Faust/How I Rose

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FAUST/HOW I ROSE

John Jesurun

CHARACTERS LETTER #1

FAUST (FAUST ﬂying above burning city, into GRETCHEN (RHONDA speakerphon.) . . . and an occasional brain KINDERMOERD) cell, for what, I ask you, ? I ask you, for what? Hello? Hello . . . ? Patchouli . . . MEPHISTOPHELES Patchouli! Can you hear me? . . . I’m PHAEDRA, A Mouse, Friend, and dictating letter #1 . . . all right . . . ok . . . Conﬁdant to Faust (Phone goes dead.)

ABDULLÁ, Assistant to Mephistopheles Letter #1. Dear one, I am writing you from JUDGE an airplane above your country. The computer breakdown continues over most of BABY KINDERMOERD, Child of the hemisphere. The nation is in a coma. Gretchen We are just about over the border, I don’t know if you’ll ever get this. As we move away we see only smoke and light. It’s hard SCENES to tell if it is fog or exhaust or light from the city but I would hate to tell you that your 1. LETTER #1 city is destroyed while you are still in it. But 2. DEAR PHAEDRA then you may know that already. Then 3. THE FALL again, we both know its true and you are just a photograph in my hands now. And 4. DEFENSE MEETING your city is smoke and vapor. Our plane 5. THE TRIAL OF FAUST: RHONDA continues to circle, snifﬁng the tureens of KINDERMOERD silence that surround it. What happened to the hotel? Hello, can you hear me? Hello...? 6. PLOT A 7. MONOLOGO—ABDULLÁ 8. LA MUERTE DE PHAEDRA DEAR PHAEDRA 9. MEPHISTOPHELES AS (In FAUST’s ofﬁce; FAUST, MEPHI- GRETCHEN STOPHELES.) 10. HOW I ROSE FAUST: (Speaking into phone.) Rhonda, 11. DEAR GRETCHEN could you take this down for me? Dear

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 Phaedra, I’m sorry it’s all worked out this universe and the moon moving that changes way. I never imagined it would turn out this everything. And because they move they way. I never wanted it to turn out this way. make time move and it’s time moving that What could I do? How could I change it? I kills everything, that makes everything die. had no power, no control over anything. I ask you, what is this incessant need to move? MEPHISTOPHELES: It was Faust who in his uncertainty and namby pambyism FAUST: You’re moving right now. Don’t couldn’t decide how to save her. believe him, Phaedra. Poor Phaedra.

FAUST: Shut up asshole. And so, in that MEPHISTOPHELES: She can’t hear you. split second of time you were lost to me She’s a forever now. As if one move would forever. make them feel alive And realize the consequences of their movements. Do you think MEPHISTOPHELES: Strawberry ﬁelds for- Jupiter feels the consequences of its move- ever. ments? It’s just a dumb planet circulating as you, Phaedra, were a dumb mouse circulat- FAUST: And you became a strawberry mark ing as you my dear Gretchen are just a on the rug. That’s all that was left of you. fattened calf moving around the slaughter- house looking for a sledgehammer. No pain, MEPHISTOPHELES: I told her to stay no gain. Vade ad formicam, o piger, et hidden and not move, the fool. considera viaseius et disce sapientiam. Go to the ant, you sluggard and consider its FAUST: But you moved. And then the ways and learn wisdom. world moved. And threw you out of its orbit. FAUST: It’s this need to move that colors everything. That makes everything hurt. Is MEPHISTOPHELES: And then Faust that what it is? didn’t move. MEPHISTOPHELES: It causes everything FAUST: And then God and the Devil to pain and pale. It’s how the universe moved. I told you they always move to- works. Consider its ways and learn wisdom gether. But in different directions. Gretchen.

MEPHISTOPHELES: I did not move. It FAUST: Don’t tempt me. wasn’t me. You see, the devil never moves. Everything around me moves. That’s the MEPHISTOPHELES: Did someone men- problem. I stay constantly still. It’s every- tion the word temptation? In the beginning thing else that moves. Do you see me was the word. moving? I’m talking to you but do you see my mouth moving? No. Ask them at the FAUST: And the word was with you. Politburo cantina, they know me better than you do. MEPHISTOPHELES: Neither do I tempt nor am I tempted. As I was hurtling down FAUST: Liar. from heaven at twice the speed of speed, I said to me: NBever tempt or tempted be MEPHISTOPHELES: Never moved a mil- but it was too late. Never be a tempter nor limeter, never changed an ounce. It’s god tempted be. Never be tempted nor a tempter moving and everyone moving and the plants be. In those seconds I thought I too would and planets moving and all the trash in the be a strawberry mark on the face of the

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 universe. But my fate was different because MEPHISTOPHELES: Get over it. Phaedra I stayed still and didn’t move and I have did. stayed still for millennia. And that was what I was trying to tell that fucking mouse FAUST: Lift up your strawberry-sized heart before she moved and the world shifted. and sing.

FAUST: And you disappeared, Phaedra. MEPHISTOPHELES: Shut up about that But have you really disappeared? I hear that stupid mouse already. Do you want to get there are other parallel worlds. us thrown out of the delegation?

MEPHISTOPHELES: You see they never FAUST: And now your head is in the tell me anything because I stay the same. I clouds in a world which I will never be can only travel in my own universe. allowed to see.

FAUST: How the hell did we end up in the MEPHISTOPHELES: But I lived there same universe? once or I think I remember I did, didn’t I? Or am I making it up in my bitterness. And MEPHISTOPHELES:You’d think I would now I’m nothing but a three-legged knock- know about other universes or planes but I kneed dog knock, knock, knocking on don’t. heaven’s door. It’s a pity I never got to show her hell She would have loved it. FAUST: You do and you’re not telling me.

MEPHISTOPHELES: God never told me. THE FALL—OR HOW I FELL The jerk. He’s been hiding things from me the way you have. Don’t you know you can’t (Phaedra, Faust, Mephistopheles in a bar.) hide anything from me? FAUST: What are you? FAUST: Get that chocolate away from me. MEPHISTOPHELES: You mean how did I MEPHISTOPHELES: Humans are always fall? Boy was I taken for a ride. I was hurled, hiding things from each other. What is that? vomited straight out of heaven. Run out of Where does it come from? And don’t look town on a rail. at me. I always wanted to know everything. I didn’t want anything hidden. The more I PHAEDRA: When was that? knew the more I slipped from the grace of heaven. The darker and more daring I MEPHISTOPHELES: In mouse time about became. 666 billion light years ago. Or thereabouts.

FAUST: Phaedra, I’m sorry. There I go FAUST: What the hell did you do? talking about myself again and now you’re sad. But I’m trying to explain. Poor Phaedra, MEPHISTOPHELES: I had fallen in love it was all too much for you. I dragged you with another angel or something like that I into this. think. How the hell did I know it was illegal or unknown. Love didn’t exist then. I had to MEPHISTOPHELES: And now you’re a invent it and then pay the price. Then once stain on the rug. he threw me out I had to invent a place for him to put me. But nothing existed then, FAUST: He did this to you. Poor dear only love for god and him for us. But it Phaedra. wasn’t called love. I don’t know what it was

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 . . . obedience, glorifying. I don’t remember MEPHISTOPHELES: Oh great. Well, it’s ever loving god. Not in the way I loved the up to you. But that will change as you get to other angel. know me.

FAUST: Who was it? FAUST: Will you shut up for a minute?

MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s too long ago to MEPHISTOPHELES: Jeez. I’m just trying remember. You’d think I would remember to explain a few things . . . as I said, there the object and reason of my disastrous fate. was no love then. How do you like that? You invent love and get thrown out of heaven. So, ok it was a PHAEDRA: Yeah, right. Who let you in mistake. How did I know? He said it was here? my pride. What pride? There was no such thing as pride or love or sex or sexes. There MEPHISTOPHELES: There was no con- was just light. It was a big bore. Or words. cept of it And I brought this up to him. You know: “In the beginning was the word?” And he hurled me out, kicked me to the Not true. There was no word. No music, no curb. For the very idea. The very idea of any air, no waking, no sleeping, only god but kind of love between an anything and an everything did not become clear to me until anything. It was then that he got the idea of later. I wasn’t aware of all the other things creating humans and it was I, I who brought that did really in fact exist in the universe. the idea of love to them. And forever, since But that for some reason I was not allowed I have been twice damned for bringing the to partake. It’s taken all these years to see idea to light. Because god was jealous that it what’s really going on in the omniverse. was I who had the audacity to think of it. And all this time I haven’t touched one Were we supposed to wait another five grain of cocaine. million light years for someone to think of it? I was impatient. Was I supposed to sit PHAEDRA: What does that have to do around waiting for him to feel it? So I felt it with it? first and the universe moved. The galaxies shifted. Time began. Everything moved. Do MEPHISTOPHELES: Well, everyone you understand that it had never moved thinks I’m this evil, decadent, putrescent, once since it began. It was a frozen beauty. I drug fiend, evil queen, sex fiend. Look at just put a little flame under it. How was I to me. What do I look like to you? What form know it would melt into another reality? have I taken today? And he was pissed. It was me and only me doomed to feel it unrequited for so many PHAEDRA: They say you can take any centuries. And branded a devil for this? form you want. Why blame me for everything that went wrong? It was just something I felt. I just MEPHISTOPHELES: Wrong, I will tell felt it. It was out of order. Out of his order you this, little mouse. I take whatever form of things. Chaos! He said. It is chaos. You whoever sees me wants me to take. You have brought to my sterile white sheet of a create me in your own image. So, what do I universe my empty clean soundless universe look like? Am I ugly, repulsive, a troll, a chaos. You have intruded this mess into my cannibal? serenity. What a square! And so he hurled me. Blew me into a thousand pieces des- PHAEDRA: Quite beautiful, a surfer girl. tined to roam over trillions of years and places, the entire geography of his endless vision of galaxies and parallel miniverses. A

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 white sheet of whiteness. And don’t believe MEPHISTOPHELES: I’m not god. those stories about me carrying a host of rebel angels with me. They stayed where FAUST: Well, you sound just like him. they were. They were too afraid. I have no host of pussywhipped demons to help me. MEPHISTOPHELES: I’ll catch you later Everything I’ve done I’ve done alone. And there is no hell. Hell is where the heart is. FAUST: Get out.

