outdoors and see Death

walking in the morning...

...dew dampening the ragged hem of his black robe.

Plain as I see you now

- You died of the plague

- The spotty monster

- Like you, alone

- I'm not alone

- You have no wife, no children

- I'm gay

So? Be gay, dance in your altogether for all I care,

what's that to do with not having children?

Gay homosexual, not bonny, blithe and"

Never mind

I had twelve. When I died.

And I was three years younger man him

Oh God another one

- Prior Walter. Prior to you by some seventeen others

- He's counting the bastards

Are we having a convention?

We've been sent to declare Her fabulous incipience

They love a well-paved entrance

with lots of heralds, and...

The Messenger comes. Prepare the way.

The infinite descent, a breath in air

They chose us, I suspect,

because of the mortal affinities

In a family as long-descended as the Walters

there are bound to be a few carried off by plague

- The spotty monster

- Black Jack

Came from a water pump, half the city of London,

can you imagine? His me from fleas

Yours, I understand,

is the lamentable consequence of venery

Fleas on rats, but who knew that?

- Am I going to die?

- We aren't allowed to discuss

When you do,

you don't get ancestors to help you through it

You may be surrounded by children

but you die alone

- I'm afraid

- You should be

There aren't even torches,

and the path's rocky, dark and steep

Don't alarm him.

There's good news before there's bad

We two come to strew rose petal and palm leaf

before the triumphal procession

Prophet. Seer. Revelator

- It's a great honor for the family

- He hasn't got a family

I meant for the Walters,

for the family in the larger sense

All I want is a room somewhere,

Far away from the cold night air...

Calm, calm, this is no brain fever

Even now, from the mirror-bright halls of Heaven,

across the cold and lifeless infinity of space...

...the Messenger comes trailing orbs of light,

fabulous, incipient, 0 Prophet, to you

Prepare, prepare, the infinite descent

A breath, a feather, glory to...

Why has democracy succeeded in America?

Of course by succeeded...

...I mean comparatively, not literally, not in the present

but what makes for the prospect...

...of some sort of radical democracy

spreading outward and growing up?

Why does the power that was once so carefully

preserved at the top of the pyramid...

...by the original framers of the Constitution

seem drawn inexorably downward and outward...

...in spite of the best efforts

of the Right to stop this?

I mean it's the really hard thing

about being Left in this country

The American Left can't help but trip over

all these petrified little fetishes

Freedom, that's the worst, you know. Jeane Kirkpauidx

for God's sake will go on and on about freedom...

...and so what does that mean, the word 'freedom',

when she talks about it, or human rights?

You got Bush talking about human rights,

and so what are these people talking about?

They might as well be talking

about the mating habits of Venusians

These people don't begin to know what, ontologically,

freedom is, or human rights

Like they see these bourgeois property-based

Rights-of-Man-type fights...

...but tl1at's not enfranchisement. not democracy,

not what's implicit, what's potential within the idea...

...not the idea with blood in it

That's just liberalism, the worst kind of liberalism,

really, bourgeois tolerance

And what I think is that what AIDS shows us

is the limits of tolerance

That it's not enough to be tolerated,

because when the shh his the fan...

...you find out how much tolerance is worth

Nothing. And underneath all the tolerance

is intense, passionate hatred

Uh-huh

- Well don't you think that's hue?

- Uh-huh. It is

Power is the object, not being tolerated.

Fuck assimilation

But I mean in spite of all this the thing about America,

I think, is that ultimately...

...we're different from every other nation on earth,

in that, with people here of every race, we can't...

Ultimately what defines us isn't race, but politics.

Not like any European country...

...where there's an insurmountable fact of a kind

of racial, or ethnic, monopoly, or monolith

Like all Dutchmen, I mean Dutch people,

are well, Dutch

And the Jews of Europe were never Europeans, just

a small problem. Facing the monolith. But here...

...there are so many small problems, it's really just a

collection of small problems, the monolith is missing

Oh, I mean, of course I suppose there's the monolith

of White America. White Straight Male America

- Which is not unimpressive, even among monoliths

- Well, no

But when the race thing gets taken care of...

and I don't mean to minimalize how major it is

I mean I know it is, this is a really, really incredibly

racist country...

