JESSIE: You make them interested. This is economic war now!
DONALDO: Get out with that. It’s not war just because you messed up.
JESSIE: When they take your house, when they turn you out, that’s war.
DONALDO: Mamacita, please.
JESSIE: You’re gonna have to pick a side, Donaldo.
DONALDO: You are not going to define me on your terms. I picked my side long since, and it’s with the everyday people. But you have to understand that the Bronx needs the banks more than the banks need the Bronx.
JESSIE: They want you to think that.
DONALDO: They got the money.
JESSIE: What’s money? It won’t save you when you’re dying.
DONALDO: Maybe not, but you can’t make a bank listen by going on that there’s an economic war. And I’ll tell you something else. A man deserves to be paid. You borrow money from a man, he deserves to be paid.
JESSIE: There’s no man in this story. Show me a man. We’re talking about a bank. Who’s a bank?
DONALDO: Don’t play dumb. It’s people.
JESSIE: Not like me.
DONALDO: Just like you. A buncha people.
JESSIE: What kind of people? I wouldn’t turn a woman out of her house if you put a gun to my head. Ain’t a decent way to behave. Would you preach to a child to act that way? It takes a different class of human being to carry on like that. You know what? It takes a landlord to pull that shit.
DONALDO: Landlords have a right to make money.
JESSIE: And at Christmas time. Feliz Navidad. Who would choose to make money like that?
DONALDO: Just because it’s not one face, one person giving you the money, you don’t see it as a debt?
JESSIE: If a thing don’t have a face, what is it?
DONALDO: A business!
JESSIE: If a bunch of people with no morality but money get together to jump on one person, I call that a gang.
DONALDO: It’s time to look in the mirror and realize we have responsibilities, too.
JESSIE: You look in the mirror.
DONALDO: I take my measure every morning.
JESSIE: You’re walking around in some big-shot fantasy.
DONALDO: I’m not walking around in anything but a pair of pants.
(Ethan staggers in. He’s puffing. He has a beat-up old heavy schoolbag.)
ETHAN: Call off the dogs, you two! What’s the ruckus?
JESSIE: Ethan!
ETHAN: Hey, Donaldo.
DONALDO: I thought you had a heart attack?
ETHAN: I did. So what? Life goes on. (To Jessie) I knew you’d come here. Leave off Donaldo.
JESSIE: I got this. You go home.
ETHAN: You got nothing. You go home.
JESSIE: He’s gotta help us with the bank.
DONALDO: Talk to her, Ethan. I can’t get involved in this one. It might give the appearance of impropriety.
ETHAN: No problem. I’m taking care of it.
JESSIE: You? You’ve got one foot in the kingdom come.
ETHAN: Jews don’t have a kingdom come.
JESSIE: Another reason not to be a Jew.
ETHAN: Anti-Semite.
JESSIE: Then the more fool you for marrying me.
DONALDO: Ethan, your doctor know you’re out?
ETHAN: Stedman don’t care where I am as long as I get the bill. How’s the cake?
JESSIE: You can’t have any.
(Ethan gets a fork.)
ETHAN: No? Watch me. (Sings a few bars of “If I Were a Rich Man,” dancing over to the cake)
JESSIE: Stay away from that cake. Ethan! Don’t eat that cake! There’s five eggs in there, and two sticks of butter! Don’t eat that cake, I said! He’s eating the cake.
DONALDO: I can see that.
(Ethan eats.)
ETHAN: Anyway, she’s not gonna lose the house.
JESSIE: How do you know?
ETHAN (Referring to the cake): This is too good.
JESSIE: Same cake I make every day.
ETHAN: I take each cake as it comes.
JESSIE: Why am I not gonna lose my house?
ETHAN: Life insurance.
DONALDO: You have life insurance?
ETHAN: I do.
DONALDO: There you go. The cash-convertible kind?
ETHAN: No, the drop-dead kind. I’m worth two hundred and fifty grand dead and the mortgage is only one-eighty. Do the math. So let me eat cake, you see what I’m saying?
DONALDO: You should be home.
ETHAN: I stay home and take the meds, I could live long enough to be evicted.
JESSIE: Goddamn landlords.
ETHAN: What are you talking about landlords? You ARE a landlord.
