Angels in America s01e06 Episode Script

You lost eight pounds.
People would kill to be in the shape you were in.
You were recovering, but you blew it.
This isn't about weight, it's about lungs.
-Pneumonia.
-We don't know yet.
The fuck we don't.
l know! You may not, but l can't breathe.
You'd breathe better if you didn't holler like that.
This is my ex-lover's lover's Mormon mother.
Even in New York in the '80s, that is strange.
This is serious, you understand? Keep breathing, stop moving, and stay put.
l'm getting you a room.
l should go.
l saw an angel.
Two weeks ago.
l did.
l saw her.
l did.
l'm not insane.
-l didn't say you-- -l saw an angel.
That's insane.
lnsane.
But l'm not insane.
But then why did l do this to myself? 'Cause l have been driven insane by your son and by that lying.
Because ever since she arrived ever since l have been consumed by this ice-cold razor blade terror that just shouts and shouts: ''Keep moving, run,'' and l've run myself into the ground.
Right where she said l would eventually be.
Really, she seems so real.
As real as you.
l remember everything.
What's happened to me? Tell me.
You had a vision.
A vision? Thank you, Maria Ouspenskaya.
l'm not so far gone l can be assuaged by pity and lies.
l don't have pity.
lt's just not something l have.
1 70 years ago which is recent an angel of God appeared to Joseph Smith in upstate New York, not far from here.
People have visions.
That's preposterous.
lt's not polite to call other people's beliefs preposterous.
He had great need of understanding, our prophet.
His desire made prayer.
His prayer made an angel.
The angel was real.
-l believe that.
-l don't.
l'm sorry, but it's repellant to me, so much of what you believe.
What do l believe? l'm a homosexual with AlDS.
-l can just imagine what you-- -No, you can't imagine the things in my head.
You don't make assumptions about me, mister.
And l won't make them about you.
Fair enough.
My son is -like you.
-Homosexual? l flew into a rage when he told me.
Mad as hornets.
l assumed at first it was about.
-Homosexuality? -But that wasn't it.
Homosexuality.
That just seems so ungainly to me.
Two men together.
lt's not an appetizing notion.
But then, for me, men in any configuration is.
They're just so lumpish and stupid.
Stupidity gets me crazy.
l wish you'd be more true to your demographic profile.
Life is confusing enough.
You know the Bible.
Reasonably well, yes.
The prophets in the Bible, do they ever refuse their vision? There is scriptural precedent, yes.
What does God do to them when they do that? He feeds them to whales.
Here, just be still you'll be all right.
No, l won't be.
My lungs are getting tighter.
The fever mounts, and you get delirious.
Then the days of delirium and all the pain and drugs.
Then you start slipping.
l really fucked up.
l'm scared, l can't do it again.
You shouldn't talk that way.
You should make a better show of yourself.
Look at this horror.
See? That's not human.
That's why l run.
Wouldn't you? Wouldn't anybody? lt's a cancer.
Nothing more.
Nothing more human than that.
God, l wanna be done.
l don't want this! l reject this.
l'm sorry.
Stay with me, please.
Just till my friend gets off work.
You comfort me.
You do.
You stiffen my spine.
When l got up this morning this is not how l envisioned the day would end.
An angel is a belief with wings and arms that can carry you.
lt's not to be afraid of.
lf it can't hold you up seek for something new.
Louis.
Oh, my God.
lt's the spring rain, is all.
lt's her.
She's approaching.
She? Modesty forbids explaining exactly how l know but l have an infallible barometer of her proximity.
And it's rising.
Hello.
l've come back.
Please let me in.
You're in.
''Have you no decency, sir? At long last, Have you no sense of decency?'' Who said that? l'm having a really hard time, Louis.
lt's so good to see you again.
You really don't know who said, ''Have you no decency?'' -What's wrong? -Second question: Have you no decency? Guess what l spent the rainy afternoon doing? -What? -My homework.
Research at the courthouse.
Look what l got.
The decisions of Justice Theodore J.
