SCENE 1
Sunday Evening. Two Weeks Later.
The living room is in ruins. But the Christmas tree is still up and lit. Moving boxes are strewn about. Stuff broken. Pops has a dirty bandage above his eye and is now holding a cane. He sits on the couch, drinking bourbon he pours from a half-gallon bottle as he watches Lulu serve juice and cookies to a beautiful woman dressed all in black, wearing both a large Catholic cross and a beaded Brazilian Condomblé necklace.
LULU: Now there’s plenty more cookies and juice if you want more, miss.
CHURCH LADY: Obrigado! That’s very kind.
LULU: Like, “mucho, mucho!”
CHURCH LADY: Yes.
LULU: And, Dad, Junior says he’s gotta lay low at Little Dirty’s in East Flatbush until things blow over here—
POPS: Junior?! Junior who?! Been gone thirteen days now, he can’t even pick up a damn phone?!
LULU: Yeah, he’s a little upset by, like, things—but anyway I was thinking, I’d go out there now to visit with him? But then be back home and watch Jeopardy on the DVR with you like at midnight?
POPS: Just leave your keys with the elevator man—I don’t wanna have to be getting up and down every time them moving people be ringing the doorbell—
LULU: Oh, and Junior also said we don’t have to be moving out right now, Dad—that it takes awhile to get evicted.
POPS: Well I ain’t trying to jostle you around once you’re nine months pregnant with my grandchild. We gonna be out sooner or later—might as well be now . . . She having a baby—you know—a “bambino”?
CHURCH LADY: Oh! Beautiful!
LULU: I know, right?! . . . Okay, so, Dad—would you like to give me money or something so I can give it to Junior?
POPS: Junior’s a grown man, Lulu.
LULU: Okay . . .
POPS: And Lulu—take the damn dog with you, okay? In fact, leave his ass in Brooklyn if the little motherfucker gets distracted and you can give him the slip.
LULU: Okay. Love you.
(Lulu exits. Beat.)
CHURCH LADY: . . . This girl? Very nice.
POPS: Yeah—she okay.
CHURCH LADY: No pregnant though.
POPS: Nah see, she ain’t showing cuz it’s only been a matter of days.
CHURCH LADY: Pregnant some day? Maybe. Pregnant today? No.
POPS: You a midwife or something?
CHURCH LADY: Sometimes, yes. But I can be wrong. Forgive me.
POPS: Well I hope you are.
CHURCH LADY: Yes. Me too . . . So please: are you sure I cannot bring you a fresh—how you say—bandage—for your eye?
POPS: I’m fine. Like I said, we had a little burglary here the other week, no big deal.
CHURCH LADY: Yes. But please, what is “burglary”?
POPS: It’s a robbery? Um: “banditos locos”?
CHURCH LADY: Ladrao?! Ay! And you were alone?
POPS: I was. But the elevator man, Mr. Chico—he a friend of mine, and he seen this bandito come in, so Mr. Chico came upstairs to check on me, and Mr. Chico—well, he don’t play.
CHURCH LADY: He defeated “bandito”?
POPS: Bandito left here in handcuffs, with several of his front teeth scattered over there by that houseplant. Bandito was lucky the police came. He was, well, he was a drug addict—you know how that goes.
CHURCH LADY: You knew the bandito?
POPS: I thought I knew him. But who really knows anybody anyway, ya know?
CHURCH LADY: I see you like to drink.
POPS: On occasion—this being one. Can I pour you a glass?
CHURCH LADY: I drink only on holidays.
POPS: Do Sundays qualify?
CHURCH LADY: You tempt me—but no . . . So . . . Ay! I’m eating all your cookies!
POPS: That’s what they there for. You should see when Glenda, the lady who usually comes from the church, when she arrive, she go through two rolls of Chip Ahoys and a half gallon of juice before she even sit down almost.
CHURCH LADY: It must be great shock to you about Glenda falling ill.
POPS: Terrible shock, yes. Is she expected to survive?
CHURCH LADY: Oh yes, but she need to rest.
POPS: Well you tell her for me: rest for a long time.
CHURCH LADY: You’re very close to Glenda?
POPS: You know, she began visiting my late wife when she got infirm, that was last year, and after Delores passed before Christmas, well, Glenda—she just kept on coming.
CHURCH LADY: Well, I’m sorry for you to be stuck with me.
POPS: Hey, a pretty young lady eating cookies in my kitchen ain’t never gonna be what I consider to be “stuck.”
CHURCH LADY: You think I’m pretty?
POPS: Oh, I don’t mean nothin’ by it, just—
CHURCH LADY: I have good skin, but I’m not pretty—or young.
POPS: You sell yourself short. And I bet your man agrees.
CHURCH LADY: I don’t have man.
POPS: Every woman needs a man. Even some men, they need a man too.
CHURCH LADY: I don’t need no man. I had one husband. God took him.
POPS: I’m sorry.
CHURCH LADY: Believe me, I thank God every day.
POPS: I like you.
CHURCH LADY: I like you too. Now tell me why you refuse to take communion from Glenda every week? Is because you angry at God? Because the holy truth, the sacred truth, the truth of the earth—is God loves you very much. I meet you for only ten minutes, I already see you are much loved by God. I see it, I feel it.
