American Bacchanalia

		Experimental adaptation of Euripides' 'Bacchae'
		    to modern-day South-Central L.A.
 
 We're the kids, we're the kids
      and we don't give a
                   shit about tomorrow.
            Anonymous Song.
 
  Rightly to be great
 Is not to stir without great argument
 But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
 When honor's at stake.
   Hamlet.
 
 Words are no satisfaction for words.
   The Code of Honor.
 
 There exists in our country a privileged class, soi disant,
 men of honor, who have established for themselves a higher
        law. They put their foot upon the criminal code and trample it
        in the dust.

        They may and do commit murder with impunity. I have
 no objection to a privileged class built on virtue and
 intelligence. But I protest, and shall to my dying breath
 protest against an aristocracy of crime.
  Reverend Arthur Wigfall, mid 1800s.
 
 There is no one here but carries arms under his clothes.
 At the slightest quarrel, knife or pistol comes to hand.
 These things happen continually; it is a semibarbarous
 state of society.
  Alexis De Tocqueville.
 
 "God damn you," Goode swore, standing over the dead man
 and firing twice more. "Maybe that will satisfy you."
  Fox Butterfield, All God's Children.
 
 These heavy-headed revels make us traduced of other
        nations.
  Hamlet.
 
 
 

SOUTH CENTRAL L.A.

      

No work in the hood,
nothin comin up;
violence is drunk by us,
violence makes us drunk.
Pistol, Whippets, China Doll,
Tammy, Shakedown, Dog, Larry,
Monster, Crip-boy, Terri,
Linda, boyz and girrls all;
As men and women we must fall.
Toke it, smoke it, better not choke it;
hammer comin down all over dis town.
Back on the street, I is Fleet;
killer nigga witha attitude,
killer stare killer cool;
my hatchet will wack it,
PCPs in my blood will hatch it.
Mayhem is my plan,
Chaos is my tool;
rod and rocket,
fuck you we gonna lock it.
Tribalist hate, lying in state,
Crips whip sissies,
sissies gotta take it.
Make it, can't fake it,
my blood is buzzin
cause your death isa comin.
.44s, .32s, sawed-off righteous,
teflon bullets come'n kiss this.
Workin down the alley ccol as a cat,
our feet like moonlight, light like that.
Nevah mutha-
fuka gonna fuck ya;
cap in yo nappy head
lickin asphalt dead,
my rule is crimson
hatred is my brimstone;
walk this world stone alone,
put a cap in my enemy befo I's gone.
Victory, victory,
chaos gettin inta me,
wildnight action,
adidas-fast traction.
One dis and you get this;
muthafuckin nevah gonna miss.
Handy, dandy, my colt .49;
effortless, endless,
these scraggy streets is mine;
highest, wiredest,
my flight's so tragic-magic
I paff out the rest best;
I kite it, I bite it
no matter how windless.

This which is in me
is my only kin, see,
nothin else can win me.
Violence, violence,
put its crooked root in my tooth,
grow outa my shadow
to shatter the vacum.
Outer space gonna waste
when my god give the nod
and unleash what's within me.
Up from the Dime,
down to 299,
all the way I'm gonna riot
ride it, abide it, alla that fly shit;
nothin ain't no sin, Jammers
just so long as you win, Bamm!
John Wayne Gacy, Dick Tracy,
they all say it and lace it
inside like a sidewinder,
just a little reminder;
Like a Medusa, we'll reduce ya
until you crawl in hip-deep;
make your little sister weep.
Yeah, yeah, yo mamma gonna cry
river a tears, bye n bye.
Ain't no offer, I'm gonna off ya;
no amnesty served up with your tea.
Wackin and swackin
and crazy-ass crackin
is all you're gonna get
from the boyz wit the hit.
The God a Din
growing mighty within;
I puff him and huff him,
I'm down with the dragon,
your blood, my religion.
Deflower is power
and I get it by the hour.
Every tear of your fear
I lick until it tickles.
Runnin with a Mustang
chillin with the Gangsta gang
baffin' with the master man.
Yo, color! Yo color!
A militant flip-off
is enough to get ya knocked off.
Adrenelin
rushin in,
flamin it
never taming it,
my juice is a mighty tower,
my snakey spine's a howler.
Whip it, drip it;
cordite smoke, I lip it.
Givin every sign
I'm possessed by the most divine.
Yes, it's spastic
but the girls dig my brass stick;
unwavering they savor it,
gettin humble just to flavor it.

Now this night is diving
like wine from a shiv in
somebody, a stranger,
a kid in a manger;
don't matter, it splatters
its darkness that flatters,
making me restless;
I'm up and I get dressed.
Night combat black
to match the sky's black attack;
Under my old stereo
my hand spans, there it go,
just like in the rodeo;
I pick up my pistol,
neveah gonna let it go.
Oh no, ho no,
out the house, I'm on Patrol.
Who's dat comin
My heart starts thrummin;
whatever's out, I'm in.
Nothin's ever prettier
than me and my boyz sittin sure.
Our waistbands are packin
when we start the dragnet
It's an old old story
rosy, erect-reared phalloi,
testosterone to the bone
bring tha muthafucka rollin home!
Pot smoke, ropes of dope,
crack-smackin, our heads be whackin
with honey-nugget naked dreams, oi!
We smash with the mastering noise of the Boyz!
Our eyes like blazin .38s,
heaven's angels at the gate,
satan's flamethrowers just can't wait
so we shout
while our arms sparr routs
pickin up the little ones
to teach em all the killin fun;
In our enemy's fear
our hearts sail clear;
our dreads sled better
when they're deader and wetter.
Snortin and flarin
wild and darin
like some high-wire act
we dance in the flak
hotter and hotter,
demented as otters!
Mighty in our joy
boyz among boys;
Holy loud-proud
our hand signals make the rounds
til every fucka in the hood
just wishes that he could or would
throw his hand around his heart
and break it flaming like kindling wood!

PREFACE SCENE

[PSYCHO SIXTY holds a gun to the blue-swathed temple
of an enemy Blood, who kneels cuffed before him.]

PSYCHO SIXTY
You rude, intruding Bloods covet too much
what my better glove alone must hold.

[PSYCHO SIXTY shoots the kneeling man dead.
All the other cast members are there, except
BLINDEYE, ROBBER G, and MONSTER. All solemnly 
approve.]

SCENE ONE

 

[In front of ROBBER G's house. His little sister is
leaning at the door.]

BLINDEYE
It's Blindeye knockin-- its time to start rockin.
Let's kick it; we're wicked. I'm sick a just waitin;
tonight there'll be no hesitatin. Yo yo yo
Robber G-- Let's go! We built dis damn town
Now is the hour to tear it damn down.
How else have we got to show our firey crowns aroun?
Li'l Sis, its my wish-- go get yo bro for this.

ROBBER G
Is that you tinkerbellin my door? Yo Blindeye,
here stands your able man in ripped-up Hell.
I'm strapped with my gat; let's kick it.
Let's shotgun our enemies, for violence is sweet!
Rowdy-crowdin these poor-ass steets
we're heroes, we're Neros, one hand smashin
one hand upliftin resistless the gold node of our "set."
Homeboys of the pure noise, we need to bleat.
Duck in your heads, resisters, before you get beat!
On my bike I am strikin.

