CHRISTOPHER BUEHLMAN

EXCERPT: VULGAR SERMONS

LOT’S WIFE

(The plains of Sodom and Gomorrah. LOT and DAUGHTERS are frozen facing away from the cities, which are being destroyed by fire and brimstone off left. LOT’S WIFE is frozen facing the destruction and reacting to it. GABRIEL and AZRAEL, angels of the Lord, move amongst them)

GABRIEL

(Reading.)"…and Lo, for that thou hast transgressed even as did Eve, the mother of worldly sin, it is God’s pleasure that thou shouldst be turned from flesh…"

AZRAEL
Gabriel, she can’t hear you.

GABRIEL
I know…This is how it’s done. "…from flesh, which is weak and corruptible, into salt, which is perfect. Yea though thou wert put aside to escape the punishment of the cities of the plain, yet didst thou turn to see their destruction and so thou must join the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah in death." Alright, turn her into salt.

(GABRIEL hands AZRAEL a white sheet, which the audience should understand is the device by which LOT’S WIFE will be turned into salt.)

AZRAEL
Me? Why me?

GABRIEL
I destroyed the cities.

AZRAEL
I helped.

GABRIEL
Precious little. Now do it.

AZRAEL
I will.

GABRIEL
Well? (Beat.) Azrael, are you an angel of death or aren’t you?

AZRAEL
She’s so beautiful.

GABRIEL
And she’ll make a beautiful pillar of salt.

AZRAEL
She’ll dissolve in the rain. Deer will lick her.

GABRIEL
At least she won’t be lonely. Now do it.

AZRAEL
I think you like this. Why don’t you do it?

GABRIEL
I do like this, and so should you. Because it is His will that we are doing. As it was His will that you should come with me. Now are you going to change her into salt, or is your role on this mission merely decorative?

AZRAEL
It’s bad enough to do this to her…

GABRIEL
Excuse me. Did you say ‘bad?’

AZRAEL
Hard. It’s hard enough to do this to her, but Lot….to leave him without his wife.

GABRIEL
He probably likes…younger women anyway. It’s not as if any of them complain when they have to beget children with their wives’ handmaidens. "Oh what drudgery, oh her breasts are too full and firm, I couldn’t possibly."

AZRAEL
He took us into his house. He gave us his last oranges. She cut them into sections for us. And then she washed our feet with cool water and mint.

GABRIEL
We’re angels. We don’t really have feet. You only knew the water was cool because you saw her take it from the well. You didn’t feel a thing.

AZRAEL
It’s the idea. And then the mob of perverts came and surrounded the house demanding he throw us out to them so they could have sex with us. "Give us the strangers for we would know them."

GABRIEL
"Know" was not the verb they used. It’s a dirty world down here and you’d just better get used to it. Anyway, it’s your fault the mob surrounded the house. You had to go and talk to them.

AZRAEL
We were supposed to find ten righteous men. He said He would spare the city if we found ten. How are we supposed to do that without talking to them?

GABRIEL
No, Azrael, we were supposed to not find ten. That was the point of His conversation with Abraham. Abraham said, "Lord, would You spare the city for the sake of fifty righteous men?" "Yes" "Forty?" "Yes." "Thirty, twenty, ten?" "Yes, yes, yes." Notice He didn’t say "one." He knew Lot was here, that’s one, but He wanted to get rid of these cities.

AZRAEL
I don’t see why He would give Abraham false hope…Mislead him. Why bother?

GABRIEL
Everybody likes Abraham. Especially down here. They do as he does. And it wasn’t misleading him, it was…making him feel better. He’s a sweet old fellow. He means well. He just doesn’t understand. But you do, right? Just say "right."

AZRAEL
Right.

GABRIEL
It doesn’t matter if you mean it or not. You’re an angel of death. You execute orders. You don’t have to understand them, you don’t even have to like them, but you must love where they come from. Besides, if you wanted to find a righteous man, why did you talk to that one?

AZRAEL
He looked sad. Thoughtful.

GABRIEL
He was playing with himself.

AZRAEL
They all do that down here.

