- It's three day later.
- Prior's old friend, Belize, has just walked into Prior's hospital room.
- Prior is still really sick, but he's getting better.
- Belize has brought cream to rub onto Prior's lesions.
- Prior asks if there's been any word from Louis.
- None, says Belize, but he'll show up.
- Getting really upset, Prior cries that he wants his boyfriend.
- Belize calms him down.
- Prior tells Belize that he's been hearing a voice, and that anytime he hears it he gets an erection.
- We find out that Belize and Prior were once lovers, and that Prior was once a drag queen.
- Prior says the only good thing is that he knows Louis is in agony somewhere. He adds, "I loved his anguish. Watching him stick his head up his asshole and eat his guts out over some relatively minor moral conundrum – it was the best show in town" (2.5.45).
- Prior says his mother told him to watch out for the ones that freak out over the small things, because they'll totally ditch you when something big comes up.
- Belize says he has to go. Teasingly, he adds "If I want to spend my whole lonely life looking after white people I can get underpaid to do it" (2.5.50).
- (Belize is a black man and a nurse.)
- Belize tells Prior not to go crazy on him and says that he'll be there for Prior no matter what.
- Prior waits for a second after Belize leaves, then speaks to some unseen person, saying that Belize is gone.
- The voice answers, saying that she can't stay, but that she'll come back soon.
- Prior asks the voice if she's here to carry him over to the other side.
- She says no way; she's here to prepare him for all the work that's about to begin. The voice tells him she's on her way, and that when she appears, it'll be time to get to work.