BLINDEYE
Most merciless.

ROBBER G
With curses I'm rehearsin;
No stick shift help me with my deathwish. 

BLINDEYE
Yeah, deathwish for those suckers.

ROBBER G
I don't care if I die, long as I flyin!

BLINDEYE
I seen death many multiple times.
What his most ferocious incarnation, Robber G?

ROBBER G
We is!

BLINDEYE
Righteous.

ROBBER G
Made like an ace mace in the USA,
I'll split the illin' face of every disgrac-
ful flounder down under our 60th st Parallel,
I'm bulgin and boyish, not old and churlish,
holdin on to all the things I own
as if they'll save me some day. I am
my own creation, built to slay.

BLINDEYE
And that's how we'll stay.
But we still gotta pedal over to Psycho Sixty's
momma's house an get him up together with us.

ROBBER G
All one proud cloud of righteous trouncin!

BLINDEYE
Down in my neves, in my guts, I'm bouncin,
wired to the surprise. Yass, yass.

ROBBER G
This the Tradition. We down with it.
Older'n the hands that slapped down
these mean streets. Our augering god was cuttin
faces from their owners, ruinin unions,
smearing a weirdness over the cold nighttime,
napalm-lobbin our erect status outward
to girls and strangers since before Life,
practically. Damn, can't go gainst that
no way.

BLINDEYE
Who wants ta? I'm a live wire!
I'm burnin to be gettin it on, cuz.

ROBBER G
Let the old beware, and the young take care,
we here to rip their stars from existence.

BLINDEYE
Psycho Sixty! He cool like that.

ROBBER G
Yeah, he wit the hood all the way. 
Do or die, like the goddamn Marine Corps.

[Enter PSYCHO SIXTY.]

PSYCHO SIXTY
Gentle citizens! Has you heard the clap trap
bombasting its wailing rogue spell
into the clits' ears herebouts? Damn,
they sweatin they spandex off for some
new yule log, hotter'n our pistol-whipping
six-inch dicks. Say he like a god over there
and all, got the whole block scooted over
by one bushy nieghborly neighborhood.
Got every black female squattin at his shack.
His residence is "the Presence," what they say.
They shootin and hootin, gettin all kinda
malt liquor drunk over there. I don't know.
Shaneesta never give me no blow but she
down on all four in the bay window for this mo fo.
I thought I was the top cat, blacksters.
Can't no one go howlin at my black moon
lessin' I gives the say-so, you know?
Them girls all pretendin it some tenderness
in they minds that make them wild-ass wild
like that, strayin from they home-made beds.
I put some serious kidnapping on their sleepy asses
this wicked dawn, long befo yo asses was up.
They down in my basement sweatin it.
Rest a them squallers beat it, like a anthill
smashed by a passin holocaust, my death breath,
when I went down their bolted hole,
all ragin and maniac, sportin my mask
time has chiselled to outrageous disaster.
I'll catch 'em out later at leisure
when they come crawlin back to ol' Psvcho, not crowin.
Damn, my own Moms hot-footed it to that party,
she was hollerin and drinkin up with the rest of em;
and she can really do down some brew to, y'all.
Got all this on my iron hands, and what else?
This stranger baps his hip-hoppin ass onto the block,
a juggler, a magician out of Lydia,
head all nappy blond and fire-wild,
ringlets trapsing down his neck sweet-scented,
acne-free and one dear green eye to boot!
Says he got Lady Love on his soul's side;
well damn if he ain't buckin our honies
all day and all night too. Screw, screw, screw.
But I tells y'all-- and watch my scratched eye--
I ain't lying, neither, if'n I catch him,
by his gold-ringletted necklace of honey-locks
I'll shake him so down he can't dance shit,
his left foot be so disconnented it can't find
the right; his partnered hands, which been
snatchin my snatch so near me, they gonna
forget what a clap is, laddies. Yes they is.

BLINDEYE
Damn, man. You gonna bap our happiness away from us,
jest like that? I ain't havin it. You nuts, is what.
Since when you been against a little partyin,
Psycho Sixty?

ROBBER G
Shoot'em up and ride 'em high;
ain't that what you always say?

BLINDEYE
Don't make no sense, gentle citizen.
Gots to respect the wildness that's in us,
give it free let and insane run. Be humble
before the river courses of your adrenelin.
Ain't life just one rollercoaster whore, padre?
You talk like a cat that's swack, but you
ain't makin no kinda solid sense, mistah.
When lovin and hatin come against us, we break.
Our innards scatter outside, and freeze
in whatever shape overwhelming desire or
insurmountable hate has trashed em into.
C'mon, Psycho Sixty, you know. We head up
for that damn party ourselves. Gonna get puss.
Gonna get high. Gonna kill some swell-heads
in the park about damn midnight. What up?
Why not? Our god done grow solid within us.
Rage and chaos dance. Suck my cock
or stuff a sock in it if you ain't down.
What kinda leader is you without your baton?
So this new one on the turf ain't no good?
That ain't what I hear. This Monster, yeah,
that his name; this Monster got a chomp on it,
hold the whole hood in his mouth like it nothin,
he could done damn spit it out again.
He gonna be ridin high Old Gangsta style
quick as a hiss-mist grafitti swish a silver Dutch Boy
hit them splintery city walls. His name
gonna rise and shine; all a all the rest....
They gonna fall. Don't ask me how I know,
I know. You damn know I get them frenzied
sessions when I'm outta breath, trapsin
homeward way after some slash and action.
You know what I see flashin in my head then 
is the God-awfulest truest things there be; 
I get my Blindeyes then, white chocolate and starin'.
Robber G hadda drag my sorry ass off of Florence
that one wilding night, scrapin my heels raw,
I was so blind-righteous with my vision, cuz.
Monster, man. Partyin, yeah. Get your soul,
wrenched from your nervous skin, flyin high
and feelin whole again; ain't that enough?
Ain't that what all the all be all about, Psycho?
Can't feel no wretchedness in us when
you floatin mighty enough to touch dead Heaven,
see everybody there, all my old homies ressurected,
kickin it at a fat-ass barbecue, smilin,
laughing on the butteriest summer afternoon
that ever was. Sincerely, Psycho Sixty, man,
that's what all I seen last time I rolled
into one a Monter's monsta Parties.
And Belinda weren't no shy Aphrodite that night!
Pinned her whimpering body on me like a
shishkabob, bro. My Heaven one wet place,
Lester, I'll tell ya. Your babes, man they
be gettin it on or not once you out that door
just like they please. No monster got
a remote control on all that. They do like natural.
Don't be shootin me those evil looks and all that.
Shaneeta wanna be your li'l princess,
well she'll keep her legs crossed then anywhere;
one party ain't gonna make no horndogette
outa her if she loyal to your poinger.
Shit. You know how it is when you get The Rage,
your eyes roll up red like gumballs,
and your lips bow over theyselves like some
African mask Miss Pederson tripped on the class
last year; sayin about our heritage and all.
Yeah, yeah, that's just a buncha crap. I know.
These streets is my labyrinth, back and forwards.
And Monster, man, he got some kick-ass biceps,
22 inches, and a bazooka forsooth stashed
at his wackin shack over past the rended Hendersons'.
Damn but the mighty eye of him will bend 'em,
even the most honorably ferocious-rough
of 'em, down to a cowardly knot of nerves;
sometimes, anyway, they jes' break and scat.
Seen it happen; they had the guns, and he just
had that moon-blind eye a his, blood solemn.
You think you got the way with all the block
just cause you the Power here? Think again;
something high and wilder goin on when Monster stirs.
Robber G and me, we your loyalest,
shout out Psycho Sixty forever! and blow
more than one rival clean away into yesterday.
You know we done that, how many times together,
clearing midnight with all chambers empty.
How many wakes we drive by laughin our asses off?
Every crib sibling of our troop say first
"Psycho Sixty!" before they pop out "Moms"
or "Daddy," oh yeah. But I tell you, Psycho,
although you the first word round here,
you ain't the last or only. You like being high?
Monster put a zip in it make you think you
pure undiluted sky, commander. You like
to see stitched Xs over your enemies' eyes?
Monster gonna whip those Xs in fast as kisses,
and get you ripped on givin 'em, too.
Whee ooo! Come on down, proud crown!
Step mildly to this new wildness;
won't wear out no welcome at the Monster House,
nobody there see what comin or going.
Their minds is gold-blown, his stash is so noble.

