Soul of a Whore and Purvis Read Online Free PDF Page B

receiver against the pay phone unit repeatedly.
    MASHA : WHAT! A BUNCH! A MOTHAH! FUCKIN! COCK-
    SUCK!
    GAAAAAAAAH!
    [ MASHA strikes the machine harder and harder. She
    doesn’t stop. ]
    WAAAAAAAAH!!!
    [ Keeps beating the machine. Sings like Bessie Smith: ]
    GIMME A REEFAH
    AND A GANG A GIN
    SLAY ME ’CAUSE I’M IN MY SIN!
    [ She’s berserk, assaulting the phone. ]
    YAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!
    Simultaneously, the CLERK erupts.
    CLERK : I have HAD IT HAD IT HAD IT HAD IT, BOY.
    Do you think I’m more than human?
    I’ve only got two hands!
    I can’t take care of everything at once!
    I don’t have superstrength and X-ray eyes
    To deal with you-all! I’m not Superman!
    I’m not Captain Marvel! I’m not the Hulk!
    To drag myself each morning from sweet dreams
    Into your sleazy Greyhound station nightmare
    Of God-forsaken apparitions with
    Madness and sadness congealing in their eyes
    And sell them TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS!
    Look at this!—Look at this woman doing
    All a human can to destroy that thing!
    Nothing stands between the realm of sanity
    And total chaos but myself alone!
    I’m all alone at the bulwarks of the world!
    MASHA : HAAAAAAAH!! GAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
    MASHA lifts the nearest standing ashtray. She slings it mightily at the pay phone.
    CLERK stops openmouthed in mid-tirade. MASHA repeats the action, going at it full tilt.
    She busts the device clean off the wall and attacks it on the floor. Her fit worsens. She collapses, jerking, growling.
    OTHERS : Get her off the floor. Put her on a bench.
    Get her lying down.
    Get her sitting up!
    Get something in between her jaws!
    Don’t let her bite!
    SYLVESTER enters from street door.
    SYLVESTER [ aside ]: There you are, you little magic thing!…
    STAND ASIDE, PLEASE, DOCTOR COMING THROUGH.
    GIVE WAY, THE DOCTOR’S IN THE HOUSE.
    UH UH UH UH DOCTOR COMING THROUGH.
    OTHERS : Thank goodness, Doctor. Hold her! Hold her!
    She is strong!
    Her spit is foaming like a case of rabies!
    SYLVESTER : Nothing to alarm ourselves about.
    CLERK : It’s typical! It’s standard stuff! It happens
    All day long in here! It’s par for the course!
    SYLVESTER : Loosen her uh loosen her uh…clothing.
    I deal with this stuff daily, too—the human
    Body, human physique, the human form…
    Did the patient make any predictions?
    Often this variety of seizure
    Takes them in a way they make predictions—
    No? Perhaps you didn’t recognize—
    Uh sometimes they uh sometimes—Have a look
    Now, at the racing form. Anything sound familiar?
    Any of those names of horses there?
    OTHERS : Missy, can you hear?
    Somebody get some water—
    SYLVESTER : I don’t like uh I don’t like to seem
    Presumptuous, but I’m in charge here now.
    Stand back and let me practice medicine!
    BILL JENKS : Where’s your bag?
    SYLVESTER :                                My bag?
    BILL JENKS :                                              Your bag of tools.
    SYLVESTER : My bag? Where am I, 1882?
    I’m not a country doctor. I don’t drive
    A buggy through the daisies. That’s a ’Vette
    You’ll see out there, you care to look, the blue
    Corvette, the ’98. And I paid cash.
    And anyway we don’t need implements.
    We’re not on the brink of surgery here.
    A little air, a couple minutes’ rest is all.
    But I, myself, could use a little shot.
    What’re we sippin’ behind the desk today?
    Spare us an ounce or two, my boy, come on,
    Don’t balk—we understand, and we approve:
    Only a natural monstrosity
    Uh uh uh uh uh
    Or penitential masochist endures
    Eight hours in the Greyhound totally sober.
    CLERK : I’m in agreement with you there! I quite agree!
    SYLVESTER : Well—save a drop for company!
    Can’t have the citizens dispatched along
    The routes by