Wilson Second Circuit Court of Appeals, 1981-1984.
-The Reagan Years.
-You read my decisions.
Your decisions.
Yes.
The librarian was gay.
He had all the good dish.
He said Wilson didn't write these opinions any more than Nixon wrote Six Crises Or Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage.
or Reagan wrote Where's the Rest of Me or you and l wrote the Book of Love.
Listen, l don't wanna do this now.
l need you to stop attacking me.
These gems were ghost-written by you his obedient eager clerk.
Naturally, l was eager to read them.
Now l love the one where you found against those women on Staten lsland who were suing the New Jersey factory.
The toothpaste makers whose orange-colored smoke was blinding children.
Not blind, just minor irritation.
Three of them had to be hospitalized, Joe.
lt's sort of brilliant in a satanic sort of way concluding that these women have no right to sue under the Air and Water Protection Act because that Act doesn't protect people but actually only air and water.
Amazing! Have you no decency? l can't believe my opinions are being criticized by the guy who changes the coffee filters in the Secretary's Lounge.
Absolute favorite is this.
Stephens v.
the United States the Army guy who got a dishonorable discharge for being gay.
Stevens told the Army that he was gay when he enlisted.
When he got ready to retire, they booted him out cheat the queer of his pension.
Right.
He sued, won the case, and got his pension.
The first judges gave him his pension back because they ruled that gay men are members of a legitimate minority entitled to the special protection of the 1 4th Amendment of the US Constitution.
''Equal protection under the law.
'' l can just imagine how news of that momentary lapse into decency was received.
Then all the judges of the Second Circuit were assembled-- We found for the guy again.
But on an equitable estoppel.
l had to look that up.
But Mr.
Coffee can't be expected to know these things.
They didn't change the decision, just the reason for the decision.
They gave it to him on a technicality.
The Army knew Stevens was gay when he was enlisted.
That's why he won.
Not because it's unconstitutional to discriminate against homosexuals.
''Because homosexuals,'' they write ''are not entitled to equal protection under the law.
'' -You're being melodramatic.
-They didn't write this.
You did.
They gave this decision to Wilson to write.
Which, since they know he's a vegetable incapable of writing do-re-mi was quite the vote of confidence in his industrious little clerk.
This is an important bit of legal fag-bashing, isn't it? They trusted you to do it and you didn't disappoint.
lt's law, not justice.
lt's power, not the merits of its exercise.
lt's not an expression of an ideal, it's reality.
So who said, ''Have you no decency?'' l'm leaving.
You moron.
How could you not know that? l'm leaving, you son of a bitch! lt's the greatest punch line in American history.
-Out of my way! -''Have you no decency?'' ''At long last, sir, have you no decency?'' l don't know who said it.
Why are you doing this? -l love you! -Joseph Welch! The Army-McCarthy Hearings! Ask Roy! He'll tell you, he knows! He was there.
Roy Cohn! -What l want to know is, did you fuck him? -Did l what? How often has the latex-sheathed cock l put in my mouth been previously in the mouth of the most evil, twisted vicious bastard ever to snort coke at Studio 54? 'Cause lips that kissed those lips will never kiss mine! Don't worry about that.
Get out of my-- Did you fuck him? -Did he pay you to let him fuck you? -Move! You lied to me.
You love me? Fuck you, you cheap piece of shit! He's got AlDS.
Do you even know that? Stupid closeted bigot! You probably never figured out-- Hypocrite! Stop! Please say you're okay.
God, that hurt.
l never did that before.
l never hit anyone.
-Can you open it? Can you see? -l can see blood.
Let me get a towel.
l could have you arrested, you creep.
They could put you in jail for beating me up.
l've never hit anyone before.
lt'd really be for those decisions.
lt was like a sex scene in an Ayn Rand novel, huh? l hurt you.
l'm sorry, Louis.
l never hit anyone before.
Get lost before l really lose my temper and hurt you back.
l just wanna lie here and bleed for a while.
Do me good.
Look at that big smile.