POPS: What makes you feel it?
CHURCH LADY: Sometime, I feel things deeply. And I see things. Like with you. I see you have an old soul.
POPS: I got an old everything.
CHURCH LADY: Yes. You make joke—to push me back, no? Okay. We can talk about weather if you want to. Sunny today, cloudy tomorrow—but you do believe I feel things, don’t you?
POPS: I’m just trying to pass the time, quite frankly.
CHURCH LADY: I’ve upset you, I’m sorry. I should go.
POPS: What was your husband’s name?
CHURCH LADY: Bernardo.
POPS: What’d he do?
CHURCH LADY: In our country, he was champion boxer.
POPS: My father was a sparring partner for Sugar Ray Robinson.
CHURCH LADY: Oh—and he is still living, yes?
POPS: Don’t think so, but I never met the man, so I wouldn’t know.
CHURCH LADY: I have two childrens. One son, one daughter. She live in Jackson Heights. And he, he is a wanderer.
POPS: I shoulda been a wanderer . . . What, why you smiling for?
CHURCH LADY: Because, Mr. Washington—you are a wanderer.
POPS: Is that something you “feel”?
CHURCH LADY: I feel a lot of things.
POPS: On account of them beads around your neck, right? That’s some Santeria witchcraft paraphernalia, ain’t it?
CHURCH LADY: Candomblé. How did you know?
POPS: Oh, I know shit.
CHURCH LADY: Because you were a cop?
POPS: Glenda told you about that, huh?
CHURCH LADY: No. I know shit too. But I can’t tell you what I know unless you want me to. Shall I continue?
POPS: . . . I mean, am I free to speak my mind here?
CHURCH LADY: “Always we are free,” Mr. Washington. Devils chase us, but “always we are free.”
POPS: Devils, yes. See, I want to be fair because I like you. Now, I don’t know exactly what you’re after here, and I don’t mind that you’re after it—but, to be fair—what you don’t know—is that you’re messin’ with the exact wrong motherfucker when it comes to that hoo-doo, voo-doo, boo-boo and doo-doo bullshit you’re trying to front on me now.
CHURCH LADY: So I shouldn’t tell you what I know?
POPS: Hey, it’s your dime, sister—you wanna do a little magic show, bring it on, tell me what you know.
CHURCH LADY: I know you was fond of the bandito who did the burglary to you. I know he caused the wound above your eye. I know you love your son but he causes you shame and it shames you three times because you feel your shame, and his, plus more shame for feeling shame, no? And I know you’re angry—so angry—that your wife passed—
POPS: Of course I’m angry my wife passed—what kinda decent husband wouldn’t be angry ’bout that?
CHURCH LADY: Because God made her sick?
POPS: God didn’t cause her illness—and he couldn’t cure it neither.
CHURCH LADY: And I know when your wife Delores died, it was, in part—because she needed to leave you—
POPS: Now hold up now—
CHURCH LADY: And you were relieved when Delores passed, weren’t you? Because you still loved her in your way, and she in hers, but you was no longer in love with each other. And you blame yourself for that—and for the prostitutes—
POPS: Prostitutes?!
CHURCH LADY: Prostitutes, yes! Were you not with prostitutes? Many prostitutes? I don’t judge. In a bad time, I was prostitute in my country. Okay? But God is big—and “always we are free.”
POPS: Who the hell sent you here?
CHURCH LADY: Maybe I was called here. By who, I don’t know. But I’m here now. And I know there are people out there who want to hurt you. And you need protection. And I know, Mr. Washington—that you want to take communion with me—and that it will restore you fully. “Always we are free”—Mr. Washington. Always. Take communion with me, Mr. Washington.
POPS: Look here: I ain’t for no communion, I ain’t for that old-slave religion—and I ain’t for none of this “always we are free,” and this “somehow you know every damn thing” business neither.
CHURCH LADY: I thought you were a serious man.
POPS: I am.
CHURCH LADY: And I am serious woman. These beads, this cross, they are serious. They mean something. The communion wafer, it means something too.
POPS: To you it does, and I respect that. You here to visit the elderly, right? Well, visit with me a minute—just knock off the jungle boogie. Now, where you live at?
CHURCH LADY: For to make “chitchat”? Okay. Two months in New York, I clean for the church. The other ten, in a favela in São Paolo. I volunteer at an orphanage there, it borders the leper colony.
POPS: Hold up—they got lepers over there? I thought they was extinct?
(She laughs.)
CHURCH LADY: That’s funny.
POPS: I’m sorry—I didn’t mean it to be.
CHURCH LADY: Funny man. Strong man.
POPS: So I been told.
CHURCH LADY: You won’t take communion, Strong Man—even just for me?
POPS: We been through that already. Now say, where you from again?
CHURCH LADY: “Chitchat, chitchat,” eh? Okay. Brazil. I come from there.
POPS: Okay. So now let me ask you, Miss Brazil: can’t y’all appreciate even one tiny friendly evening drink over there in Brazil?
CHURCH LADY: God still loves you, Mr. Washington. Don’t be too proud to be free. “Always we are free.” God loves you. And your life can be, believe me, a beautiful life indeed if you can only learn to love God back.
POPS: Oh cut the shit, will ya! There is no God. And if somehow there is, well—
CHURCH LADY: Well what?
