Twenty days later.
Corner of Tenth and J Streets in front of Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas.
JOHN CASSANDRA, costumed as a clown, poses on his cross.
Hubbub, voices O.S. [fading out]: Shoot her full of poison,
Throw her in a grave!
Shoot her full of poison,
Throw her in a grave!
[others:] Two! Four! Six! Eight!
There’s no rhyme or reason
To capital punishment!
Two! Four! Six! Eight!
There’s no rhyme or reason
To capital punishment!
[others:] Justice for the innocent!
Killing for the killers!
Justice for the innocent!
Killing for the killers!
Lights up on Public Information Office across the street from the Walls:
JERRY and STEVIE. JERRY at the window.
JERRY: Stevie, has Texas gone and joined the circus?
Or is it the universe, or just my life
That’s grown a populace of runts and freaks?
STEVIE: Jerry, should I toss this coffee out?
JERRY: I have a daughter, Stevie: you touch my daughter,
I’m gonna jump straight up somebody’s ass.
Is that a concept of too wide a girth
To fit inside our brains?
STEVIE: Well, I don’t know.
JERRY: You kill someone, someone kills you. Come on.
Has justice run away and joined the circus?
STEVIE: I couldn’t say. I don’t know. Maybe so.
JERRY: Do you call life in prison “punishment”?
STEVIE: I’d never actually touch your daughter, Jerry.
JERRY: You’d better kill ’em: Send ’em all to Hell,
If Hell awaits them, and be done with it.
…Here come the preacher man. O, looky here.
I’d like to thump this guy. If I was bigger,
Man, I’d grab his legs and bounce him on
His head until his children’s crying stopped me.
Good afternoon, good—Huh-uh, man. No way
I let you in with liquor on your breath.
BILL JENKS [having entered]: You have liquor on your breath, I think.
JERRY: A lunchtime margarita don’t equate
To waltzing in here zigzag stinkin’, partner.
You’d like a little coffee.
STEVIE: I tossed the coffee.
JERRY: She tossed the coffee. Bubble us up some more.
STEVIE: Maybe for later, you mean?—Right now it’s almost—
JERRY:—Haven’t got the time. The hour is nigh.
You’ve made the acquaintance of the son?—I think
The word I’m looking for is “colorful.”
You’ll pale beside him, pardner. Alley-oop.
This way. We’re at our maximum
Or we’d have half Ukiah, California,
Squooching their butts down in the seats. Ukiah.
That’d be Indian for “cracker.” Maybe “Okie.”
My people generate from Tennessee,
Just like Elvis Presley and Davy Crockett.
BILL JENKS: Elvis generates from Mississippi.
JERRY: Elvis came from Memphis, Tennessee.
BILL JENKS: He was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.
JERRY: Jesus Christ was born in Israel,
But that don’t mean he ain’t American.
STEVIE: I’m not sure we have the time for this.
JERRY: Stevie, how long is the woman going to be dead?
…Go on and round ’em up. We’ll be along.
[STEVIE exits.]
—Enough. Will you at least concede that Elvis
Presley was a son of Tennessee?
BILL JENKS: I so concede.
JERRY: All right, enough dispute,
All right—my daughter gave me this, no sense
Offending her bounty. Silver-plated. Cheers!
Go on, raise you a toast to Mississippi.
BILL JENKS: Mostly I’ve lived my life in California.
JERRY [as they move]: O, well, I’ve never been to California.
Right this way—look down, these sonabitchin’
Paparazzi will fill your eyes with moons—
I mean, I might get out there, maybe for
A ball game on the order of the Series
Or a playoff, if Texas could field a decent team,
But all we have is the Rangers and the Astros.
[They enter the Witness Room, joining JOHN (still costumed as a clown) and STEVIE.]
What are you supposed to be? A clown?
JOHN: We’re here to raise my mother from the dead.
JERRY: Ukiah, that’d be Indian for “Him
Who Picks His Nose and Eats It.”
JOHN: Who’s this guy?
JERRY: The PIO.
STEVIE: A son, here: this is John.
JOHN: The PIO?
STEVIE: You know the Reverend.
JOHN: The PIO?
JERRY: I think we need this man
Struck from the list.
JOHN: The pee-eye-eeh-eye-oh?
STEVIE: The Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s public information officer.
JERRY [to JOHN]: You’re the one who parked his big old cross
Down there out front. I’m gonna have it towed.
JERRY has pushed a buzzer. The curtain opens on the death chamber.