PHAEDRA: Until I met you. It’s lying to MEPHISTOPHELES: Happy holocaust. us. Lying and tricking us.

FAUST: You’re tricking me, luring me into DEFENSE MEETING OR BABY, something. Luring me with bits of choco- YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR late and ice cream, cookies, riddles, spacious skies and valentines, candies of delight you (Driving in a car: PHAEDRA, MEPHI- bring me and expect me to eat. Well, I’m STOPHELES, GRETCHEN, FAUST, not hungry. Yesterday you told me there was ABDULLÁ, KLEIST; ABDULLÁ could be a no God. voice; images ﬂy by as they drive; MEPHI- STOPHELES drives.) MEPHISTOPHELES: Bunko, papist in- crediblism. We’ll talk about this later. Don’t MEPHISTOPHELES: . . . the devil will you have your meeting of the G7 now? take his own defense. Shall I tell you what I will happen? PHAEDRA: No, I won’t permit it. You will FAUST: Go ahead. be defended suitably

MEPHISTOPHELES: China will enter into MEPHISTOPHELES: By whom? a secret pact with Japan. To split control of the East. China will do it for greed and PHAEDRA: Faust. power but Japan will do it out of fear. It’s afraid of the future but China is drooling MEPHISTOPHELES: That hack, forget it. for it. Chomping at the bit. I’ll get sent to hell twice in a billennia.

FAUST: Why are you telling me this? FAUST: How am I supposed to defend the Devil? From and for what? And if I lose? MEPHISTOPHELES: Go ahead to your And where are my own lawyers? They should meeting and see. But remember what I told be here by now. you. FAUST: Let Lucifer defend him. FAUST: Get out of here. I never invited you into my dream head. PHAEDRA: I will defend him.

MEPHISTOPHELES: But I am your head. FAUST: Mephistopheles defended in the court of heaven by a mouse? Phaedra, I FAUST: Listen, surfer girl, don’t tempt me. don’t know where you get these ideas.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Have another piece PHAEDRA: From my friend Minnie. of candy.

FAUST: Oh shut up, God.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 MEPHISTOPHELES: You’re a snowﬂake than the message it contains. Abdullá, stop in an avalanche. I will not be defended by a that chanting! mouse. FAUST: Don’t believe him, Phaedra. It’s a PHAEDRA: I wish you’d make up your trick. He’s trying to mesmerize you. mind who you are so I as your lawyer can ﬁgure out what to do. GRETCHEN: Is there any Beaujolais left?

MEPHISTOPHELES: God will never for- MEPHISTOPHELES: It was gone an hour give me. ago.

PHAEDRA: Yes, he will. PHAEDRA: Where are we driving?

FAUST: (To MEPHISTOPHELES) Stay still MEPHISTOPHELES: The highway to hell. for a minute! Stop interpenetrating, kaleido- I wanted to show it to you before Phaedra scoping. gets into this any further. You’re free to leave. MEPHISTOPHELES: I always get blamed for everything. Can’t you see I’m a ﬁgment FAUST: It’s so beautiful. of your delirious dementia. A scrap of paper ﬂoating around in your tiny brain. I’m PHAEDRA: It’s awful. Full of ants. getting upset. I’m going to kick some ass. MEPHISTOPHELES: What is Kleist do- FAUST: Honey, don’t. ing in here? Get him out!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Abdullá, release the ABDULLÁ: I can’t stop him from entering plunderhogs. the proceedings.

ABDULLÁ: The American or the Japanese KLEIST: Get thee behind me, Satan! versions? FAUST: Heaven forbids it. (KLEIST disap- MEPHISTOPHELES: Both and all three, pears in a puff of smoke.) Philip Morris version as well. The way things are going they’re going to crucify me. PHAEDRA: Does anyone see a little dog running around? Sort of a poodle? PHAEDRA: Sunt qui dicessum animi a corpore putent esse mortem. There are those FAUST: I don’t see it. who think that the departure of the soul from the body is death. PHAEDRA: (Becoming frantic.) But I smell a poodle. Get it out of here! You know I’m MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah well, non is afraid of dogs! sum qui mortis periculo terrear. GRETCHEN: Oh, Phaedra, you are such a PHAEDRA: I am not one who would be paranoid. frightened by the danger of death. PHAEDRA: Look I’m just a mouse, all MEPHISTOPHELES: You should be. I right?! We don’t need any more hellhounds told you since Phaedra is an intellectual, the around. One of the hellhounds has escaped, form of her expression is more interesting I know it. Kill it please! (Sound of dog yelping. Car speeds up.)

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 MEPHISTOPHELES: There. It’s dead. GRETCHEN: Now it looks like Saint Teresa Satisﬁed? of Avila.

PHAEDRA: But it’s come back as a bull- PHAEDRA: Now she’s in Hiroshima. dog, a little one. Nagasaki.

FAUST: Why are you driving so fast. Slow ABDULLÁ: Help me Rhonda! down. You almost hit that woman. FAUST: Where is she? ABDULLÁ: Is it my body that has the constant inclination to sin? Is that it? PHAEDRA: (MEPHISTOPHELES has disappeared.) Who is driving this car? PHAEDRA: That was Rhonda we almost hit, wasn’t it? GRETCHEN: She’s a piece of Nagasaki ash. FAUST: My secretary, Rhonda Kinder- moerd? FAUST: Now he’s become Anne Frank, grab the steering wheel. (Gretchen grabs MEPHISTOPHELES: Rosenkranz and wheel.) Kindermoerd are dead I told you. MEPHISTOPHELES: Oh, now it’s the FAUST: That can’t be. Jews again.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Let it be. GRETCHEN: Are we back in Europe again? Lucifer, stop. PHAEDRA: You’re driving like a maniac, slow down! (Screaming out window.) Help FAUST: Jai guru deva, nothing’s gonna me Rhonda! change my world. (Images ﬂy by faster and faster.) MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s a distortion. MEPHISTOPHELES: (Back at the steering GRETCHEN: What does Lucy look like wheel, sings innocently.) Sounds of laughter, now? shades of earth are ringing through my open ears, inciting and inviting me. Limit- PHAEDRA: She’s not a dog anymore. less, undying love, which shines around me like a million suns it calls me on and on FAUST: (Car continues speeding up.) Help across the universe. me Rhonda, help me get her out of my heart. ABDULLÁ: Help me Rhonda. Rhonda where are you? MEPHISTOPHELES: Your heart is only a ﬁction. FAUST: Mrs. Kindermoerd? Is that you?

FAUST: Help me Rhonda, help, help me PHAEDRA: It’s me, Phaedra. You idiot! Rhonda. What does Lucy look like to you? MEPHISTOPHELES: (Referring to images.) PHAEDRA: Don’t look at it, it’s a contor- Twelve divisions of pansys sent up from tion. It’ s all in autoreverse. Retrograde. hell.

GRETCHEN: Not again.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 FAUST: (FAUST and PHAEDRA frantically ABDULLÁ: There are scorpions on the push computer/machine buttons.) Lucifer, stop windows! it, we’ve had enough. FAUST: I don’t see any. Lucy, where are ABDULLÁ: Help me Rhonda you?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Dame Edna and MEPHISTOPHELES: They’re always com- Milton Berle leading them into the mouth plaining about something. of hell. GRETCHEN: What are they proclaiming? ABDULLÁ: Help me, Rhonda, yeah. Help me get her out of my heart. PHAEDRA: What are they complaining about? FAUST: Gretchen? GRETCHEN: Oh, I have an earache now. GRETCHEN: It’s me. Caroline Kennedy. The altitude is so high. Where are we?

FAUST: Lucy, please, stop this summoning, PHAEDRA: Near the seventh door of the this haunted history house. This mystery seventh heaven. meat. Send the pansies back to hell. Please send them all back. FAUST: Nirvana? Cloud nine.