ROBBER G
Blindeye sayin just what he seein, by Jesus.
Priceless advice ain't often gotten so free.
It only a goodwill gesture to take what he givin
at the very lees of the least, my Priest.
I know your holy vesture is crossed with a baretta.
My prayers all open up hot like a hollownose
shot too, Psycho. It ain't about that at all.
If he givin on all whacked and false-like, well,
at least the ecstasy today's gonna be real real.
What more you need to know 'bout that than how you feel?
You don't come down, some a the others may
get smellin that you're weak, put off, shy
of divin inta what's here. Now why would
that be? they might ask. Psycho Sixty,
he the real down with the downest man around.
Maybe he slippin, just a li'l bit. That's it.
Next thing, someones be skating past our wake,
a triple one, gasping laughs into their hands,
and drooling their Coors out they noses, jose.
I don't like it, but there it is.

BLINDEYE
You gonna fade up like a bruise you not careful;
I don't care how black you think you are.

ROBBER G
C'mon, man, Blindeye here right. Real right.

PSYCHO SIXTY
You keep your hands straight off me, now, hear?
I don't want to hear anymore of this Blackenstein shit;
superduper Monsta Trooper. Y'all can just stall all that.
They call you Blindeye... huh... well they gonna
call you Lefty soon, cause all you gonna have left
is your left nut, homie. Don't be pullin no stuntflying
in my zone, Mr Bones. You got it? One more slip,
you won't even know what happenin'.
And that ain't no stale threat, jet. Monster-Man,
I'm a gonna deal with him most harshly.
Yes indeed. Spliff, Fast Matthew, c'mon,
we gonna rouse them lazy asses kickin back round
Yolanda's house. She been diggin his ass
most unrighteously of all. Her and her wondertunnel.
I'll spurn those he's turned away from me first,
that'll burn him most deep and creeply, I know.
Him and his pretty green girl's eye, well hell,
they can just be trippin on seein
all the homies torn away and spurnin him.
You go there-- tell him that. He just
a hissing miss until he take me out;
I'm the wack trap that'll zap him, no pre-lim.
And when time come round to blistex his ass
for the final, humiliating kiss of my colt .45,
let him see the hardy party he been plannin
disintegrate to tears while he wailin.

[Exit PSYCHO SIXTY.]

BLINDEYE
Damn but that one-hundred percent whack!
Monster ain't no threat to his po ass.
Damn! Psycho Sixty is within inches
of being the top dog among top cats, and he
blowin it bigtime. He just gotta go along
a LITTLE with the adrenalin high Monster havocs,
then everything'd be real cool. Ice cubed.
Let's you and me weave over to the Monsta's house
and put a molten spotlight on Psycho Sixty's
good deeds and charming ways. Monster'll see
and make sure Psycho repent his ashen ass
step'n'fetch-it quick. That's sure.
Monster'll play straight, and no mistake.
'Long as Psycho Sixty play along, jes a li'l bit.
Some bowing now will save his sassy ass from howling.
Maybe it'll look like we beggin a little,
but let's throw our whole hearts inta it, cuz.
Everybody get a bit pleady and wrecked when they buzzed.

ROBBER G
That fool talk like a fool.

BLINDEYE
Gospel.




    
Crackin on a six-pack
golden liquor makein eyes slack,
distributing hilariousness
handin over some fleshy miss,
Every kind a lovely sin
Monster pulls pulsin in
with a smoke-wreathed grin.
High times with him be certain.
No troubled hand draws a curtain
on the revelry, the mystery,
the peek at ecstasy.
Don't be bleedin no worry
on the magic carpet he procures.
Harps and snow-flurries
mix it up with the crack now.
Snap it, and trap it, c'mon hands let's clap it,
Monster is a comin in with his wings a flappin.

Thrashin and trashin,
it's anarchy he's hatchin
it's a method of freedom
when your heart is a speared plum
when your eye sockets
feel like a dirty pocket
--seen too many corruptions
to pull together your gumption?
then let thy soul be free!
Take it from me, for yourself take take it,
mindless happiness is in these veins
when you let your blood be insane
and thoughtfully derrange
what happens in the brain; hop that train,
ride the high wire,
club your dick wit desire.
Expand necromancin, with the DJ trancin,
twirl like a girl, no one will be wiser.
Monster, Monster, in us he's exercisin.

Being wise is just for fools;
shake the house of the righteous,
that's the golden rule.
When trouble is floodin
and your thumper be bubblin
a karma-calmness like dew bedights
rage-reared heads day n' night;
forget hurry, forget-worry,
spear freedom's angry page,
take a life but take it sage:
owning every action-- never sorry.
Your eyes smile in the blast,
in the muzzle-flash I'm trashed;
by death's clear light I'm washed.
For every dissin' victim I've executed,
the Monster in me washes pure what conscience polluted.
I'm a bigger bigger bigger
with my finger on the trigger.

Eyes turned inward see your thought;
what's secret becomes what not;
the unconscious, the monstrous,
vomit visible in the roar's hush.
Before you born, who hung your face
before they skulls, cuz? What place
galloped your heart alert
from void and unbeing, the universe's dirt?
Buttermilk skulls harden to a grimace;
death had your face befo you was in it.
Mr. Bones still dance when flesh dismissed;
you be what you be, cuz, not what you wished.
Orgasm's deaf death spasms make eyes inch inwards;
heavy bodies drop lards, skeletons lighten skywards.
When Monsta has gotcha, yo tweet like a bird;
insane only insane for them that ain't heard.

SCENE TWO

     

[Enter SPLIFF and FAST MATTHEW, escorting MONSTER.]

SPLIFF
Man, his ass is silk.

FAST MATTHEW
No spine in his kind. Comes all simpering.
Let us cuff 'im too, wrists out poutin.

SPLIFF
"Truss me, buss me, just don't make no fuss. See?"

FAST MATTHEW
He came sayin at us with his nice green eye n' all.