BESS CASSANDRA lies tied down on the gurney, the head of which cranks up to make her visible; WILL BLAINE in attendance.
BESS: Who put me here? I didn’t do anything!
Jesus God! I didn’t do anything!
WHY DO I HAVE TO DIE? WHAT DID I DO?
JERRY: Will—now, haven’t we got her tranked?
WILL: She’s tranked.
BESS: They said I’d die, and then come back to life.
BILL JENKS: Who told you that? Who told you, Ms. Cassandra?
BESS: I don’t know. I heard it in a dream.
I don’t know who was talking in that dream.
BILL JENKS: I’m Reverend—
BESS: Shit. I have no need of Jesus.
I’m paying for my own goddamn sins.
BILL JENKS: Ms. Cassandra? May I call you Bess?
BESS: Sure, please do. Who else is in the room?
JOHN: Hi, Mom—Hi, Mom—remember me?
BESS: O, sure.
You kind of look familiar. Is that John?
JOHN: Hi, Mom.
BESS: You got real big.
JOHN: I know.
Mom, we’re here to raise you from the dead.
JERRY: Cut the mic, please…Fellas, listen up:
Reverend, how did you get on the list?
This woman doesn’t know you.
JOHN: She’s my mom,
And he’s the family’s spiritual counselor.
JERRY: Across that chamber in the other room
I’ve got the Reuters, UPI, AP, the Huntsville
Courier; down in that baking street
I’ve got the TV news and video from France
And Germany and every goddamn place,
And I’m not gonna have an incident
For these assholes to be reporting. Clear?
…Go on now, give us back the audio.
BESS: Hello? Hello? That was a little scary.
…John, are you the only of my children
To make the trip?
JOHN: I guess I am.
BESS: OK.
I wasn’t expecting trumpets and a crowd.
JOHN: I think they harbor some resentment due
To certain things that ruined their childhood, Mom.
BESS: John, I always thought you were retarded.
JOHN: I’m not retarded. I just had big teeth.
They made me talk real slow. But now I’m grown—
Grown up—and so…
BESS: You’ve grown into your teeth.
…Where’d the Reverend Preacher go?
JOHN: He’s praying in the corner, Ma. We’ve come
To raise you up when they pronounce you dead,
Because we know you didn’t hurt Jane Doe.
We know you’re innocent.
BESS: I’m not so sure.
I know I’m guilty of vehicular
Infanticide, because I do remember
Squashing little Amy with the car.
…Amy. What do you think she’d look like now?
JOHN: Amy? Amy would resemble rotten bones.
JERRY: Folks, we’re looking at just a couple minutes.
BESS: You children bothered me, I don’t know why.
I’d start off every morning with the notes
Of music in my heart, and I was young,
But minute by minute my mind would get all red,
And photographs in magazines would make me cry,
Until my life was squeezing all my blood—
Now, isn’t that peculiar, don’t you think?
And here the little children all around.
I should have killed you all while you were sleeping.
I guess I didn’t really think things through.
I don’t know why I thought I had to use
The car. Do you believe in demons? Well,
Nothing in this world can take away
The deeds I’ve done. They don’t belong to demons.
I won’t give my crimes to Satan.
I’m keeping my crimes for me.
JERRY: It’s six p.m.
STEVIE: May God have mercy on you.
JERRY: I’ll just read the order of execution.
BILL JENKS: The order? Isn’t that the warden’s function?
JERRY: The warden’s water-skiing off Honduras.
Or else he’s scuba diving off Belize.
Vacationing, in other words. It falls to me
To read the order of execution. Stevie,
Will you please read the order of execution?
STEVIE: Isabel Cassandra, formerly
Residing in Odessa, Texas:
Having been convicted of the charge
Of murder perpetrated in the course
Of aggravated sexual assault
Upon Jane Doe (name and address unknown),
Be informed that the Sovereign State of Texas
Undertakes to execute the sentence
Imposed July 19, 2001; to wit:
That you shall be confined until this day,
Maintained in health, granted communication
With family, legal counsel, and the press,
And then, upon this day, at such an hour
As suits the warden, you shall be called forth
And taken to a place prepared for such
Administrations as shall have the swift
Result of death to you; and therein put to death.
JERRY: May God have mercy on you, Bess Cassandra.
WILL lowers the head of the gurney; BESS lies prone.
JOHN: Mom, are you prepared?
BESS: What part of me
Can be prepared? I can’t talk to this part
Or that part, I can’t say, “Get ready, arms
And legs, get ready, guts and lungs and liver—”
Can’t even cross my hands over my chest.
