Our Lady of 121st Street

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

  D’AMICO: Yeah, well, my wife’s a little disappointed, thought I might get a little screen time, somethin’ to tell the relatives.

  LUCIUS: You did thank her for that fine shepherd’s pie she made me?

  D’AMICO: I did.

  LUCIUS: Tell her sorry ’bout the interview, Lucius don’t do no TV … unless, of course, they bring that Connie Chung up in here, kinda like her, Lord forgive me … Say, Charlie, about them Oreo cookies—

  D’AMICO: You didn’t see them? I left them in your cell.

  LUCIUS: Yeah, brother, I found them all right, and God Bless Ya for it, but the thing is, they got these other kinda Oreos—

  D’AMICO: What kind?

  LUCIUS: They got this kind that’s dipped in fudge, that’s the kind I was talkin’ about the other day.

  D’AMICO: I’m sorry, Lucius, I didn’t realize—

  LUCIUS: Quite all right, brother, quite all right. Now here’s the thing: these fudged-dipped little concoctions, they come in chocolate fudge and vanilla fudge—

  D’AMICO: Chocolate and vanilla.

  LUCIUS: I like the vanilla fudge, that is to say, The Vanilla Fudge, that’s where my preference lies, if ya get my meaning.

  D’AMICO: Not a problem, Lou. I’ll juss tell my wife; she’ll be happy to do it.

  LUCIUS: Your wife’s a fine woman, Charlie.

  D’AMICO: I know.

  LUCIUS: But then again, why wouldn’t she be, since you such a fine gentleman yourself.

  D’AMICO: Thanks, Lou.

  LUCIUS: And I mean that sincerely.

  D’AMICO: Me too.

  LUCIUS: Praise be. So whatchu think, Charlie? I’m a beat extradition?

  D’AMICO: Sure, Lou. Why not.

  LUCIUS: Juss like you gonna beat what needs beatin’, right?

  D’AMICO: Damn straight, Lou.

  LUCIUS: “We all gonna beat … what needs to be beat … so we can snatch vict’ry … from the jaws of defeat”!

  D’AMICO: I like that. Who said it?

  LUCIUS: Your mother.

  D’AMICO: What?

  LUCIUS: I said it, Charlie, juss made it up now.

  D’AMICO: Oh.

  LUCIUS: Gotta stay wit me, baby—

  D’AMICO: I’m here Lou—

  LUCIUS: Sharp minds think alike.

  D’AMICO: “Sharp minds, Sharp products.”

  LUCIUS: What’s that?

  D’AMICO: You never heard that before?

  LUCIUS: Nah, man.

  D’AMICO: Really?

  LUCIUS: Who in the world said that?

  D’AMICO: Your grandma.

  LUCIUS: My …? Oh now, Charlie, you are a wicked, sinful man—

  D’AMICO: That I am.

  LUCIUS: If my ol’ granny were here now she’d flatten you like a thin-crust pizza, you could believe that!

  (VALDEZ enters, eating from a box of Oreos.)

  VALDEZ: Officer D’Amico! Superintendent Callahan wants to see you in his office.

  D’AMICO: What for?

  VALDEZ: I’m afraid I am not privy to that information.

  D’AMICO: All right, let me just secure the prisoner back to his cell—

  VALDEZ: He wants to see you now.

  D’AMICO: Like, right this second?

  VALDEZ: Pronto. His words, not mine.

  D’AMICO: Okay. Uh—

  VALDEZ: I’ll secure the prisoner.

  D’AMICO: Do you know how to do it?

  VALDEZ: Do I know how to do it? Yes, I think I do.

  D’AMICO: Lucius doesn’t give us much of a problem—

  VALDEZ: I’m sure he won’t.

  D’AMICO: Okay then.

  (D’AMICO exits.)

  LUCIUS: Didn’t catch your name.

  VALDEZ: Valdez.

  LUCIUS: Valdez?

  VALDEZ: Correct.