SPLIFF
Swayin sweet and neat. Got us laughin and
so sorry somehow inside at lockin and knockin him;
Damn, when's the last time I cared I scarred
some stranger's sorry ass too hard? Yet
with him I was all gentleness and niceness.
Something in him. Some potent flow of twining
wine rhyming a wildness under his slick skin,
Psycho Sixty. I swear. Mister Monster,
me n' Spliff didn't take you on our own recognizance.
Psycho here done ordered it all. That his way.
Shoot first.... He crazy for his honor n' all.

SPLIFF
You know all them other folk we got chained
and chillin to the waterheater in your basement?
Well, they angels now, or somefin.

PSYCHO SIXTY
How angels?

SPLIFF
They done flewed the coop.

FAST MATTHEW
Loop de loop, dey flew de coop. 

SPLIFF
Yeah, and wasn't no lock nohow smashed.
Like they had the keys all forged and molded
that escaped 'em, Psycho Sixty.

FAST MATTHEW
Pretty nifty, huh?

PSYCHO SIXTY
You're a magician, ain't you, you Monster? 

MONSTER
What seem like magic sometimes de simplest thing a all.

PSYCHO SIXTY
You think you could undo a lynch in such a cinch?

MONSTER
Got to know what death be to undo a death, I guess.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Where you from? Ain't from no round here.
You infiltratin. What hood's backin you up?

MONSTER
My kind are from all around. No place everywhere;
You see a fire, you see a fight, I'm from there.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Uh huh. Any place more specific?

MONSTER
No. Naw, not really. My folks from out the cuntry.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Why you draggin all your wildass rollin-eye shit
down to my part a town? Don't need no voodoo boo
washing away our homicide outlines and marks a war.

MONSTER
Things I got in me just gotta come out.
Wherever. Whenever. It don't matter much.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Yeah, I can sip that, but I can't swallow
what everyone else gets just jammin away
at your hollerin wild-loud shindigs, stranger.

MONSTER
What they get stay in their eyes, but you can't see it.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Fuck that shit. You just jackin me up
so I'll let you loose just to get off myself.
I ain't buying that. You tell me. Get me off now.

MONSTER
Some things only come out in the doing, not the tellin.
I can't teach you howta fly lessen you jump up
to my piece of sky, Psycho Sixty.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Uh huh. You ain't tellin me shit, genius.

MONSTER
Wise things sound like fool things to a fool.

[PSYCHO SIXTY cracks MOSTER in the head.]

PSYCHO SIXTY
Keep that up you ain't gonna be wearing your tongue
too much longer, Monster. My dog be chewin on it.

MONSTER
Hidden things in you gonna whap your ass backwards,
Psycho Sixty; and it ain't me that'll do it,
it's your own ignorant self. That's a promise.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Damn, that's it! God damn you, you Monster!
Don't nobody step on my respect.

MONSTER
What horrors will you scar me with?
PSYCHO SIXTY
Gonna shave your dread head. That my first cut.

MONSTER
Do that. just know you ain't playing with no Maybe.
These dreads are a river flowing,
and ain't grown out to be chopped. They're sacred.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Girl hair on a man ain't sacred. Now hand me 
your psychoactive stash, massah. Ha ha.
Whatever it is you got a lock on ain't
gonna stay locked away from Psycho Sixty, sister.

MONSTER
I can't give it up. You want to take,
then let it be on you. Your stirring deep shit now.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Yeah yeah; I don't let no bald woman
tell me what I'm doing or not doing.
Now do I fast Matt?

FAST MATTHEW
You the rockin rooster a the roost, Psycho, no doubt.
But still, he ain't done nothing much. And maybe....

PSYCHO SIXTY
Maybe shit. Ain't no maybes in Maybe anymore.
Don't step on my respect.

FAST MATTHEW
No no. Nothing like that Psycho, man.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Yeah. That's fine then. Hog-tie this muthah.
Then drag his scraggy ass back to the basement.
No second escape about to happen on me. And hurry up,
those cocksuckers from over on Hoover lookin for us.
They just be itchin to be triggerin us
to rancid splats on the sidewalk. No more talk.
Lash him, and let's exit this disaster zone.

MONSTER
You bind me now, you be setting somehing loose
even you don't want no peek at Psycho Sixty.

[PSYCHO SIXTY strikes him.]

PSYCHO SIXTY
Trash that backtalk. I'm a martyr your ass.
I'm the master on this plantation. Strafe him.

MONSTER
You don't know spit about what your life really is;
you don't know nuffin at all about who you are.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Chain him to the light fixture with the bike lock
like I showed you. If he moves, he'll be
electrocuted in the darkness. That'll be
his only enlightenment. Fast Matt, Spliff,
move it! I'll grab Betty, Shaneesta and them stupid chicks
back to my dominion lickety-split again.

MONSTER
You sure is crazy Psycho, just like your name say.
What you lockin up wit me can't be kept pent.



Tidal triumph, awash like graves
Come to kill y'all, not to save.
My mind's unbalanced,
Entranced, with wicked motions dance;
But what's more subtle, right, brighter,
Me insane or you in chains?
Psycho's blind to what makes him wind,
He just a kite in this wind;
Now I look myself over, head to toe,
Just what I am, I just don't know.
But not to know is half the score,
Or more, cause Jazz to the soul's a whore.
Rap just happens, spontaneous combustion,
Of will and world it is the junction.
And all my plain "just Ignorance"
Overbrow's that Psycho's show
Of foresightful jurisprudence.

I'm a dunce, I'm a dunce,
I dance like I was drunk;
I drink like a dancer's waver;
Every gold footsole go clunk,
Many a times, not just once,
We live and die forever.
Of this stupid truth I'm treasurer
Cause my mind's expandin ecstaticer,
Ecstaticer until I cannot stir
Without the mutible union come
To do and do til my bones' undone.
Deep in Monster's interlocked skull
Lies a Zoroaster's indomitable skill
Will to swill and will to kill,
Together lie down on the rapist's hill.

But I dance in a trance,
My blood's as bold as an old lance
Dashin fantastic through my happenstance
Like a teflon-infected bullet's truth
That only in death may find a truce.
How we gonna this ecstatic state induce?
It come when it come, and that's the truth.
I won't degrade what's played into spoof,
Or uncoil my moil of heart with ruth,
Things too imposssible
Come and give me thrills
Time and again, as if Time stood still.
Monster and Psycho: are they equals,
Bone's cold truth, and tyrant's hot demand?
Before this play's final line's declaimed,
One'll drink gin grinning from the other's skull.

SCENE THREE

MONSTER
Hey hey, Betty, you gonna get it on with your steady?
Here I am, and I in the clear. Get near.

BETTY
Close as halitosis, Monster. You touch me,
man you put my pants on fire. Say, how you
get outta Psycho's clutches so fast
without so much as a scratch on your wild hide?

MONSTER
Betty, that sold fool Psycho don't know
who he is messin with in the least. Not the least.
I'll cut him up like butter, muthahfucker.

BETTY
But didn't he have you all painfully chained,
or somethin'?

MONSTER
Can't put a lock on lightness, baby.
Can't chain the mainspring, no way, no maybe.
I learned me a few tricks a gettin outta
my Moms' womb. After that trick, every other'n's
simple as snatch, natch.

BETTY
Not always so simple.

MONSTER
Don't even play that with me, Betty.
You was as easy to knock over as a toddler.