…Well, thanks for coming by to say goodbye.
JOHN: Woman, if I could say goodbye to you
I would’ve said it thirty years ago.
JERRY [low, to BJ]: The sodium thiopental’s going in.
BESS: John?
JOHN: Mom, Mom…
BESS: Why are you dressed like a clown?
JOHN: There’s reasons for it, Mom.
JERRY: She doesn’t hear.
JOHN: It’s something I’ve got going.
STEVIE: She can’t hear you.
JERRY [low, to BJ]: Next pancurium bromide will collapse
The lungs and diaphragm. And finally
Potassium chloride stops the heart.
BILL JENKS: How long?
JERRY: Seven minutes from the start to finish.
JOHN:…Seems like seven minutes are almost up.
BESS:…Am I supposed to be dead? When do I die?
…I still don’t think I’m dead. I think—O, hey,
My I-V thing popped out. It did. It’s out.
Your poison’s spilt all over.
WILL’S VOICE: I-V team!
Get your unit reestablished, please.
Never mind. Stand down. I’ll reconnect.
BESS: Will it hurt—uh—will it hurt the mattress?
The curtain closes across the window.
BILL JENKS: Mr. PIO. What’s going on?
JERRY: Will? We gonna have to clear the site?
WILL’S VOICE: Negative. Sixty seconds.
JERRY: All right. Stevie—go and see about the boys.
Who’s over there?—it’s Blake for UPI,
I think, and damn it, damn it all to Hell—
STEVIE: I’ll see if we can’t close the lid.
JERRY: O, yeah.
Another perfect termination. Thanks.
I owe you, Steve.
STEVIE: You do. You’ll pay me, too,
Tonight at Mursky’s.
JERRY: Drinks are all on me.
STEVIE exits.
JOHN: Hello? Hello? What’s going on in there?
JERRY: This thing’s been a fiasco from the start.
JOHN: Why can’t the guy at least say hi or something?
JERRY: I’ve never seen the like, and I was here
For Karla Faye. A healer and a clown.
BESS’S VOICE: Uh-oh. O NO.
JOHN: Mom? Mom?—What’s going on?
JERRY: I can’t stand to hear you squawking
About it in my ears no more!
JOHN: You don’t act like a government official!
You act like a baby!
JERRY: I act like a baby?
TORCH THE JAILS AND LET’S BE DONE WITH IT!
JOHN: There’s something funny going on in there!
Did you just hear the mic switch off? HELLO!
[Bangs on the glass]
HELLO HELLO GODDAMNIT HEY HEY HEY—
The curtains part abruptly to reveal HT with an arm locked around WILL BLAINE’s neck and a long, crude stiletto shoved up under WILL’s chin.
HT: I AM THE NIGGER OF DEATH!
[To WILL]…Let’s let the public get a look at you!
You hiding back there like the Wizard of Oz.
[Sings] Let the Midnight Special
Shine a light on you
Let the Midnight Special
Shine his ever-lovin’ light on you.
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to my show!
BESS: I hope you know this wasn’t my idea.
JOHN: You’re still alive!
BESS: And really loving it.
BILL JENKS: Hello, HT. What are you playing at?
HT: A little game that I’m inventing called
Let’s Execute the Executioner.
If anybody interrupts the game
I’ll blow up every motherfucker here
Including me.
JOHN: You’re gonna blow us up
With a knife?
HT: I didn’t say I blow you up
With a knife. I blow you up, is all I said.
JOHN: Well, what’s that in your hand?
HT: Don’t get sarcastic.
JOHN: Hey, I’m not. I’m quite sincerely trying
To form some sense of what you’re threatening
To blow us up with here today, and what
I’m seeing in your hand looks like a knife.
HT: Quite true. But what’s this in my other hand?
[He releases his choke hold on WILL and pulls a gun from his pocket, points it at JERRY while keeping the point of his knife to WILL’s chin.]
I want everybody in this room with me.
JERRY: We can’t do that.
HT: You can’t when you’re dead!
JERRY: We can’t, sir, it’s impossible. The chambers
Don’t communicate.
HT: What are we doing now?
JERRY: There’s just no access. They’re designed that way
With just this kind of contingency in mind.
HT: How about this contingency!
HT shoots. The glass doesn’t break.
JERRY: That one, too.
HT: But I still got this guy! His head ain’t bulletproof!
JERRY: Of course. We’re all cooperating here.
HT fires all his bullets uselessly at the glass.
HT: You think I’m outa bullets? Well, I am!
