CASS: So you people in the Swords of Jesus or, you guys are—a coke-pushing religious cult.

SALAZAR: Not by intention.

CASS: Accidently.

SALAZAR: To keep talking with you would involve you being able to appreciate the complications of the human heart. But you, you’re a kid, you’re a pagan—

CASS: Hey now, I been to church—

SALAZAR: You’ve never been driven to your knees in the pit when you can’t even raise your head to see how deep down you’ve fallen—

CASS: You should’ve had a little peek at me when I woke up not an hour ago.

SALAZAR: It’s not a joke.

SALAZAR wiggles the gun. CASS grapples it to his own breastbone and leans into it with his arms open wide.

CASS: It’s not a joke. Talk about the wrong side of the bed. I know how you can wake up on the wrong side of the universe. And you went to bed just hoping to be okay like everybody else is.

SALAZAR is startled. He draws the gun back carefully from CASS’s chest; puts it away.

SALAZAR: And what’s your crime? Did you steal? Did you lie? Is your whole life one big rip-off? Who did you kill? Did you kill somebody?

CASS: Not in so many words.

SALAZAR: Not in so many—Kill. How many words is kill? It’s one word. (Pause.) Who did you kill, Cassandra?

Pause.

CASS: Don’t call me Cassandra by itself. It’s why I never went in the Army. I knew the sergeant would call me “Cassandra” every minute. Plus I won’t take bossing, I can’t take orders, I’m not built for it.

A long pause while SALAZAR outwaits him.

I lost a woman on this raft trip where we were on the Colorado River a couple years back. Or three years exactly.

SALAZAR (sincerely): That’s too bad.

CASS: One of these days there’s someone coming through that door. He won’t look like the Devil. But it’ll be him. (Pause. CASS drifts with his thoughts until SALAZAR clears his throat.) She fell, climbing around on the rocks where she shouldn’t. That was her style. She was a cranky little—well, I ain’t gonna call her a bitch: she’s dead. But that’s what she was. One of those pretty little people like to make everything a problem—like it’s time to eat, I’m not hungry—it’s time for coffee, I want tea—it’s bedtime and we’re all dog tired, I wanna have a chat—it’s time to go, everybody’s in the raft…(Pause.)

SALAZAR: Everybody’s in the raft…

CASS: A very stylish type, every minute stylish. You seen ’em. But I bet you never talked to one. There’s a lot of ’em—your usual tall Coppertone blonde in a white halter, white shorts, white spike heels, and she’s a zigzaggy reflection across the hood of a big old red Cadillac, a red one—“Eldorado.” Life looks like fun when you reflect it across a red Eldorado.

Pause.

SALAZAR: And?

CASS: And?

SALAZAR: And few of us drive Eldorados.

CASS: Right.

Pause.

SALAZAR: The woman.