Just answer the question.
A bit of a beat.
RUTHIE: All right. You’re Emily Owens
EMILY: Wrong.
RUTHIE: You’re Emily Russell Owens.
EMILY: Wrong.
RUTHIE: I give up.
EMILY: You give up really easily.
RUTHIE: Jesus Christ.
EMILY: Who am I.
RUTHIE: I. Don’t. Know.
EMILY: Monica Alicia Perry.
RUTHIE: Okay. Great. Since when.
EMILY: Since this afternoon. My birth certificate came in the mail. Who am I?
RUTHIE: Monica something.
EMILY: You think I’m an asshole.
RUTHIE: You are an asshole.
EMILY: You’re going to be the asshole. When you fuck it up. “Monica Perry great I’ll remember that great.” And we’re in line at the movie theater and you say, “Emily, shall we get extra butter?” and the guy six ahead of us in line turns around, reflexively. You think the pigs don’t go to the movies too?
RUTHIE: All right.
EMILY: If I go to prison can you take my place? Do you know how to load a gun and reload it in under ten seconds? Do you have the stamina to sleep in a different bed or on a different couch every night? I mean every night. Night after night. It’s harder than you’d think. Do you have the willpower, and the focus, to walk into a public building with a live explosive taped to your chest, walk calmly to the ladies’ room on the second floor, wash your hands, and walk out again all of this time with a live explosive taped to your chest all the time knowing that Louis who assembled it, and strapped it on you, is a genius semiotician and social analyst but he’s been up three nights straight and forgets to eat and that when he wired it together this morning his hand was shaking but today is the day to test security procedures, and if it doesn’t happen today the plan is out of whack, and if the plan is out of whack the safety, and, much more importantly, the ideology, the vision, the goal of fourteen people is seriously compromised.
RUTHIE: No I can’t. I don’t.
Bit of a pause.
EMILY: I know.
RUTHIE: But I wish that I could.
EMILY (Gently): I know. Who am I?
RUTHIE: You’re . . . . . . . . . fuck!
I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.
EMILY: Who am I?
RUTHIE (Struggles for a moment, gets it): Monica. Monica . . .
EMILY (Very rapidly): Alicia Perry. Who am I?
RUTHIE: Monica Alicia Terry. Perry. Monica Alicia Perry.
EMILY: Who am I?
RUTHIE: You’re Monica Alicia Perry.
EMILY: Someone says to you: who is that?
RUTHIE: Monica Alicia Perry.
EMILY: I am:
RUTHIE: Monica Alicia Perry.
EMILY: Good. Now I have a question for you. Do you remember who I am?
RUTHIE: Monica Alicia Perry.
EMILY: No. I know. But I need to know. That is who I am. But do you remember who I am?
Beat.
RUTHIE: You’re / Monic—
EMILY: No. That’s who I am.
RUTHIE: I love you. You’re wearing me out.
EMILY: I need you to know who I am—but I also need you to remember who I am. Not. Any longer.
Bit of a beat.
RUTHIE: Oh.
/ You’re—
EMILY: But don’t say it.
RUTHIE:
EMILY: Think it, okay? Tell me who I am with your mouth. Remember who I am with your eyes.
RUTHIE: Simultaneously?
EMILY: It’s tricky, right?
RUTHIE (Bit of a pause, gathering it together): Okay.
EMILY: Who am I?
RUTHIE (Slowly, looking her in the eye): Monica (Barely whispered: Emily) . . . Alicia (Barely whispered: Russell) . . . Perry. (Barely whispered: Owens)
EMILY (Softly): Who am I?
RUTHIE: You are:
Monica. (Only with her eyes: Emily)
Alicia. (Only with her eyes: Russell)
Perry. (Only with her eyes: Owens)
EMILY: Okay. Okay. Thank you.
CHAPTER 12
The remnants of a vast meal. Absurd amounts of dirty plates. The Non-Prophet’s place setting remains untouched, and he is sipping at a tiny cup of espresso. Jeremiah has pushed the plates aside, and commandeered the bread basket; he is demolishing the last of the bread and then begins on a cucumber.
JEREMIAH: In the beginning, I did not mind the pit. Well, I had questions about the mire. I was glad, though, to be in a place where I could speak without . . . bad consequences . . . to myself. I did a little bit of singing and I enjoyed that, there was a reverberation, I sounded almost professional; I felt free.
In time, I began to feel agitated. I could not pace, or, beat against the sides of my imprisonment because of the mire which was . . . bogging-down . . . and entrapping. Also I felt . . . hot . . . inside, because of my certainty, and as days went on I felt hotter. Rats don’t know anything and they don’t care about anything, at least that’s the way I see it, and whatever I said to them it didn’t matter to them either pro or con.
Beginning from that time, I found I could not like the pit. Even when I was singing. And I was hot because of the certainty, and increasingly I found that I had a great deal of hunger. Also there was no question of sleeping. Because of the sinking-under-the-mire problem. And then today . . . today? Yes. Today then they threw a rope down. I wanted to laugh, because they were whispering very dramatically the whole time. They had a torch and they would light it, and then whisper very dramatically, and then extinguish