...but it's like, well, the British.

I mean, all these blue-eyed pink people

And it's just weird, you know,

I mean I'm not all that Jewish-looking

Or... well, maybe I am but, you know,

in New York, everyone is

Well, not everyone, but so many are, but so

But in England, in London I walk into bars

and I feel like Sid the Yid

You know I mean like Woody Allen in Annie Hall,

with the payess and the gabardine coal

Like never, never anywhere so much... I mean,

not actively despised, not like they're Germans...

...who I think are still terribly anti-Semitic,

and racist too, I mean black-racist

They pretend otherwise but, anyway,

in London, there's just...

And atone point I met this black gay guy

from Jamaica who talked with a lilt

Even though he said his family been living in London

since before the Civil War, the American one

And how the English never let him forget for a minute

that he wasn't blue-eyed and pink

And I said yeah, me too, these people

are anti-Semites and he said yeah

But the British Jews have the clothing business

all sewed up and blacks there can't get a foothold

And it was an incredibly awkward moment of just...

I mean here we were, in this bar that was gay

but it was a pub, you know

The beams and the plaster and those horrible

little, like, two-day-old fish-and-egg sandwiches

And just so British, so old, and I fell,

well, there's no way out of this

Because both of us are, right now, too much immersed

in this history, hope is dissolved...

...in the sheer age of this place, where race is what

counts and there's no real hope of change

It's the racial destiny of the Brits that matters to them,

not their political destiny, whereas in America...

- Here in America race doesn't count

- No, no, that's not...

- I mean you can't be hearing that

- I'm hearing a lot of different...

Look, race, yes, but ultimately race here

is a political question, fight?

Racists just try to use race here as a tool in

a political snuggle. It's not really about race

Like the spiritualists try to use that stuff, are you

enlightened, are you centered, channeled, whatever

This reaming out for a spiritual past

in a country where no indigenous spirits exist

Only the Indians, I mean Native Americans,

and we killed them off, so now there are no gods here

No ghosts and spirits in America, there are no angels

in America, no spiritual past, no racial past

There's only the political, and the decoys and the plays

to maneuver around the inescapable battle of politics

The shifting downwards and outwards

of political power to the people

Power to the People! Amen!

Oh my goodness! Will you look at the time, I gotta go

- Do you think this is racist or naive or something?

- Well it's certainly something

Look, I just remembered I have an appointment, so...

What? I mean I really don't want to, like,

speak from some position of privilege and...

I'm sitting here, thinking,

eventually he's got to run out of steam

So I let you rattle on and on saying about maybe

seven or eight things I find really offensive

- What?

- But I know you. Louis

And I know the guilt fueling this peculiar tirade is

obviously already swollen bigger than your hemorrhoids

- I don't have hemorrhoids.

- I hear different. May I finish?

- Yes, but I don't have hemorrhoids

- So finally, when I do get a word in...

- Prior told you. He's an asshole, he shouldn't have...

- You promised, Louis. Prior is not a subject

- You brought him up

- I brought up hemorrhoids

- So it's indirect. Passive-aggressive

- Unlike, I suppose...

...banging me over the head with your theory

that America doesn't have a race problem

- Oh be fair, I never said that

- Not exactly, but...

But it was close enough, because

if it'd been that blunt I'd've just walked out and...

- You deliberately misinterpreted! I...

- Stop interrupting! I haven't been able to...

- Just let me...

- No! What, talk?

You've been running your mouth nonstop

since I got here, yaddadda yaddadda blah blah blah

- Up the hill, down the hill, playing with your monolith

- Well, you could have joined in at any lime...

And, girlfriend, it is truly an awesome spectacle

but I got better things to do with my time...

...than sit here listening to this racist bullshit

just because I feel sorry for you that...

- I am not a racist!

- Oh come on

- So maybe I am a racist but...