BETTY
There's something you're not a-tellin me,
Monster. Those locks didn't just pop off.
Psycho's no fool no matter how many ways you say he is.

MONSTER
Oh no? Catch a ear a this, then.
They had me so locked up, with so many chains
wrapped about my boisterous body, I looked
like a arrested tornado, Betty Boop.
Did that put old Monster down? Did that
crinkle the pure linens of my spirit? Did it?
Ahh, no. You put me lookin like a sunk slave
in your basement rooms and you find out damn fast
that down just ain't where I's stayin.
But, as I was relating, I was so ass-wrapped up
in these chains, that I couldn't hardly move;
so I had my arms out all christ-wise
and Psycho hisself and his helper hadda help
me move to my imprisonment, one broken step
at a time. And they dids. And I had my hands
clapped upon Mister Sixty's exposed neck;
and what was in my mauling hand? Now what
do you suppose was there?

BETTY
Beats me.

MONSTER
I tripped him out with a li'l slipped dose
of something totally morose and potent.
A most engrossing substance; all romance
and moonlight, with no follow-up dawn
to bring his senses back to a sense a belonging
in this ol' world. His nappy head
was in the most far-outest space sayable
inside of thirty seconds of my benediceion.
Soon's as sayin, he was a-wrappin my swayin chains
around the waterheater itself, and handin me
a uzzi from his personal arsenal.

BETTY
No lie?

MONSTER
No lie.
He was fumblin aroun and fiddln with many things
like a blind man with a combination lock.
And I was right there next to him, lookin over him,
him not seeing me at all, or with wasted-out eyss
overviewing my present frame, thinkin me
some out-of-alignment pillar o' the house.

[Offstage.]

PSYCHO SIXTY
He gone! Snap to, units! Get my slack soljers assembled!
Jump to my house, jacks! Monster's gone!

MONSTER
Hah hah hah. Guess we in for a li'l company.
Psycho, Psycho. He a man fightin against flashes.
What is men's meaning in life compared to me?
I'll knock out agony and joy in one wailin heave;
him? He gonna rage all a his days in a blaze,
not seein the true beauty of violence for his fires.
Ass up in the air, wigglin around, sayin
"I'ma shoot mo' fo'. I'm a shoot his eyes out,
gonna cut him up baaad." Hmm hmm. I'm wise
enough to see this ol' world with my own eyes.

[Enter PSYCHO SIXTY.]

PSYCHO SIXTY
My head is swimmin' like to universe's chaotic begining.
I had that Creature Features Monster spangle-bangled
with razor wires in my bloodletting basement,
and now he's out, gone as a hour burned past.
How'd that happen? Betty.... You! Down on your face,
fucker, nobody get me goin and creep outta my house;
nobody douse me with that humiliation.
I'm a drown your stray cat ass immeadimento, Pablo.

MONSTER
Relax. Your incompetence ain't your personal
diaster; everybody round here got a share in it.
You owe it to all to stall out that vengeance shit
until you see for yourself whether I bring some benefit.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Everybody, do a shotgun patrol. Now.
You see one strange head in our hood... Pow-pow-pow.

MONSTER
That ain't the answer, Psycho.

PSYCHO SIXTY
You so wise-ass wise. You got all the answers,
cept when you need to be tellin me true, bruiser.

MONSTER
I'm true when I need the truth. Then I'm truest.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Say your last prayer, pilgrim. This the apocalypse for you.

[PSYCHO SIXTY holds gun to MONSTER's head.
Two guys on bicycles scoot in, squealing to a halt
before the tableaued pair.

PSYCHO SIXTY
WHAT THE FUCK IS IT? I'm ready to waste this shit.

[PSYCHO SIXTY holds a confused hand up to his aching head.]

FAST MATTHEW
Everybody on the block has flocked out of it,
down towards Florence and Normandy, commander.

SPLIFF
It's true truth. And everybody strapped to the max.
They're out wailin and nailin everyone and everything.

FAST MATTHEW
I saw my little bro on his Big Wheel
tricyclin by with a slingshot.

SPLIFF
We arced around in the dark. Slammed
our breaks by a car chillin at the light,
y'know, near Hoover Avenue? Bap-- trashed
that ol' man in it, pulled him out
to old Mrs. Witchett's garage in a red rage,
stuffed his shirt in his mouf, tied him way down.
Left him there wit' some mangy hound lickin round.
Then we took us a fine drive, moving lightning
at our weighted waists and itchin fingertips,
plenty of trouble and noise available to our egos.
Saw Shaneesta, melon-head in a silk dew-rag
walkin sly and stylin outa the 7-'leven.
Damn she a evil beauty in a tropical skirt, Psycho!
So, we trail her, silent as silk out silkworm's ass.
And she stormin down those streets!
Makin time like a rock-climber in zero-G.
Her heels' clickety-click only sound out there
besides the moon's hollow burn-through
where the streetlights was out. Fast Matt
crackin his neck all-ways sideways to see
if any of the Hoover Bloods is in the water
sharkin our exhaust. But everything seemed clean.
Then China Doll meet up with SHANEESTA
after about half a block, not sportin our colors,
but got on instead the purple-blues the Bloods use
twirlin through their fine high hair.
Then Larry and Shakedown show up, movin too
down the same block, same direction,
toward that Normandy whir-pool center of action
and dick and quiff atteniion. The cold moon
smoking over all a us like a spurted gun.

PSYCHO SIXTY
You keep on talkin, Spliff. If
anything he say implicate you, Monster,
your blown-open neck gonna look as sad
as a chil' when his balloon get popped.