  LUCIUS: Fine day today, huh Valdez?

  VALDEZ: Splendid. Step away from the cage.

  LUCIUS: You don’t mind if I linger a little, do ya, brother?

  VALDEZ: Linger?

  LUCIUS: Enjoy a few more minutes of this heaven-sent autumn breeze, just, you know, till Charlie gets back?

  VALDEZ: “Charlie” will not be returning.

  LUCIUS: Gone for the day?

  VALDEZ: Gone. Step away from the cage.

  LUCIUS: You a churchgoin’ man?

  VALDEZ: I worship the devil. Away from the cage.

  LUCIUS: Thing is, I’d really prefer—

  VALDEZ: You’d prefer?

  LUCIUS: Just a coupla more minutes, put my thoughts in order—

  VALDEZ: When you’re back in your cell, you’re gonna have all the time you need for reflection. Last time: Step away.

  LUCIUS: Yeah, I see your point, big man, I do indeed. Thing is, up here in PC., up here, it’s a little different than downstairs. We gotta different kinda vibe going on—

  VALDEZ: “Vibe”?

  LUCIUS: Yeah, brother man, it’s a different kinda feel—

  VALDEZ: “Feel”?

  VALDEZ: Works out nicely for everybody.

  VALDEZ: Oh … well let me, if I may, tell you now about my vibe, my feel. My “vibe” is: Step away from that cage before I come in there and club you to death.

  LUCIUS: ’Nuff said, brother, ’nuff said.

  (LUCIUS assumes the position. VALDEZ enters the cage, cuffs him.)

  VALDEZ: Nah, nah, I juss told you about my vibe. Now lemme tell you about my “feel.” Now stand up. Thank you. My “feel” is this:

  (VALDEZ spits in his face.)

  VALDEZ: Thass my feel. It’s a “different kinda feel,” I know, but it’s my feel. And if you gotta problem with my feel, then you are gonna get a taste of my vibe. Are we clear on the “Vibe and Feel” thing now?

  LUCIUS: Affirmative.

  VALDEZ: This is not Jellystone Park. I am not the Park Ranger. There will be no more Oreo cookies in your picnic basket. There will be no more picnic. Got that, Superstar? I do not like infractions. There will be no more infractions. At this moment, I give you zero respect because that’s where your balance stands. Zero … That’s why I can spit in your face. That’s why I am currently eyeballing you in an aggressive manner, eating your cookies. That’s why I can tell you that in my mind, you’re a worthless psychopathic piece of shit, a scrawny old H.I.V. faggot, a skin-poppin’ ugly, gangly bag of bones—an eyesore. “Black Plague”: That’s what they call you, right? “Cuz you black and you killed a lot a mothahfuckahs”? I heard you give out autographs.

  LUCIUS: Prayer cards.

  VALDEZ: You think you some kind a superstar, Mr. Superstar?

  LUCIUS: I’m a God-fearing man.

  VALDEZ: Don’t be a God-fearing man, be a Valdez-fearing man. I heard they wanna put you on TV; lemme tell you something about that: I enjoy TV I would go so far as to say that I love TV I gotta big-screen TV in my den, I watch it often with popcorn and Pepsi. If I ever see you on the TV being a superstar, it will upset me. And if that happens, I’m gonna come back to work here the next day and I’m gonna do a little “Vibe and Feel” on your ass. Understood?

  LUCIUS: Yeah, man.

  VALDEZ: Say, “Affirmative.” Say it!

  LUCIUS: Affirmative.

  VALDEZ: Goddamn right, Superstar. If you do not fuck with me, Mr. Superstar, I can guarantee you a garden-variety miserable existence. But if you do decide to fuck with me—ever—I will show you a world where mere misery is like toasting marshmallows ’round the campfire in your long johns. You get me, Superstar?

  LUCIUS: The Lord will provide.

  VALDEZ: Excuse me?

  LUCIUS: I mean, “Affirmative.”