- Oh I really hate that

It's no fun picking on you. Louis. You're so guilty,

it's like throwing darts at a glob of jello

There's no satisfying his, just quivering,

the darts just blop in and vanish

I just think

when you are discussing lines of oppression...

- ...it gets very complicated

- Oh is that a fact!

You know, we black drag queens have a rather

intimate knowledge of the complexity of the lines of...

- Ex-black drag queen

- Actually ex-ex

- You're doing drag again?

- I don't... Maybe. I don't have to tell you. Maybe

- I think it's sexist

- I didn't ask you

Well it is. The gay community, I think,

has to adopt the same attitude towards drag...

...as black women have to take

towards black women blues singers

Oh my, we are walking dangerous tonight

Well, it's all internalized oppression, right,

I mean the masochism, the stereotypes, the...

Louis, are you deliberately trying

to make me hate you?

- No, I...

- I mean, are you deliberately transforming yourself...

...into an arrogant, sexual-political

Stalinist-slash-racist flagwaving thug for my benefit?

- You know what I think?

- What?

- You hate me because I'm a Jew

- I'm leaving

- It's true

- You have no basis except your...

Louis, it's good to know you haven't changed.

You are still an honorary citizen of The Twilight Zone

And after your pale, pale white polemics

on behalf of racial insensitivity...

...you have a flaming fuck of a lot of nerve

calling me an anti-Semis. Now I really gotta go

- You called me Lou the Jew

- That was a joke

I didn't think it was funny. It was hostile

- It was three years ago

- So?

- You just called yourself Sid the Yid

- That's not the same thing

- Sid the Yid is different from Lou the Jew

- Yes

Some day you'll have to explain that to me,

but fight now...

You hate me because you hate black people

I do not.

But I do think most black people are anti-Semitic

'Most black people'

- That's racist, Louis, and I think most Jews...

- Louis Farrakhan

- Ed Koch

- Jesse Jackson

- Jackson. Oh really, Louis, this is...

- Hymietown! Hymietown!

Louis, you voted for Jesse Jackson!

You send d1eolcs to the Rainbow Coalition

- I'm ambivalent. The checks bounced

- All your checks bounce, Louis

- You're ambivalent about everything

- What's that supposed to mean?

You may be dumber than shit

but I refuse to believe you can't figure it out. Try

I was never ambivalent about Prior.

I love him. I do. I really do

- Nobody said different

- Love and ambivalence are... Real love isn't ambivalent

'Real love isn't ambivalent'

I'd swear that's a line from my favorite bestselling

paperback novel, In Love with the Night Mysterious

- Except I don't think you ever read it

- I never read it, no

You ought to. Instead of spending the rest of your life

trying to get through Democracy in America

It's about this white woman whose daddy

owns a plantation in the Deep South...

...in the years before the Civil War,

the American one, and her name is Margaret

And she's in love with her daddy's number-one slave,

and his name is Thaddeus

And she's married

but her white slave-owner husband has AIDS

Antebellum Insufficiently Developed Sexorgans

And there's a lot of hot stuff going down

when Margaret and Thaddeus...

...can catch a spare torrid ten under the cotton-picking

moon, and then of course the Yankees come

And they set the slaves free, and the slaves

string up old daddy, and so on. Historical fiction

Somewhere in there I recall Margaret and Thaddeus

find the time to discuss the nature of love

Her face is reflecting the flames of the burning

plantation... you know, the way white people do

And his black face is dark in the night. And she says

to him Thaddeus, real love isn't ever ambivalent'

Thaddeus looks at her. He's contemplating her thesis,

and he isn't sure he agrees

- Treatment number four

- Pharmaceutical miracle. Lazarus breathes again

- How bad is he?

- You want the laundry list?

Shirt off, let's med! me...

There's the weight problem and the shh problem

and the morale problem

Only six. That's good. Pants.

And he thinks he's going crazy

Looking good. What else?

Ankles sore and swollen, but the leg's better.

The nausea's mostly gone with the little orange pills

BM's pure liquid but not bloody anymore, for now,

my eye doctor says every1hing's OK, for now

My dentist says 'Yuck!' when he sees my fuzzy tongue

And now he wears little condoms

on his thumb and forefinger. And a mask

So what? My dermatologist is in Hawaii

and my mother...