POPS: Well give me five minutes and a fair fight, and I’ll show God exactly what I think of him.
CHURCH LADY: I can heal you.
POPS: I ain’t sick.
CHURCH LADY: You don’t have to believe me, you just have to let me.
POPS: You can’t heal shit!
CHURCH LADY: I coming closer now. Look at me. Don’t be scare. Walter. Look at me.
(He does. Beat. She stares at him intently, as if in a trance.)
I can heal you.
(Beat. Pops is in the grips of intense energy, almost frozen, but trying to resist.)
POPS: No one can heal me.
CHURCH LADY: I can. I’m here for dat. I’m here for God. I’m here for you.
(She removes her cross and beaded necklace and loosens her hair and her dress. Pops is transfixed.)
I can baptize you.
(Pops can’t move. She takes the bourbon, pours it wildly on her face and down her throat. She pours it into Pops’s mouth as well—a waterfall of bourbon.)
POPS: You can’t heal me—I won’t be healed.
CHURCH LADY: You are healing.
(They come together and grow intimate. It’s ritualistic and sexual, but also it’s not. It’s intense and growing more so.
Pops becomes aware that—inexplicably—he is aroused down below.)
POPS: This is impossible.
CHURCH LADY: “Always we are free”—you are free.
POPS: But this shit is impossible.
CHURCH LADY: You are free.
(The Church Lady puts a Eucharist wafer between her teeth, mounts Walter, and feeds it to him mouth to mouth.)
POPS: I’m having difficulty breathing.
CHURCH LADY: You took communion, Walter! So wonderful.
POPS: Oh. Oh my.
(The Church Lady remains on top of him and inserts him into her. They make love slowly, quietly, throughout.)
This is impossible.
CHURCH LADY: Why?
POPS: I mean medically—this is medically—I’m talking medically—Oh my Lord—
CHURCH LADY: Pai Nosso, que estás no céu, Santificado seja o Teu Nome— Be free, Walter.
POPS: Free, yes, I’m very free.
CHURCH LADY: Santa, Santa! Negrinho do Pastoreio! Bumbameu-Boi!
POPS: Hallelujah Jesus!
CHURCH LADY: The orphanage in my country, Walter?
POPS: Orphanage? Yes?
CHURCH LADY: It suffered horrible flood.
POPS: The orphanage?! Oh no! Not the orphanage.
CHURCH LADY: You help to rebuild it—yes? Oh!
POPS: Oh sure—you mean like—
CHURCH LADY: Money. Much money—Oh!
POPS: Oh hell yeah! Money’s no object—you can have it all—oh—I just, am I breathing right? . . . Because this is—oh my—
CHURCH LADY: What?
POPS: This is—this is—
CHURCH LADY: What, Walter?
POPS: This is incredible—but—I really do believe I need an ambulance!
CHURCH LADY: Funny man!
POPS: No. Serious man! Very serious. Call the ambulance! Call Junior. Call Delores. Call— Oh my, you hear that??!!
CHURCH LADY: Hear what?
POPS: You hear that, Delores?
CHURCH LADY: Breathe, Walter—please!
POPS: “Always we are free!”
CHURCH LADY: That’s right, Walter—
POPS: Always, yes—always free—this is the greatest—moment of my life.
(Pops collapses.)
CHURCH LADY: Santa, Santa—breathe!
(Blackout.)
SCENE 2
Pops’s Bedroom. Midnight. A Week Later.
Pops is very ill. EKG-monitor and IV. A nice bouquet of flowers is by his bedside.
JUNIOR: Hey Pop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pop?
POPS: . . . Junior?
JUNIOR: Yeah, Pop, it’s me—Junior . . . How you feelin’, Pop?
POPS: Where you been at, Junior?
JUNIOR: I been here, Pop.
POPS: Here since when?
JUNIOR: You been—you been in a state of unconsciousness, Pop.
POPS: Yeah, I know where I been, I’m askin’ where have you been.
JUNIOR: Can I get you anything, Pop?
POPS: No.
JUNIOR: . . . I see you got the dog nestled in there under them covers with you.
POPS: Fuckin’ dog—he’s what you call a codependent. Can’t shake the motherfucker. He like a bill collector—always up your ass . . . Now: Lulu told you my last wishes?
JUNIOR: Let’s just focus on you getting better, Pop.
POPS: Listen to me: no funeral, no wake, no burial, no refreshments, no nothing! Your Uncle Floyd was an undertaker—they’re all fuckin’ licensed thieves. Don’t let them talk you into nothing but ashes and a tin cup.
JUNIOR: The Army or the NYPD gonna cover that if it happens, Pop.
POPS: Don’t count on it.
JUNIOR: Police is taking care of your medical right now.
POPS: Since when?
JUNIOR: Lulu said some cop in a suit came to the hospital, they signed for everything, including home-care.
POPS: Well, if a bill come, don’t pay it.
JUNIOR: Pop—
POPS: On my bureau is me and your mother’s old ATM-card from Chase Manhattan. There should be ’bout 385 dollars in there, withdraw all of it first thing in the morning, cuz when I go, they’ll try to hold on to that too.
JUNIOR: Doctor says you could pull through this—
POPS: Yeah, they said the same shit about your mother too. Just do as I say!
