THOUGHT 5: WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS? I DON’T DESERVE THIS!
THOUGHT 4: MUFASA!
USHER: JUST LET HIM GO!
THOUGHT 4: WHY DO YOU HATE US?
USHER: I DON’T HATE YOU.
THOUGHT 4: GETTIN’ UP IN FRONT O’ THE WORLD AND SHOWIN’ EVERYBODY HOW MUCH YOU HATE US!
USHER: MOM, I DON’T HATE YOU! I DON’T HATE YOU!
THOUGHT 4: THEN WHY WOULD YOU WRITE ABOUT US LIKE THIS?!?
USHER: BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!!!
PRECIOUS LITTLE DREAM/AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT
THOUGHT 4: You don’t love me! If you loved me, you wouldn’t made your daddy run outta here with tears in his eyes! If you loved me, you woulda found you a church home up there in New York! If you loved me, you woulda brought me home a daughter-in-law and a grandbaby by now! If you loved me, you’d be able to fly me around the world like Tyler Perry!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
HER PRECIOUS LITTLE DREAM
THOUGHT 4: But oh no, you off writin’ about life!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
CAME TUMBLING DOWN
THOUGHT 4: Never mind Doodoo Bank Student Loans calling my house lookin’ for yo’ Black butt!
THOUGHTS 1 AND 3:
AND AFTER ALL THE TIME SHE SPENT BUILDING IT UP
THOUGHT 4: Just lallygaggin’ up there in New York ain’t half doin’ NUTHIN’!
THOUGHT 2: AND AFTER ALL OF THE THINGS THAT SHE’S BEEN THROUGH
THOUGHT 4: Prob’ly out there dressin’ up and pretending like you a white woman!
THOUGHT 3:
YOU COME ALONG AND CRUSH IT
THOUGHT 4: Talkin’ ’bout you “want a Black man”! Tuh!
THOUGHT 5:
IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND
THOUGHT 4: Like a real Black man would wanna kiss you!
THOUGHT 2:
YOU COME ALONG AND FLUSH IT
THOUGHT 4: The Bible says the homosexsh’alities is worse than MURDER!
THOUGHT 6:
DOWN
THOUGHT 4:
MY PRECIOUS LITTLE DREAM
USHER: It never ends with you!
THOUGHT 4:
OF A LITTLE BOY
USHER: Shampoo, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat!
GOD, AFTER ALL THIS TIME WHY CAN’T YOU GIVE IT UP?
THOUGHT 4: Oh no. You not gon’ turn this on me. I know I’m a good mama.
USHER:
’CAUSE IF YOU KNEW ALL THE THINGS THAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH
THOUGHT 4: They had to cut me open to get you. Did you know that? I bled and bled and they pulled yo’ Black butt outta my stomach.
USHER:
YOU’D RUE THE WAYS YOU ATTACKED ME
THOUGHT 4: Yo’ Aint Hattie said the homosexsh’alities was just a phase.
USHER:
YOU’D RUE THE WAYS WE FOUGHT
THOUGHT 4: But you twenty-six years old and still kissin’ on men.
USHER:
YOU’D RUN UNTIL YOU TRACKED ME
THOUGHT 4: Why couldn’t you just be the dorter I always wanted?!?
USHER:
DOWN
THOUGHT 4: I’ma tell you why. It’s ’cause you selfish!
USHER:
I’m not selfish! You always say that and all you’re doing is deflecting from your own failures! You’re fucking MADDENING! You and your FUCKING UNSOPHISTICATED, UNEDUCATED, UNCULTURED GOSPEL PLAY FANTASY WORLD!!!
THOUGHT 4: NAHP! NAHP! NAHP! I don’t be always sayin’ nothin’! I be tellin’ the truth! You don’t care about nobody but ch’ownself!
USHER:
MAMA I CAN’T SUCK YOUR TITTIES AGAIN
I CAN’T CRAWL BACK UP INSIDE YOUR WOMB
THOUGHT 4: Yo’ nasty little mouth!
USHER:
YOU WONDER WHY IT’S LIKE A GRAVEYARD
IN YOUR LIVING ROOM
THOUGHT 4: And all I can do is cry!