But whatchoo think these honeys are? Big tits?
Having dropped both knife and gun, he finds in his pockets two hand grenades.
He yanks the pin of each with his teeth and spits the pins at WILL.
Nothin’ clamps these levers down but me.
Anything happens to me—I get distracted,
Maybe you bore me and I fall asleep,
Sharpshooter shoots my head off—we all die.
Now get around in here. Yes—you and you.
[To JOHN] No—you, sir—no. Don’t want no clowns in here.
The Reverend Mister Billy Jenks. That’s right.
Go out that door, go down the hall, and come—
You think I’m stupid? No. I’m just insane.
Go out that door, and come around in here!
You don’t say boo to nobody. Or else!
JERRY: You have my word.
HT: I have your what what what?
JERRY: Stay calm. We’ll do as you request.
You have my word as a Texan.
HT: O…OK…
JERRY: OK, Preach, let’s get on under the Big Top.
JERRY and BJ exit.
HT:…Ma’am, I’m sorry to mess your execution up.
BESS: O, that’s OK, I guess.
HT: Well, I’m just saying.
I’m just improvising, so I hope
You don’t resent some wrinkles in the plan.
BESS: I’m not in a position to resent much of anything.
HT: Hey, if you want, I’ll make these folks untie
Your arms and legs and kiss your ass.
BESS: No, thanks—
All in all, I’d rather be put to sleep
Than blown to bits.
HT: Yeah…Ain’t you the lady
Flushed her little baby down the toilet?
BESS: No, that wasn’t me.
HT: You put it in
The trash incinerator.
BESS: Guess again.
HT: The grinder in the sink.
BESS: Not even close.
HT: Where are those guys?
WILL: It doesn’t really matter.
I’ll have you on the gurney soon enough.
HT: The gurney? For probation violation?
WILL: I saw you on America’s Most Wanted.
HT: Is there no person on this earth who ever
Watches any other program? Try
And hide! I’m like the president!
WILL: You’re guilty of a double homicide.
Today should be your execution day.
HT: The day’s not over yet.
WILL: You goddamn right.
HT: You make my point. You see these things?
I splay my fingers, on the count of five
We mount to glory on a hand grenade.
WILL: That’s fine with me!
JOHN: Hold on, hold on!
WILL: I’ll get blown up as long as you do, too.
HT: I think we’re in agreement here. Let’s die!
BJ and JERRY enter.
HT: Don’t move, don’t anybody move! I swear to God!
…Hey, hey, Reverend Billy Jenks, did you
Imagine the trajectories would bang
Us face-to-face on execution day?
BILL JENKS: You get me believing in things like fate, HT.
HT: I know. It’s just too marvelous for words,
The crowning thing that sets it all aflame!
Actually, I heard it on the news
How you’d be here and all, that’s why I came.
BILL JENKS: Will Blaine.
WILL: Excuse me, Preacher, I’ve got business.
HT [to WILL]: O no you don’t! You don’t go back in there!
You do not press that button. No you don’t!
Not as long as you live! Right here. Right here!
Did I see your hand mashing on that button?
JOHN: Mom? Are you all right?
BESS: Who? Me?
JOHN: Talk to me. Don’t just lay there.
BESS: Blah blah blah.
How’s the weather? Blah blah blah your health.
How are they treating my Johnnie at the circus?
JOHN: When men go murdering murderers, they mock
God’s saving work and make a clown of Christ.
That’s the message. That’s the statement.
BESS: Well,
I’m glad I lived to hear the explanation.
JERRY: What are your demands?
HT: Uh-huh…Demands?
JERRY: Have we surprised you with the question?
HT: Yes,
I’d have to say you kind of did.
[Monitor sounds a flat reading: beeeeeeeee.]
You pressed the goddamn button, didn’t you?
JOHN: Why’d you press it, fool?
WILL: It’s what I do!
JOHN:…NO!…Don’t cover up my mother’s face!
JERRY: This woman is deceased.
JOHN: But—seven minutes!
Seven minutes! You said seven minutes!
JERRY: In general the process takes that long—
But often Phase One stops the heart, and then—
HT: And then they screw you out of five or six!
They gyp you!…Bring this woman back—
Dose her up with speed or something! [To WILL] You!
JOHN: That’s exactly what we came here for.
…Hostage Taker, this is the very thing
That brought us here. The Reverend Jenks is powered
To deal with demons and restore the sick,
I’ve seen him do it with a word, a breath,
Two years I’ve dogged his steps, I’ve watched him work—
Deafness, stammering, cancer, withered limbs—
I’ve seen him pinch their one last mustard seed
Of faith and scatter it into blossoms—
Blindness, palsy, lunatic torments—
And I believe this man can raise the dead.