PHAEDRA: They’re retreating in the face PHAEDRA: But can you see the Buddha of the Baby Jesus. anywhere?

ABDULLÁ: What’s he doing here? ABDULLÁ: I’m about to puke again.

MEPHISTOPHELES: He just arrived on a GRETCHEN: Can we lower our altitude? surfboard from Pearl Harbor. MEPHISTOPHELES: We’re about as low ABDULLÁ: I wish they all could be Cali- as we can get. fornia girls. But they’ve turned into Nagasaki maidens. FAUST: What kind of plane is this?

FAUST: Shut it down. Shut it all down. GRETCHEN: Are we in a plane?

PHAEDRA: Download it somewhere else, MEPHISTOPHELES: I told you, this reck- Lucy, please! We’re only human. I can’t take less, delirious, romanticism would only lead this shit no more. to disaster. Look at what happened to Nico.

GRETCHEN: Phaedra, download it some- PHAEDRA: She’s ﬂying by now. where else, I told you! MEPHISTOPHELES: Put a brake on the PHAEDRA: Where? There’s no other place romantic urge for self-destruction. to put it. All the channels are full! FAUST: It’s bringing us down. GRETCHEN: A host of angelic choirs heavenly hosts complains, proclaims. GRETCHEN: But we’re so high.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 MEPHISTOPHELES: Pull the plug, end it PHAEDRA: We’re crashing into the inter- now. Stop this California dreaming. Pull national house of pancakes. the plug and light the fuse FAUST: That’s fine. I’ll take it. PHAEDRA: Is the dog still here? GRETCHEN: Lucifer, watch out for that GRETCHEN: Yes. vat of maple syrup! The tub of butter! (Car/ plane crash.) FAUST: Abdullá, retract the plunderhogs. Yank us back into reality. Critical mass. FAUST: That’s the last time I take this This is reality is it not? airline. You incompetent devil. No wonder you were ejected. I’ll be late for my meet- MEPHISTOPHELES: Don’t believe him. ing. You’re supposed to be helping me. Is He speaks with forked tongue. How are we this all you can think of to do with us? You doing? Can’t you get me a specific reading summon up all this hellfire, rush us through on anything? (Punching buttons frantically.) an amnesiac, bulemic billennia in two seconds flat and you expect me to eat pan- FAUST: Try this, try that. cakes?

PHAEDRA: What about this? GRETCHEN: I’m covered in confectionary sugar! FAUST: Brady bunch? Yes, anything to get us out of this upward romantic spiral to FAUST: Flap jacks. disaster. PHAEDRA: Esurientes implevit bonis,et PHAEDRA: It’s too intricate to unravel. divites dimisit inanes. He hath ﬁlled the hungry with good and the rich he hath sent FAUST: Well, push any button. The option away. button, push all the buttons. Spinoza, the great pyramid decoded. Anything! FAUST: Shut up, Phaedra! It’s so sweet and gooey. MEPHISTOPHELES: Fecit potentiam in brachio suo,dispersit superbos mente cordis MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s the leftovers from sui. the romanticism of the 18th Century. We hit the jackpot. Isn’t that what you wanted? GRETCHEN: He hath shown might in his arm, he hath scattered the proud in the FAUST: Get those ﬂapjacks off me. conceit of their hearts. MEPHISTOPHELES: Don’t destroy them. PHAEDRA: Deposuit potentes de sede. Et It’s so sad to watch a sweet thing die. To exaltavit humiles. He hath put down the catch a falling star. The dreams of Camelot, mighty from their seat and hath exalted the Tiepolo, Barbara Cartland. humble. FAUST: Crushed under a thousand pounds FAUST: Dirigatur domine, oratio mea Sicut of confectionary gunpowder and salpeter. A incensum in conspectu tuo. Let my prayer sugar bomb. ascend, oh lord. Like incense in they sight. I can’t control it Can we get anywhere near MEPHISTOPHELES: At least it’s curbed the meeting of the G7? I’m going to be late. your sexual appetites.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 GRETCHEN: As if I needed that anyway. FAUST: Fire up the honey wagon and let’s Faust, we haven’t fucked in weeks. blow this joint.

FAUST: Oh, don’t bring that up now in MEPHISTOPHELES: Mrs. Butterworth, front of the devil. we love you!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Perhaps I can help. GRETCHEN: Can’t we get to another time Your body’s urge for temptation . . . what zone anywhere? And please not the Reichstag has happened to it? A menopausal purge again. pause, I suppose. FAUST: And not that Detroit crack house GRETCHEN: Never will I ever give in to again either. it. I’d rather become an alcoholic. MEPHISTOPHELES: I can’t help it. The MEPHISTOPHELES: Cyberslut! Perhaps I galaxy has spun out of control. can help. GRETCHEN: Lucy, you are so incompe- FAUST: I told you I don’t want your help tent. No wonder you were thrown out of with this. And it’s none of your business. heaven.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Oh but it is. PHAEDRA: Blundering fool.

FAUST: What do you know. You’ve never MEPHISTOPHELES: No one ever appre- had sex in your trillion-year life. ciates me.

MEPHISTOPHELES: What an insult. FAUST: Stop whining. There’s nothing worse than a whining devil. PHAEDRA: So what would you know? PHAEDRA: The devil is supposed to be FAUST: Please, please, please! Can every- competent in his ministrations of ill intent one just shut up and get us out of this sugar and look at you. You’ve made a fool of shack? yourself. I’ve had my ﬁll of Hades.

GRETCHEN: The clientele is hideous. Ur- GRETCHEN: Don’t get him mad, he’ll chins of the lower subdivision of the middle unleash a legion of plunderhogs among class. you.

MEPHISTOPHELES: How can you be so FAUST: Don’t you get it? We are the callous? plunderhogs. We don’t need you to help us fuck up our lives. You are such a pain. Call FAUST: Summon up the garbage truck and the speaker of the house of pancakes. have them removed. MEPHISTOPHELES: Pain? You don’t MEPHISTOPHELES: Unfortunately we know the meaning of it. The ridiculous will have to escape by garbage truck. It’s our heights of pain one can achieve. I’ve seen it only way out. all. Well, I’ve seen enough and I don’t want to see no more. PHAEDRA: You are the most inept devil I have ever met. Where the hell did you come GRETCHEN: I’m being good and going to from? heaven

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 FAUST: It’s obsolete and non-existent. A FAUST: Where are you going? We’re upside pope dream. We’ve got to get out of here. down. Wasn’t that General Custer who just ﬂew by? PHAEDRA: Where to? MEPHISTOPHELES: I believe so. MEPHISTOPHELES: Kuala Lumpur? FAUST: What’s he doing down here? GRETCHEN: That’s ﬁne, I don’t want to see another pancake as long as I live. MEPHISTOPHELES: He loves the house of pancakes. MEPHISTOPHELES: That won’t be long. But are you really living, dear Gretchen? GRETCHEN: Well run him over, the son Can you prove that? of a bitch.

GRETCHEN: If this is living, smother me MEPHISTOPHELES: And there’s John in Aunt Jemima. Lennon and Cleopatra.

MEPHISTOPHELES: She’s in hell too. GRETCHEN: Oh Jesus!

FAUST: Will you two please stop arguing FAUST: Him too? If I ever get out of this so we can we get out of here! dream. . .

GRETCHEN: I have to pay the bill. MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s your dream.

FAUST: The cashier is dead. And I didn’t GRETCHEN: Full throttle, mouse! touch a grain of that mealy mush they serve here anyway. PHAEDRA: Swing low, sweet charity!

PHAEDRA: Then pump the jam and let’s MEPHISTOPHELES: Party down, sister! get out of here! Floor it! PHAEDRA: Some party. FAUST: Do we have any gas left? FAUST: Can we get a printout an itinerary, MEPHISTOPHELES: Accelerate! (They can I get a witness? Can I get a witness?! blast off violently.) (Another violent acceleration.)

FAUST: Women! THE TRIAL OF RHONDA MEPHISTOPHELES: Compare, despair. GRETCHEN KINDERMOERD How I ever got stuck with this bunch of bitching losers I’ll never know. (FAUST, PHAEDRA, JUDGE, MEPHISTO, GRETCHEN/RHONDA, BABY KINDER- PHAEDRA: Clam up, will you, I’m trying MOERD; courtroom inside a cruise ship.) to navigate. JUDGE: The question of Rhonda Kinder- GRETCHEN: I don’t think the mouse moerd. Do we have the proper documents? should be driving. MEPHISTOPHELES: We have here this signed testimony from you yourself, Miss Kindermoerd.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 FAUST: (Indecisive throughout scene.) It was JUDGE: We all know who she is. Get to drug induced. And so it cannot be admitted the point. as evidence. MEPHISTOPHELES: Did you or did you MEPHISTOPHELES: I’ll read it anyway. not kill your baby? The defendant was asked, “Why did you wait so long to confess?” She replied, “I FAUST: We’ll get to that later. killed the kid I’m glad I did.” She was then asked, “Was it painful?” She replied, “It was GRETCHEN: Let’s get to it now. not at all painful. I was overjoyed to do it! I was haunted, taunted by this baby. This MEPHISTOPHELES: All right, this secret prickly lily in me. I wanted to wilt it. So I thing you did. Wasn’t it because of your kilt it. I was glad I willed it. Spilt its blood shame of having conceived out of wedlock? wherever I could. Redeemed it. Creamed it. Turned the spud into a dud. FAUST: It was a rape.