USHER:
YOU WANNA CRY, MAMA? GO RIGHT AHEAD!
THOUGHT 4: My steps are growing short on this earth, my son!
USHER:
BUT I WON’T CRY, MAMA! ’CAUSE I’M NOT DEAD
THOUGHT 4: And one day you won’t have me at all!
USHER:
AND YOU’RE NOT DEAD …
THOUGHT 4: Then you’ll be all alone …
USHER:
TIME JUST HAS THIS WAY OF TEARING DOWN THE DREAMS WE THINK WE LIVE IN
SPINNING WHEELS IN MOTOR TOWN
SO EFFED-UP AND SO RUN-DOWN
AN OVERBLOWN YET FALSE DISPLAY
JUST LIKE IN A GOSPEL PLAY
(The set begins to shift into a gospel play. Thought 4 watches.)
THOUGHTS 1–3, 5–6:
WHO THE FUCK IS YOU, NIGGUH?
WHO THE FUCK IS YOU?
WHO? WHO? WHO?
(Usher transforms into The Color Purple version of himself:)
USHER: All mah life ah had to fight. ’Cause ah was smaht and ’cause ah was a Negro and ’cause ah was all off into the homosexsh’alities? But ah ’members dat day you seed me, Sarabi. When you seed me becomin’ somebody you love but somebody you ain’t like ’cause folk don’t like nobody too proud or too free. But little did you know; ah wadn’t neither one.
THOUGHTS 1–3, 5–6:
WHO THE FUCK IS YOU, NIGGUH?
WHO THE FUCK IS YOU?
WHO? WHO? WHO?
(Usher transforms into The Real Housewives version of himself:)
USHER: Haaaaay, Sarabi, hay gurl. It’s your son-slash-dorter you always wanted. I ain’t want nuthin’. I was jes’ callin’ to talk to my mom ’n’ ast you if you ’member the time we all went to Aint Hattie’s seventieth birthday party ’n’ dat airhead Marion got up to talk about what a good Sunday school teacher Aint Hattie was and how if there was one thing you learnt in her classes it was that she did not like gay people. ’N’ everybody laughed ’n’ clapped ’cause it was funny but also ’cause they ain’t like gay people either? And I’m sitting there like “’member me?”
ALL THOUGHTS:
WHO THE FUCK IS YOU, NIGGUH?
WHO THE FUCK IS YOU?
(Usher transforms into the megachurch-pastor version of himself. A casket rises.)
USHER: Suhsta Sarabi, the Lord put it on my heart to sing this selection in honor of Brother Darnell who was an abomination just like me. And I can’t help but reflect on the ways that I have lived a life without passion in fear of you and your husband’s words to me that if I ever acted on my lust for another man, that I would meet the same fate as Darnell lying in that there box. And those words have kept me HIV-free but absolutely terrified because I realized then and there that the only thing worse than dying of AIDS would be living with it and hearing the people you loved say, “I told you so, I told you so, I told you so.” Can I get a witness out there, Choir?
THOUGHTS 1–3, 5–6: Yaaaaaaaassssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
USHER: And so on today … as we prepare to bury yet another un-HBO-specialed, un-Oscar-So-White-award-winning, abNormal-Hearted, un-Angel-in-American Black queer in the ground, it’s very important that we remember what Gawd’s word, your word, Tyler’s word, and every fuckin’ body else’s word tells us:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT
THOUGHT 5: Sing your song, brutha, sing your song.
USHER:
FOR THE MAN WHO AIN’T LIVIN’ RIGHT
THOUGHT 1 (Points to her queer nephew in the audience): You hear that, Curtis?
USHER:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT
THOUGHT 6: I love the Lord, he heard my cry and pitied every groan, Pastuh!
USHER:
FOR HE WHO SINS IN THE NIGHT
THOUGHT 2: Let ’em know, let ’em know, let ’em KNOW!
USHER:
A-A-A-AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT
BUT ALL DARKNESS ALL DARKNESS
ALL DARKNESS ALL DARKNESS
COMES TO LIGHT
THOUGHT 3: Speak on it!