  VALDEZ: I don’t give a fuck what you mean. When they extradite your ass to Florida, you can resume your shenanigans. Until then, believe this: If you ever try to wave a Bible in my face, I’ll shove it right through your teeth. And don’t you ever ask me for no cigarette, ’cuz I don’t smoke. Move it out!

  Scene 4: Mary Jane speaks

  MARY J
ANE: When I was fifteen, there was this father/daughter dance at the elite private girls’ school in Manhattan that I went to as a charity case-slash-financial aid recipient. My mother had wisely arranged for her brother, Uncle Mikey, to take me to the dance, but at the last minute, my father decided that him not escorting me himself might be one of those things that might scar me in later tire—so me and my father left our two-family house in Sunnyside that evening; me in a dress my parents couldn’t afford, and my dad in his Irish all-purpose navy blue suit with a pair of black socks we had convinced him to borrow from the neighbors. When we got inside the ballroom, I took a quick look around and became instantly embarrassed to the point of humiliation by the fact that my dad was the only father on the Upper East Side that night whose suit pants didn’t have cuffs. But within an hour, everyone was calling him “Danny,” even the headmistress, who hadn’t called me anything but “Miss Hanrahan” in three years. And he was dancing, and chatting; he had even stuck by the agreed-upon two-beer rule, or so I thought … At some point in the evening, one of the other fathers made an offhand comment that my father took exception to; a heated discussion ensued, and my father ended up stabbing the guy with a dessert fork, breaking the skin. What the guy had said was unimportant; actually, what he said was, he was reminiscing about where he had grown up as a kid and he remarked that “It used to be a good neighborhood, you know, white, now, forget it, I went back there last month, it’s half white, the rest: blacks and Italians.” My mom’s Italian. EMS was called, and the dance? Well, let’s just say the stabbing concluded the dancing portion of the evening … My father’s justification for the assault, after explaining how he didn’t immediately attack him, and how he had given the “rich jerk” ample opportunity to apologize, and how he won’t tolerate a bigot no matter where he is, and “What if your mom or ‘Rasheed from the Deli’ had been there?” and how he still doesn’t understand why I need to go to that stuck-up school anyway. In the end, what he finally said was “It was just a fork.” And he said it, I’ve now come to realize, with just that same look of incredulousness on his face that Angel Cruz had on his … as if the whole world was crazy and he was the only sane one. I hated my dad for the whole mortifying incident, but the dysfunctional side of me was proud of him—actuary I’m still kind of proud of him—and I’m not convinced that there’s something wrong with me for feeling that. I had no idea why Angel Cruz had “just shot him in the ass” but I felt something—something—and I needed to know what it was. And even though I was no longer obligated to him as his counsel, and despite the fact that the rational side of my brain was very much convinced that he had, in fact, attempted to murder Reverend Kim, and, yes, of course, even if he hadn’t literally attempted murder, you still can’t run around shooting people just like you can’t go around stabbing people with dessert forks, I know all that, but I gotta admit that somewhere inside of me, and I don’t know if it’s the good side, or the side that I saw a therapist twice a week and went to ACOA meetings for, but somewhere inside of me is a place that believes that sometimes you can do those things, or at least, somebody can, or should, and that one man’s neurotic is another man’s hero, and who, ultimately, can say which one’s which with any real certainty at all?

  Scene 5: The yard. Protective custody, Rikers Island. Lucius Jenkins is in his outdoor cage jogging furiously in place.