JUDGE: Devil, what have you to say about MEPHISTOPHELES: That has not been this? proven.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Obviously internal PHAEDRA: There never was a baby. self-plunder and mutilation of the accused. JUDGE: First there is a baby then there is FAUST: You certainly cannot approve. no baby then there is. Which one is it?

MEPHISTOPHELES: I do approve most MEPHISTOPHELES: Whether it was or assuredly. Hideous woman, be gone. wasn’t, it still was alive in you when you chose to end its life. JUDGE: Has the jury been selected? PHAEDRA: Can we go back a bit? PHAEDRA: It’s a lie. JUDGE: Rhonda, respond. MEPHISTOPHELES: Yes. GRETCHEN: When I was raped I was PHAEDRA: I would first like to mention killed inside and so I wanted death for to the jury the difficulty, the . . . sensitivity death. Pain for pain. Dead from undead. I of this case . . . . prayed not to conceive. I became opiated with sadness and this incandescent bag of MEPHISTOPHELES: It isn’t difficult, life inside me. I could feel it moving. Phaedra. It’s a murder isn’t it? MEPHISTOPHELES: That’s nice dear, and JUDGE: We are not here to decide what it it was then you killed it. is or isn’t but if it happened. So let’s get moving. I have a tea party to go to and I’d GRETCHEN: Shut up. Every day I waited like to finish this by the end of the next for that baby to be born. century. Will the defense begin? MEPHISTOPHELES: You wanted it to be FAUST: We are here to decide if the defen- born? dant Rhonda Kindermoerd murdered her own child. You are Rhonda Kindermoerd? GRETCHEN: I waited and waited. And it did not happen and it did not happen and

JESURUN / Faust/How I Rose ᭿ 109

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 it did not happen. So I waited again. Then PHAEDRA: Do you regret it? after about ten months I didn’t feel it moving any more. I was afraid. That night, GRETCHEN: No. What for? I was lying on my side. I felt something go away from me. A magic feeling. Out of me. MEPHISTOPHELES: So you denied it life. Yanked it. Pulled its plug. JUDGE: Something? What something? GRETCHEN: But I couldn’t keep it inside GRETCHEN: It stopped being something. me. It was killing me; the petriﬁcation was It was only a remnant of a remnant of growing inside me. something. I heard a small metallic sigh. I felt it wisp out of my body. The tiniest MEPHISTOPHELES: I see. It was growing sound. It slipped out and away from me. It but it wasn’t alive. You gave it a short cut to was gone. I felt my stomach and it was just heaven. How kind. a lump, a bump. It wasn’t sweet and molten like it was before. It was like a rock. I GRETCHEN: Why should it be like us listened. Stillness. Then I knew it was gone. and have to travel the long and winding I lay there holding my belly the whole night road to hell? waiting for a scintilla of warmth to return to the urn. But the sunrise came and it never MEPHISTOPHELES: I wouldn’t know appeared. “What is happening to me?” I about that. thought. I held my belly every night all through the night waiting to see. Waiting PHAEDRA: How did you do it? for my hands to feel warm again but I knew it was gone. It had moved into the night air. GRETCHEN: I sat in a tepid bath of Floating around somewhere above me. But chamomile manzanilla for three days and I never felt it in me again. But I waited and after the third day it was released. It was waited for eight more months. And still small, beautiful. A magenta ball. Soft as a nothing. I walked around in this swollen pillow. condition. Waiting for the child to come back or at least for birth pangs to come. FAUST: Did the pillow have a face? Then one night I knew if I didn’t get rid of it, it would stay in me forever. GRETCHEN: There were no features. It was a ball. JUDGE: You’re telling me you waited eighteen months to deliver the child? FAUST: Did you take it to a priest?

GRETCHEN: I told you it wasn’t a child. GRETCHEN: He wouldn’t have believed But I had to release it. It was petrifying in me. there. It was going stay inside me forever. So I had to seduce this formlessness out of me. MEPHISTOPHELES: Was it alive? How would you like that? Having your child buried inside you. Till the day you GRETCHEN: No. died? Carrying it around in an endless pregnancy? I couldn’t live like that. MEPHISTOPHELES: Was it alive?

FAUST: You are telling me it was dead GRETCHEN: No. already and so you set it free. MEPHISTOPHELES: It was pugnosed, GRETCHEN: Yes. ratchetfaced, a tortellini, wasn’t it?! It was

110 ᭿ PAJ 78

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 ugly and you drowned it in the manzanilla, GRETCHEN: No it was painless, sad, it didn’t you?! ﬂoated out of me in a tiny universe of bubbles. There was no blood. GRETCHEN: No MEPHISTOPHELES: What did you do MEPHISTOPHELES: You killed it. with it?

GRETCHEN: Why would I kill it if it was GRETCHEN: I made a small raft and set it already dead? adrift down the river. A seagull ate it. (MEPHISTOPHELES slaps her. GRETCHEN JUDGE: You tell us. slaps MEPHISTOPHELES.)

MEPHISTOPHELES: Or you thought it MEPHISTOPHELES: My god, do you was dead and you let it die. Would you say hear this woman? She is in the splendorous that you let it die? rapture of some kind of amniotic dementia. I call for a recess. She has clearly mated with GRETCHEN: Why would I let die if it was some kind of animal and this is the result. already dead? Her explanation is repulsive. Chloroform her. MEPHISTOPHELES: You wanted it dead so you killed it. You were afraid of it. You GRETCHEN: I set it adrift and I said good thought it was an evil thing so you killed it. bye. You were afraid, admit it. I wasn’t afraid. I knew it was dead. It didn’t have a face or MEPHISTOPHELES: It hates you for what arms or legs. I was afraid of what the you did to it. You know that. authorities might do to me if they saw it. I was afraid of them. PHAEDRA: It was an act of mercy.

FAUST: And of God. MEPHISTOPHELES: To something dead?

GRETCHEN: Not of God. GRETCHEN: Sometimes even dead things need a bit of mercy. MEPHISTOPHELES: Not of god? MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah, right. Poor GRETCHEN: This magenta ball was God’s child, it was headed for trouble right from creation. He made it. the start. There was no way out of it.

MEPHISTOPHELES: You hated it because FAUST: Are you suffering? it was a rape child. GRETCHEN: No GRETCHEN: No, I told you it didn’t even have a face. MEPHISTOPHELES: Why didn’t you kill yourself? PHAEDRA: Must we continue with this interrogatory? GRETCHEN: I thought I’d let you do it.

JUDGE: Yes. MEPHISTOPHELES: And you, Faust, you’re not saying much. Isn’t it true that FAUST: Did it hurt? even though you defend this woman, you don’t believe she’s innocent? You know she’s

JESURUN / Faust/How I Rose ᭿ 111

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 guilty. You don’t even believe the story PHAEDRA: Who raped you? about the ball and the raft. You do it because you love her even against your own MEPHISTOPHELES: The rape was never common sense. Your ﬂesh is churning in veriﬁed. She’s lying. her direction. JUDGE: The rapist could testify. Call in FAUST: I will not be tried here. the rapist.

MEPHISTOPHELES: And the ﬂesh was MEPHISTOPHELES: Why should we be- made word and so here you are. lieve the testimony of a rapist and then go on to believe the testimony of a child PHAEDRA: And what is that word? murderer? But perhaps their lies will con- verge the way they did. And how do we MEPHISTOPHELES: Two words. The know she didn’t have relations with some- baby’s name. one else in the time between?

PHAEDRA: No name. It was not given a FAUST: Hogwash. name. JUDGE: Doctor? FAUST: I resent his hogmawed implica- tion. PHAEDRA: No way to tell.

JUDGE: (Ignoring FAUST.) From here on it GRETCHEN: You have to believe me. will be referred to as Baby Kindermoerd. Boy or girl? JUDGE: We can’t believe you. Do you have any evidence, a video or CD-ROM of the PHAEDRA: Not identiﬁed. Not noted in rape? the ofﬁcial investigation testimony confes- sion. GRETCHEN: No.

JUDGE: (To GRETCHEN.) Do you know? PHAEDRA: Who was the rapist? Can you identify him? Is he here in this room? GRETCHEN: No. GRETCHEN: He is. PHAEDRA: Didn’t you check? JUDGE: Identify him. GRETCHEN: I tried but I couldn’t tell. It was too tender, too smooth, too beautiful. GRETCHEN: I don’t dare. Too sad. I was raped eighteen months before. JUDGE: You must.