JUNIOR: Okay.
POPS: Good. Okay then. I’m tired now, Son.
JUNIOR: Okay . . . I was just . . .
POPS: Whatchu need now?
JUNIOR: I don’t need anything, Pop. Just . . . I was hoping we could—talk.
POPS: That ain’t what we just did?
JUNIOR: . . . Look, Pop: I just, I wanna tell you—
POPS: Don’t start.
JUNIOR: I know I haven’t been a very good son to you.
POPS: Stop it!
JUNIOR: Stop what?!
POPS: Just stop it!
JUNIOR: What—I can’t say nothing here?! I can’t tell you I’m sorry and I’m scared to death and—
POPS: Just stop already!
JUNIOR: I can’t tell you I love you, Pop?! I can’t tell you—
POPS: You wanna kill me—keep talking!!
JUNIOR: How’s me talking gonna kill you?!
POPS: I don’t wanna hear it!
JUNIOR: Well maybe I need to say it! Maybe your son needs to say it! Maybe your wife needed to say it—or to fuckin’ hear it—even once! Just once! You ever fuckin’ think of that?!
POPS: Okay. You been heard. But now you gotta stop yelling and take a look around, see who’s in the bed and who’s up on two feet.
JUNIOR: Why? What’s the difference? I could be the one in the bed, and it’d be the exact same cold fuckin’ shit with you. Ask Mom. Yeah. She made excuses for you all her life. But she lived it. She fuckin’, she was, she . . .
(Beat.)
. . . Oh man. Aw man. I’m sorry, Pop.
POPS: Stop it.
JUNIOR: Oh man.
POPS: Hey, hey. Go get me some water, would ya?
JUNIOR: . . . Yeah . . . Yeah, sure. You want it cold? Warm? With ice? How you want it, Pop?
POPS: Just from the tap.
JUNIOR: Okay.
POPS: Yeah. People look down their nose at tap water. Makes me wanna slap a motherfucker. Tap water is good water. Don’t ever forget that, Son.
JUNIOR: I won’t, Pop.
POPS: It’s damn good water.
JUNIOR: It is.
POPS: And another thing: eat vegetables. Partake of a fiber-rich diet.
JUNIOR: I will.
POPS: Fiber’s your best friend, Son.
JUNIOR: Okay, Pop.
POPS: Potassium combats high blood pressure. A black man needs that.
JUNIOR: Yes he does.
POPS: Okay then. Glad we spoke on that.
JUNIOR: . . . Me too, Pop.
(Junior goes to get the water, then turns and stares at Pops.)
POPS: . . . . . . . . . . . . What?
JUNIOR: Nothing, just . . . You still gonna be here when I get back—right?
POPS: Where the fuck else I’m gonna be?
JUNIOR: . . . Never mind . . . Sorry . . .
POPS: You weak, Son, you know that? . . . Siddown.
JUNIOR: I’ll just go get you the water.
POPS: Sit down . . . . . . Now I ain’t a talker—
JUNIOR: Yeah, and that’s okay, Pop, cuz I—
POPS: Hey, you wanna hear me say something or not?
JUNIOR: I do, but I just wanna let ya know—
POPS: Boy, you just like your mama, always wanna be interjecting shit.
JUNIOR: . . . Moms did always have something to say, didn’t she?
POPS: Oh boy . . . . . . . . . On our wedding night, she was nervous, right there in the bed there she was in her negligee chatting away about this and that and every little damn thing crossed her mind till finally the sun started coming up through the window and I told her: “Delores you sure do got a way with words—but there are other forms of communication.”
JUNIOR: She told me that story. Said you were a real gentleman.
POPS: Did she tell ya it took me ten nights before she let me proceed with the intimacies?
JUNIOR: She told me that too.
POPS: Yeah, I bet she told you a whole lotta bad shit about me too—her little confidant.
JUNIOR: Marriage got bumps.
POPS: I never told you about my father—
JUNIOR: Mom did.
POPS: Well shit, is there anything your mama didn’t tell you? If you already know everything, why can’t I just go to sleep?
JUNIOR: Tell me ’bout your daddy, Pops.
POPS: But you already know!
JUNIOR: Just tell me.
POPS: Why? I didn’t never know him, he was a traveling man, I hated him.
JUNIOR: Okay. And then what?
POPS: That’s it. I hated him. And I lived my own life in reaction to that.
JUNIOR: How’d ya do that?
POPS: You know, everything the opposite. Married your mother. Joined the police. Paid taxes. Bought insurance. Got a Riverside Drive apartment. Had you. Put down firm roots. Be a fucking man.
JUNIOR: And you did that, Pop. And what I said before—
POPS: Mo Lubenthal came to see me after I’d been shot, I told him: “How much can we get, Mo”? He told me: “I was drunk and where I wasn’t supposed to be and they could toss me a few pennies or just fire me if I pushed it too far—unless I maybe told them the boy called me nigger.” —So I went with that.
JUNIOR: So what? That don’t change nothing.