DONALDO: What? Who’s a landlord?
ETHAN: Her. Jessie.
DONALDO: She is?
JESSIE: Bullshit!
ETHAN: You have a tenant. That makes you a landlord.
DONALDO: You have a tenant? That changes the picture. So you have income there.
JESSIE: There’s no income. He can’t pay.
ETHAN: Goes way beyond not paying. (To Jessie) You didn’t tell him, did you? Jessie loaned the tenant money. She took out a second mortgage, thirty thousand dollars, and gave it to this guy to renovate.
DONALDO: Renovate what?
ETHAN: The old laundry downstairs.
DONALDO: He’s opening up a laundromat?
JESSIE (Overlapping): No laundromat, it’s a church. He’s made it over into a storefront church.
(Donaldo registers that.)
DONALDO: A church?
JESSIE: Yeah.
DONALDO: He’s a reverend?
JESSIE: Pentecostal.
ETHAN: The quietest Pentecostal I’ve ever seen.
JESSIE: He’s been down.
ETHAN: He has no congregation. (To Donaldo) The second mortgage is just hanging there, but this reverend . . .
DONALDO: What’s his name?
JESSIE: Chester Kimmich.
DONALDO: I don’t know him.
ETHAN: He’s a good ten months behind.
DONALDO: Have you pressed him?
ETHAN: She won’t do it.
JESSIE: I can’t do that.
DONALDO: Why not?
JESSIE: He’s . . . He’s not an ordinary man.
DONALDO: Is that right? In what way is he special?
JESSIE: He carries the weight of many.
ETHAN: She brings him food. She’s feeding the guy.
JESSIE: Donaldo, there is another world and you know it. Your father knew it, too.
DONALDO: My father never saw his calling as a reason not to pay his rent.
JESSIE: This man is bound up with something beyond the everyday. He has a greatness.
DONALDO: Oh, I’m not great but this deadbeat’s got the goods, huh?
JESSIE: He’s taking care of what you’re not.
DONALDO: You have to talk to this guy, Jessie. What’s his name?
ETHAN: Chester Kimmich.
DONALDO: You have to talk to this Chester Kimmich.
JESSIE: About what?
DONALDO: On the subject of responsibility. He’s put you in a position.
ETHAN: He spent every dime she gave him fixing the place up into a church, then never held a service.
JESSIE: The reverend doesn’t have to do with the matter at hand. It’s the bank that’s on me.
DONALDO: The first question a loan officer is going to ask is why you haven’t collected the rent from your tenant. And I’ll tell you what he’s going to think. He’s going to think you’re taking the money in cash and stiffing the bank.
JESSIE: Only a thief would think like that!
ETHAN: A lotta people think like that. I think like that.
JESSIE: You think I’m pocketing money?
DONALDO: No, but he might be. A storefront church is a cash business.
JESSIE: It’s not a business. It’s a church.
ETHAN: Barely.
DONALDO: Talk to
him.
JESSIE: I can’t do it. I get done in with shame.
DONALDO: What do you got to be ashamed of? He’s the one at fault.
JESSIE: Everybody’s got something to be ashamed of.
ETHAN: Jews call it “the air we breathe.”
DONALDO: Is he guilt-trippin’ you somehow?
JESSIE: No. There’s a weight on him he carries for me that makes me ashamed.
DONALDO: I don’t know what to say to that. That just sounds crazy.
ETHAN: She won’t let me talk to him.
JESSIE: It’s not a simple thing.
DONALDO: I think you’re building this up beyond what it is. You should never have extended yourself financially, Jessie. You were foolish and it’s come back to bite you. You had no business borrowing money for a romantic purpose.
JESSIE: Romantic?
ETHAN: Wait a minute. Is that why you’re feeding that bastid? Romance?
JESSIE (To Ethan): Are you serious?! Get real!
ETHAN: I’ll kill you both!
DONALDO: Don’t get excited. I’m talking about religion. I’ve seen people get a crush on religion many’s the time, and do things that made no sense in the light of day.
JESSIE: What makes sense to me in this world used to make sense to you.
DONALDO: When I was a kid.
JESSIE: You had a sense of sin when you were a child.
