Storefront Church
Page 6
TOM: I’m embarrassed by his behavior.
REED: I do my job. I’m doing it right now. I brought your paperwork.
CHESTER: Are you feeling him?
TOM: Certainly. But I expect things of people as well. Civility, for instance.
REED: You expect all kinds of things.
JESSIE: Why you on him? He’s saving my house.
REED: He never saved anybody. (J’accuse!) Look at you. You don’t even know.
TOM: Oh, he’s at it again.
REED: You can’t even imagine it, can you? You can’t imagine it happening to you.
TOM: What are you talking about?
REED: Do you think because you get up early and get home late, do you think that means you’re good?
TOM: You don’t know anything about my life.
REED: Oh I do, yes.
TOM: No, you don’t.
REED: Like looking in the mirror, I know you.
TOM: You’re nuts.
REED: Look at you, you empty stiff! And the rest of you. Sitting there like . . . Mohicans.
TOM: The Last of the Mohicans?
ETHAN: That’s a great book.
REED: May I speak?
CHESTER: Go ahead, brother. Testify.
REED: Reverend, good question you had. Why WAS this woman forgiven? (To Jessie) Wonder where your debt’s gone, miss? Debts don’t just disappear.
JESSIE: I prayed and my prayers were answered.
REED: It’s a miracle. Do you believe in miracles, Mr. Calderon?
DONALDO: I used to.
REED: Should I stop?
DONALDO: Not on my account.
REED: Something’s not right.
TOM: What’s not right is this man, who is ungrateful for his job. And what is right is this house is saved from foreclosure. You were in trouble. We took note.
REED: We sold her a note. No way she could pay it back. We knew that.
TOM: What are you talking about? We had collateral.
REED: Right, collateral! Paper. The box was checked. The house. Take the house. (To all but Tom) You don’t step on us and step on us HARD, we’ll take all your houses! Wake up. We’re a gang. Thugs! (To Ethan) ’Member what you said, Mr. Goldklang? Bad advice is a breach, a debt.
TOM: Leave these good people alone!
REED: Bad advice is a debt!
ETHAN: I said that. He’s quoting me.
REED: I listen. Maybe I don’t look like I’m listening because I’m deformed.
JESSIE: You look all right. But what are you talking about?
REED: Your mortgage.
(Donaldo takes the papers out of the envelope and starts reading.)
JESSIE: What about it?
REED: You get money, somebody pays somehow. Right, Mr. Borough President?
DONALDO: What’s your point?
REED: Are you feeling obligated?
TOM: Reed.
REED (To Donaldo): Should I go on?
TOM: No! You’re a drunk and you think life is a cheat.
REED: No, I think you’re a cheat! Throwing your net over people.
TOM: You thought you’d hit the jackpot and you got stupid. Now you’re bitter.
REED: She owes you thirty thousand dollars plus interest. And then she doesn’t. You wouldn’t forgive your mother that kind of money unless there was a fat fee somewhere. The fee on three hundred million for the mall.
ETHAN (Eureka): There’s the catch! (He goes to Jessie)
TOM: There is no catch. The mall is a great project.
REED: You’re a pig.
ETHAN: Jessie . . .
TOM: You’re an alcoholic. He’s an alcoholic!
JESSIE: My mother was an alcoholic!
TOM: Shit. Donaldo, I’m sorry.
DONALDO: For what?
TOM (Referring to Reed): Him.
(Ethan is earnestly conferring with Jessie.)
ETHAN: Jessie.
REED (To Tom): Don’t apologize for me!
ETHAN: It’s a bribe.
TOM (To Reed): Somebody has to.
REED: Trying to reel him in with your enticements. “Our refi efforts . . .” Please! You have him by the balls. Page eighteen. Your mother’s signature as guarantor!
TOM: Are you leaving?
REED: I don’t think so. No. I like church.
TOM: Then I am.
REED: You’re already gone. You were never here.
DONALDO: All right, Reed, that’s enough.
REED: Okay.
TOM: Donaldo, we can take this up later. I’m very sorry.
DONALDO: For what?
TOM: The theatrics.
DONALDO: No, me too. (Referring to the papers) This is . . . generous stuff.
JESSIE: It is?
DONALDO: Yeah.
TOM: I thought I lost you there for a minute.
DONALDO: No.
TOM: I know I can be a bit clumsy, but I was affected by all this. I am affected. We’re all on the same side.
REED: No, we’re not.
TOM: Well, those of us who are sane.
DONALDO: I’m sorry if I was . . . If I appeared unappreciative. I just lost my bearings a bit.
TOM: No worries. It was going by pretty fast. I should have told you privately. I’ll call you. We’re good, right?
DONALDO: Right.
TOM: Right?
DONALDO: Yes.
TOM: Good. It’ll all work out. God bless. (He puts a bill on the piano) For the collection.
REED: Paper.
(Tom goes to the door, stops, addresses Reed.)
TOM: Obviously, you don’t need to come in tomorrow.
CHESTER: You don’t have to go.
TOM: Peace. (He goes)
CHESTER: People are telling the truth. Man just lost his job. I’m affected. Anybody else affected?
JESSIE: Yes. (Looks at the bill) He left a hundred-dollar bill.
DONALDO: Did he? Of course he did.
