ROOFTOP: You have no idea. Father Lux, know him?
INEZ: I don’t attend this parish anymore.
ROOFTOP: He the priest in the wheelchair.
INEZ: Oh him. Poor man. I saw him on the street, didn’t see his collar—almost handed him a dollar.
ROOFTOP: Yeah, he ain’t dapper like Father C was, but, he all right.
INEZ: Well, it sounds like it went well.
ROOFTOP: It did … Say, Nezzie, you wanna take a little walk with me, maybe juss up to Cherry Park?
INEZ: No.
ROOFTOP: Why not?
INEZ: I don’t think my husband would appreciate it for one thing.
ROOFTOP: Well how ’bout you, Nezzie—would you appreciate it?
INEZ: Look, my life is good, Walter. Got a good job, good husband, good life. I go to events, I do things, see things, I take a vacation every year—Hawaii. Trinidad. Wherevah I wanna go.
ROOFTOP: Where your husband at?
INEZ: He at home, Walter. You’ve heard of home, right? It’s that place husbands hang out at sometimes?
(GAIL enters with suitcase and newspaper. ROOFTOP and INEZ glare at each other.)
GAIL: Is this seat available?
SONIA: Oh. Yes. Sure.
GAIL: Thank you. (To INEZ) Hello.
INEZ: Goliath, right?
GAIL: Actually, it’s Gail. Gail Saunders.
INEZ: Okay.
GAIL: How are you?
INEZ: Hanging in.
GAIL: (To INEZ) I quit drinking today. Today is day one.
INEZ: Well, congratulations.
GAIL: I’m not an alcoholic, but sometimes I drink all day and into the night. (To ROOFTOP) I’m Gail. Gail Saunders.
ROOFTOP: I seen you at the bar I think.
GAIL: You’re “Up on the roof with Rooftop,” right?
ROOFTOP: Yes. Yes I am.
GAIL: I’m a fan of your show. I’m a listener.
ROOFTOP: Thank you.
GAIL: How are you?
ROOFTOP: I’m fine, how are you?
GAIL: Gay. I’m gay.
ROOFTOP: That right?
SONIA: My cousin’s gay.
GAIL: Is he available?—just kidding. (To ROOFTOP) Anyway, I’m homosexual.
ROOFTOP: Well, glad ta know ya.
GAIL: And I’m an actor.
ROOFTOP: All right.
GAIL: See? I bought Back Stage—it’s a publication that lists auditions.
ROOFTOP: Okay.
GAIL: Auditions for actors: gay and straight.
ROOFTOP: Right.
GAIL: Me, of course, being gay.
ROOFTOP: Okay, now, is there something about me that suggests to you that all this might be of some kinda particular interest to me?
INEZ: Walter.
ROOFTOP: There’s a room full of people here—why he gotta be directing all his little facts at me, Nezzie?
INEZ: Quit callin’ me “Nezzie”—like you on some kinda intimate terms!
ROOFTOP: I am on intimate terms!
INEZ: No you’re not! You’re on “Fuck you” terms, Walter—so go slink off in your fuckin’ limo back to La-La land, or wherever it is you con people into payin’ you good money for nonsense, and leave me out of it!
ROOFTOP: You tryin’ ta tell me you can’t pretend to read a Bible someplace else?!
INEZ: What?!
ROOFTOP: You heard me! It’s five a.m. in the morning, you got a so-called husband at home, and there ain’t gonna be no goddamned wake, so why in hell you still here, Nezzie Thompson?!
INEZ: You better get out of here, Walter!
ROOFTOP: Nezzie—
INEZ: No way—Fuck you! You think ‘cuz you went to a church and hustled some bummy old priest that it gives you the right to come to me any way you want?! You killed my heart, Walter! Killed it! You don’t remember Sister Rose talkin’ ‘bout “every woman has a secret garden”? Well, you took my secret garden and dropped a fuckin’ atomic bomb on it and now it’s just scorched earth and ashes—burnt up dirt.
ROOFTOP: You talkin’ fifteen years now!