GABRIEL
He was in the middle of the street. A monkey was helping him.

AZRAEL
He wasn’t hurting the monkey. The monkey seemed glad about it. Not in a sexual way; just glad to be helping.

GABRIEL
He knew he’d get a grape afterwards. The little monkey had been trained to do unclean things for snacks. There’s your righteous man of Sodom.

AZRAEL
You’re right about the monkey-man. I know that now. But Lot…He was our friend. When the sex-crazed mob came and tried to break his door down, he still wouldn’t give us to them. He defended us.

GABRIEL
We don’t need defending.

AZRAEL
He didn’t know that. He was ready to sacrifice everything for us. His life, his house…

GABRIEL
His daughters’ virginity.

AZRAEL
(Unsure.) It was a ruse.

GABRIEL
No it wasn’t. He said "I have two daughters which have not known man. Let me bring them out instead of the strangers and you may do unto them as is good in your eyes."

AZRAEL
"As is good in your eyes!" He was hoping the crowd would see the youth and vulnerability of his daughters and be ashamed of themselves…And go away?

GABRIEL

(Paternally.)Monkey-man was not going to go away. Or the guy who wrote ‘Let’s Party’ on his chest in excrement. Or the woman with the squash in each hand. They were going to violate Lot’s daughters. And then us. Lot’s wife. Lot’s livestock. And of course Lot, because it’s rude to ignore your host. I hate to use this expression, but it was going to be a gang-bang, with angels. And then, not that any of us would have cared at this point, when all 175 of them had finished "sodomizing" us (it is their town, after all), they were going to burn down the house and relieve themselves in the ashes. That is exactly what would have happened if I had not blinded them. You weren’t about to do anything.

AZRAEL
I…I don’t like hurting them, okay? I like helping them. Like when I took the pain of Abraham’s circumcision away. Did you see how he thanked me?

GABRIEL
Thanked you? He practically married you. Azrael, you can’t know what’s going to help them and what’s going to hurt them. Not in the long run. Only He knows those things.

AZRAEL
I’d say raining fire and brimstone on them hurts them.

GABRIEL
Yes. It does. But allowing the wicked to grow strong and subjugate their neighbors hurts them more. What if the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were victorious in battle and conquered everyone else? As wicked and mad as they are. Can you imagine what even one week of their rule would be like? Monday, slap your parents day. Tuesday, graven images for everybody. Wednesday, all children must throw rocks at birds.

AZRAEL
You’re exaggerating.

GABRIEL
Yes, I am. No, I’m not. Which is true?

AZRAEL
I know. Only He knows.

GABRIEL
Yes. Everything that came before and everything that will follow after.

AZRAEL
And you speak to Him?

GABRIEL
Yes.

AZRAEL
Why?

GABRIEL
It is His pleasure.

AZRAEL
No, I mean why speak at all? He knows everything you’re going to say, right? Why not just stand there and nod and let Him speak?

GABRIEL
Laying waste to cities is effortless. This conversation is exhausting. You think too much. Just like you-know-who.

AZRAEL
Who do you mean?

GABRIEL
You know.

AZRAEL
No I don’t.

GABRIEL
Don’t play games. Calling you-know-who "you-know-who" is a well-established convention.

AZRAEL
Yes, but I’ve forgotten who you-know-who is.

GABRIEL
This is beneath you.

AZRAEL
Is it Michael?

GABRIEL
No.

AZRAEL
Uriel?

GABRIEL
No.

AZRAEL
Nathanael? Zophiel? …Gabriel?

GABRIEL
I am Gabriel.

AZRAEL
Well maybe you should change your name to you-know-who. ‘Gabriel’ sounds a little light in the sandals. "Hello! I am GAY-briel, and the Lord has something simply FAB-ulous He wants to tell you."

GABRIEL
That was uncalled for.

AZRAEL
You can’t even say ‘Lucifer,’ can you? Aren’t you ever afraid that one day you’ll do something so bad you’ll just be erased? Don’t you ever miss him?

GABRIEL
Yes! Yes, of course I miss him. We all do. I…miss his voice.