Well, leave my mother out of it.

Which is usually where my mother is, out of it

My glands are like walnuts,

my weights holding steady for week two

And a friend died two days ago of bird tuberculosis

Bird tuberculosis. That scared me and I didn't go to the

funeral today because he was an Irish Catholic...

...and it's probably open casket and I'm afraid of...

something, the bird TB or seeing him

So I guess I'm doing OK.

Except for of course I'm going nuts

We ran the toxoplasmosis series

and there's no indication...

I know, I know, but I feel like something terrifying

is on is way, you know

Like a missile from outer space, and it's plummeting

down towards the earth, and I'm ground zero, and...

I am generally known where I am known

as one cool, collected queen. And I am ruffled

There's really nothing to worry about

I think that shochen bamromim hamtzeh

menucho nechono Al kanfey haschino

- What?

- Everything's fine

Benaalos k'doshim ut'horim

kezohar horokeea mazhirim

Oh I don't understand what you're...

Es nishmas Prior sheholoch leolomoh,

baavur shenodvoo z'dokoh b'ad hazkoras nishmosoh...

- Why are you doing that! Stop it Stop it

- Stop what?

You were just...

Weren't you just speaking in Hebrew or something?

Hebrew? I'm basically Irish-American.

No. I didn't speak in Hebrew

- Oh God please I really think I...

- Look, I'm sorry, I have a waking room full

You're one of the lucky ones,

you'll live for years, probably

You're pretty healthy

for someone with no immune system

Are you seeing someone? Loneliness is a danger

- A therapist?

- No, I don't need to see anyone, I just...

Well think about it. You aren't going crazy.

You're just under a lot of stress. No wonder

Hebrew!

- Help me

- I beg your pardon?

You're a nurse, give me something,

I don't know what to do anymore

Last week at work I screwed up the Xerox machine

like permanently, and so I...

Then I tripped on the subway steps and my glasses

broke and I cut my forehead, here, see?

And now I can't see much and my forehead,

it's like the Mark of Cain

Stupid, right, but 'won't heal and every morning

I see it and I think Biblical things. Mark of Cain

People who... in betraying what they love

betray what's truest in themselves

I feel nothing but cold for myself, just cold

And every night I miss him, I miss him so much

But then those sores, and the smell and...

where I thought it was going. I could be...

I could be sick, too, maybe I'm sick, too. I don't know

Belize. Tell him I love him. Can you do that?

I've thought about it for a very long time,

and I still don't understand what love is

Justice is simple. Democracy is simple.

Those things are unambivalent

But love is very hard. And it goes bad for you

if you violate the hard law of love

- I'm dying

- He's dying. You just wish you were

- Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions

- You mean like no Eskimo in Antarctica

Correcto. Ice and snow, no Eskimo.

Even hallucinations have laws

- Well then who's that?

- An Eskimo

- An Antarctic Eskimo. A fisher of the polar deep

- There's something wrong with this picture

I'm going to like this place.

It's my own National Geographic Special

Oh! I think I felt her kicking. Maybe I'll give birth

to a baby covered with thick white fur

And that way she won't be cold. My breasts

will be full of hot cocoa so she doesn't get chilly

And if it gets really cold,

she'll have a pouch I can crawl into

Like a marsupial. We'll mend together.

That's what we'll do, we'll mend

Excuse me?

I said excuse me? Can you tell me where I am?

Is this Brooklyn?

Do you know a Pineapple Street?

ls there some sort of bus or train or...?

I'm lost,

I just arrived from Salt Lake. City. Utah?

I took the bus that I was told to take

and I got off

Well it was the very last stop, so I had to get off.

and I asked the driver was this Brooklyn

And he nodded yes but he was from one of those

foreign countries where they think it's good manners...

...to nod at everything even if you have no idea

what it is you're nodding at

And in truth I think he spoke no English at all

Which I think would make him ineligible

for employment on public transportation

The public being English-speaking, mostly.