INEZ: Fifteen years, five hundred years!! That’s who I am! You knew that from jump! You knew it! Did ya not know it, Walter? Look me in my eye and say you didn’t an’ I’ll give you the Academy Award for Best Stone Cold Liar of the fuckin’ millennium! You think I’m upset?! You should meet my husband—the damn fool fell in love with a woman got a bombed-out graveyard for a mothahfuckin’ heart! And he’s a good man, Walter—good and decent and loyal and nuthin’ like you, so … okay?! And I’m doin’ it to him like you did it to me, so can you just get up off me now?!
(ROOFTOP rises.)
ROOFTOP: Fine! I’ll respect your wishes!
INEZ: You don’t know a damn thing about “respect.”
ROOFTOP: I need to make my phone call anyway!
INEZ: Yeah, be sure to call someone who gives a shit.
(ROOFTOP crosses to exit.)
ROOFTOP: (To GAIL) You caused this!
GAIL: I’m very sorry.
ROOFTOP: You wanna tell somebody you gay, tell Oprah, mothahfuckah!!
(ROOFTOP exits.)
EDWIN: (Waking up) What time is it?
SONIA: Five.
EDWIN: In the morning?
SONIA: Yeah.
EDWIN: (To INEZ) They find Sister Rose?
INEZ: No.
EDWIN: No one heard from Balthazar?
INEZ: No.
EDWIN: Sumpthin’ happen, Inez?
INEZ: Go back to sleep, baby.
GAIL: (TO EDWIN) Hi.
EDWIN: Oh yeah. Hi.
GAIL: I heard you mention in the bar that you were a super? I’m wondering: any apartments available?
EDWIN: Not at this time.
GAIL: Do you know where I can get an apartment for four hundred dollars a month?
EDWIN: I dunno—Delaware?
GAIL: New York’s expensive, huh?
EDWIN: Try Queens.
GAIL: They film Law and Order here in New York, don’t they?
EDWIN: I don’t know that information … Inez, could you wake me if something happens?
INEZ: Yeah, Eddy.
(EDWIN goes back to sleep.)
GAIL: (To SONIA) I’m planning to try out for Law and Order.
SONIA: You’re an actor?
GAIL: I am.
SONIA: My cousin’s an actor.
GAIL: The gay one?
SONIA: No. It’s a different cousin. But he’s an actor.
GAIL: Small world.
SONIA: He was on Law and Order.
GAIL: Really?
SONIA: Well, his back was—but you could definitely tell it was him—I mean, if you knew him.
GAIL: Oh.
SONIA: He had a line. He pointed to a pot of coffee and said, “There.”
INEZ: (To SONIA) Excuse me, but why are you here? Do you know somebody here? Did ya go to school here? What?
SONIA: My friend Marcia—she was Sister Rose’s niece.
INEZ: An where’s this Marcia at?
SONIA: She left.
INEZ: And you’re still here because?
SONIA: I guess I’ll go then.
(As SONIA goes to exit, ROOFTOP reemerges in the doorway.)
ROOFTOP: I’m a make this call ’cuz I have to, but I need you to think on this till I get back: Ain’t my fault about your husband, dass on you. And it ain’t my fault ‘bout your scorchedup heart—you married me juss like I married you. And I got no choice but to try and forgive myself for everything I done to you, ’cuz, what’s the fuckin’ alternative, Inez? I useta think there was some other option, some way ’round it, but there really ain’t. I can try an’ forgive myself, or I can go jump off the GW—and thass it! I feel guilty ’bout a girl been dead fifteen years, and you? You angry at a boy—a boy, Inez—not me … Do I wish I had done it different back then? Hell yeah. Even now, I’m tempted to take this conversation in another direction juss so I could get with you. And I could get with you if I worked my game right, don�
�t tell me I couldn’t ’cuz I’m a fuckin’ professional—but what would be the point a that? I lost you—dass my cross. ‘Cuz you was my royal. And I killed it. But if you wanna walk around all these years later still tryin’ ta play dead, dass your waste, not mine … dass on you. I’m a make my call now.
(ROOFTOP exits. Pause.)
GAIL: I know I don’t know you, but I would just like to say—
INEZ: Would you put me in a cab, please?
GAIL: Yes. I’ll leave with you.
(GAIL gathers his things, escorts INEZ out.)
SONIA: Bye.
(SONIA sits alone with the sleeping men. Pause. BALTHAZAR enters, disheveled, holding a brown paper bag.)
BALTHAZAR: (To SONIA) Who are you?