What you got to smile about, Roy? l'm going, Ethel.
Finally, finally done with this world.
At long last.
All mine enemies will be standing on the other shore mouths gaping open like stupid fish while the Almighty parts the sea of death and lets his Roy-boy cross over the Jordan on dry land and still a lawyer.
l wouldn't count my chickens, Roy.
lt's over.
Over? l wanted the news should come from me.
The panel rules against you, Roy.
Oh, no.
They just started meeting two days ago.
They recommended disbarment.
The executive has to rule on the recommendation.
That'll take at least a week to sort things out.
The executive was waiting.
And they ruled.
One, two, three.
They accepted the panel's recommendation.
And one of the main guys on the executive he leaned over to his friend and he said: ''Finally! ''l've hated that little faggot for 36 years.
'' They won, Roy.
You're not a lawyer anymore.
-But am l dead? -No.
They beat you.
You lost.
l decided to come here so l could see, could l forgive you? You who l have hated so terribly.
l have borne my hatred up into the heavens and made a needle-sharp little star in the sky out of it.
lt's the star of Ethel Rosenberg's hatred.
And it burns every year, for one night only.
June 19.
lt burns acid green.
l came to forgive but all l can do is take pleasure in your misery hoping l would get to see you die more terrible than l did.
And you are 'cause you're dying in shit, Roy.
Defeated.
And you could kill me.
But you couldn't ever defeat me.
You never won.
When you die all anyone will ever say is ''Better he had never lived at all.
'' Ma? Muddy, is it? lt's Ethel, Roy.
l feel bad.
Who are you talking to? lt's me.
Good to see you, Ma.
lt's been years.
l feel bad.
Sing to me.
l am not your mother, Roy.
lt's cold in here.
l'm up so late.
Past my time.
Don't be mad, Ma.
l'm scared a little.
Don't be mad.
Sing me a song.
-Please.
-l don't want to, Roy.
-l am not-- -lt's scary out here.
Oh, God.
God l'm so sorry.
So sorry.
Roy.
Are you.
-That's it.
-What's up? Do you need me? No, l'm not! l fooled you, Ethel! l knew who you were all along.
l can't believe you fell for that Ma stuff.
l just wanted to see if l could finally make Ethel Rosenberg sing! l win! Fuck.
Next time around l don't wanna be a man.
l wanna be an octopus.
Remember that, okay? She's on her way.
Turn the lights back on! Turn the lights back on! l have returned, Prophet and not according to plan! Take it back! The book, whatever you left with me, l won't be its repository.
l reject it.
You gotta help me out here! Help me! This is a dream.
l don't think that's really the point at this particular moment.
l don't know what to do.
lt was your idea.
''Reject the vision,'' you said.
l thought it was going to be more of a metaphorical.
You said scriptural precedent.
What am l supposed to do? Wrestle her! Say, what? lt's an angel! You just grab hold of her and say.
What was it? Wait.
Yes.
You grab a hold of her and you say ''l will not let thee go except thou bless me.
'' Then you wrestle her until she gives in.
You wrestle her.
l don't know how to wrestle.
l will not let thee go except thou bless me! Take back your book! Free me! Unfetter me! Bless me or whatever, but l will be let go.
l am the continental principality of America! l am a bird of prey! l will not be compelled! Entrance has been gained.
Return the text to Heaven.
Can l come back? l don't wanna go unless.
You have prevailed, Prophet.
You choose.
Now release me.
l have torn a muscle in my thigh.
Big deal.
My leg's been hurting for months.
What? You've got no business with me.
l didn't call you.
You are his fever dream.
Not mine.
He's gone now so you should go, too.
l'm going to wake up now.
Right now.
The body is the garden of the soul.
Greetings, Prophet.
We have been waiting for you.
Hurry.
Oh, my God.
This is too weird for words.
lt's Roy Cohn.
lt's so creepy here.
l hate hospitals.
Stop whining.
We have to move fast.
l'm supposed to call the duty nurse if his condition changes.
lt's changed.