Do you speak English?

I was supposed to be met at the airport by my son.

He didn't show

And I don't wan more than three and three-quarters

hours for anyone. I should have been patient, I guess

- Is this...?

- Bronx

Is that the Bronx? Well how in the name of Heaven

did I get to the Bronx when the bus driver said...

Slurp slurp slurp will you stop

that disgusting slurping!

You disgusting slurping feeding animal.

Feeding yourself, just feeding yourself

What would it matter. to you or to anyone,

if you just stopped feeding. And died?

- Can you just tell me where I...

- Stand further off you fat loathsome whore

You can't have any more of this soup,

slurp slurp slurp you animal, and the...

I know you'll just go pee it all away

and where will you do that? Behind what bush?

It's fucking sold out here and I...

Have you read the prophecies of Nostradamus?

- Who?

- Some guy I went out with once somewhere

Nostradamus. Prophet, outcast, eyes like...

Scary shit

Shut up. Please.

Now I want you to stop jabbering for a minute...

...and pull your wits together

and tell me how to get to Brooklyn

Because you know. And you are going to tell me

Because there is no one else around to tell me

and I am wet and cold and I am very angry

So I am sorry you're psychotic but just make the effort

Take a deep breath. Do it

That's good. Now exhale

Good. Now how do I get to Brooklyn?

Don't know. Never been. Sorry

- Want some soup?

- Manhattan? Maybe you know...

I don't suppose you know the lotion

of the Mormon Visitors'...

- 65th and Broadway

- How do you...?

Go there all the time. Free movies.

Boring, but you can stay all day

- Well... So how do I...

- Take the D train. Next block make a fight

- Thank you

- Oh yeah

In the new century I think we will all be insane

I can't.

The answer's no. I'm sorry

Oh, well, apologies.

I can't see that there's anyone asking for apologies

- I'm sorry, Roy

- Oh, well, apologies

My wife is missing, Roy. My mother's coming

from Salt Lake to help look, I guess

I'm supposed to be at the airport now,

picking her up

But I just spent two days in a hospital, Roy,

with a bleeding ulcer, I was spitting up blood

- Blood, huh? Look, I'm very busy here and...

- It's just a job

A job? A job? Washington!

Dumb Utah Mormon hid! shit

- Roy...

- Washington!

When Washington called me I was younger than you.

You think I said...

'Aw fuck no I can't go I got two fingers

up my asshole and a little moral nosebleed to boot'

When Washington calls you, my pretty young punk friend,

you go or you can go fuck yourself sideways

'Cause the train has pulled out of the station,

and you are out, nowhere, out in the cold

Fuck you, Mary Jane, get outta here

- Just let me...

- Explain?

Ephemera. You broke my heart.

Explain that. Explain that

I love you. Roy.

There's so much that I want to be... what you see in me

I want to be a participant in the world,

in your world, Roy, I want to be capable of that

I've flied, really I have, but I can't do this

Not because I don't believe in you,

but because I believe in you so much

In what you stand for, at heart, the order, the decency.

I would give anything to protect you

But there are laws I can't break.

It's too ingrained. It is not me

There's enough damage I've already done

Maybe you were right, maybe I'm dead

You're not dead, boy, you're a sissy

You love me, that's moving, I'm moved.

It's nice to be loved

I warned you about her, didn't I, Joe?

But you don't listen to me. Why?

Because you say Roy is smart and Roy's a friend

but Roy... well, he isn't nice

And you wanna be nice. Right?

A nice, nice man

You know what my greatest accomplishment was, Joe.

In my life...

...what I am able to look bad! on and be proudest of?

And I have helped make presidents

and unmake them, and mayors...

...and more goddamn judges than anyone in NYC

ever, and several million dollars, tax-free

And what do you think means the most to me?

You ever hear of Ethel Rosenberg?

- Huh, Joe, huh?

- Well, yeah, I guess I... Yes

Yes. Yes. You have heard of Ethel Rosenberg.

Maybe you even read about her in the history books

If 'wasn't for me, Joe...