SONIA: Sonia?
BALTHAZAR: Sonia who?
SONIA: You’re very drunk.
BALTHAZAR: Days like these, Sonia, it’s very important to be sober as a judge or just blind drunk—I chose the latter.
SONIA: Oh.
BALTHAZAR: You remember that, Sonia.
SONIA: Okay.
BALTHAZAR: Good. Now, pa fuera.
SONIA: Pa fuera?
BALTHAZAR: Goodbye. Go. Now.
SONIA: Um—
BALTHAZAR: Now!
(SONIA exits. BALTHAZAR pokes VIC.)
BALTHAZAR: Hey, wake up.
VIC: What time is it?
BALTHAZAR: Sssh. I don’t know. Don’t wake him up.
VIC: They said you weren’t comin’ back.
BALTHAZAR: Well, that’s ’cuz they know me, Rick.
VIC: Vic.
BALTHAZAR: Vic. Yes, of course. Sorry, Vic.
VIC: So what’s the word?
BALTHAZAR: Here.
VIC: What’s this?
BALTHAZAR: Pants. Your pants. Wallet’s gone, but …
VIC: Where’d they find my pants?
BALTHAZAR: By the river. Off the West Side Highway.
VIC: And what about Rose?
BALTHAZAR: The thing is—
VIC: What about Rose?!
BALTHAZAR: A coupla patrolmen, Vic, they found a large suitcase.
VIC: Suitcase?
BALTHAZAR: Yeah … They found half of her, Vic.
VIC: Half?
BALTHAZAR: They’re comin’ for the casket now. We’re gonna bury that part of her at eleven.
VIC: Half?
BALTHAZAR: Why donchu siddown?
VIC: I don’t wanna siddown. Whaddya mean, “half”?!
BALTHAZAR: Vic—
VIC: “Half”?! Where’s the other half?!
BALTHAZAR: We think prolly the river.
VIC: The river?! What’s she doin’ in the river?!
BALTHAZAR: Vic, she’s not doing anything in the river. She’s gone. She was gone before any of this happened.
VIC: So that means this is all okay?!
BALTHAZAR: It’s not okay.
VIC: Then go back out there and find her!
(Pause)
BALTHAZAR: Vic.
VIC: Jesus!
BALTHAZAR: I know.
VIC: Jesus H. Christ!
(VIC sits, turning his back to BALTHAZAR. Silence.)
BALTHAZAR: Vic?
VIC: What?
BALTHAZAR: Here. That’s for you.
(BALTHAZAR hands VIC a small rosary. VIC examines it.)
VIC: Was this?
BALTHAZAR: No. It belonged to my son.
VIC: Your son?
BALTHAZAR: First Communion … Remember the guy with the ham sandwiches?
VIC: Yeah?
BALTHAZAR: I’m the guy with the ham sandwiches, Vic.
VIC: You?
BALTHAZAR: The morning my son disappeared? I had a hangover that morning. I let my seven-year-old boy go out and play … alone. That’s the truth, Vic.
VIC: Geez.
BALTHAZAR: My son adored Sister Rose. I want you to know that. Adored her. Just like you.
VIC: Yeah?
BALTHAZAR: Couldn’t get enough of her. “Sister Rose this,” “Sister Rose, that”—and she, I could see that she took a real interest in him—sincere—He was a real smart kid, my boy, ninety-eighth percentile.
VIC: That’s, uh, that’s good.
BALTHAZAR: First parent/teacher meeting I ever went to, Sister Rose told me my Juan Jose was special. “Not bright … gifted.”
VIC: Well she knew kids, thass for sure.
BALTHAZAR: I miss him a lot, Vic.
(Pause)
VIC: (Re: the rosary) Look, I, I can’t accept this—
BALTHAZAR: When my son was a baby, Vic—
VIC: Yeah?
BALTHAZAR: I was, I was doing undercover “buy and busts” at the time. I was a big deal back then.
VIC: Yeah?
BALTHAZAR: Anyway, I would get home round six a.m., and I useta like to take him out of his crib on to the fire escape. I’d sit on a milk crate with a little pillow on it, maybe a beer, and I’d just hold him, ya know—hold him like, like this. You got kids, Vic?
Our Lady of 121st Street Page 8