USHER:
HE GONNA KNO
CK THEM DICKS UP OUT YO’ MOUTH
AND THEN
And here’s what I like about Him!
THEE THEE THEE THEE THEE THEE THEE THEE THEE THEE THEE
THEE HE SHALL SMITE! ’CAUSE
USHER, THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
USHER:
Sing, Sopranos! Testify for all o’ God’s chirren!
THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:
YASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
Everybody in the building clap wit’ me on the 2 and 3 wit’ my altoooooos!
(The altos lead everyone in clapping)
THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:
I HAD A PRAYIN’ GRANDMUTHA!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
YASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!
C’mon, Tenors—AIDS!!!!!!!!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
These men are delivert! I don’t care what Sista Mattie been sayin’ about ’em!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
YASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
Let’s put it all together now and fill the house of the Lord with praise!
THOUGHTS 1–3, 5–6:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
Feels just like fire sat up in mah bones!
YASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
The spirit of the Lord is in this temple!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
Can you feel it, Church?
YASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
Can you feel it, Church?
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
Make me feel it, Church!
Make me feel God’s punishment! Parts!
YASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
GOD IS GONNA DO IT!
THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
AIDS!
GOD IS GONNA DO IT!
THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:
SORES ALL ON YO’ BODY AND YO’ MOUF AND IN YA BUTT!
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:
RASHES AND PNEUMONIA! THEN YOU LAY STILL!
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:
AIDS!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT WHEN YOU FUCK AGAINST GOD’S WILL!
THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:
AIDS!
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT WHEN YOU FUCK AGAINST GOD’S WILL!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT WHEN YOU FUCK AGAINST GOD’S WILL!
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT WHEN YOU FUCK AGAINST GOD’S WILL!
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:
AIDS!
THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:
AIDS!
ALL THOUGHTS:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT …
(Cool down: Usher as Pastor is exhausted. He walks around the church at his own pace but still ministering, more quiet and reflective now.)
USHER: Let’s bring it on down, Church, let’s bring it on down.
ALL THOUGHTS:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT …
USHER: Can somebody get me a cup o’ wawtuh please?
(One of the Thoughts brings him a cup of water.)
ALL THOUGHTS:
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT …
(The choir continues to sing “AIDS is God’s punishment” on loop over the following:)
USHER: Thank you, Jesus. Come on, Church, ’n’ rock with me now.
(Swaying side to side, hugging himself) What a mighty, mighty Gawd we serve that he would bring us together to celebrate the death and destruction of another one of us filthy fags. Filthy little sissy Darnell who I visited in the hospital. Darnell who found out he was sick ten years ago and decided to let Gawd’s punishment ravish his body rather than get himself HIV medication because even that little faggot knew that the wages of sin was death. Sister Mattie, would you give us Second Peter, Chapter 2, Verse 12 please?
THOUGHT 1 (Projecting to the back of the church; couldn’t be prouder of herself for both being called on and for knowing the verse): “But these, as natural brute beasts, MADE to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption.”
USHER: Amen. Brute beasts. Animals. That’s what we faggots and trannies are. Filthy. Fistin’ each other all the way up to the elbow and the shoulder. Shit and blood in our bedsheets. Runnin’ ’round wit’ half our assho’ hangin’ out and come drippin’ down our legs. Church, y’all don’t hear me. Curtis, you don’t hear me. ’Cause not only do you gotta prayin’ grandmutha you got a talkin’ auntie and, boy, if I had my way I’d put you and all the rest of us faggots in a cage ’n’ set us on fire. Especially us nigguhs. ’Cause we the ones that let the white man trick us into thinking we free to do what we wont with our bodies and not what Gawd wonts. And we the ones that let these airheaded Black Twitter faggots and these dat-blasted Black tranny “blahgers” and “vlahgers” trick us into thinking that AIDS is about “state violence” and “white su-premacy” and “het-er-o-pa-tri-ar-chy” and “po-ver-ty” and “secrets” and “shame” and “silence” and “stigma” like we ain’t got a King James Bible that clearly tells us to not put a dick in our mouf. But we are so blessed. For the Gawd we serve rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah. “‘Til there was nothing but dense smoke rising from the land like a furnace.” Genesis 19:27, Amen. And now he’s raining down this beautiful disease to show just how much he hates us pitiful Black fags. And he gon’ keep executin’ us ’til we learn who is the Lord thy Gawd. YAS-SUH! Sister Mattie take us on home!
