Resurrection Blues Read Online Free

expect a worldwide audience for the phone company! They’re talking athlete’s foot, Felix!
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    FELIX: Oh no, I don’t think they . . .
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    HENRI: They’re talking athlete’s foot, sour stomach, constipation, anal itch . . . !
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    FELIX: No-no!
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    HENRI: Where else does seventy-five million come from? I’m sure they figure it would take him four or five hours to die, so they could load it up—runny stool, falling hair, gum disease, crotch itch, dry skin, oily skin, nasal blockage, diapers for grownups . . . impotence . . .
    FELIX: God no, they’d never do that!
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    HENRI: Why not? Is there a hole in the human anatomy we don’t make a dollar on? With a crucifixion the sky’s the limit! I forgot ear wax, red eyes, bad breath . . .
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    FELIX: Please, Henri, sit down for a moment.
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    HENRI, sitting: It’s a catastrophe! And for me personally it’s . . . it’s the end!
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    FELIX: Why?—nobody will blame you . . .
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    HENRI: My company distributes most of those products, for god’s sake!
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    FELIX: I think maybe you’re exaggerating the reaction . . .
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    HENRI: Am I! As your men drive nails into his hands and split the bones of his feet the camera will cut away to . . . god knows what . . . somebody squirming with a burning asshole! You must let the fellow go . . . !
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    FELIX: He’s not going anywhere, he’s a revolutionary and an idiot!
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    HENRI: You’re not visualizing, Felix! People are desperate for someone this side of the stars who feels their suffering himself and gives a damn! The man is hope!
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    FELIX: He is hope because he gets us seventy-five million! My god, we once had an estimate to irrigate the entire eastern half of the country and that was only thirteen million! This is fantastic!
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    HENRI: Felix—if you sell this man, you will join the two other most contemptible monsters in history.
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    FELIX: What two others?
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    HENRI: Pontius Pilate and Judas, for god’s sake! That kind of infamy is very hard to shed.
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    FELIX: Except that Jesus Christ was not an impostor and this one is.
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    HENRI: We don’t know that.
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    FELIX: What the hell are you talking about, the son of a bitch is not even Jewish!—Good god, Henri, with that kind of money I could put the police into decent shoes and issue every one of them a poncho. And real sewers . . . with pipes! —so the better class of people wouldn’t have to go up to the tops of the hills to build a house . . . we could maybe have our own airline and send all our prostitutes to the dentist . . .
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    HENRI: Stop. Please. Slight pause. Do you really want our country blamed for a worldwide suicide?
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    FELIX: What?
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    HENRI: A crucifixion lasting possibly hours on the screen—use your imagination! To a lot of people it will mean the imminent end of the world . . .
    FELIX, dismissing: Oh that’s nonsense . . . !
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    HENRI: I can see thousands jumping off bridges in Paris, London, New York . . . ! And California . . . my god, California will turn into a madhouse.— And the whole thing blamed on us? —We’ll be a contemptible country! I know you’ll call it off now, won’t you.
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    Felix stares.
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    Felix, think of your children—their father will be despised through the end of time, do you want that stain on their lives?
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    Pause. Felix in thought.
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    FELIX: I disagree. I really do. Look at it calmly—fifteen or twenty years after they kicked Nixon out of the White House he had one of the biggest funerals since Abraham Lincoln. Is that true or isn’t it?
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    HENRI: Well, yes, I suppose it is.
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    FELIX: Believe me, Henri, in politics there is only one sacred rule—nobody clearly remembers anything.
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    HENRI: I’ve seen him.
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    FELIX: Really! How’d that happen?
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    HENRI: The police happened to have caught him in the street