...Ethel Rosenberg would be alive today, writing

some personal-advice column for it is. magazine

She isn't. Because during the trial, Joe, I was

on the phone every day, talking with the judge

- Roy...

- Every day, doing what I do best...

...talking on the telephone, making sure that timid Yid

nebbish on the bench did his duty to America, to history

That sweet unprepossessing woman, two kids,

boo-hoo-hoo, reminded us all of our little Jewish mamas

She came this dose to getting life.

I pleaded till I wept to put her in the chair

Me. I did that. I would have fucking pulled the swim

if they'd have let me

Why? Because I fucking hate traitors.

Because I fucking hate communists

Was it legal? Fuck legal.

Am I a nice man? Fuck nice

They say terrible things about me in The Nation.

Fuck The Nation

They say terrible things about me in The Nation.

Fuck The Nation

You want to be nice, or you want to be effective?

Make the law, or subject to it?

Choose. Your wife muse.

A week from today, she'll be back

She knows how to get what she wants.

Maybe I ought to send her to Washington

- I don't believe you

- Gospel

You can't possibly mean what you're saying

Roy, you were the Assistant United States Attorney

on the Rosenberg case

Ex-parte communication with the judge

during the trial would be...

Censurable, at least, probably conspiracy

and in a case that resulted in execution, it's...

What? Murder?

- You're not well is all

- What do you mean, not well? Who's not well?

- You said...

- No I didn't. I said what?

- Roy, you have cancer

- No I don't

- You told me you were dying

- What the fuck are you talking about, Joe?

I never said that. I'm in perfect health.

There's not a goddamn thing wrong with me

Shake?

It's OK that you hurt me because I love you, baby Joe.

That's why I'm so rough on you

Prodigal son.

The world will wipe is dirty hands all over you

- It already has, Roy

- Now go

I'll always be here, waking for you

What did you want from me? What was all this?

What do you want, treacherous ungrateful little...

Transgress a little, Joseph

There are so many laws. Find one you can break

Ah...

Andy! Andy! Get in here! Andy!

Who the fuck are you? The new nurse?

AW, fuck. Ethel

- You don't look good, Roy

- Well, Ethel. I don't feel good

But you lost a lot of weight. That suits you.

You were heavy bad! then. Zaftig, mit hips

I haven't been that heavy since 1960. We were all

heavier bad! then, before the body thing started

Now I look like a skeleton. They stare

The shits really hit the fan, huh, Roy?

Well the fun's just started

What is this, Ethel, Halloween?

You trying to scare me?

Well you're wasting your time.

I'm scarier than you any day of the week

So beat it, Ethel. Boon!

Better dead than red

Somebody trying to shake me up?

From the throne of God in Heaven...

...to the belly of Hell, you can all fuck yourselves

and then go jump in the lake

Because I'm not afraid of you

or death or hell or anything

- Be seeing you soon, Roy. Julius sends his regards

- Yeah, well send this to Julius

- You're a very sick man, Roy

- Oh God... Andy!

He doesn't hear you, I guess.

We should call the ambulance

Ah, buttons! Sum things they got now

- What do I dial, Roy?

- 911

It sings! La la la...

Yes, you should please send an ambulance

to the home of Mr Roy Cohn, the famous lawyer

Beats me. A pain in his gut. Bad. A bad pain

- What's the address, Roy?

- 244 East 87th

244 East 87th Street.

No apartment number, he's got the whole building

My name? Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg

Me? No I'm not related to Mr Cohn.

An old friend

- They said a minute

- I have all the time in the world

- You're immortal

- I'm immortal, Ethel

I have forced my way into history.

I ain't never gonna die

History is about to clack wide open.

Millennium approaches

Tonight's the night. Are you excited?

Tonight She comes. The Daughter of Light

Lumen. Phosphor. Fluor. Candle

Tidings and trailings of fire and...

Look. Garlic

A mirror. Holy Water. A crucifix

Fuck off! Get the fuck out of my room! Go!

- How hard is your pintle, then?

- My what?

Stiffer than it's ever been, your pintle?

I bet it's standing straighter than...

- I have no idea what you're...