SPLIFF
We turn the corner, and whoa Lord! Hordes
a Bloods with zip-shivs, automatics, bats,
are dancin entranced as Manson aborting li'l
Sharon Tate in the white wilderness suburbs;
every fine hand was lifted, every piece cocked,
every hard eye targeted as clockwork
tickin the death-seconds back to the zero-hole
that eats the victim's life away. And victims'
startin to fall too, all over, like a dance
collapsed-- r'member that time we all played
musical chairs at your Moms' house, Psycho?
Like that. But the music stop and nobody here
have a chair, they all fall all every which ways.
Matted blood dull in the moonlight. Street-
lights shot out in favor of nature's dark
long time gone, maybe, as if the dark was forver.
Then me an' Fast Matt gets this queer idea.
Y'know how your Moms was out there an' all,
well, we thought we should go chase her ol' ass
and drag her back to the habitat, so she
here once an for all, whatever else is a comin,
and that's that; Fast Matt give it the nod
and off we shoot, moving through the cruel ballet
and sloppy bodies' hectic sprawl. Damn if'n I
didn't slip more'n once times in black blood,
my heels still bapped with that baptism.
Now we had just passed a smashed-in Sam's
Wont-Mart, not gone too far beyond that at all
when into my flyin ears came a stingin' singin',
can't describe it no other way, high keenin,
stripped of velvet humanhood, a raw caw
but beautiful too, as if every extragance of voice
had been torn muscle by muscle off, and only
this solo bone of hollow knowing, this hurt chruch
of moon-induced croonin was lef'. Shift
every flap of my heart backwards, it did.
And who we see at the quackin head a this choir?
Whose angel-face, intense as a punch,
and masked all from brow to drippin chin
in another's blood, the mask makin' her look
all holy and insane or somethin', but your MOMS
Psycho? No one but her unleashin that wire
of diamond sound down the corntracted alley.
And she flayin' some space cadet like a filet mignon,
right there in de crags a the trash,
makin this wail and tearin a man to pieces---
with her nails! Damn but that sight went mighty
right through me; I quailed; troubled somethings
almost undid my guts like I had the shits.
Moms bringin the life inta this world
and axing it out as weil-- that ain't damn right;
that for soljers and others to muscle through,
not moms whose titties is all molten over
with milks when you puts up o 'em. Not right.
Damn not right. So me an Fast Matt move to her
gonna just grab her ass or knock her outs,
if we have to, no disrespect, Psycho,
when she raise up that strange mask-face,
all Afrikaans or some shit, right from the heart
a the man she disastered, looks straight
through me, through my whole soul in one look,
with dismissive eyes, and then turns her howl-hedd
to the right and bites the night air
with these words-- oh Lordy I won't forget 'em soon!--
"They, untouched by the monster's grace
seek to touch to undoing our violent chase,
as if the mens owned every insanity!
AAhiiiii! Speed with me deathly! Deathly and free!"
Then she and twenty others batted at us,
flapped dark in the darkness, all speed, like she say.
We barely 'scaped. Scraped knees an hands,
pulled the '78 camaro through twenty backyards,
a rile and a ruckus all fucked up,
tearing the air with angry sounds, rippin stars,
alarmin' all who saw us we had such scared looks,
fear sucked up from the bases of our beings
til all I am emerged in my high screams.
No way I'd be goin in there now again.
Shoot me here, Psycho, but I ain't to budge.
But that Monster she talk about, if that
anything to do with this man here, well then,
I'd be piecing him into my future plans
and not tearin' him out at all. No sir.
No disrespect to you Mistah Monstur. No sir.

PSYCHO SIXTY
You talk like that to me again, Spliff,
I'll have no care that you my li'l bro,
none at all. I'll put a cap in you
and not wait to hear the whap your ass makes
hittin' and disintegratin' against the pavement.

SPLIFF
Don't be makin me go back in there.

PSYCHO SIXTY
You ain't worth takin.

MONSTER
I can give you entrance into their madness.
Would you like to see such ecstatic faces up close?

PSYCHO SIXTY
I did NOT tell you to talk. Keep shut, fucker.
Spliff, go get every last asshole you know;
I want all the troops scooted to my front yard;
any riot within my range goin to be by my hand.

[Exit SPLIFF and FAST MATTHEW.]

PSYCHO SIXTY
Now. What the fuck were you insinuating?
What off-the-wall plan you think you capable of
that can't do myself for myself twice as well?

MONSTER
Nuthin'. Ain't my way to be tellin you
how to do and how to be-- that's best
left up to you, Psycho. I don't know no-how nuthin.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Yeah. Your ignorance clear clear enough to me.
But I can see my way clear far enough
to listen to your stupidity in clarity.
Don't let nobody say just my hands and not my ears
has brash audacity. I'll listen. You speak up.

MONSTER
It's not me the women praise and kill for;
it's what I stand for; to unify the tribe of man.
The wicked things and endocrine surges deep in us
that make Crip and Blood divisions a mere whimsey,
and false dividing of one big WHAT IS
into two lesser what's nots. I'm the frenzy
and the rage; I'm the gorilla in the cage,
his wild black heart, his jonesin for the jungle,
brother, nothin else. No more than a killer's 
operatic score. I'm the leopard makes the zebra fall.
I am the tooth. I am the claw. To that feelin'
there's no known way of rightfully denyin.
For that, they'll slice up their sons,
coin treason in their loins, eat sperm
and make strangers' blood fountain for their cause
instead of your petty internicine rivalries.
Crip 'gainst Crip is cursed. Even Bloods
can be unified in the chaotic tide whereon I toss.
Got to give this idea its fealty, Psycho,
or for the rest of your 'hood its no go.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Make chaos my cause! Aii and to it quick!
I'll toss heroes and enemies' heads upon my prick!

MONSTER
You goin' lose big time, that way.
Your bike wheels be spinnin' skywise at the night.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Everything I say, you say is wrong.
I must always cease in silence, while your talk
plunges on strong, strong, strong.

MONSTER
You command these kids. Its all
still up to you to give in and win, or gall.

PSYCHO SIXTY
I just have to give in to their wicked kicks
and kick it, is that it? Hmm, shit-for-brains?

MONSTER
Naw, not at all! I'll git the wommin' an'
others back here without a nick and explain plain.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Yes. First I let you go. Then you come back attacking.
Can't play that trick on me, I'm too much a prick.

MONSTER
You want th' right to kick all and be all
but don't offer nuthin' more'n a fist to worship,
and that high fist must be your own. Ain't enough.
I'm tryin' to help out, and you pull your attitude.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Get the flare gun, Spliff. Whiff this!
I'll light up your heart in argent mists!

MONSTER
So you want to see the revelry there on Noir-Mandy?

PSYCHO SIXTY
Yeah. Crazy broads squallin n' all. Suits me.

MONSTER
And why is your heart suddenly alight for the sight?

PSYCHO SIXTY
Naw; it'd hurt me had to see Shaneesta and MOMS
workin' hard for the Bloods' cause in the splutter-light.

MONSTER
But you'd get a quick-dick in that ripping sight?

PSYCHO SIXTY
I guess. If I could stay away in the shadows,
deep in the dark recesses, myself a doe.

MONSTER
They'll sight you, however ecstatic-blighted;
they're supernatural in this state of excitation. Quite.

PSYCHO SIXTY
I'll go with my boom-box under spotlights, by God!
You're right, where I walk a God must trod.

MONSTER
I know what they all jazzed about; should I help?

PSYCHO SIXTY
Take my arm; I don't wanna stumble, whipped and whelped.

MONSTER
Take off your Crip's crippled reds. Instead
wear the blowsey blues of the Bloods, arm and head.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Snare myself in my enemy's cold colors,
drop my hot reds for the low blues of the others?

MONSTER
Unless you can take a teflon-coated in the cortex,
consider what I say to be your holy text.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Yeah, my ass is grass. I'll do what you say, an' pass.

MONSTER
Wise.

PSYCHO SIXTY
There's a bag a rags in the kitchen, some blues
just my size.

[Exit PSYCHO SIXTY.]

MONSTER
Everything's straight and steady. At the ready.





The hounds mad, chewing their chains,
whines gone up from their darkness,
compact bodies aft of Pentheus,
Pentheus aware now of the wine-smell,
delicate waft of the wine amid mountains
and the howls at first indistinguishable,
grey in the viney greyness, no more,
now unsure wind-whine, now stiletto voices.

Murder's moment is so nearly come. Attend.

Voices arriving out of midair
Pentheus showing his face over his shoulder,
the beard worried, glint in the eye-spots,
this out of darkness, not else, a breath
abstinent, unclouded mind of wonderment,
and hounds sounding like arrows thru the foliage;
thru the foliage, racing, racing,
and Pentheus half-turned to hear them.

Murder's moment is so nearly come. Attend

Musty singing through the still cypress
"Evocci! Evocci! Io Zagreus! Io!"
Slurry chants and maidens singing,
torchlight, shadows crawling upwards,
yellow shapes on the naked maidens
cuneiform bodies in constant motion
by the deep pool throwing the sounds,
strange stabs of light sheeting blackness

Murder's moment is so nearly come. Attend.