  LUCIUS: Lord I believe, aid thou my disbelief! Lord I believe, aid thou my disbelief! Devil get thee gone, Devil go away! Usurp the Serpent, Lord, he crawlin’ up my leg! Irrigate the Bile, Lord, ketchin’ in my neck! Take away the vengeance, Lord, swirlin’ in my vein! Lobotomize the evil, Lord, slinkin’, in my brain! Can’t go back, can’t go back, can’t go back, can’t go back! Watch me kick my knees up to Heaven: 12345678910! 12345678910! Through the Grace, I jog in place, where once was sloth, now I’m cookin’ broth! Cookin’ broth, Jesus, Check the recipe!: Old Testament Backwards!: “Malachi, Zechariah, Haggai, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Nahum, Micah, Jonah, Obadiah, Amos, Joel, Hosea, Daniel, Ezekiel, Lamentations, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Song a Songs, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra, Chronicles 2, Chronicles I, Kings 2, Kings 1, Samuel 2, Samuel 1, Ruth, Judges, Joshua, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Leviticus, Exodus, and Genesis mothahfuckah”—pardon my French! Make me a mustard seed, Jesus! Hold the damn mayo, gimme the mustard!! Ain’t talkin’ ‘bout ketchup, I wants the mustard. Don’t relish the relish, don’t need ta embellish, ain’t tryin’ ta get it on—juss pass the Grey Poupon! You like that one, Jesus? Gonna drop and give ya twenty, Baby! Watch me now … “one two three four, cuz I love you Lord, I’ll do some more” (ya watchin’?) “eight nine ten eleven, endure the pain, get ta heaven” (observe the rigid form) “fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eight, get me saved before my date”! Up and Adam, Adam and Eve … Miles to go, Miles to go! “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few”!! “Harvest: plentiful, workers: few!” I’ll work hard, I’ll produce a fine harvest! Gimme sumpthin’ ta work with, and we’ll transform misery into ministry, make a prison a palace. “Lord make me an instrument of thy peace.” Thy will be done! Deliver me from evil, Lord, Thy will be done! Deliver me from me, Lord, Deliver me from me!

  VALDEZ: Time!

  LUCIUS: I’ll sprint for ya, faster, I’ll sprint to Valhalla and back, faster …

  VALDEZ: Time’s up!

  LUCIUS: (To VALDEZ) No it ain’t! Sprint to Golgotha two times, faster—

  VALDEZ: Away from the cage, Jenkins!

  VALDEZ: To Florida or the Promise Land, faster—

  VALDEZ: Cease now!

  LUCIUS: (To VALDEZ) Time ain’t up, check your Timex! Ridin’ with ya—

  VALDEZ: You want a fuckin’ war?

  (LUCIUS stops, assumes the position, VALDEZ enters.)

  VALDEZ: I could dismantle that camera, assault you into a coma, and suffer no penalty! In fact, I would prolly be applauded … This little charade you’re playin’, this communication with God: It’s a farce!

  LUCIUS: Well now—

  VALDEZ: Sheer folly.

  LUCIUS: You believe in God, Valdez?

  VALDEZ: I believe you are about one more syllable out your mouth from death, mothahfuckah.

  LUCIUS: I—

  VALDEZ: No more God out here in the Yard.

  LUCIUS: What?

  VALDEZ: Do you need me to correct your hearing problem?

  LUCIUS: Do you know who I am?!

  VALDEZ: Do you?

  LUCIUS: I got rights! It’s in the Constitution!

  VALDEZ: What, you didn’t hear of the latest judicial ruling? The Supreme Court ruled in the case of “Valdez versus The Skinny Black Faggot” that the separation of Church and State can only be superseded upon the separation of the Skinny Black Faggot’s limbs from his withered torso. In other words, I am the Constitution. And you, you’re a Skinny Black Faggot. Questions? Comments? (looking up) “God”? Do You beg to differ?! (To LUCIUS) Whoa! Wait a second, Mr. Superduperstar: do I detect a droplet of rage somewhere behind those Con Man’s eyes? Silence? I like that. Thass promising. Some people call this place the V.I.P. Lounge, that is inaccurate. You are here not because you are a V.I.P., you are here because the rest of the livestock downstairs wishes to cannibalize you. You are livestock in storage and I am a cowboy currently in charge of just one cow. Check your ass when you get back to your cell: It says: “Valdez, property of.” God hates you.