POPS: The point is: the day I got shot? I think I was relieved. Because I could stop pretending to be some guy I wasn’t never meant to be. Trying to live in reaction to my father turned me angry, drunk and half outta my mind. Don’t do the same like me, Son. It ain’t necessary. Because in reality, I’m more like my daddy than I thought. And I only learned it the night of my little heart attack last Sunday. And if I survive this, I just might take to the road and travel a little myself—do a little wandering.
JUNIOR: Wandering where?
POPS: Now tell me ’bout Lulu—pregnant or not?
JUNIOR: Not.
POPS: And that’s good news or bad?
JUNIOR: Good.
POPS: Okay, but just cuz you didn’t break it—don’t mean you ain’t bought it, right?
JUNIOR: Meaning what?
POPS: Meaning, move on—but she deserves a soft landing-spot for herself before she move on from here. Now: you go on and keep an eye on them movers—make sure they don’t steal nothing.
JUNIOR: City called off the movers.
POPS: When?
JUNIOR: ’Bout a day after you was taken to the hospital according to Lulu.
POPS: And what about Audrey and Dave—they come by again?
JUNIOR: They came again the last two days, but Lulu had the doctor tell them you couldn’t be disturbed.
POPS: Is that so?
JUNIOR: That’s what she told me.
POPS: Hmmm . . . Call Mo Lubenthal in the morning, tell ’em I’m ready to deal.
JUNIOR: I don’t think there’s a deal to be made now—
POPS: Just do it.
JUNIOR: Okay, Pop.
POPS: Good. Now—it’s okay with you I get a little fuckin’ post–heart attack rest? And hey—take these goddamn awful-smelling flowers outta here—who wasted their money on them anyway?
JUNIOR: I did, Pop.
POPS: Fine. Leave ’em then. Now if I tell you I love you, will you let me sleep?
JUNIOR: I love you, Pop.
POPS: Same to you. Alright? Good night, God bless—take the goddamn dog, and get the fuck out.
(Blackout.)
SCENE 3
The Apartment. Evening. Two Days Later.
The stage opens itself in such a way that all of the following is simultaneously visible:
Pops is in his bedroom. An EKG-monitor, an IV, and an adjustable food tray are by his bed. A male nurse (the actor playing Oswaldo) tends to him. Detective O’Connor sits in a chair by his side. Pops stares up at the ceiling. Detective O’Connor stares at Pops.
Just outside the bedroom, Lulu sits on one of several folding chairs outside the bedroom. She’s reading a magazine, keeping vigil, and ready to enter the bedroom if she’s called on.
Just inside the apartment’s front door stands Junior. On the other side of the door is the Church Lady. Midstream:
JUNIOR: —What I’m saying is you ain’t welcome here.
CHURCH LADY: I’m here to see your father.
JUNIOR: I’ve asked you twice nicely to go wait in the lobby.
CHURCH LADY: I have a right to see Walter.
JUNIOR: Look: I know women who would break a bitch like you in two for a dime bag and a Happy Meal, okay? Now: you ain’t gettin’ my father’s money, neither is your church, I’ll hurt you if I have to, so stay the fuck away.
(Lieutenant Caro approaches the front door.)
LIEUTENANT CARO: Problem here?
JUNIOR: Oh, no—not at all.
(Lieutenant Caro extends his hand to the Church Lady.)
LIEUTENANT CARO: Dave Caro, how you doin’?
CHURCH LADY: I know you!
LIEUTENANT CARO: Could be . . . Junior—Dave Caro, from dinner a couple weeks ago?
JUNIOR: Oh yeah. Hey man.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Audrey’s in with your father—mind if I?
JUNIOR: Right down the hall.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Take my card. For anything. We’re practically family now.
(Lieutenant Caro hands Junior a card, and enters the apartment.)
JUNIOR (To the Church Lady): Stay away from my father!
(Junior closes the door on the Church Lady and locks it.
Lieutenant Caro approaches Lulu.)
LIEUTENANT CARO: Dave Caro, you’re Junior’s fiancée?
LULU: Girlfriend. But I mean, we’re discussing future plans, but—
LIEUTENANT CARO: How’s Walter doing?
LULU: So so.
LIEUTENANT CARO: What’s his prognosis?
LULU: Oh, it’s pneumonia now, not prognosis.
LIEUTENANT CARO: I see.
(Lieutenant Caro enters the bedroom.
Junior hands Lulu a beer sits down next to her, as:)
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Eat the pound cake. I know you like pound cake, Walter.
POPS: Don’t like the kind with the stripes—you oughta know that.
LIEUTENANT CARO: I gotta say, Walter, full medical care in your own apartment, courtesy of the NYPD? I mean—Donald Trump—maybe—maybe Trump gets full medical care from the convenience of his home—
POPS: Ain’t gonna be my home much longer, now is it?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Actually, that’s why we’re here.
POPS: A week ago, y’all had me evicted, warrants out on my son, bank account froze, shit confiscated—
LIEUTENANT CARO: The city, Walter, is ready to turn the page.
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: It’s useless, Dave. Walter seems determined to go down in flames—
POPS: I hope I die tonight! I hope it come on NY1 bright and early tomorrow morning: how the city harassed, threatened, strong-armed, and put out on the street a feeble old patriotic, tax-paying, African-American ex-cop war hero senior citizen—and how they didn’t stop the barrage till he dropped dead as a doornail.
LIEUTENANT CARO: You’re overestimating your position here.