SCENE FOUR

MOMS
Get this to the Bloods: all Crips
is either to our side or quits.
Their troops move to disunity,
but not to the chaos that makes us free.
My son's one. Psycho Sixty, they leader.

CHINA DOLL
Electrify his entrails.

SHANEESTA
Strike out his cancelled eyes.

MOMS
Leave him to me. I got him on his Pops,
I'll lop him out. Sisters, keep company,
these displeasures I'll visit on him
are fit remembrances we shall later sing.

[LESLIE and EXACTA enter.]

MOMS
Now where's our Monster got to, you two?

EXACTA
Psycho Sixty, who had him locked in a box
is sneakin into this wild conjuction,
Normandy and Florence, just this minute.
But he actin' all weird n' all. He doth
bend his eye on vacancy and converse wit' the empty air,
Mrs. Sixty. Nobody wants to get in his way
he seem so crazy, talkin' to the air that way.
But I don't see no Monster with him.

MOMS
Fetch out my straying seed from the wilding field,
cross concrete, leap ditches, fathom fires,
smell him out like a martyred fart, anything,
then joyride him back here like the whore he be.

[Exit LESLIE and EXACTA.]

MOMS
Justice comes in chains with pain;
each hurtin put a truth to triumphant test
til all that was silent caterwauls
and the forbidden or hidden leaps clear inta words.
Victor and victim move in unison,
one thin ribbon of blood pulled out by a gun.
Psycho, that boy done earned my curses,
thinkin he could put such a power of violence
into his striking arm, and not have it strike
beyond him. Once a hit has started it,
all the world must bruise and come to our blood blues.

[Enter PSYCHO SIXTY, held at gunpoint.]

MOMS
Who that? That the traitor a my poignant loins?

SHANEESTA
Nearsighted tyrant, it's him.

MOMS
Hog-tie his raggedy ass.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Moms, what you meanin at here? Sweet momma, think
this my 'hood you doin me in in. Hold off,
and love me a li'l.

MOMS
Use the wire there. Now, I says.

[PSYCHO SIXTY is tied down.]

SHANEESTA
Tight, like he say he like it at night.
Tight, tight.
CHINA DOLL
He a traitor staight.

PSYCHO SIXTY
Ain't no traitor trait in me, I'm clean,
merciless ladies.

MOMS
Snap him to the hood. My bastard,
you gonna find out----

[SHANEESTA punches PSYCHO SIXTY in the balls.]

PSYCHO SIXTY
By every kiss we twisted, it ain't fair,
you hittin me down there, Shaneesta.

SHANEESTA
Such sweet wishes risin from a shitpile?

PSYCHO SIXTY
You a bad woman, Shaneesta, givin me lip.
My balls'll stalk your nightmares and accuse ya.
I'm the one that done says what's what in this hood.
Your creamy hands gots better things to do
than strip me of my dignity. What else you to do?

MOMS
Truth time. What right you got hoppin
on our Monster like you done?

SHANEESTA
Tell it straight, cause we know it all.

MOMS
Why you keep him from his connection, son,
makin an enemy outa the vileness you prize?

SHANEESTA
You an' he the same, but you buck his blood.
How come?

PSYCHO SIXTY
A stranger came to me strangely. Scented,
and with a swagger in his swayin'. How I
s'posed to know he was the Incartion? I ain't Karnac.
Somethin' strange about him. I saw that,
him talkin tall and walkin the walk. I stopped him
knocked my questions against him, and that
the finish of it, sisters.
MOMS
Smart.

SHANEESTA
Lies.

MOMS
Where you gots Monster now?

PSYCHO SIXTY
Wherever he got hisself to, I swear.

SHANEESTA
Answer straight. Where wherever? Ain't you locked him---

MOMS
Yeah, where's wherever? Let him speak to that.

PSYCHO SIXTY
I'm blooded, and don't see nothin but wicked fins 
in the troubled waters that surround me.

SHANEESTA
Where's wherever?

PSYCHO SIXTY
I can't gatekeep his blackness, its fathomless.
He tripped from my chains a dozen times;
he turn me to a fool under my own rule.
Gots my own Moms hottin' after his ass;
how he do all that? You treason your sense.

MOMS
Enough. 

PSYCHO SIXTY
Yeah, enough. I'm tired a play-actin' for your pity.
Kill me if you wants, you witches and snatches.
I killed him already, ladies; he dead as ashes.
Glad I done it too. He beggin' and sweatin,
an' running his hands all down the sides a his bald head
I had shaved naked not a hour before,
just before I came out here to get y'all home.
My boys are soarin in even now. We got you.

MOMS
Ain't no seein in your crystal ball.
China Doll, Shaneesta, hurl him hard
to the ground --now hold, hold, while I put
my fingers in his seers, and pull, pull.   
  
PSYCHO SIXTY
Cruel goddess-- you blight what you brought to light, 
throw your own kitten to an ocean night.

SHANEESTA
His balls will make his eyes look awry,
we should shorn them also.

MOMS
No seein' and no breedin' for thee.

SPLIFF
Stop it now. Oh God. I never saw what cruel was
til I did this injustice now allow.
Shaneesta, Mrs Sixty, wait a minute
this angry mist in your eyes will pass by
and you'll see your son in the clear again.

SHANEESTA
What's that, Spliff?

SPLIFF
If I was strapped, I'd snap you out cold,
Shaneesta. It's Psycho there, not some anonimity.

MOMS
Coward boy!

[MOMS strides over and chokes SPLIFF.]

SPLIFF
Look to kill'em all while you can look,
Psycho. Now I'm gone.

SHANEESTA
Dumb scum.

MOMS
Let night be your nightlight, my son.

[MOMS plucks out PSYCHO SIXTY's other eye.]

SHANEESTA
I'll pluck his other nut.

PSYCHO SIXTY
All lost and heartless. Where my posse?
Soljers, jerk awake and let all L.A. burn
til night shames the day with its brightness
and every mansion stares with the hovels
in the emancipated rubble.

SHANEESTA
Die, rebel-lover. Your troops looted
your house first on this night that takes
all down. This town a sensesurround earthquake,
darlin'.

PSYCHO SIXTY
How little harm was in my harming, then.

MOMS
Let him lick his blisters in the streets.
If we hazard into him again, I'll lift
his head spiked upon my fist.

SHANEESTA
Kick him in the balls whiles he pukes
against the ravaged wall, scribbled red with Crip script.

[PSYCHO SIXTY crawls away. FAST MATTHEW follows.]

MOMS
Teach him to walk. I regret that I ever did.

[SHANEESTA toys with ball and eye as earrings.]

SCENE FIVE

[Enter BLIDEYE and ROBBER G holding PSYCHO SIXTY's
headless corpse between them on their bicycles. TVs
and other loot are balanced on their shoulders.]

BLINDEYE
Sad this fate, and slow lows the mourning horn
for Psycho Sixty, for he is dead.
The clear hood which was his home and rapist's habitat
clouds now to the divinity of violence unleashed;
Psycho first yelled the killing note,
robbed and shot to build on human souls
his bone throne. His terror ruled the roost.
But the human heart can't be caught in the cage a fear;
when your bullet-bought superiority
most nearly really real that when it spill and fail.
Every clubbing gun can kill its winsome owner,
no rage obeys even a maniac's harsh rule.
They more in us than our reason can fool.