BILL JENKS: With your permission—
HT: Do it to it.
WILL: She’s dead. This ain’t a coma.
JERRY: LET HIM TRY.
…Leave it alone, Will. Let this run its course
And you and me go get a drink at Mursky’s.
Country-western, and scotch in plastic cups.
WILL: I’m sick of cowboy music.
JERRY: Let him try.
…We’ve done a bunch of these.
WILL: A couple hundred,
Right around two hundred.
JERRY: Let him try.
BILL JENKS: No—leave the shroud.
HT:… Go on. Go on.
BILL JENKS:…One time, when Jesus healed, he said, “Who touched
My garment? Something just went out of me—”
He stood in a crowd pressing from all sides
But knew a particular touch had drawn his power,
Sensed a healing had gone out from him…
All I have is a knack for crossing paths
With people just about to heal themselves.
A gift for sticking in my head and smiling
Just when someone’s gonna snap the picture.
I’ve never healed one person of one thing
In all my lying life.
If I had, I’d feel it, wouldn’t I?
Wouldn’t it jump a little in my blood?
WILL: This gets me in my guts. Get up from there.
JERRY: Two hundred? Is it really as many as that?
You ever walk the rows at Joe Byrd Hill?
How many rows have we ourselves laid out?
I bet you’d hike a half a mile of graves
Fed by our work, Will Blaine, yours and mine,
And then you’d come to a couple of plywood boards
Hiding the hungry place that waits for this one.
BILL JENKS:…Lord, it’s all about that open mouth.
We don’t want to die and go in there.
They claw down with a green-and-yellow John Deere
Backhoe and scoop a darkness under the grass,
Takes six or seven seconds to produce
The only thing on earth that lasts forever.
God in Heaven, we beg you to widen your eyes.
Look here at this woman put to death
By bureaucrats. See her. Remember her.
You made this woman’s life—remember that.
Make her now, again. GOD, GIVE HER BREATH.
HT [speaks in BESS’s voice]:…Don’t raise me up! I want to stay in Hell!
JOHN: No! She’s not in Hell!
HT/BESS: I always was.
I lived my life in Hell. But now it’s simpler.
WILL: You’re channeling through the black guy, Mom.
JOHN: There’s no such thing as channeling. That’s Satan
Talking in my mother’s voice.
BESS: It always was.
JOHN: It’s just a trick of demons.
WILL: We have demons?
We don’t have mediums, but we do have demons?
JOHN: I just take it as it comes.
WILL: You do?
From where? You take it as it comes from where?
JOHN: From Genesis and Exodus. No channeling.
No mediums. No ha’nts. No clanky chains.
Men and women; devils; angels; God.
HT/BESS: Hell is full of music. Lonely music.
Hell is full of sadness. Full of truth,
Full of clarity. Hell is beautiful.
BILL JENKS: I know this son of a bitch. It’s you.
HT/DEMON: [facing BJ]: C’est moi! The one who really loves you!—
BILL JENKS: The blue dog of Huntsville.
HT/DEMON: The demon of Simon’s coma.
BILL JENKS: The demon of money.
HT/DEMON: The demon of your fame.
BILL JENKS: You’ve run me all my silly goddamn life—
Why?
HT/DEMON: I really can’t quite say; it’s just
There’s something about your style that pisses me off.
BILL JENKS: All my silly life.
HT/DEMON: And now no more.
I’m all through pimping you, Jenks—you’re on your own!
JOHN cries out, flings himself against the glass. All freeze.
HT/DEMON: Now my work of half a century
Culminates. Warden, blow the whistle!
Beloved William Jennings Bryan Jenks:
You’ve come to failure, and today you die.
Beloved, my most interesting project,
My signature, my sunny revelation:
Count your heartbeats. Today you die.
Your breath stops. Your sight blackens, then burns
With visions since your birth, and you’ll be met
At every turning with the leering truth:
Not one prayer you’ve uttered ever prized
The slimmest chink in you, not one escaped
The maze. They suffocated in their coffins.
The start to finish of your life’s design
Tributes nothingness. And now the dark.
HT opens his fingers. Grenades fall.
BILL JENKS: Liar! Liar!—I never raised the dead.
BESS sits upright and the shroud falls away.
BESS: AMY?…Where’d she go? She was right here—
Silence. Blinding light.
BLACKOUT