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Dave’s right. I wouldn’t lie to you.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Eight years ago, you overplayed your hand. That’s the reason you’re in the spot you’re in today. However, I spoke to your lawyer, Mr. Liebenthal—
POPS: Lubenthal—
LIEUTENANT CARO: Exactly, yes. Your lawyer Lubenthal is ready to sign off on our confidentiality agreement and the concessions to you that come with it.
POPS: How much money?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Unfortunately: no money. Once you turned down that final offer, money came off the table. Money implies liability—and once you turned down the final settlement offer—
POPS: So what I get?
LIEUTENANT CARO: You get your apartment back plus eighteen months free rent. The city agrees to expunge your son’s entire criminal record—now that’s subject to him avoiding arrest for the next fifteen years—but to employers and creditors, it’ll be like he never even had a parking ticket. And obviously, all the dust that’s been kicked up the last couple of weeks—that will all disappear entirely. And the city will cover your remaining legal fees, but Mr. Liebental tells us he hasn’t cashed a check of yours in over a year anyway, and he’s not interested in payment past, present, or future, only that your well-being be secured legally and in writing. Finally—as a conciliatory gesture, you’ll be invited annually and be made a member of the advisory boards of the mayor’s annual galas for both “Jack and Jill of America, Incorporated” and the AAMA.
POPS: And that’s what?
LIEUTENANT CARO: The African-American Museum Association I believe. Yes. And both those organizations, when you’re on the board, you get on the list for free tickets to a variety of cultural and sporting events.
POPS: But no money.
LIEUTENANT CARO: I wish there was, but no. If you hadn’t turned down that final settlement offer—
POPS: Look, I’ll admit I want this to be over. But: no money, no signature on the nondisclosure. I’m old, I’m gonna die soon anyway, so any discomfort I can cause you people, unless there’s some money involved . . .
LIEUTENANT CARO: There is a discretionary fund—
POPS: Aha!! How much?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Fifteen grand.
POPS: Fifteen grand—that comes to what? Twenty-five hundred per bullet inside me?
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Please take it, Walter—you’ll have your pension, social security—you can have your life back—and you can help Junior with his. I know you want that.
POPS: Fifteen grand?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Fifteen. Cashier’s check. Untaxed. Like you found it in the street. Plus everything else in the package.
POPS: I’ll take forty.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Fifteen.
POPS: Thirty.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Fifteen.
POPS: I’ll sign it right now, but for twenty grand, okay?
LIEUTENANT CARO: The number is fifteen, Walter, and if you try for a penny more, that’s just gonna kick in their “Fuck It Factor.”
POPS: What’s that?
LIEUTENANT CARO: It’s the point in a negotiation, Walter, where the powers that be revise the cost benefit, reassess the risk, and end up saying: “You know what? Paying this guy ain’t worth it, let’s just crush him—Fuck It.”
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Don’t do this to yourself. And don’t do this to Junior.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Don’t do this to Audrey—she loves you. Or to Junior. You were wronged, Walter. But destroying yourself and your loved ones won’t right that wrong. It’s been eight years. Let it go, man. In my heart, Walter, I know you want to put this burden down. It’s okay. Let it go.
POPS: . . . . . . Oh man.
LIEUTENANT CARO: You know I’m right.
POPS: . . . What should I do here, Audrey?
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: I just want you to walk me down that aisle, Walter. I just want to put all of this behind us—I don’t even know how things went so far afield. Junior deserves a second chance. And you deserve to keep your apartment and everything you’ve worked so hard for. You’re like my father. And Dave has grown so fond of you—he so respects your guts and your principles and he really just wants to take you fishing out on the Island—
LIEUTENANT CARO: I mean, I don’t wanna force myself on you, Walter. Or this deal either for that matter. It has to be what you want to do.
POPS: But, Dave—it would be a help to you, if I signed the nondisclosure?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Very helpful, Walter, I won’t lie.
POPS: Almost like a wedding present?
LIEUTENANT CARO: It’d be one hell of a wedding present, yeah. But again—only if it’s what you want.
POPS: Audrey?
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Only if you feel it’s right for you. But, yes. Do it.
POPS: Okay then.
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Oh God, thank you, Walter!
POPS: Get me a pen—I’ll sign.
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Thank you!
LIEUTENANT CARO: Oh my God—you’re the man, Walter—you’re a goddamn rock star is what you are! You’re friggin’ Jimi Hendrix at Monterey!
POPS: Fifteen grand. And I’ll take the ring.
LIEUTENANT CARO: The ring? What ring?
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: My engagement ring?
POPS: That’d be the one, yep. Fifteen grand and the ring, we can call the whole thing even—whaddya say?
LIEUTENANT CARO: What?! The ring?! You’re joking, right?!
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: You want my ring?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Hey, hey—fuck that—this is a joke, right? Because if not—I mean, no offense, but go fuck yourself man!
POPS: Now that ain’t a nice way to talk, Dave.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Okay, but this is a joke, right? Cuz, Walter, you’re making me a little fuckin’ nervous over here—
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: You’re not serious, are you, Walter?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Of course he’s not serious! Now Walter, here’s a pen, and here’s the thing—
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: I think he’s serious, Dave.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Okay, Walter—Audrey’s starting to get upset.