ROBBER G
O let us cry at th' tongue, and make tears
ruin our hot faces. Let us mourn and torture
those who from Psycho's Sixty's terrored grip did slip.
Let no spoke pop from his deadened hub;
Let all Crips circle him in his absence still.

BLINDEYE
You know that not to be, Robber G.
Can't ration our future days on the past, no way.

ROBBER G
You right, Blindeye. That, I see.
But why Psycho got to go from us the way he did?

BLINDEYE
Psycho out way beyond our rumor and obeyance
both now. This you know. Love done gone hollow
long before this night catched fire.
Extinguish the pity that pisses tears down your face.
Close up your vents of sorrow and see what real.

ROBBER G
And what that? What reality is here?

BLINDEYE
No longer the calculation of skins and winces,
the Crip grip hard-line that Psycho held.
Monster's monster parties are what fallen to us
to behold and motion our current hearts to.
The ashes this city is this dawn fit into his hand
like cig'rette ashes in a ashtray. No maybe.
Why this new sway and danger? I don't now.
Its zappin chaos seems to be what was at center
of all the robbin and high times we had before tho',
that existential clash of wish and disaster.

ROBBER G
Here come a emblem of all hates unhinged;
his Moms has climbed to violence's apogee.

[Enter MOMS and SHANEESTA. MOMS has PSYCHO SIXTY's
head spiked upon her fist and raised high.]

MOMS
Eternal church of the worst of the worst!
My dark griefs I bury with the stone cold hopes
my son's blind fly-ridden eyes symbolically embody.
My joys, like vampires of the night, burst to unhearse
and frighten the skyline with their terror.
Pride riseth not from its golden home, my soul,
to course the darkness with personality.
Neither beauty, as its commonly understood,
nor the apocalyptic treacheries of sincerity
are given root in my dark places, my swaled basements.
Out of my hollows come swelling songs of lust,
trim triumphs, rashnesses; my arias are mighty
and stones leap up from where I spit.
The streets are torn where my vengeance drags
and death adds his weeping to my keen sighs. 
Chipped eyes insinuate the night, daily.
For I have come to the hole of tornadoes in myself;
my voice is no voice, I am witness and doer,
my veins ascend like flowering founts into blood-bloom,
my dooms are meted out to the righteous and iniquitous
with equal vigor and violence. I am no-face,
and voids hallow my passing, a black star eating light.
God's remorseless course is racing through us;
Mother night reclaims what daylight lent us.




No work in the hood,
nothin comin up;
violence is drunk by us,
violence makes us drunk.
Pistol, Whippets, China Doll,
Tammy, Shakedown, Dog, Larry,
Monster, Crip-boy, Terri,
Linda, boyz and girrls all;
As men and women we must fall.
Toke it, smoke it, better not choke it;
hammer comin down all over dis town.
Back on the street, I is Fleet;
killer nigga witha attitude,
killer stare killer cool;
my hatchet will wack it,
PCPs in my blood will hatch it.
Mayhem is my plan,
Chaos is my tool;
rod and rocket,
fuck you we gonna lock it.
Tribalist hate, lying in state,
Crips whip sissies,
sissies gotta take it.
Make it, can't fake it,
my blood is buzzin
cause your death isa comin.
.44s, .32s, sawed-off righteous,
teflon bullets come'n kiss this.
Workin down the alley cool as a cat,
our feet like moonlight, light like that.
Nevah mutha-
fuka gonna fuck ya;
cap in yo nappy head
lickin asphalt dead,
my rule is crimson
hatred is my brimstone;
walk this world stone alone,
put a cap in my enemy befo I's gone.
Victory, victory,
chaos gettin inta me,
wildnight action,
adidas-fast traction.
One dis and you get this;
muthafuckin nevah gonna miss.
Handy, dandy, my colt .49;
effortless, endless,
these scraggy streets is mine;
highest, wiredest,
my flight's so tragic-magic
I paff out the rest best;
I kite it, I bite it
no matter how windless.

This which is in me
is my only kin, see,
nothin else can win me.
Violence, violence,
put its crooked root in my tooth,
grow outa my shadow
to shatter the vacum.
Outer space gonna waste
when my god give the nod
and unleash what's within me.
Up from the Dime,
down to 299,
all the way I'm gonna riot
ride it, abide it, alla that fly shit;
nothin ain't no sin, Jammers
just so long as you win, Bamm!
John Wayne Gacy, Dick Tracy,
they all say it and lace it
inside like a sidewinder,
just a little reminder;
Like a Medusa, we'll reduce ya
until you crawl in hip-deep;
make your little sister weep.
Yeah, yeah, yo mamma gonna cry
river a tears, bye n bye.
Ain't no offer, I'm gonna off ya;
no amnesty served up with your tea.
Wackin and swackin
and crazy-ass crackin
is all you're gonna get
from the boyz wit the hit.
The God a Din
growing mighty within;
I puff him and huff him,
I'm down with the dragon,
your blood, my religion.
Deflower is power
and I get it by the hour.
Every tear of your fear
I lick until it tickles.
Runnin with a Mustang
chillin with the Gangsta gang
baffin' with the master man.
Yo, color! Yo color!
A militant flip-off
is enough to get ya knocked off.
Adrenelin
rushin in,
flamin it
never taming it,
my juice is a mighty tower,
my snakey spine's a howler.
Whip it, drip it;
cordite smoke, I lip it.
Givin every sign
I'm possessed by the most divine.
Yes, it's spastic
but the girls dig my brass stick;
unwavering they savor it,
gettin humble just to flavor it.

Now this night is diving
like wine from a shiv in
somebody, a stranger,
a kid in a manger;
don't matter, it splatters
its darkness that flatters,
making me restless;
I'm up and I get dressed.
Night combat black
to match the sky's black attack;
Under my old stereo
my hand spans, there it go,
just like in the rodeo;
I pick up my pistol,
neveah gonna let it go.
Oh no, ho no,
out the house, I'm on Patrol.
Who's dat comin
My heart starts thrummin;
whatever's out, I'm in.
Nothin's ever prettier
than me and my boyz sittin sure.
Our waistbands are packin
when we start the dragnet
It's an old old story
rosy, erect-reared phalloi,
testosterone to the bone
bring tha muthafucka rollin home!
Pot smoke, ropes of dope,
crack-smackin, our heads be whackin
with honey-nugget naked dreams, oi!
We smash with the mastering noise of the Boyz!
Our eyes like blazin .38s,
heaven's angels at the gate,
satan's flamethrowers just can't wait
so we shout
while our arms sparr routs
pickin up the little ones
to teach em all the killin fun;
In our enemy's fear
our hearts sail clear;
our dreads sled better
when they're deader and wetter.
Snortin and flarin
wild and darin
like some high-wire act
we dance in the flak
hotter and hotter,
demented as otters!
Mighty in our joy
boyz among boys;
Holy loud-proud
our hand signals make the rounds
til every fucka in the hood
just wishes that he could or would
throw his hand around his heart
and break it flaming like kindling wood!