PHAEDRA: It’s true. FAUST: This is not a rape trial. It is a trial for infanticide. MEPHISTOPHELES: No it’s not. PHAEDRA: We’ve reached an impasse. PHAEDRA: Shall we enter it as an embryo petriﬁed? FAUST: Shall we break for lunch?

MEPHISTOPHELES: The transubstantia- MEPHISTOPHELES: I’m on a roll, I’m tion is unsubstantiated. It cannot be veriﬁed. not going to stop now!

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 FAUST: I’m hungry! JUDGE: Miss Kindermoerd, speak to your dead child, your victim. MEPHISTOPHELES: Eat me! I’m on a roll! MEPHISTOPHELES: Your strangulated victim. PHAEDRA: This is breaking down. GRETCHEN: I did not kill my baby. Baby JUDGE: Can you or will you, or will you spirit, speak. not identify the fucking rapist present in this room? MEPHISTOPHELES: That it died inside cannot be certiﬁed. FAUST: This is not a rape trial. FAUST: You loved your baby? MEPHISTOPHELES: I’ll ask you one more time. Who is the father of Baby Kinder- GRETCHEN: I loved my baby even though moerd? it was not born.

JUDGE: Answer. Your baby love demands MEPHISTOPHELES: But if you loved it, it. why did you kill it?

GRETCHEN: I’m afraid of retribution. GRETCHEN: If I killed it I killed it because I loved it. Ask it. JUDGE: Captain of the defense, you’re keeping me in suspense. Do you know? MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah, right. Go ﬁgure. FAUST: She never told me. FAUST: Baby Kindermoerd, do you refuse GRETCHEN: Yes I did. to speak?

JUDGE: Then you are instructed by the MEPHISTOPHELES: How can it speak? court to tell us. She says it was never born.

GRETCHEN: No. PHAEDRA: The spirit can speak.

JUDGE: Contempt! Summon the spirit of FAUST: Baby Kindermoerd, will you tell Baby Kindermoerd to tell us. Dead Baby this court of God how you died? Do you Kindermoerd, speak or forever hold your know? Speak! umbilical cord. MEPHISTOPHELES: First you ask us to MEPHISTOPHELES: Which, I might add, believe a baby killer, then a rapist, and now it was strangled with. a dead child. What is this?

JUDGE: Not relevant. PHAEDRA: You wanted evidence, here it is. Are you afraid of the spirit baby? MEPHISTOPHELES: Baby Kindermoerd, speak! MEPHISTOPHELES: Hell no.

PHAEDRA: Can’t you see it’s petriﬁed. PHAEDRA: Yes you are.

JESURUN / Faust/How I Rose ᭿ 113

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 MEPHISTOPHELES: How can I be afraid JUDGE: Dissect it. of it? I can’t even see it. Where is it? MEPHISTOPHELES: Inspect it? I can’t JUDGE: Will the baby testify against its even see it. mother? Baby Kindermoerd versus Mama Kindermoerd. The Baby Kindermoerd spirit GRETCHEN: Don’t touch it. refuses to speak. How can we have a court in which everyone is too petriﬁed to testify? JUDGE: The embryo must speak.

MEPHISTOPHELES: I call for a sidebar, a PHAEDRA: It’s non-verbal, perhaps it can recess. (Touches GRETCHEN’s arm.) make a sign.

GRETCHEN: Don’t touch me. MEPHISTOPHELES: I will not accept the testimony of an ovum in spoken or sign FAUST: Don’t touch her. language.

PHAEDRA: Baby sprit, speak. FAUST: It’s clearly more than an egg and you know it. It is a child of God. GRETCHEN: It’s terriﬁed, petriﬁed, speech- less. Let it think. MEPHISTOPHELES: Then where the hell is it? PHAEDRA: What if it lies to us? JUDGE: I have to admit its hardly more FAUST: Everyone else has. Why should we than a scintillating, scintilla of evidence. It’s expect it to tell the truth? hardly alive.

MEPHISTOPHELES: You are the one who MEPHISTOPHELES: But where is it? is lying. Where do you see the damn thing?

FAUST: I am not on trial here. GRETCHEN: My baby is not a damn thing. JUDGE: We don’t even know who the rapist is yet. FAUST: Can we prove that it was ever alive?

FAUST: This is not a rape trial. It is a GRETCHEN: There it is. I can feel its murder trial. Did the devil seduce or induce presence. Can you? you to kill your baby? Is that it? MEPHISTOPHELES: Where? I don’t feel MEPHISTOPHELES: I did not. anything. This is witchcraft.

PHAEDRA: No one is asking you, Lucifer. PHAEDRA: I can sense it.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Do we have to sit FAUST: Where has it been all this time? here and listen to her tales from the crypt? PHAEDRA: Waiting its time out in a boot FAUST: How do we know that this Baby camp for unborn children. Kindermoerd is not a demon, a nymph, a donkey child. Inspect it. JUDGE: A poor tragic freak.

FAUST: Don’t call me that.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 JUDGE: I was referring to Baby Kinder- MEPHISTOPHELES: Go back where you moerd. came from!

MEPHISTOPHELES: I will not stand here FAUST: It’s not moving. and listen to the defense spin its supernatu- ral, insane brand of intellectual pedophila. PHAEDRA: Listen kid, get the hell out of here! PHAEDRA: Don’t get your tail in a knot, Lucifer. MEPHISTOPHELES: But where is it?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Perhaps it was killed JUDGE: I command you to leave this court by an act of god. Did anyone ever think of that? PHAEDRA: It’s not leaving.

FAUST: To whom does its soul belong? Did JUDGE: Then pick it up and put it outside. it enter the kingdom of God or is it here by request of Satan? PHAEDRA: Hell, no. I’m not going to touch that thing. PHAEDRA: Kewpie doll, to whom does your soul belong? To the devil or God? Or MEPHISTOPHELES: What thing? Where somewhere in between? Is it consumed by is it? hate or love? JUDGE: Will someone please remove the FAUST: It’s seething at us. Baby Kinder- baby? Baby Kindermoerd, you are disrupt- moerd, speak please. Where have you come ing this court. I will have to declare you in from? contempt of court if you do not leave.

JUDGE: Are you an angel? Animal, veg- FAUST: Baby Kindermoerd spirit, please, etable, or mineral? Seraphim, cherubim, or so we can continue with the proceedings archangel? Have you seen paradise? It won’t against your mother. speak. Throw it out of the court! GRETCHEN: Baby, please speak. Tell them MEPHISTOPHELES: Where the hell is it? I didn’t kill you. Tell them. I still don’t see it! BABY KINDERMOERD: Di te eradicent JUDGE: Nameless Baby Kindermoerd, you qui me hinc estrudis! May the gods destroy are commanded to go back from whence you who are pushing me from here! you came. JUDGE: Behold, it speaks! MEPHISTOPHELES: After you left the womb of your hideous mother. MEPHISTOPHELES: Di omen avertant! May the gods avert the omen! PHAEDRA: I don’t know, maybe they called up the wrong one. Are you sure you are PHAEDRA: What? Baby Kindermoerd? And not some one else . . . Rosemary’s baby? MEPHISTOPHELES: Absit omen! May the omen be invalid! FAUST: Don’t get upset. JUDGE: Have you seen paradise? What do you have to say to us? How were you born?

JESURUN / Faust/How I Rose ᭿ 115

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 How did you die? Where are you? Who is MEPHISTOPHELES: You’re going to be- the father? Was it a rape? lieve this phantom, this spook? In a court of law you’re going to accept the testimony of BABY KINDERMOERD: Hold on, will a ghost? Judge, have you lost your mind? you! JUDGE: Satan please, try to calm down. FAUST: None respondebis? Will you reply? Baby Kindermoerd. Do you swear on the face of God that this is the truth. JUDGE: What are you? MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s a spook, I saw it BABY KINDERMOERD: I am Baby Kin- in hell once. dermoerd. BABY KINDERMOERD: You will eat your MEPHISTOPHELES: Wherefore art thou? words with your own pitchfork. (Poof! Baby Kindermoerd disappears.) FAUST: None respondebis? Tell us what happened. How did it begin? JUDGE: The verdict is clear from the testimony of Baby Kindermoerd. Rhonda BABY KINDERMOERD: I was formed Kindermoerd, you are released. inside my mother. I was in there for a lifetime. But one day I began slowly, slowly, MEPHISTOPHELES: Shit! (LUCIFER dis- slowly, to feel a chilly cloud around me. I appears. Poof.) tried to ﬁght it but I couldn’t. Then I knew there just ain’t no way. Even at that early time Satan tried to enter my soul in a silver PLOT A sliver of doubt. He tried to tell me it was my mother who had done this to me. He tried (MEPHISTOHELES and JUDGE, secret to tell me he would let me live if he could meeting in porno theatre.) have my mother’s soul. He said he was cupid but I knew he was darkness and I spat JUDGE: The hotel is destroyed and all the him out. Americans in it are dead.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Invitro putrefacta! MEPHISTOPHELES: And Faust? Don’t listen to it. I never said such a thing. JUDGE: Who cares? BABY KINDERMOERD: Tiny bit by tiny bit. Day by day I chilled up inside my MEPHISTOPHELES: On his behalf, we’ve mother. Then it happened. A sparkling killed the fattened calf. Spun into motion a feeling and one night I passed through her rotisserie of children. A conundrum of lost skin in a vapor of marzipan perfume. A opportunities, a chat room of evil queens. magenta light went out, a motor stopped. Calmness. Stillness. Not the turbulent ugli- JUDGE: So now what? ness you’re looking for. I passed from deep inside her into deep outside her. I was gone MEPHISTOPHELES: I don’t know. We long before the chamomile bath. No mur- should just pack up and leave. der. No boy or girl. No dead or alive, no ghost. No shape, no form, no taste. No JUDGE: And go to the next hotel and blow color. A ﬂoating calm passed through me. it up. Rosenkranz and Kindermoerd have

116 ᭿ PAJ 78

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 escaped. I checked all the bone fragments JUDGE: It means were in trouble. An arrest and they are not among them. has been made, they’ve inﬁltrated the chicken shack. Faust’s staff has been abducted by its MEPHISTOPHELES: Check them again. own war wounded abductee support group.

