Resurrection Blues Read Online Free PDF Page B

crucifixion?—call me.
    SKIP: Dear, what you do is make real things look fake, and that makes them emotionally real, whereas . . .
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    EMILY: Stop. Just stop it, Skip. Please. I’m totally lost. All I know is that somebody actually dying in my lens would melt my eyeball.—I have to call New York . . .
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    She takes out cell phone.
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    SKIP: No, dear, please . . .
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    EMILY: I can’t call my mother?
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    SKIP: Your mother!—Of course. Handing her his cell phone . Use mine, charge it to us. And darling, please don’t feel . . .
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    EMILY, punching the numbers, yells, outraged, scared: Skip, I beg you do not use ordinary beseeching language to me, okay?! This is death we’re talking about!
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    She dials.
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    SKIP, suddenly turning on Henri: Sir, I appreciate who you are, but if you refuse to leave I will be forced to call the police!
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    HENRI: Sir, my family has been in this country since the Conquistadors.
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    SKIP: Really. Conquistadors named Schultz?
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    HENRI: Cortez had a German doctor.
    SKIP, one-upped, growing desperate: You don’t say!
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    EMILY, in phone: Mother! Yes! Hello? To Skip : Now listen, I haven’t agreed to anything, okay?—Hello?
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    Captain enters, glancing about; Emily mouths a conversation
into the phone.
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    CAPTAIN: My excuses, please! General Barriaux is approaching below. I am to ask if there are any firearms . . . pistols, long knives, please to hand them to me. I am speaking English.
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    HENRI: Don’t bother, Captain . . . I’m sure they’re not armed.
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    CAPTAIN, salutes: Very good, sir! From Mister Schultz I accept this reassurance! You know, since I was a little child . . . when I was coughing . . . my mother always gave me . . .
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    HENRI: Will you stop that? Just stop it. This is a serious event, Captain!
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    Skip settles onto his shooting stick, takes out a magazine and affects to blithely work a crossword puzzle.
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    EMILY, in phone: . . . Mother, please! Listen a minute, will you? . . . It is, yes, it’s beautiful. And the birds, yes, they’re sensational. I saw a condor, twelve-foot wingspread, unbelievable, it can carry off a goat!—Listen, I left in such a hurry I forgot my cleaning woman doesn’t come today so could you go over and feed my cats? Thanks, dear, but just the one can for both, I mean don’t have pity, okay? What?
    SKIP, to Henri: Sir, we are trying to work here . . . I’d be happy to meet somewhere later . . . tomorrow, perhaps . . .
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    EMILY, in phone: —Do I? Well I am nervous, they’ve just thrown a whole pail of garbage at me and I don’t know what to do with it. Well it turns out it’s a . . . well, a crucifixion. Some kind of Communist, I suppose. Not as far as I know— Louder . I said he’s not Jewish as far as I know!
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    SKIP, glancing up from his puzzle: But she mustn’t mention . . .
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    EMILY: But you mustn’t mention this to anybody, you understand? —Of course it’s a problem for me! I’d be on the next plane but I just signed for my new apartment and I was depending totally on this check.
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    SKIP: You’ll have walked twice in one year, darling—case closed.
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    EMILY: This’d be my second time I walked off a shoot . . . well the slaughter of the baby seals last year. So I’m a little scared.—And it’s also that I’m a little late.—Well, who wouldn’t be edgy! I mean I don’t know, do I want it or don’t I?—Well . . . to tell you the truth I’m not sure, it could have been Max Fleisher.—What marry?—I should marry Max Fleisher? I’m not sure it was him anyway.—Mother, please will you listen, dear; I have no interest in marrying anybody. —I profoundly don’t know why! Except I can’t imagine being with the same person the entire rest of my life.—But I do believe in