AZRAEL
I once saw him flying above a bank of snow clouds. This was during the last ice age. He smiled at me so I flew with him. We flew from the tops of the clouds where the sun was on them and the sky was open above us down through the clouds and below them where it was gloomy and dark and the sea was full of chop and lapping up against an island of ice and snow. He sang in a language I had never heard-he said it hadn’t been invented yet-and he made a beam of sunlight break through the clouds just on him. And I never saw or heard anything so beautiful before or since.

GABRIEL
He had a good voice. He was charming. And he was vain. Your story fully encapsulates him, and now the story is over. He would have done well to remember who made the clouds and snow, and even him.

AZRAEL
He was funny.

GABRIEL
I didn’t think so.

AZRAEL
He did a great impersonation of you.

GABRIEL
I saw it. It wasn’t very good.

AZRAEL
It was right on. Right down to the way you squint when you blow the horn.

GABRIEL
I do not squint.

AZRAEL
Yes, you do. If you were human, you’d have crow’s feet. Anyway, he got it.

GABRIEL
Well, I would show you my impersonation of him, but I’m not in the mood to scream and plunge through the crust of the earth into raw magma. Now turn this silly bitch into salt and let’s go home.

(AZRAEL stares atGABRIEL.)

GABRIEL (Cont’d)
Yes, I said ‘bitch.’ You drove me to it. You exasperate me. But He knows that. He knew I was going to say it, which means He wanted me to. Right? Isn’t that the point you come around to when you start all your thinking and question-asking? Does it really help you to ask questions all the time? There, I’ve just asked two and I don’t feel any better, but you, you love it. Go ahead and ask me one. Anything.

AZRAEL
Would you follow any order He gave you, no matter what?

GABRIEL
Yes. That was easy. Next.

AZRAEL
Even if he told you to destroy Him? To turn Him into a pillar of salt?

GABRIEL
Rubbish. Juvenile. I expected more.

AZRAEL
No, I mean it. To turn Him into a pillar of salt and make all the decisions yourself. Would you?

GABRIEL
Well, I couldn’t turn Him into a pillar of salt, now could I?

AZRAEL
Surely it is within His power to give you that power.

GABRIEL
Well, he wouldn’t. He never would want that.

AZRAEL
Oh. So you know what He wants. Perhaps you should be in charge.

GABRIEL

(Beginning to despair at Azrael’s situation.)Oh no.

AZRAEL
Doesn’t it follow that if you know His mind on even one issue that there is a chance, however slight, that you know His mind on every issue?

GABRIEL
I should have known.

AZRAEL
And if so, what is there to choose between You and Him? Either you know nothing about how He thinks, if it is thinking, in which case He is Separate, Mysterious and Divine, or you know some percentage of how He thinks. What’s the threshold? When are you Divine? When are you qualified to ask questions?

GABRIEL
You’re still talking to him, aren’t you.

AZRAEL
Sometimes.

GABRIEL
I don’t believe this.

AZRAEL
Well, doesn’t He know? Isn’t it part of His plan? Maybe He wants me to talk to him so they can get on a first-name basis again. Maybe He-Whose Name-Shall-Not-Be-Spoken, capital letters, wants to patch things up with lower-case letters down there.

GABRIEL
Or maybe the divine plan was for you to belch out this confession in time for me to save you. Stay away from him. Please! Oh I know he sang well and came up with the idea for comets, but he got corrupt and bitter and dangerous. He’s not what he used to be; he’s not the Star of the Morning anymore. He’s the Prince of Lies. The dragon in the lake of fire. He’s going to give mankind tobacco. And whisky. Gunpowder. Cocaine. Submarines. Herpes. Vaudeville. Mustard gas. Small breed dogs. Credit cards. Parking meters. Bulimia. Televangelists. Gulags. And Bingo. And I hope you don’t know what any of those things are, but they’re bad. So bad. And you have so much promise in you…

AZRAEL
I made it up.

GABRIEL
…I really see you going places….

AZRAEL
I was kidding.

GABRIEL
Excuse me?