JUDGE: I have checked and checked every MEPHISTOPHELES: Damn that mouse! tooth, done DNA tests on every scrap of It’s her fault. She is wreaking all this anti- brain I could ﬁnd, every vaporized vapor. havoc. Doesn’t she have any code of ethics? There is nothing to indicate their deaths. I thought we killed her with the cheese They’ve escaped. bomb. It was fool proof.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Where is Faust? JUDGE: She escaped on a tidal wave of chèvre. When the hotel caved, a river of JUDGE: In the acid house, sipping bella- revolting molten Gruyere engulfed the town. donna. The cheese melted all over the street for miles. God what a mess. The bomb was a MEPHISTOPHELES: Are they or are they bomb. not alive? MEPHISTOPHELES: Please don’t say that JUDGE: Yes. word “god.” Damn that rat. She always escapes us. I told you the tuna melt was the MEPHISTOPHELES: I won’t take yes for sure way to kill her. an answer. And Gandhi? JUDGE: It’s too late now. She’s across the JUDGE: That seditious lawyer and half- border and the federales have lost her trail. naked fakir? MEPHISTOPHELES: And what’s the news MEPHISTOPHELES: Where is he? from the federation?

JUDGE: Escaped half-naked from the hotel. JUDGE: England is bankrupt. Europe is dead and America will be forced to scavenge MEPHISTOPHELES: Then we’ve failed. the stinking carcass of Europe again. For the ﬁrst time we got Gandhi, Rosen- kranz, and Kindermoerd in the same hotel, MEPHISTOPHELES: And the Stalinistas? and they’ve escaped their own executions. JUDGE: Setting up shop in Arizona. JUDGE: They’re only low level diplomats anyway. Phaedra left a note for Faust. MEPHISTOPHELES: Catastróphe, cata- stróphe, grande catastróphe. And now that MEPHISTOPHELES: Read it. mouse is loose to surface as my own private antichrist. JUDGE: It reads: In terror times the shit beast shall wake. And will attempt your JUDGE: Half a million mouse traps we set heart to take. The tender tot in his cradle along the border haven’t stopped her. shall quake. And cause the beast on a stake to bake. MEPHISTOPHELES: I told you that Maginot Line junk never works. MEPHISTOPHELES: What the hell does that mean? JUDGE: Then we better get the hell out of here.

JESURUN / Faust/How I Rose ᭿ 117

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 MEPHISTOPHELES: What about the talk to. What the hell do you want from pope? He told us he would back us. me? Do you want Gretchen?

JUDGE: He’s ﬂed to the north. JUDGE: No

MEPHISTOPHELES: That pope is such a MEPHISTOPHELES: Why not? diva. Well, he’s always wanted to be a diva and now he is one so let be one and let him JUDGE: I don’t like her and she doesn’t like die as one if he wants. me.

JUDGE: Lets blow up the next hotel. MEPHISTOPHELES: I can make her like you. MEPHISTOPHELES: Not another one. JUDGE: That’s no good, I’m gay. JUDGE: I gave you my soul. What else do you want? MEPHISTOPHELES: You never told me that. I’ll make you straight. MEPHISTOPHELES: I don’t want your crummy soul. JUDGE: Let’s blow up the next hotel.

JUDGE: Why not? MEPHISTOPHELES: I will not obliterate another Holiday Inn. MEPHISTOPHELES: I want Faust’s soul. JUDGE: A Hilton then. JUDGE: What’s so great about his soul? MEPHISTOPHELES: You are driving me MEPHISTOPHELES: I want it because I crazy. Why don’t you want something nice can’t get it. and simple like a fashion empire or a record company? I’ve done wonders for Madonna. JUDGE: Oh, we can get it. This is too degrading, even for me. I have to get out of this business. You people are just MEPHISTOPHELES: Get me his soul and pathetic. You want the stupidest things. I’ll give you back yours. What are you some kind of stupid nut? Don’t you understand this is a big bore for JUDGE: We had a deal. me?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Well, it’s cancelled. JUDGE: Be that as it may, I want to blow up another hotel. JUDGE: After all this wretchedness you’ve given me and you don’t want my soul? MEPHISTOPHELES: All right. I’ m start- ing to see that this isn’t so much fun. There’s MEPHISTOPHELES: No, I don’t. And something weird about it. your wretchedness was yours to begin with. JUDGE: What’s weird about it? JUDGE: If I get you his soul, you have to take mine too. MEPHISTOPHELES: Forget it. Anyway, let’s get going, where was that hotel? MEPHISTOPHELES: I don’t want you hanging around hell. I want someone I can

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 MONOLOGO children and aborted fetuses. My children would always always be protected by my ABDULLÁ: I am Abdullá. The king of lost compassion. I was never far away from souls. Always becoming, never to become. them even the most lost and forgotten ones. And I don’t even know what I am or where I thought that would set me free. But for I came from or where I’m going. I’m lost, another hundred years I was a monkey perdido, olvidado. An afterthought. Time amulet on the breast of a nun. Why? I go has swallowed me. A tiny white hole was from soul to soul to soul buried in the punched in the universe and I went through universe but why? My destiny is an endless it and I can’t ﬁnd my way back. A speck that destiny of endless reincarnation. Open up casts no shadow, a ghost of a ghost of a the gates and let me out of here! Teach me ghost. One of the eternal mutilati in the the art of dying. All I want is my soul free, eternal negro telefono night. Listen to me my soul free, my soul free. My soul free, because in this second I am the rabid Lord. How much longer? Lord, why hast doubting molecule. The electrocuted gui- thou forsaken me? All I want is my soul tarist, the murdered wife, the drowned poet, free. My soul free, my soul free. Can you the bitter old man, the unborn baby, the hear me? Can you hear me? killing virus, the soul of a ﬂea, the very soul of suicide. Every thing that has ever lived but doesn’t know why. All I want is my soul LA MUERTE DE PHAEDRA free, my soul free, my soul free. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? May your hopes (PHAEDRA and MEPHISTOPHELES fall down. And may your dreams come alone.) undone. I wish all your architecture to fall down. I wish for time to be ripped apart. MEPHISTOPHELES: Hello Phaedra. How May lightning strike you. I wish that your are you? world wash away in a drop of water. I wish that all your good work go bad. I wish all PHAEDRA: Fine. your children to die before they live. I wish a star to fall down upon your head. I wish MEPHISTOPHELES: Sit down. you to die in your bed. I wish all bad things upon you. May your penthouse come tum- PHAEDRA: No. bling down! Forgive me, I’ve slipped again. But it is all the invention of my own MEPHISTOPHELES: Sit down. relentless imagination. I’ve been born and died uncontrollably. A million times. Over PHAEDRA: No. and over and over again and I’m tired. Birth after birth, Death after death after death. MEPHISTOPHELES: Then stand. Come Life after death after life after death. Mov- here. ing further from and closer to heaven at the same time. Higher and higher, lower and PHAEDRA: No. lower. What am I doing wrong? Why must I circulate uncontrollably over and over MEPHISTOPHELES: Picture yourself on again. Don’t mind me. I can’t help myself a boat on a river. and no one can help me. I can only help myself but I can’t. Wandering around until I PHAEDRA: Where is everyone? learn how to die once and for all. Why hast thou forsaken me lord, how many times? MEPHISTOPHELES: They’re late. With For several hundred years I found myself tangerine trees and marmalade skies. widely worshipped as a protector of ailing

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 PHAEDRA: No thank you. MEPHISTOPHELES: Sing with me.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Sing, dear. PHAEDRA: How long have I been here?

PHAEDRA: No. MEPHISTOPHELES: All afternoon. You’ve been ill. MEPHISTOPHELES: Sing with me, Phaedra. PHAEDRA: I just got here. I have to go.