DONALDO: I still do, but admit it. You got carried away.
JESSIE: You used to get carried away, too.
DONALDO: And my father before me. But I paid a price one too many times, Jessie. I can’t afford to get high on righteousness anymore. I gave that up the day I found my manhood. It’s a vice to love righteousness too much.
JESSIE: How can righteousness be a vice?
DONALDO: When other people have to pay for it, it’s a vice.
JESSIE: Some people call that pitching in. Doing your part.
DONALDO: For what? A great man? We all want to believe somebody’s got the torch. Some people take advantage. This Chester Kimmich, he’s out of line. He needs to be served.
JESSIE: Talk to him then. I don’t mind. Take him in. His true intention runs through him like a fire. It’s you I can’t see to the bottom of no more, Donaldo. You’ve become a bottle of smoke from all the rooms you’ve been in. Your father’s been dead too long and maybe you’ve lost your way.
DONALDO: You’re the one’s taken money and don’t have it to give back. You’re the one that’s come to ME for help. It’s easy to stay in the shallow waters and judge those that go into the deep for you. I’ve been in many rooms it’s true, but I went into those rooms for everyday folks in trouble, and I dealt with the dirt and confusion I found there.
ETHAN: Politics.
DONALDO: That’s right. Politics. You look down on it till you need it. Jessie, it’s called growing up.
JESSIE: Don’t tell the woman who combed the nits out of your hair to grow up! Now my husband is short of breath . . .
ETHAN (Overlapping): Nobody needs to do anything anyway . . .
JESSIE: Shut up! My husband is short of breath and can’t go on like Clarence Thomas with these people . . .
ETHAN (Overlapping): You don’t mean Clarence Thomas. He never says anything. You mean Clarence Darrow.
JESSIE: I mean be quiet!
ETHAN: This cake is gonna kill me and solve the problem.
JESSIE: Would you shut up?!
DONALDO: Jesus Christ, get a grip!
JESSIE: Talk to the loan officer!
DONALDO: It’s a conflict of interest.
JESSIE: Your mother co-signed the loan.
DONALDO: What? What? My mother what?
JESSIE: Your mother co-signed the loan. She put up the condo you gave her. She liked the idea of a church. Reminded her of your dad. (Pause)
DONALDO: Goddammit! She did not!! (Pause) She did?
JESSIE: She did.
DONALDO: All right. Goddammit. Well, I’m not talking to any loan officer till I talk to this fraud preacher!
ETHAN (Overlapping): About the loan officer. You might want to know . . .
DONALDO: What?
ETHAN: The loan officer. His wife shot him in the face.
DONALDO: Who?
JESSIE: Back up. What did you say?
ETHAN: The loan officer.
DONALDO: Who shot who in the face?
ETHAN: His wife. It was in the Post a couple of years ago. They were going through a divorce and she shot him in the face. About money. You can see it. He’s blind in one eye, and the side of his face is a little dead.
JESSIE: A man with half his face dead who throws women in the gutter at Christmas. That’s a movie. That’s what we’re dealing with, Donaldo.
DONALDO: I’m making a mistake getting into this. All right. I’ll do my best and leave the rest. I’ll talk to the reverend. I’ll talk to the bank.
JESSIE: Praise God!
ETHAN: And pass the ammunition.
(Blackout.)
Scene 3
A park bench. Reed enters in a winter coat, carrying a valise and a cup of coffee. Music. Something like Nick Cave singing “Into My Arms.” Reed sits on a bench, takes out Ethan’s copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, reads. He starts to cry silently. It snows a few flakes. It snows heavier. He puts the book away and just sits there. He touches his face a couple of times. He gets up and starts to go. He looks back at the empty bench. The lights fade.
Scene 4
A small storefront church. It’s dark, lit only by a small dirty window that faces an alley. There are eleven chairs and a cheap electric piano. A couple of lamps sit on card tables. A beat-up, steel-cut door to the right opens onto the street. A curtain, to the left, leads to other rooms.
Sitting backward in one of the chairs is Chester Kimmich. He’s somewhere in his middle years, whatever they are. I don’t know how old he is. I don’t care how old he is. He’s a man who’s seen more than he wanted to. The light from the lone window falls on him. He rests his head against his hands on the chair’s back. A knock. Chester doesn’t respond. The door opens, permitting light from the street.
