Voice1: -don’t really think that device is necessary.

Voice2: I want something harder for you to edit than a human brain.

Voice1: That was…I wouldn’t, not to you.

Voice2: Then tell me why, Victor.

[Silence, then rustling noises, footsteps]

Voice2: What are you doing?

Voice1: Checking. Nobody hiding under the windows or behind the door.

Voice2: I wouldn’t. Not after all we’ve gone through.

Voice1: And I wouldn’t either, Geraldine.

[Silence]

Voice1: I didn’t come to bring trouble, only to take it away. Something awful happened here two decades ago, and I am here to clean things up. I don’t-

Voice2: Victor. Please. I believe you’re here for a good reason. You always have a good reason. I just want to know why.

[Silence]

Voice1: My parents…stayed in this town for a while. This was where they met, actually, along with Dr. Birch. And while they were there…Pastor Bean…he killed my mother.

Voice2: What?

Voice1: I know, it’s hard to believe, but in his youth, the man was…well, just as neurotic, but far more obsessive and prone to violence. He sought vengeance on my mother for-

Voice2: -killing his uncle. With the horses. My God, Lilith was real this whole time.

[Silence]

Voice1: What. How did you…who told you about her?

Voice2: I, um, may have stolen one of the old doctor’s journals a year ago because he was being rude and wouldn’t let me read the two really fancy books he had in his bedroom. Most of it was in this awful doctor’s shorthand that I couldn’t read, but there was some stuff about werewrightwork that was in plain script and…

Voice1: Details about my mother.

Voice2: An mostly anonymized account about her. I wasn’t even sure if it was real or just a story he came up with. It seemed too horrible to be true, but…you’re saying she died here? Then…oh, god, I’m going to be ill.

[Frantic breathing]

Voice1: Ger, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.

Voice2: Did…the town really…

Voice1: Eat her? We’d only guessed that before, but now…there’s really no alternative. What I’m doing wouldn’t work if they hadn’t.

Voice2: How are you this calm about this?!

Voice1: Because, I’m going to fix it. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to distill my mother’s flesh from the town’s population. Same basic principle behind panning for-

Voice2: So you are scheming against the town?

Voice1: That’s…an uncharitable reading of-

Voice2: Stop. Are you or are you not?

Voice1: I’m not…you…this is my mother, Geraldine. I’m not against the town, I’m for her.

Voice2: The assassin.

Voice1: My mother. I can’t speak for her past, but in the time I’ve been alive, she’s done well by me.

Voice2: ‘In the time you’ve been alive’, do you even hear yourself? No wonder you looked down on me when I wanted to learn from you. I thought we were the same! I thought we were lost and alone together, us against normalcy. But now you’ve been half-immortal this whole time and just see the entire town as…crops to harvest? To experiment on?

voice1: Ger, I-

Voice2: Can you talk to animals too? Can you shrug off death? Were you even in actual danger from the circus? From the Marshal? From any of this? Or were you just leading me on this whole time.

[Silence]

Voice1: I’m…human. My parents identify with humanity…begrudgingly. Fleetingly. But I was born human, and I’ve stayed human, and I never asked for anything more or less than that. I grew up same as you did, and as I am now, I’ll grow old the same way you will.

Voice2: Can you even die?

[Silence]

Voice1: [shaky] I die. I have a few more tricks to save my life than most people, but…I die all the same. Anybody in this town could kill me. I’ve been…so afraid of it. I was the only one who had to act alone, in a town that we knew would hate me on sight. I’ve already nearly died three times and I’m terrified to even talk about it because I don’t want to raise a fuss and get too much attention, and all I can do is push the fear down until I’m-

[Sobbing]

Voice2: Oh, uh…here, on my shoulder.

[More sobbing, followed by a long sniff]

Voice1: Apologies. That was…unprofessional.

Voice2: Forget it. I don’t need you to be professional. I want you to be honest, and if that’s how you really feel, then I believe you. I guess…I don’t get it, but I get it. You’re still Victor. You’re still-

Voice1: Human.

Voice2: My friend. You don’t need to be human for that.

Voice1: Thank you.

Voice2: Even if you’re still super weird and doing weird experiments with the townsfolk and, oh god, Mattie was right about Mr. Edwards, wasn’t she?