Take off those glasses.
You look ridiculous.
What happened to you? Expiation for my sins.
-What am l doing here? -Expiation for your sins.
l can't take this stuff out myself.
l have to tell them he's dead and fill out forms.
l don't want them confiscating the medicine.
lt's AZT.
Nearly 60 bottles left.
l needed a pack mule, so l called you.
Why me? You hate me.
l needed a Jew.
You were the first to come to mind.
-What do you mean? -We're gonna thank him.
-For the pills.
-Thank him? What do you call the Jewish prayer for the dead? -A Kaddish.
-That's the one.
Hit it.
Do it.
l'm not saying Kaddish for him.
The drugs, okay, fine, sure.
But no fucking way am l praying for him.
My New Deal pinko parents in Schenectady would never forgive me.
They're already so disappointed: ''He's a fag, he's an office temp.
''Now look, he's saying Kaddish for Roy Cohn.
'' l can't believe you'd actually pray for him.
Louis, l'd even pray for you.
He was a terrible person.
He died a hard death.
Maybe a queen can forgive her vanquished foe.
lt isn't easy.
lt doesn't count if it's easy.
lt's the hardest thing.
Forgiveness.
Maybe that's where love and justice finally meet.
Peace at least.
lsn't what the Kaddish asks for? lt's Hebrew or Aramaic or something.
Who knows what it's asking.
l'm 32 years old and l've never been in a room with a dead body before.
So heavy and small.
l know probably less of the Kaddish than you do.
l'm an intensely secular Jew.
l didn't even bar mitzvah.
Do the best you can.
No, that's the Kiddush, not the.
l don't know.
This is silly.
Please, l can't.
-You son of a bitch.
-You son of a bitch.
Thank you, Louis.
You did fine.
Fine? What are you talking about fine now? lt was fucking miraculous.
l saw it.
lt was there.
Most august fellow principalities, angels most high l regret my absence at this session.
l was detained.
-This is.
-The Prophet.
Yes.
-We're working.
-We're making progress.
l wanna return this.
-What's the matter with it? -lt just.
We can't just stop.
We're not rocks.
Progress, migration, motion is modernity.
lt's animate.
lt's what living things do.
We desire.
Even if all we desire is stillness, it's still desire.
For, even if we go faster than we should we can't wait, and wait for what? God.
He isn't coming back.
Even if he did, if he ever did come back if he ever dared to show his face or whatever in the garden again if after all this destruction if after all the terrible days of this terrible century he returned to see how much suffering his abandonment has created if all he has to offer is death you should sue the bastard.
That's my only contribution to all this theology.
Sue the bastard for walking out.
How dare he! Thus spake the Prophet.
So thank you for sharing this with me, but l don't want to keep it.
He wants to live.
Yes! l'm 30 years old, for God's sake.
l haven't done anything yet.
l wanna be healthy again.
And this plague, it should stop in me and everywhere.
-Make it go away.
-We have tried.
We suffer with you but we don't know.
We do not know how.
This is the tome of immobility of respite.
Stay in heaven, don't return to life.
Suffer no more.
You choose.
l can't.
l still want my blessing.
Even sick, l wanna be alive.
You only think you do.
Life is a habit with you.
You have not seen what is to come.
We have.
What will the grim unfolding of these latter days bring that you or any being should wish to endure them? Death more plenteous than all heaven has tears to mourn it.
The slow dissolving of the great design.
The spiraling apart of the work of eternity.
The world and its beautiful particle logic all collapsed, all dead forever.
We are failing.
The earth and the angels.
Who asks of the Order's blessing with Apocalypse descending? Who demands more life when death like a protector blinds our eyes shielding from tender nerve more horror than can be borne? Let any being on whom Fortune smiles creep away to death before that last, dreadful daybreak when all your ravaging returns to you.
And morning blisters crimson and bears all life away.
A tidal wave of protean fire that curls around the planet and bares the earth clean as bone.