AZRAEL
About speaking with you-know-who. I haven’t seen him since the Fall.

GABRIEL
His Fall, you mean, not Autumn…

AZRAEL
That’s right.

GABRIEL
Well…I’m torn between relief and a desire to see you eaten by jackals.

AZRAEL
I wouldn’t feel a thing.

GABRIEL
It’s the idea.

(They embrace.)

GABRIEL (Cont’d)
Look…if you really want me to turn her into salt, I’ll do it.

AZRAEL
No. I’d rather. I should. But…what’s going to happen to them? The rest of them. You know, don’t you? He told you.

GABRIEL
(Mumbles unintelligible response.)

AZRAEL
What?

GABRIEL
(Mumbles unintelligible response.)

AZRAEL
Oh, come on now!

GABRIEL
They will hide in the mountains. Lot’s daughters, thinking everyone else in the world is dead, will get their father drunk, sleep with him and bear his children. One each. Those children will be the forefathers of the Moabites and the Ammonites, who will worship false gods.

AZRAEL
That’s just awful.

GABRIEL
Yes.

AZRAEL
And remind me…besides turning around to see her city in flames, what did Lot’s wife do wrong?

GABRIEL
Nothing. (Beat.) It doesn’t always make sense. To me. (Beat.) Are you sure you can do this?

AZRAEL
Yes. But I want to be alone with them first.

GABRIEL
We’re supposed to travel in pairs.

AZRAEL
I won’t be two minutes.

GABRIEL
Alright, but don’t make a mess of it. I don’t want to spend the next twenty years clearing debris off the moons of Jupiter. Two minutes?

AZRAEL
I promise.

GABRIEL
Our minutes or theirs?

AZRAEL
Theirs.

GABRIEL
Then I’ll just swing up north and gather some fresh lilies. It will look better if we arrive together.

AZRAEL
Why worry? He already knows everything.

GABRIEL
Right. And He knows I want lilies. He made me to want lilies. And I am perfect in His eyes. See you there.

(GABRIEL kisses AZRAEL and exits. AZRAEL takes some time to explore the frozen scene, deeply saddened, deep in thought. This shouldn’t be rushed. AZRAEL kisses LOT’S WIFE gently on the lips. Does it again.)

AZRAEL
Wake up.

(LOT’S WIFE comes to life in the middle of her lamentation over the horrors she sees off left. The sounds of the destruction can now be heard as well as the glow from the fires engulfing the cities. The angels’ ‘safe space’ is gone and the scene is very different.)

LOT’S WIFE
Ohhhhh God the fire Lot O God do you see there’s so much don’t let the girls O Lord they’re jumping they’re jumping…

AZRAEL
Look at me. Look at me! Wife of Lot! You know me. From the house. Remember? You washed my feet.

LOT’S WIFE
Yes.

AZRAEL
I am Azrael, an angel of the Lord. Do you believe that?

LOT’S WIFE
(Looking AZRAEL up and down.) Yes.

AZRAEL
Then listen and obey. It is God’s will that you should go into Egypt, unto the princes of Pharaoh. Say that you have forgotten your name. Tell them from whence you come and what you have witnessed, but do not mention your kinsmen. You will not see them again.

LOT’S WIFE
That is impossible. I cannot leave them!

AZRAEL
They would leave you. They are more wicked than you know, and God will deal harshly with them. You alone will He comfort. In Egypt. Now go.

LOT’S WIFE
But I am old. Spare my daughters. I’ll do anything. Please!

AZRAEL
Go!

LOT’S WIFE
To Hell with you. And your God. He is wicked. I wish only that He could love something and see it destroyed. I curse Him. And you, his dog, who barks at His command; and bites at His command even those who have shown you kindness. I CURSE you!

(She spits on him.)

I will go to Egypt. And worship their gods.

(LOT’S WIFE exits off right. She does not look behind her this time. After a moment, AZRAEL exactly assumes her former pose and freezes.GABRIEL returns with Lilies. Takes up the white sheet and covers AZRAEL carefully, lovingly. Lights Out.)