POPS: I’m sorry to hear that. But you do need my signature, doncha, Dave?
LIEUTENANT CARO: I don’t need anything!
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Why do you want my ring, Walter?!
LIEUTENANT CARO: Hey! Everybody slow down! This settlement, believe me, this is a gift we’re handing you, Walter!
POPS: And I’ll always cherish it—along with the ring.
LIEUTENANT CARO: “Along with the ring”?! Along with what ring, Walter—cuz you’re not ever getting her fuckin’ ring—so straighten up and fly fuckin’ right over here before you get hurt!
(Junior and Lulu enter the bedroom.)
JUNIOR: Everything okay in here?
POPS: Everything is fine, just finalizing some negotiations is all.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Oh I’m telling you right now: there are no negotiations being finalized right now!
JUNIOR (To Lieutenant Caro): Look man—maybe you should leave.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Excuse me? I should leave? Excuse me?
POPS: Hey hey, leave us be, Junior. This will all be over shortly.
JUNIOR: You sure, Pop?
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: It’s okay, Junior.
JUNIOR: Okay then.
(Junior and Lulu exit. Beat.)
LIEUTENANT CARO: Walter.
POPS: Dave.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Wow. I am disappointed in you, Walter.
POPS: I imagine you would be.
LIEUTENANT CARO: I mean. I didn’t wanna have to go here, but I think this is the moment where I need to tell you just a few things about Dave Caro—
POPS: Before you get to that: your father—he didn’t never eat his gun, did he?
LIEUTENANT CARO: My father’s a retired electrician living in Fort Myers. I’m just here to do a job, Walter—whaddya want from me?
POPS: I thought so. You good though. Okay then. I’ll take the fifteen grand cashier’s check, the ring—and what I want from you, Dave—is your necktie.
LIEUTENANT CARO: My necktie?! What are we—kids in a school yard?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: You really want the ring, Walter? My ring?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Audrey, this man is so far beneath you, he’s under the ground halfway to China!
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Why do you want my ring, Walter?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Okay, enough. There is a line, Walter. A line of demarcation from which, once you cross it, you can never go back. You are perilously close to crossing that line.
POPS: Look Dave: The Ring. The Check. The Necktie—or go fuck yourself.
LIEUTENANT CARO: I’ll arrest Junior right now, Walter—toss his ass in a cell with gangbangers and make sure the system loses him for two weeks minimum—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what I can and will do to him—right this very minute—if you don’t come quickly to your senses over here. Now is that what you want?
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Dave—why don’t you leave the room and let me talk with Walter?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Audrey, I love you, but please—let me handle this.
POPS: Handle what? You wanna arrest Junior? Go ahead. Arrest him.
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Nobody’s going to arrest Junior!
LIEUTENANT CARO: Audrey—stay out of this!
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Why do you want my ring, Walter?
LIEUTENANT CARO: If you don’t care about your son, Walter—then at least look out for yourself! You’re an old bitter drunk—
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Dave!
LIEUTENANT CARO: And maybe you don’t think things can’t get worse—but believe me, they fuckin’ can—and they will! You don’t like me? Hey fuck you, I don’t like you either—but who the fuck am I? I’m just a cog in the wheel, Walter—and so are you! And the wheel’s gonna keep turning whether it’s gotta grind out your guts or not—either way, the wheel don’t feel a fuckin’ thing! The wheel don’t give a fuck, Walter. And you know that! But somewhere inside that thick head of yours—I know you give a fuck! I know you do! And I know you’re reasonable! You think by saying: “Fuck you” that you’re showing the world that you got balls—but Walter, unless I’m mistaken—no disrespect—but that fuckin’ rookie cop shot off your balls eight years ago—so what’s the fuckin’ point, here?!
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Walter, please—
POPS: Audrey, Dave: I’m going to the bathroom now to make a deposit—while I’m gone, y’all can sort it out if you want my signature—or if you wanna explain to your bosses, Dave, how you fucked this shit all up, okay? You can have a victory—or you can have a ring. Can’t have both. (Shouts) Lulu, I need an escort to the office!!! . . .
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Why do you want my ring, Walter?!
POPS: Because it pleases me to take it from you—okay?
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: That’s not an answer, Walter.
POPS: Then I’ll leave it to you to provide yourself one.
(Lulu enters.)
LULU: I’m here, Dad.
LIEUTENANT CARO: This is nonsense, Walter—It’s not our fault you got shot, it’s not our fault you got stupid and greedy, it’s not our fault you’re a lying, shiftless drunk—and I’ll bet my life that kid never called you a fuckin’ nigger in the first place!
POPS: And Dave—hey—you may very well be right. So now: The Ring. The Cashier’s Check. The Necktie. Or—go fuck yourself. Do you want this over or not?
LIEUTENANT CARO: Walter, I’m begging you to reconsider—
POPS: Looky here—I ain’t quick in the bathroom, so you’ll have time to mull it over . . . Hey: toughen up now, Audrey, I taught you better than that.
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: But this isn’t right. It isn’t right, Walter.
POPS: What exactly isn’t right, Audrey? And what a world it would be if “what was right” was enough. Besides—nothing’s been decided here.
LIEUTENANT CARO: Oh, you know goddamn well it has!