PHAEDRA: No. MEPHISTOPHELES: Nothing’s going to change your world. (Her hand on PHAEDRA’s MEPHISTOPHELES: Let me take you forehead again.) down, cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields. PHAEDRA: Don’t touch me. PHAEDRA: Nothing is real. MEPHISTOPHELES: Picture yourself on MEPHISTOPHELES: That’s it. a boat on a river. (Her hand gently covers PHAEDRA’s face.) PHAEDRA: No. PHAEDRA: Am I dying? MEPHISTOPHELES: What’s wrong? MEPHISTOPHELES: Sing, Phaedra. Say PHAEDRA: I have to leave. goodnight, Phaedra.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Living is easy with PHAEDRA: I’m dying, aren’t I? eyes closed. MEPHISTOPHELES: No, you’re not. PHAEDRA: Misunderstanding everything you see. PHAEDRA: Yes, I am.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Don’t you like the MEPHISTOPHELES: Yes, you are. song? I thought you liked the Beatles. Your heart is beating fast. PHAEDRA: Why?

PHAEDRA: No, it’s not. MEPHISTOPHELES: Phaedra? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Picture yourself MEPHISTOPHELES: Relax. (Puts her hand in a boat on a river. Somebody calls you, on PHAEDRA’s forehead.) you answer quite slowly. A girl with kalei- doscope eyes. What do you see? PHAEDRA: It’s all right. PHAEDRA: Lucy. . . MEPHISTOPHELES: No, it’s not. MEPHISTOPHELES: in the sky? PHAEDRA: Don’t touch me. PHAEDRA: . . . with diamonds. I smell MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s all right. Let me vinegar. feel your head. You have a fever. MEPHISTOPHELES: Penny Lane is in PHAEDRA: Don’t touch me. your ears and in your eyes. Don’t move, Phaedra. (MEPHISTOPHELES keeps her

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 hand over PHAEDRA’s mouth and nose for MEPHISTOPHELES: I made it up the rest of the scene.) FAUST: What are you talking about? The PHAEDRA: With tangerine trees. baby died by itself inside you.

MEPHISTOPHELES: That’s right, Phaedra. MEPHISTOPHELES: I made it up. Sing. Don’t move. You’re moving, Phaedra. Sing with me, Phaedra. FAUST: That’s not what the baby said.

PHAEDRA: Help me, Faust. MEPHISTOPHELES: That’s what I mean, the stories really dovetailed. I had nothing MEPHISTOPHELES: Shall we pray, to do with the baby Kindermoerd story. I Phaedra? Phaedra dear, you’re not singing. never thought it was a ghost. Sing now, dear. Phaedra? Phaedra? Can you hear me? Say goodnight, Phaedra. Phaedra, FAUST: It was a ghost. say goodnight. Come on, Phaedra, sing now. (singing) Let me take you down ’cause MEPHISTOPHELES: I thought you I’m going to Strawberry Fields forever. Sing brought in some actor. now. Phaedra? Come on now, dear. Let me take you down. (MEPHISTOPHELES keeps FAUST: What actor? her hand over PHEADRA’s mouth for ten seconds of silence.) MEPHISTOPHELES: Some child actor to be the baby.

MEPHISTOPHELES AS FAUST: What happened to your baby? GRETCHEN MEPHISTOPHELES: You know. I killed (FAUST and MEPHISTIOPHELES) it.

FAUST: Who is it? FAUST: What?

MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s me, Gretchen. I MEPHISTOPHELES: I hated that baby. I wanted to thank you for you getting me off didn’t want it. the hook. FAUST: I thought it was a rape. FAUST: Off what hook? MEPHISTOPHELES: I was never raped. I MEPHISTOPHELES: For the murder. The think it was your baby. Kindermoerd mess. You did such a great job. Baby gag worked great FAUST: What are you talking about?

FAUST: It wasn’t a gag. MEPHISTOPHELES: Well, you didn’t want it did you? MEPHISTOPHELES: It wasn’t? FAUST: What are you talking about? FAUST: It wasn’t your baby? MEPHISTOPHELES: I thought you knew. MEPHISTOPHELES: Hell no. Didn’t Phaedra tell you? That little rat. She’s so devious. Look, I drowned the baby. The FAUST: The ball, the manzanilla bath? rest was made up. I didn’t want that kid. I

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 hate kids. What do I want a kid for? It MEPHISTOPHELES: Would you like a would have ruined my life. And you would piece of chocolate? have had to pay child support. We really pulled one over on them. FAUST: I hate you.

FAUST: I don’t like this story. MEPHISTOPHELES: Rock my world. Now you hate me. You’ll change your mind. MEPHISTOPHELES: I thought you would You’re covered with qvetchmarks. be happy. FAUST: You’ve turned into some diseased FAUST: Why? mad cow. How could you do this?

MEPHISTOPHELES: What do you care? MEPHISTOPHELES: I thought I knew you. FAUST: What are you talking about? I should have let you be convicted. Why did FAUST: I thought you knew me. you twist this around? MEPHISTOPHELES: You are a mad cow. MEPHISTOPHELES: That’s all right, Faust. You have the absence of skeptical thinking You did the best you could. I’m so sorry. If that afﬂicts all animals. The table is turning I had known you’d wanted the baby... and you can’t even see it The table is turning. The hotel is burning. And all the FAUST: You would have killed it anyway. Americans in it are dead. Where is your survivalist urge? You’re eating yourself alive. MEPHISTOPHELES: Right. Let’s go away for awhile. FAUST: I want to go and cry.

FAUST: Get out of here. I should have MEPHISTOPHELES: You want to go and listened to Lucifer when he told me you cry. You think god will guide you but the were a liar. I should have let him convict devil shall ride you through the heavens like you. And take you to hell with him. sawed off shotgun. Hang on to your tiny soul. MEPHISTOPHELES: Honey, how can you talk to me like that? We can have another FAUST: Poor Eve, thrown out of the gar- baby. den, forever lusting after margaritas and poison apples. FAUST: Don’t touch me. MEPHISTOPHELES: I’ve used it well. MEPHISTOPHELES: You stupid fool I This is Faust, my darling, not Pinocchio. should have known you’d feel like this. You simpering, whimpering thing! Always won- FAUST: And you are Gretchen, my darling, dering if you’re doing the right thing. You’re not Pygmalion or Geppetto. so weak. You don’t know what to believe. You believe something and then you try not MEPHISTOPHELES: Set me as a seal to let yourself. Then you can’t believe you upon thy heart, thy arm. For love is as believe it. Get with it. strong as death.

FAUST: What’s happened to you? FAUST: Crazed heifer, you’ve got your horns twisted in the great mandala.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah. So what out from my father’s door. I did not delay, throwing aside fear together with my clothes FAUST: All this from the mother of the I started to move my pliant arms in the clear mysterious Baby Kindermoerd. sea. The water was shining with the image of the reflected moon and there was the MEPHISTOPHELES: You’re going to be- brightness of day in the silent night. With lieve that teetering, tottering tot? The phan- my arms below each shoulder already tired, tom fajita. Our little varmint. It’s nothing I manfully raised myself high on the surface but a pinheaded puppet of heaven. of the water when at a distance I saw a light. I said, “In it is my flame, those shores hold FAUST: It’s nothing but God’s whore pup- my goddess.” And suddenly strength re- pet theatre. turned to my weary arms and the water seemed more yielding than it had been. You MEPHISTOPHELES: And you believe it. received me with an embrace And gave (FAUST kisses her violently, MEPHI- happy kisses. Kisses, great gods. Worth STOPHELES struggles against it.) seeking across the sea.” (Ovid) Hang on to your tiny soul. And don’t slam the door FAUST: How odd, my dear. Your tongue is behind you. so sharp. Your saliva so toxic. Your breath so mannish and harsh. Not at all what I remember. The taste is all wrong. You’ve HOW I ROSE changed. Love don’t forget so quick. Flesh remembers flesh. But this flesh don’t flinch. (FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES, playing I’ve kissed what don’t know how to kiss. Or golf during a thunderstorm.) never will learn. I feel a pity tingling on the tip of my tongue, dear one, for a tongue FAUST: The Pope has been murdered. I that will never learn. For your dull kiss, suppose that’s a good thing. your charred wooden lips. (Kisses MEPHI- STIOHELES again. Softly.) I’ve kissed a salt MEPHISTOPHELES: I could never figure mine, a tragic freak. A sleeping frog. How out whose side he was on. Even god couldn’t far thou art fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, figure it out. More chocolate? son of the morning. But I had no idea you had fallen this far. This can’t be your first FAUST: No thanks. kiss. MEPHISTOPHELES: One night I’ll take MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s me Gretchen, your soul. We’ll fly away, away, away from Eve, the mad cow. of all of this, my love. You see your hope grow. We’ll see how it dies. FAUST: A cow’s kiss. After all your time in hell. It’s eluded you for an eternity. (Holds FAUST: And drown in the black milk of her chin in his hand.) Oh. honey, honey. the devil’s kindness? When you were hurled you were really hurled. And there will be no peace in the MEPHISTOPHELES: My dear Faust, all world till you learn. Oh, sad barren mouth. your beauty, what has become of it? Well, I’m not going to teach you. No, I cannot rock your world. Hang on to your FAUST: Look at you. Deflated castrated. tiny soul. (Brings his face close to MEPHI- Wild thing. All this shit on your tongue, STOPHELES’.) Indeed it is a pleasure to surely you weren’t born with it. My dear remember. When, full of love, I was going Lucifer, all your precious beauty, what has become of it?