But still bless me anyway.
l want more life.
l can't help myself.
l do.
l've lived through such terrible times and there are people who live through much worse.
But you see them living anyway.
When they're more spirit than body more sores than skin when they're burned and in agony when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children they live.
Death usually has to take life away.
l don't know if that's just the animal.
l don't know if it's not braver to die, but l recognize the habit.
The addiction to being alive.
So we live past hope.
lf l can find hope anywhere, that's it, that's the best l can do.
lt's so much not enough.
lt's so inadequate.
But still bless me anyway.
l want more life.
And if He returns, take Him to court.
He walked out on us.
He ought to pay.
l'm exhausted.
-You've been working hard.
-l feel terrible.
We were worried we'd lost you.
-Welcome back to the world.
-From where? Well, look at this.
lt's the dawn of man.
-Venus rising from the sea.
-l'm wet.
-Fever broke.
That's a good sign.
-Mrs.
Pitt.
The little girl's room.
Where did you find her? We found each other.
l've had a remarkable dream.
And you were there and you and you.
l what? Some of it was terrible and some of it was wonderful.
But all the same, l kept saying l wanna go home.
-And they sent me home.
-What are you talking about? Thank you.
-l just sat in a chair.
-She saved my life.
Did no such thing.
l slept in the chair.
Being in the hospital upsets me, reminds me of things.
l have to go now.
l had the most peculiar dream.
Can l come in? l have to start rounds.
You are one of the lucky ones.
l could give you a rose.
You rest your weary bones.
What happened to you? Visible scars.
Louis, you're so goddamn literal about everything.
-l'm going now.
-You'll come back? lf l can.
l have things l have to take care of.
Please do.
l have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
That's a stupid thing to do.
Who's she? You really don't want to know.
Before l depart a homecoming gift.
What, l can't read the label.
My eyes aren't any better.
AZT, where on earth? These are hot pills.
l am shocked.
Contribution to the Get Well Fund from a bad fairy.
These pills, they make you better.
They're poison, they make you anemic.
This is my life from now on, Louis.
l'm not getting better.
l'm not sure l'm ready to do that to my bone marrow.
We can talk about it tomorrow.
l am going home to nurse my grudges.
Ta, baby.
Sleep all day.
Ta, Louis.
You sure know how to clear a room.
Prior.
l wanna come back to you.
You could respond.
You could say something.
Just say it's fine or it's not fine, but sure, what the hell or.
l really failed you.
Sorry.
Failing in love isn't the same as not loving.
lt doesn't let you off the hook.
lt doesn't mean you're free to not love.
l love you, Louis.
Good.
-l love you.
-l really do.
But you can't come back.
Not ever.
l'm sorry, but you can't.
l want your credit card.
That's all.
You can keep track of me from where the charges come from if you wanna keep track.
-l have some things to tell you.
-We shouldn't talk.
l don't want to do that anymore.
Credit card? l don't know what will happen to me without you.
Only you love me out of everyone in the world.
l've done things, l'm ashamed, but.
l've changed.
l don't know how yet, but please don't leave me now, Harper.
You're my good heart.
Did that hurt? Yes? Remember that.
Please.
lf l can get a job or something, l'll cut the card to pieces and there won't be charges.
Credit card.
Just call or.
Just call.
You have to.
No, probably never again.
That's how bad.
Sometimes, maybe lost is best.
Get lost, Joe.
Go exploring with a big glass of water.
You look a fright.
-So do you.
-l had a horrid night.
-So did l.
-Where is.
l'm sure she'll be all right.
-What can happen to her in New York City? -lt's not what l expected which is the best thing you can say for it.
Shall l make supper tonight? Joe? l'll try to wait up till you get home.
Night flight to San Francisco.
Chase the moon across America.
God! lt's been years since l was on a plane.
When we hit 35,000 feet we'll have reached the tropopause the great belt of calm air.
As close as l'll ever get to the ozone.
l dreamed we were there.
The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air and attained the outer rim, the ozone which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening.
But l saw something only l could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things.