- Your pike, your plough...

I order you to leave. I command you

I didn't invite you.

I order you to vanish. Begone! Avaunt!

It's a bit late for that.

Tonight She arrives fight through the roof

No! I don't want her here.

Or you. Or...

Oh, for pity's sake.

What are you doing to him?

Newt. I'm heralding. What does it look like?

At least I arrived on lime

He's meant to be jubilating, rejoicing.

And look at him, just look at him

- He's shrieking in tenor

- I'm not shrieking

I do apologize for my tardiness,

but I'm having a bit of trouble with the clasp

What is it you want?

- Hard as a hickory knob, I'll bet

- We all tumesce when they approach

We wax full, like moons

- Dance

- Dance?

Stand up, damnit, give us your hands, dance!

Listen...

Delightful sound. Care to dance?

Please leave me alone,

please just let me sleep

Ah, he wants someone familiar.

A partner who knows his steps

- Close your eyes. Imagine...

- I don't...

Hush. Close your eyes

Now open them

- Lou

- Dance with me

I can't, my leg, it hurts at night.

Are you a ghost, Lou?

No. Just spectral. Lost to my self

Sitting all day on cold park benches

wishing I could be with you

Dance with me, babe

Hah. Now I see why he's got no children.

He's a sodomite

Oh be quiet, you medieval gnome,

and let them dance

I'm not interfering, I've done my bk.

Hooray, hooray, the Messenger's come

Now I'll be blowing off. I don't like it here

The twentieth century.

Oh dear, the world has gotten so terribly, terribly old

Oh don't come in here, don't come in.

Louis!

No! My name is Prior Walter,

I am the scion of an ancient line, I am abandoned

No. My name is Prior

and I live here and now, and...

In the dark, the Recording Angel

opens is hundred eyes...

...and snaps the spine of the Book of Life

I'm talking nonsense.

No more mad scene, hush

- Do you know the story of Lazarus?

- Lazarus?

- Lazarus. I can't remember what happens, exactly

- I don't...

Well, he was dead, Lazarus, and Jesus breathed life

into him. He brought him bad! from death

- Come here often?

- No

Yes. Yes

Bad! from the dead

- You believe that really happened?

- I don't know anymore what I believe

This is quite a coincidence. Us meeting

I followed you.

From work. I followed you here

You followed me.

You probably saw me that day in the washroom...

...and thought, There's a sweet guy, sensitive,

tries for friends in trouble

- Yes

- You thought maybe I'll cry for you

- Yes

- Well I fooled you. Crocodile tears. Nothing

- What are you doing? Don't do that

- Sorry. I'm sorry

I'm... just not...

I think, if you touch me,

your hand might fall off or something

Worse things have happened

to people who have touched me

Please. Oh, boy...

Can I...

I... want... to touch you. Please.

Can I please just touch you... here?

I'm going to Hell for doing this

Big deal.

You think it could be any worse than New York City?

- Come on

- Where?

- Home. With me

- This makes no sense. I mean I don't know you

- Likewise

- And what you do know about me you don't like

- The Republican stuff?

- Yeah, well for starters

- I don't not like that. I hate that

- So why on earth should we...

Strange bedfellows. I don't know.

I never made it with one of the damned before

Plus I would really rather not

have to spend tonight alone

- I'm a pretty terrible person, Louis

- Lou

No, I really really am.

I don't think I deserve being loved

There? See?

We already have a lot in common

That sound, that sound, it...

What is that, like birds or something,

like a really big bird. I'm frightened. I...

No! No fear, find the anger, find the anger

My blood is dean, my brain is fine,

I can handle pressure

I am a gay man and I am used to pressure,

to trouble, I am tough and strong and...

Oh. Oh my goodness. I...

Ooohhhh... I'm hot, I'm so hot

Aw Jeez, what is going on here.

I must have a fever, I...

Oh please! Oh please!

Something's coming in here

I'm scared, I don't like this at all,

something's approaching and I...

God almighty.

Very Steven Spielberg

Greetings, Prophet

The Great Work begins.

The Messenger has arrived