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 MEPHISTOPHELES: Scattered across the MEPHISTOPHELES: How thou art fallen heavens. from heaven, Faust, son of the morning.

FAUST: The milky way? FAUST: Shadow of night, the darkest shadow of the darkest shadow of night. MEPHISTOPHELES: A gutterfull of vomit. MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s very sad. FAUST: Your curiosity, your delight, your wonder. The splendid splendor of your FAUST: Light no more, beauty no more, reason. morning no more, good news no more. Encouraging words no more. MEPHISTOPHELES: No reason for it. MEPHISTOPHELES: All civilizations or- FAUST: Your need for need, where is it ganize by the stars but when the stars lead now? downward they must follow. Sometimes it takes forever. MEPHISTOPHELES: I don’t need it. FAUST: To think you could rise so high. FAUST: Is there anything I can help you with? (Touches her arm.) MEPHISTOPHELES: And when they ask me how I took your soul, I can say I didn’t MEPHISTOPHELES: The agony of hu- take his soul. He gave it to me. Gave in. man touch, leave it behind. Let it go. Gave up. And gave it to me. How did he rise so high to fall so low? FAUST: (holds her hands up to his face and looks at them) Your hands are empty. You’re FAUST: How did you rise so high to fall so going under. low?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Will our paths cross MEPHISTOPHELES: I wasn’t going to again? stay down there living like a junkie. You think I’m an idiot? I rose again the way I FAUST: I don’t think so. Don’t you under- rose the first time. The way I rise every day. stand? You live in a world where everything Every second, every minute, every hour, goes wrong. The core of your learning, your millisecond by fucking millisecond. If that yearning, is a poisoned clam harvest. A motherfucker wanted to keep me down he tumbling creation engulfed in a kitsch- sure made a mistake. He can have East darkness, we can’t see our way out of. We’ve Berlin back if he wants. He can take half of confused you. A fire that will never light A Russia back. I don’t care. But I’ll never give thought that will never ignite. Your endless him China or the United States. Never, love is at an end. they’re mine. He can have heaven. But the earth is mine. I brought them fire. I brought MEPHISTOPHELES: Who are you? What them love and instead of tenderness I found are you? Some kind of superhuman crud? darkness instead. I taught them how to surf, Can I help you? How did you rise so high, for god’s sake. I was the one. So I said, oh, to fall so low? fare thee well my lord. And he said fare thee well, my morning star; in my heart you’ll FAUST: How did you fall so low to want to live forever. I was hurled, unfurled. My ears rise so high? burning.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 FAUST: But you had the seal of perfection. FAUST: Go back to sleep. Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I MEPHISTOPHELES: You don’t know what placed you there. You were on the holy sleep is. mountain of God. FAUST: Any grief? MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah right. MEPHISTOPHELES: The grief? A thou- FAUST: You walked in the midst of stones sand pushpins pierce my breast. Catastróphe, on ﬁre. catastróphe, grande catastróphe. Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes. MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah right. FAUST: You’re trying to persuade me into FAUST: You were blameless in your ways the deluding comforts of sin and music. from the day you were created until The sound of young America. unrighteousness was found in you. MEPHISTOPHELES: I’m trying to com- MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah right. fort you.

FAUST: Your heart was lifted up because of FAUST: Comfort, comfort. You would un- your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom by derstand. It’s the progress of a broken heart. reason of your splendor. MEPHISTOPHELES: I’m the devil. I know MEPHISTOPHELES: On the contrary. My nothing about matters of the heart. My heart was lifted up by the SPLENDOR OF heart was shredded ages ago. I can’t remem- MY REASON. I will ascend to heaven, I ber. I don’t understand. will exalt my throne above the stars of god, I will sit also upon the mount of the FAUST: Yes you do. Those drops falling congregation. I will ascend above the heights from your eyes . . . of the clouds. I will be like the most high. And I rose and I rose and I rose. Not MEPHISTOPHELES: Taste them. towards the light but into darkness by the splendor of my reason. Get it? The splendor FAUST: Snake venom. of my reason lifted me up. MEPHISTOPHELES: I thought so. Do FAUST: How dark was the dark? you have the strength to hurl me out of your orbit? MEPHISTOPHELES: An eternal coma. Forever on the edge of waking but never to FAUST: Yes. wake. MEPHISTOPHELES: No. FAUST: You woke yourself up by the splendor of your resentment. FAUST: Yes.

MEPHISTOPHELES: And I could hear MEPHISTOPHELES: This daily conversa- music. When I woke up I thought god tion we have. would be waiting. But what do I get? People like that pinheaded judge to babysit century FAUST: You want me to suffer too. after century. I’m only trying to go back to god. MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s your turn.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 FAUST: This daily conversation we have. Your eyelashes will shudder. Then your heart will be full. Then you’ll know what MEPHISTOPHELES: It’s beautiful but I you’ve inhaled. don’t get it. MEPHISTOPHELES: There I am a man FAUST: How thou art fallen from heaven, and dare not be one. O Lucifer, son of the morning star. Shadow of night. The darkest shadow of the darkest FAUST: There you are a man and dare be shadow of night. How thou art fallen. No one? It’s a heartache, I know. You could talk more light, no more beauty, no more morn- the bones out of a living chicken but what ing deﬂated, castrated. And my anger, my good does it do? And you didn’t even sign a disbelief? I can’t ﬁnd it. Where did you put contract. it? What have you done with it?

MEPHISTOPHELES: You’ll find it in the DEAR GRETCHEN stinging, stinking vapors of grief you’ll in- hale. Instead of belief you’ll find Cher- (FAUST circling in plane above burning city.) noblism. Catastróphe, catastróphe, grande catastróphe. You’re inhaling it right now FAUST: Dear Gretchen, it’s been six months and you don’t even know it. since you’ve been gone and well, I don’t know what to say. As you know the United FAUST: Poor you, living in some frozen Nations has been dissolved. The airport north country after the aftermath. Midget blackout continues in its 5th day. We will prophet, cupid rebuked. Ruined by your run out of fuel any time now. Circling till own persistent memory. Hunkered down in the gas runs out. I just can’t go of my own the acid house. Re-inhaling whole moun- will. You understand that my urge to join tains of it. Chewing and rechewing the you is limited by my need for self-preserva- marrow. Sucking your atomic bong. Cata- tion. Dresden never looked so wonderful as stróphe, grande catastróphe. A little white our powerful city now. Not even in ’45. petal has fallen and pierced itself on a cactus Who knew? There will of course, like al- spine. The day will come when you’ll wake ways, be several false endings and they will up from this pure meticulous reality you’ve continue until they run out. But I have the invented. sneaking suspicion that these false endings as we see them are the stuff of the universe. MEPHISTOPHELES: The day will come I begin letters over and over and so, as I when you’ll wake up from this pure meticu- don’t know what to say. I will try to say it lous reality you’ve invented yet another time. Are you there? I’ll try again to say it. Yes, my darling that is the FAUST: It’s a heartache, I know. way it is. What it is is the way it must be. That is the way, the only way to say it. Yes, MEPHISTOPHELES: There I am a not a it’s very sad. That is the way. And the way is man and dare not be one. rough and rocky and tiring and sad and painful. Full of hurt and falling down and FAUST: It’s an incredible exertion. trying to get up again. Over and over again. I fall and try to get up. And now I’m MEPHISTOPHELES: Your soul will be involved in this “escape,” this mysterious shaken but not to worry. demonstration of flying. Put on for a burning city, an empty nation. That is the way it FAUST: Your fingers will shake. Your heart- is for me my darling. I hear your voice here sick heart will quake. Your lips will shiver. and there along the way. It charms me and

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021 pulls me along, but along to where? And for day today. So what then is there left? But what and to what? To you? So I go on that there will be no yesterday tomorrow. blindly. I travel the road from nowhere to Or today there will be no more more, ever. nowhere. From here to there and nowhere I’m just waiting. Saturated in time. The to nowhere. Microscopic pieces of choco- motor has stopped. This is the way I always late line the road. Tiny pleasures you put dreamed it would be. The sounds of the city there to keep me going. Gifts to urge my are dissolving below me and above you. wilting spirit. As you know the United This is the way I always dreamed it would Nations has been dissolved. It’s so hard to be. The smell of marzipan paste. This is the keep warm. Sometimes I think I hear chil- way I always dreamed it would be. I think dren singing songs along the way. Where I’ve found a place where I know I can be are they? But I’m sure they know that there forever. What this has to do with God or will be no night tonight. There will be no the devil I’ll never know. Surf’s up. See you tomorrow tomorrow. There will be no to- there.

JOHN JESURUN is presenting this play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival in the Fall of 2004.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969002 by guest on 30 September 2021