Donaldo enters in a coat and scarf, carrying two coffees.
DONALDO: Hello? All right if I come in? (Joking weakly) Don’t have a gun, do you? Do you mind a visitor? I’m a friend of your landlady, Jessie Cortez. My name’s Donaldo Calderon. I’m the borough president. Mind if I take off my coat? I’m all bundled up against the weather. Dark in here. (Turns on a lamp) That’s a bit better. I’m assuming you’re the reverend, Chester Kimmich. Do I have that right?
CHESTER: Yes, sir.
DONALDO: Good. Glad to talk with you.
CHESTER: Would you mind? I don’t feel like talking.
DONALDO: Brought you a coffee.
CHESTER: Don’t want coffee.
DONALDO: Suit yourself. My father was a pastor, had a little congregation over on West Farms. The elevated train would try to drown him out but he would drown out the elevated train. He was a great man. For a time, I thought I’d set up like him, but I never did. Went into political work instead. And here I am, you know, making my way up the ladder. You’ve put Miss Cortez in a bind, Reverend Kimmich. She’s in a bind. (Pause) Is there something wrong?
CHESTER: You’d better just tell me.
DONALDO: Tell you what?
CHESTER: What you want.
DONALDO: Well, I’m here for Jessie Cortez because you owe her money and she owes the bank money.
CHESTER: I don’t have any money.
DONALDO: Well, what are you doing, Chester? I mean are you planning to just do nothing till the world comes and gets you?
CHESTER: I don’t know.
DONALDO: ’Cause the world is coming. If you sit down and don’t get up, eventually that’s what takes place. So it’s better to take action, you know?
CHESTER: What kind of action?
DONALDO: You could leave. Then Jessie could rent this place out to somebody who settles up
once a month. Do you like that idea?
CHESTER: Why are you here?
DONALDO: I told you.
CHESTER: You’d better head home.
DONALDO: Your landlady asked me to come.
CHESTER: You always do what folks ask?
DONALDO: No. But in this case, you being a reverend, I thought it might be good to take you in. Take your measure.
CHESTER: I can’t help you.
DONALDO: It’s not me that needs help.
CHESTER: Nobody says that who knows anything.
DONALDO: Look. Jessie’s an old friend. She went to my mother, and my mother wants me to help her. That’s why I’m here. This isn’t what I usually do. I’m borough president.
CHESTER: What’s that?
DONALDO: It’s a political job. I was elected. I’m supposed to bring business to the Bronx. Are you conducting services here?
CHESTER: Not yet.
DONALDO: What’s holding you up?
CHESTER: I ran into a problem.
DONALDO: Well, you’re talking to the right man because I solve problems. What’s in the way?
CHESTER: Me. I guess. Or worse.
DONALDO: Or worse? Would that be the devil? And don’t think I’m drawing you out to make a fool of you. I believe in the devil. I saw him in a dream when I was a boy. He had a carriage and his horses ran backwards. I know the devil to be real.
CHESTER: I don’t know.
DONALDO: Well, what do you know, Chester?
CHESTER: Devil always looks like somebody else.
DONALDO: I admit I’m getting a little frustrated here. If I talk to the bank after this, I don’t know what to say. You’re not being forthcoming. You have put an honest woman in jeopardy. You took her money and I have to say, if this is the renovation you did, it don’t look like much. Capital improvements usually show. This place looks ragged.
CHESTER: Ran out of money. Couldn’t finish.
DONALDO: So what are you at?
CHESTER: What do you mean?
DONALDO: What’s the plan?
CHESTER: I’m struggling with the thing in front of me.
DONALDO: And what would that be?
CHESTER: Well. There’s a big black hole in the floor in front of me and so I can’t make my way.
DONALDO: A big black hole?
CHESTER: That’s right.
DONALDO: You’re depressed.
CHESTER: You say your father was a pastor?
DONALDO: That’s right.
CHESTER: I’m not talking about depression. I’m talking about a hole in the road before me, big, deep and getting bigger, and it’s a test and a trial and I am bound up here with no way forward. Do you understand me as your father would understand me?
Storefront Church Page 2