(Thought 1 takes over. Usher tries to glory in what he’s made, but it is an obviously false glory.)
ALL THOUGHTS (Except 4):
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT! YASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!
THOUGHT 1: Gawd is not mocked, Church!
THOUGHT 4: USHER! PLEASE STOP THIS!
ALL THOUGHTS (Except 4):
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
THOUGHT 1: For them lezzzzbians too! I see you, Tanisha! Ha ha!
THOUGHT 4: STOP SINGING THAT MUSIC!
ALL THOUGHTS (Except 4, a cappella):
AIDS IS GOD’S PUNISHMENT!
(The choir of Thoughts exits. Thought 4 takes a shaken Usher into her arms. Silence.)
USHER: You wanted a gospel play and this is the only way I knew how to do it.
THOUGHT 4: Oh, Usher. You are loved, you are loved, you are loved. And you are so talented! I had no idea you was struggling like this. And poor, poor Darnell. It really brought a tear to my eye. ’Cause if he hadn’t been out there living that gay lifestyle, he would still be here just like the pastor in the play said.
(Usher looks up.)
But at least we still got you. And we want you to go up and not down so we gon’ get you on the right track if it’s the last thing we do. And it might just be. Especially since yo’ niece’s airheaded mama done threaten to firebomb my house if I don’t make yo’ brutha marry her.
THOUGHT 1: GRAAAAANDMAAAAA! I GOTTA JOOOOB FOR YOUUUUUUUU!
THOUGHT 4: Heh-heh-heh. You hear that? Nala “has a joooob for me.” Well, let me call you back. But don’t worry. As long as you is sincere in your desire to change your life for the better, we go’n’ work this gay abomination thang out.
(Usher pulls away.)
THOUGHT 6: GRA
AAAANDMAAAA! IT PISSES GOD OFF IF YOU WALK BY A COLOR PURPLE QUOTE AND DON’T NOTICE IT!!!!!
THOUGHT 4: Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. Okay.
(A pause. Thinks about it, brightens up:)
Ooh. Here’s one: “This life be over soon. Heaven last always.”
THOUGHT 2: GRANDMA, “YOU OUGHTA BASH MISTER HEAD IN AND WORRY ABOUT HEAVEN LATUH!”
THOUGHT 4: “I may be Black, I may be ugly, but I’m here!” Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh …
(Stops laughing suddenly; silence.)
Are you really sure this is how you want to end it, Usher?
Just what are you trying to prove?
USHER: I’m just trying to show … what it’s like.
THOUGHT 4: What what’s like?
USHER: Life. Real life.
THOUGHT 4: And making a hateful Tyler Perry–style gospel play is real life?
USHER: It wasn’t hateful. It was complex.
THOUGHT 4: Fine. But is this really what real life is like?
(Silence.)
USHER: Maybe not but that’s what it feels like. To me. Sometimes. Or what it felt like. Especially when I was seventeen and telling my family who I was for the first time.
THOUGHT 4: Fair enough. But you’re twenty-six now. So what’s next?
USHER: I dunno. I truly don’t know.
THOUGHT 4: Well, okay but (Indicates the audience) these people are not gonna wait for you forever. They wanna know when they can go home. We wanna know too.
(Thought 4 exits.)
MEMORY SONG
USHER: Okay, okay; I got this, I got this. So if Usher’s sense of self is just a bunch of meaningless symbols in his brain moving from one level of abstraction to another but ending up back where they started then his perceptions of Mom and Dad and everything else are realities that will never change until he changes. So what are the implications of that for Usher? And what does that make me?
FIVE FOOT FOUR
HIGH SCHOOL GYM
SNEAKING A CUPCAKE
THESE ARE MY MEMORIES
THESE ARE MY MEMORIES
SHOOTING HOOPS
OFF THE RIM
SLOW ON THE UPTAKE
THESE ARE MY MEMORIES
A Strange Loop Page 6