Voice1: Ah.

Voice2: You dug up a grave?

Voice1: Well.

Voice2: You dug up a grave!

Voice1: The current process of extracting what I call ‘edenflesh’ has a low yield on living people, so I may have…briefly considered…

Voice2: Gross! I liked Mr. Edwards! His brother would send him little honey candies every Christmas and he’d pass them out all the other kids. And you dug up his corpse?

Voice1: He called me a nigger under his breath once. Better him than the other four who died.

Voice2: Oh.

Voice1: That’s not…I don’t mean that as an excuse, I still regret what I did, but…I don’t know the man you knew. I know the man who called me a nigger.

Voice2: I get it even if I don’t get it. I’m…still upset but I’m not going to hit you. Not yet at least. You were…saying something before I cut you off?

Voice1: I did it once, considered it twice, and now everybody’s on alert so I wouldn’t be able to do it again if I wanted to, and I really, honestly do not. As gross as you think it is, it’s worse. And now I need to get enough edenflesh to restore my mother’s old body and find where Bean buried her bones and I need to do it before someone decides I’m too much trouble to keep tolerating. That’s part of why I’m telling you this. I need your help.

Voice2: Victor…have you considered just…asking everybody to give over the edenflesh? I mean, they might be suspicious of you, but-

Voice1: To acknowledge it exists in them is to acknowledge what Pastor Bean did. I don’t think this town is evil, but it would rather stay in ignorance than admit that it committed such a great misdeed, that it could have done better and could do better. That’s why Pastor Bean is so at home here.

Voice2: Bean wouldn’t lay a finger on me. My father is-

Voice1: Your father was probably in on it. Birch always thought so, even if he could never prove it.

[Silence, then the sound of a sharp slap]

Voice2: He’s my father. You don’t…he’s my father!

Voice1: The war hero. Doesn’t that mean he also killed people, like my mother?

Voice2: That’s not…you’re about to get into a whole argument about when killing is justified., aren’t you? It’s not about him being a killer. It’s…I trust him.

Voice1: Exactly: your father is a deeply capable and competent man. Bean was staying in his basement when he did the deed. I don’t think your father’s foolish enough to not realize what happened. Never mind that he’s government; the legal system is not designed for grievances this large, no more than it can account for the subjugation of the East and the continuing war in the West. I can’t trust him with the truth, Geraldine.

Voice2: Just…me.

Voice1: And I do trust you. I’ll trust you all the way to the garden gates. But everybody else in this town is an enemy in waiting unless decisively proven otherwise.

Voice2: That’s…you really do mean everyone, don’t you?

[Silence]

Voice1: I…understand that’s a difficult thing to hear. But even here in the North, white folk are naturally dangerous to us - to me. Even if they don’t mean harm. You know I try not to even touch you because someone might think I’m being untoward and that’ll get me hung up on a tree.

Voice2: Is that why? I just thought you were private but…I get it. You’re just trying to keep yourself safe.

Voice1: Both of us. If anybody thinks a black man had his way with you, society will throw you aside as damaged goods.

Voice2: I didn’t ask for protection. Not from you, not from Mattie. I just want to be here, in the action, with someone I care about.

Voice1: Mattie or me?

Voice2: It…it doesn’t matter. I’ll need some time but if you just want…edenflesh?

Voice1: Flesh from Eden, and to Eden it may one day return.

Voice2: I’m willing to help you get it. I’ll do it for you - because I know you’re you because you’re you.

Voice1: Pardon?

Voice2: Your behavior has always stemmed from your core values and personality and not from destructuralized mask of personhood you’ve crafted over yourself. Does that make more sense?

[Voice1 laughs]

Voice1: I don’t think I can be anybody else. Can’t say I inherited my father’s cunning in that regard. Or his natural secrecy. Or his raw charm.

Voice2: I think you’re got more of each than you think. God, your charm. You know Mattie was convinced we were a secret couple.

Voice1: She…actually did? I thought she was just bringing that up to try and taunt me.

Voice2: Yeah, it’s absurd, right?

[Silence]

Voice2: Still…maybe it is worth talking about, perhaps. For clarity’s sake.

Voice1: I…yes, I suppose we should. Do you…still need this part to be on the record?

Voice2: No.

Voice1: Agreed.

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