Oh, stop it! Stop it! . . . Oh, Oh, Oh, Sure, sure, Mamma, etc.
1
Please, you know me. Oh, Louie, didn’t I give you my door bell? Everything you got, the whole bill. And did you come for your rest in the doctor’s office, sir? Yes, I can see that. Your son-in-law, and he isn’t liked, is he? Harry, does he behave? No; don’t you scare me; my friends think I do a better job. Oh, police are looking for you all over; please be instrumental in letting us now. That wouldn’t be here; they are Englishmen and they are a type I don’t know who is best, they or us. Oh, sir, and get the doll a roofing. Please. You can play jacks, and girls do that with a soft ball and do tricks with it. Please; I may take all events into consideration; no, no. And it is no; it is confused and it says no; a boy has never wept . . . nor dashed a thousand kim . . .
2
Two
thousand; come on, get some money in that treasury; we need it; come on, please
get it; I can’t tell you to. You are
telling the truth, aren’t you, Mr. Harris.
That is not what you have in the book.
Oh, yes I have. Oh, please,
warden. Please. What am I going to do for money. How is that; how do you like that? Please put me up on my feet, at once. Thank you, Sam, you are a boiled man; I do it
because you ask me to. Did you hear
me? I would hear it, the Circuit Court
would hear it, and the Supreme Court might hear it. Come on, pull me up sir. All right.
Cam
3
I know
what I am doing here with my collection of papers, for crying out loud. It isn’t worth a nickel to two guys like you
or me, but to a collector it is worth a fortune; it is priceless. I am going to turn it over to . . . . Turn
your back to me, please, Henry. I am so
sick now. The police are getting many
complaints. Look out. Hey, Jack; hello Jack. Jack, mamma.
I want that G-note. Look out, for
Jimmy Valentine, for he is an old pal of mine.
Come on, Jim, come on Jimmie; oh, thanks. O.K. O.K. I am all through; I can’t do
another thing. Hymie, won’t you do what
I ask you this once? Look out! Mamma, mamma!
Look out for her. You can’t beat
him. Police, mamma! Helen, Mother, please take me out. Come on, Rosie. O.K.
Hymes would do it; not him. I
will settle . . . . the indictment. Come
on, Max, open the soap duckets. Frankie,
please come here. Open that door, Dumpey’s
door. It is so much, Abe, that . . . with
the brewery. Come on. Hey, Jimmie!
The Chimney Sweeps. Talk to the
Sword. Shut up, you got a big
mouth! Please help me, Henry. Max come over here . . . . French Canadian
bean soup . . . I want to pay, let them leave me alone. . . .
COMMENTARY
source: J. Rothenberg, A Big Jewish Book: Poems & Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to Present, Doubleday & Company, 1977.
An excerpt from the New York Times (October 25, 1935) of death-bed statements transcribed verbatim by J.F. Long, a Newark Police Department clerk-stenographer. The gangster Dutch Schultz (Arthur Flegenheimer) had been gunned down in the men’s room of the Palace Chop House & never regained full consciousness, but his “last words,” recorded over a 24-hour period, take on a new life when written down in sequence & minus any interruptions. A further appropriation of the words in bits & pieces occurs in William Burroughs’ film script, “The Last Words of Dutch Schultz”:
Bare room
of Albert Stern [the man
who shot Dutch
Schultz]. He is lying on bed by the open gas oven. hiss of escaping gas
Sets from film are repeated on loop.
Flegenheimer Saloon and Livery Let them leave me alone.
Stable, bee drop, offices,
streets, the old Harmony Hotel, Stern’s plaintive voice:
Public School No. 12. The sets are Arthur Flegenheimer
progressively underexposed, darker arthur flegenheimer
and darker.
(A last despairing cry)
Mrs Murphy’s lilacs flash on
screen ARTHUR FLEGENHEIMER
in bright color.
Sets rapidly darken.
gas and hospital sounds
fainter and fainter
Darkness on screen. silence on screen
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