Soul of a Whore and Purvis Read Free

When I was on the telephone?
    BILL JENKS : Yeah, and I could smell the putrid karma
    Percolating in the interaction,
    And I say this: Whatever’s going on
    With you and him can only improve with distance.
    MASHA : I didn’t see you around. Just prisoners.
    BILL JENKS : One was me. And then I bought the outfit…
    Pack of smokes…and we’re not prisoners.
    We’re out—How do!—We move among you now.
    MASHA : What were you in for? Dealer? Killer?—Rapist.
    BILL JENKS : Victim of religious persecution.
    MASHA : Jewish, huh?
    BILL JENKS :                 I was irregular.
    MASHA : And went to prison for it?—What’d you do,
    Diarrhea all over somebody?
    BILL JENKS : My conduct was irregular. That is,
    With money.
    MASHA :                  Sure. You stuck somebody up.
    BILL JENKS : I was convicted of commingling funds.
    It means a stick-up with a ballpoint pen.
    MASHA : Do tell. Co-mingling funds. Is that Chinese?
    BILL JENKS : Lady, is that the way you play your game?
    Hang around the Greyhound lookin’ down,
    Makin’ fun of other folks’s clothes—
    And Masha is a Russian nickname, sis.
    MASHA : No, it’s not. “Sis” is a nickname. Masha’s
    What I got at birth. My name is Masha.
    BILL JENKS :… Mar -sha—!
    MASHA :                            Yeah…
    BILL JENKS :                                  Well, I like Masha better.
    MASHA : When I dance I’m Fey or I’m Yvette
    Or I’m Nicole and then I’m naked.
    BILL JENKS :                                               Naked!
    MASHA : I start out topless and proceed from there,
    And logic does the rest.
    BILL JENKS :                              I’ll bet it does.
    I’ll bet it ends up running down the road
    Yodeling and firing off both guns.
    MASHA : You’re pretty slick with words.
    BILL JENKS :                                          Ain’t but a tic.
    MASHA : I’ll bet your mouth gets you in trouble. Lots.
    BILL JENKS : And where would someone fresh from prison go
    To watch you executing logic so
    Ruthlessly and gracefully? To Heaven?
    Or someplace even higher?
    MASHA :                                       Try the Texas.
    BILL JENKS : The Texas Bar?
    MASHA :                              The Big-As-Texas.
    BILL JENKS :                                                    …O!—
    Sylvester’s Big-As-Texas Topless Lounge!
    I guess I wasn’t off by very much:
    â€œJust fifty miles from Houston and right next
    To Paradise on Highway 35.”
    How do you get to and from? You got a car?
    MASHA : No, but I can always catch a ride.
    BILL JENKS : I do believe you can. I guarantee it.
    And what’s your next stop? Dallas?
    MASHA :                                                     I’m not sure.
    BILL JENKS : Not sure?
    MASHA :                      I need to pick the proper move.
    It’s heads or tails, and devil take the hindmost.
    BILL JENKS : Sounds like you better grab the first thang smokin’.
    MASHA : The tips were big as Texas—then the road
    Got all torn up, and now it’s like a tomb,
    And I got Peter Lorre for a boss, who just
    Keeps jacking up the price of doing business.
    BILL JENKS : I guess that happens all the time.
    MASHA :