Souls were rising from the earth far below, souls of the dead of people who'd perished from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning.
And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web a great net of souls.
And the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired.
Nothing's lost forever.
ln this world, there is a kind of painful progress.
Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.
At least l think that's so.
The Berlin Wall has fallen.
The Ceausescus are out.
He's building democratic socialism, the new internationalism.
Gorbachev is the greatest political thinker since Lenin.
We don't know enough yet to start canonizing him.
The Russians hate his guts.
Happy birthday.
Thomas Jefferson died on his birthday.
-You aren't Thomas Jefferson.
-l'm related to him.
-The Walters are related to everyone.
-Only the white meat, darling.
Salute.
Remember four years ago, the whole time we were feeling everything everywhere was stuck.
While in Russia, perestroika, the thaw.
lt's the end of the Cold War.
The whole world's changing overnight.
l wonder what will happen now, though, in places like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia.
-Yugoslavia.
-Let's turn the volume down on this, okay? They'll be at it for hours.
lt's not that what they're saying isn't important, it's just.
This is my favorite place in New York City, no, in the whole universe the parts that l've seen, on a day like today.
A sunny winter's day, warm and cold at once.
The sky's a little hazy, so the sunlight has a physical presence, a character.
ln autumn, those trees across the lake are yellow and the sun strikes those most brilliantly against the blue of the sky.
That sad fall blue, those trees are more light than vegetation.
They're Yankee trees.
New England transplants.
They're barren now.
lt's January 1990.
l've been living with AlDS for five years.
That's six whole months longer than l lived with Louis.
amount of energy, whatever comes, what you have to admire in Gorbachev and the Russians is that they are making a leap into the unknown.
You can't wait around for theory.
The sprawl of life the weird.
-lnterconnectedness.
-Yes.
Maybe the sheer size of the terrain.
lt's all too much to be encompassed by a single theory now.
The world is faster than the mind.
That's what politics is, the world moving ahead.
And only in politics does the miraculous occur.
But that's a theory.
Yes, but you can't live in the world without an idea of the world.
But it's living that makes the ideas.
You can't wait for a theory, but you have to have a theory.
Go know, as my grandma would say.
This angel, she is my favorite angel.
l like them best when they are statuary.
They commemorate death, but suggest a world without dying.
They're made of the heaviest things on earth, stone and iron.
They weigh tons.
But their wings, they are engines and instruments of flight.
This is the angel Bethesda.
Louis will tell you her story.
She was this angel who landed in the Temple Square in Jerusalem in the days of the Second Temple.
Right in the middle of a working day, she descended and her foot touched earth, and where it did, a fountain shot up from the ground.
When the Romans destroyed the temple, the fountain of Bethesda ran dry.
Belize will tell you about the nature of the fountain before its flowing stopped.
lf anyone who was suffering in the body or the spirit walked through the waters of the fountain of Bethesda they would be healed washed clean of pain.
They know this 'cause l've told them many times.
Hannah here told it to me.
She also told me this: -When the Millennium comes.
-Not the year 2000 but -the capital-M Millennium.
-Right.
The Bethesda fountain will flow again.
And l told him that l would personally take him there to bathe.
We will all bathe ourselves clean.
Not literally in Jerusalem.
We don't want this to have Zionist implications.
But we do recognize the right of the State of lsrael to exist.
But the West Bank should be homeland to the Palestinians and the Golan Heights.
Not both the West Bank and the Golan Heights and no one supports Palestinians more than l do.
-You're right.
-l'm almost done.
The fountain's not flowing now.
They turn it off in the winter.
lce in the pipes.
But in the summer it's a sight to see.
l wanna be around to see it.
l plan to be.
l hope to be.
This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all.
And the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living and we're not going away.
We won't die secret deaths anymore.
The world only spins forward.
We will be citizens.
The time has come.
Bye now.
You are fabulous, each and every one.
l bless you.
More life.
The great work begins.
And don't, please, start another political discussion.
-That is not walking.
-l know.
We can agree about walking.