POPS: I don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’ and I’m fine either way. Your call, Dave. Do you want this win or not?
LIEUTENANT CARO: This is bullshit.
POPS: Nah, Kemosabe, this is poker—and see, I play a little too.
(Lulu helps Pops walk out the door. As they exit:)
DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: But this isn’t right!
POPS: You be well, Audrey.
SCENE 4
The Kitchen. The Roof.
Six months later. Winter. The kitchen. Junior now sits in his father’s place in the wheelchair at the kitchen table. He sips a from a twenty-ounce can of beer and is reading the paper. He is dressed in winter clothes.
After a moment, Oswaldo enters, wearing a cheap winter parka over a cheap suit. He is wheeling a carry-on luggage-type bag behind him.
JUNIOR: Job interview?
OSWALDO: Yeah.
JUNIOR: How’d it go?
OSWALDO: I think it went positive. More or less.
JUNIOR: Good.
OSWALDO: But maybe more “less” than “more.”
JUNIOR: Tough out there.
OSWALDO: Word.
(Oswaldo goes into his bag and pulls out Ring Dings, bologna, and Fanta Grape. He sits at the table with Junior.)
You want a Ring Ding?
JUNIOR: Okay.
OSWALDO: Bologna or plain?
JUNIOR: Plain.
OSWALDO: Here ya go . . . And yo, I just wanna say again—I really appreciate you letting me stay here again.
JUNIOR: It ain’t a thing.
OSWALDO: I appreciate it though.
(Lulu enters. She is not pregnant.)
LULU: Morning, Junior.
JUNIOR: Morning, Lulu.
LULU: Morning, Oswaldo.
OSWALDO: Ring Ding?
LULU: Sure.
OSWALDO: Bologna or plain?
LULU: Bologna.
(She goes to the fridge, retrieves a soda. Beat.)
Did Dad call?
JUNIOR: You ask me that every day, Lulu.
LULU: Oh. I just thought maybe he called.
JUNIOR: Nope.
LULU: . . . So, um—how’s school, Junior?
JUNIOR: Good.
LULU: That’s good . . . . . . My school’s good too.
JUNIOR: Good.
LULU: So, do you think he’ll be home for Christmas though?
JUNIOR: Who?
LULU: Dad.
JUNIOR: Who knows? The man went up to the roof in a fedora and a suit with the dog—that was four months ago.
LULU: Feels longer.
JUNIOR: Is what it is . . .
(Junior takes a long swig of beer.)
Oswaldo—I could get another Ring Ding?
. . .
(Two weeks after Pops’s last scene. On the roof. Summer.
Walter is dressed in a suit and is wearing Dave’s distinctive tie. He carries his cane. At his feet is a traveling bag and a small pet carrier. Next to him is the Church Lady.)
POPS: I’m glad you agreed to see me.
CHURCH LADY: I thought I had killed you that night.
POPS: But you didn’t.
CHURCH LADY: Thanks, God. You taking a trip?
POPS: I am.
CHURCH LADY: And who is in that pet cage?
POPS: Who you think?
CHURCH LADY: “That Little Motherfucker.”
POPS: That’s right.
CHURCH LADY: What happened between us, Walter—please—I hope you are not asking me to travel with you, like romance—
POPS: Oh no, no.
CHURCH LADY: It was not so good what happened that night.
POPS: Whatever the hell happened that night, it got me to here. And I didn’t do nothing to deserve it. You gave that to me. You gave me grace. “Always be free,” right?
CHURCH LADY: Yes.
POPS: See, I just wanted to give you something ’fore I left. Here.
(Pops hands her the diamond ring.)
CHURCH LADY: Walter—I cannot.
POPS: No no, I’m not proposing marriage to you. I’m giving it to you. For them lepers you was talking about.
CHURCH LADY: Orphans, Walter—not lepers.
POPS: Even better. For the orphans then.
CHURCH LADY: This ring—it is too valuable.
POPS: Retails for 30K—it’s valuable alright. But you more valuable. To me. Do something good with it. For them orphans down there.
CHURCH LADY: Walter—
POPS: I ain’t asking. So you ought to respect your elders and just take it.
CHURCH LADY: I can’t take it.
POPS: Why not?
CHURCH LADY: Glenda, the church lady, she told me about you. I clean the church, and she was always there. Lonely. So she talk to me. She told me everything about you.
POPS: So?
CHURCH LADY: So I tell her the priest want her to visit someone else. I came in her place. Because I know all about you. From Glenda. I came to rob you. To tell you stories and make you give me what you have. That’s what I do. That’s who I am.
POPS: That’s not all you are. You changed me.
CHURCH LADY: You changed yourself.
POPS: So, you change yourself then. Keep the ring.
CHURCH LADY: What about your son?
POPS: I took care of him. He’ll be fine. Or he won’t.
CHURCH LADY: But Walter.
POPS: What is it?
CHURCH LADY: Don’t you understand? There are no orphans, Walter. Do you understand me? There are no orphans.
(Walter gives her the ring, kisses her cheek.)
POPS: Well—there are orphans somewhere.
(Walter exits to the staircase with his travel bag and pet carrier.
The Church Lady remains alone.
She stares out at the horizon.
The lights fade.)
END OF PLAY