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text LULU Kathy Acker 1. The Selling of Lulu (On the street, outside the professor's house. Lulu sits down on the plinth of a column, sorting her flowers. She doesn't at all look romantic or virginal or anything at all. This is what she looks like: she isn't even a kid (being a kid is romantic): she's eighteen, perhaps twenty years old. She wears a little French-ish hat, where she got this one we'll never know, which has been exposed for more years than she has to London soot, wind and rain and has seldom if ever been brushed or loved. Neither has her hair. Her hair color's natural; she's not a punk; it's mousy. She wears some kind of black coat which manages to touch her knees. The coat's too tight around her chest. Her boots, likewise, are something-orother . She is as clean as she can be. But she's had a hard life. Compared to real ladies, she is dirty. Do we see any ladies? Are there any ladies to be seen? Like all women, she needs unnaturalness.) LULU: (To Schdn, a dignified professor.) Cheer up, captain, and buy a flower off a poor girl. (Her hand is reaching for his wallet.) SCHON: (Politely.) I'm sorry. (He sees her hand on his wallet; as if he's almost not acting grabs this hand, and brings her to her feet.) Something is going to have to be done with you poor people. LULU: I ain't done nothing wrong. I'm only trying to sell you a flower. I have a right to sell you a flower if I stay off the curb, don't I? 102 SCHON: Why're you scared of me? Do you think I'm trying to hurt you? LULU: I don't know what you are. SCHON: Who I am. LULU: Who I am. SCHON: You do not know who you are because you do not know how to speak properly. A woman who utters depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be-anywhere-no right to live. Certainly no right to sell flowers. Remember that you are a living being with a soul and thus with the divine gift of articulate speech. Your soul's language is the language of Milton and Shakespeare and the English Empire. Wouldn't you like to be able to speak properly? (Lulu doesn't say anything.) Come along now. I have to do something to help out the poverty-stricken in this country. Inside the Professor's house SCHON: (To the Maid.) Take her clothes. THE MAID: Yes, sir. SCHON: By George, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before I've done with you. LULU: You've got no right to touch me. SCHON: I have no desire to touch you. I'm going to find out whether I can change you. I'm going to find out whether I can make a poor . .. member ... of society into a member of society. It's a social experiment. LULU: You can't change me cause there's nothing to change. I've never been. SCHON: Well, now you are. Or hopefully, you're going to be. Think of this: You shall marry a socialist politician who controls the arts. His father, who's a conservative member of Parliament, disinherits him for marrying you. But when he finally realizes your exquisite beauty, your fine manners , your dinner parties, his Lordship ... LULU: Shit. SCHON: What? LULU: Shit. I gotta shit. SCHON: Oh. If you are naughty, and idle, you will sleep in the kitchen among black widow spiders and be hit by my chauffeur with his huge car rod. If you do not do what I tell you to, you will be guilty. -Outside and inside Sch6n's house (A day-laborer, actually whatever's worse than a worker, manages to knock his hand against Sch6n's door. His name is Schigold. Since he has nothing else to do, he keeps on knocking. After a long while, Schon opens his door.) SCHON: Excuse me. SCHIGOLD: I want my...

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