REED: He’ll write it off.
ETHAN (To Donaldo): Why did you do that?
DONALDO: What?
ETHAN: Sell yourself down the river.
DONALDO: I just told him what he wanted to hear.
ETHAN: But what are you actually going to do?
DONALDO: Who cares? It’s just another day. (Referring to Reed) He’s the man.
ETHAN: Him? He’s unemployed. (To Reed) Hey pal, it’ll be all right.
REED: What will?
ETHAN: A job isn’t much.
DONALDO: It’s just a suit of clothes.
JESSIE: I got to say, no job’s worth your balls.
ETHAN (To Reed): That’s right. At least you got your balls.
REED: No. No balls.
CHESTER: That isn’t for you to say.
JESSIE: God gave you balls and I’d say you still got ’em, mister.
REED: I have no idea what’s going on.
ETHAN: Maybe you’re a great man. Maybe that’s what’s going on.
REED: Uh . . .
DONALDO: Where’s our sermon, Reverend?
CHESTER: I think the fire’s in you. You give it.
DONALDO: Me? I haven’t got a decent thing to say.
REED: That’s ’cause your mother’s still the guarantor on that loan. (To Jessie) Until you sign those papers.
JESSIE: Donaldo, lay it out for me. What’s going on?
DONALDO: If you’re so hot to know, why don’t you run after that fat cat and ask him.
JESSIE: What are you mad at me for?
DONALDO: Because you believe in miracles and other people pay. You want me to give a sermon? I can do that. I’m bored. I’m so goddamn bored with this modern world. There’s a hole in the ground in front of me. When I was a kid, I was poor. The city had a thing for poor kids, sent them to the country. I’d never been out of the Bronx, and they bussed me up to a camp on a lake. One night when I was sleeping, a counselor woke me up. When I went outside, though it was the middle of the night, the whole camp was up, and they took us down to the lake. A
boy’d gone missing. And the whole camp, and other camps that were on the lake, they were all searching for him in the dark. There were all kinds of flashlights going in the woods and out on the water, rowboats and canoes and they had flashlights, too. All looking for one lost boy. I looked from that, all those lights in the lower night, and found my eyes lifting to the sky. And what I saw there I will never forget. The sky was overburdened with stars, like a miracle. It was impossible. I’d never seen the like in my young life. Thousands, millions of stars, pouring out of everywhere, like the cavalry, like a saving army. And it seemed to me that HEAVEN was joining earth, and that everything in time and space and spirit and flesh had joined together in service to finding this lost child. Of course I thought of my father, and I knew that this was his work and his reason, and I thought of the Good Shepherd going after the one and leaving the ninety-nine. And in that moment in the night, I knew how it all worked, the mechanics of this world and the next. And I was so moved, and felt safe in a way I wish I could share with every man and woman I ever met. But then I came back to the city, and what was clear became obscure, and what life required of me was smaller than what I had seen, and over time, my vision left me utterly and I entered a smaller world. The world of cash and carry. And I have lived there ever since. To my sadness. And that’s why anything I do is wrong. And I am oppressed by a lifelong emptiness. (He’s finished with the sermon; gives Jessie the envelope) Here, Jessie. I read it. It’s fine. You’ll need a notary to sign.
REED: I’m a notary.
JESSIE: What happens to you?
DONALDO: Good things. I look good.
ETHAN: I don’t think you should sign it.
JESSIE: But where will we live?
ETHAN: All I need is great book, a good umbrella, and you beside me, singing in the wilderness.
(Jessie caresses Ethan.)
JESSIE: Always, baby. Always.
CHESTER (To Donaldo): You’re a leader.
DONALDO: No, I’m not. I’m a politician.
CHESTER: You’re a preacher.
DONALDO: No. You’re the preacher and even you can’t preach. Everything’s money now.
CHESTER: No, there’s a need for some things to be said.
DONALDO: Like what?
CHESTER: You can’t let a pack of jackals crazy for money lead the way.
DONALDO: Come on, it’s all money.
CHESTER: Money is just a fool’s dream, my brother, and you know it.
DONALDO: I don’t know anything.
CHESTER: A fool’s dream of a better world. Don’t let ’em deceive you with that. Yes, we long to be away from the pain of existence.
JESSIE: Escape this world.
CHESTER: We look up at the wonders of the sky, and ache with the desire to fly there.
REED: Yes.
CHESTER: What we forget is we ourselves are in the heavens. We forget that the earth is itself in the sky.
ETHAN: That’s true.
CHESTER: Perhaps someone looks up at us, and aches to be where we are.
DONALDO: I look up.
CHESTER: I know you do, pilgrim, but we are already home. We are already where we long to be. But we forget. Twisted men have told us money is a refuge from pain . . .
REED: A sanctuary?
CHESTER: That’s right, brother! But no house can protect you from death. Do you hear that?
JESSIE: I hear you but I’m weak.
CHESTER: And I’m here to tell you no house can make you strong. Not greed, not mindless activity. Neither is this church a shelter. Only our humanity, our common soul, can provide safe haven.
REED: The soul.
CHESTER: That’s right. This soul we share. We got to take care of each other. Do you hear what I’m saying?
JESSIE: Yes I do.
ETHAN: You know, I have to say, either I just became a member of the Divine Plan For Salvation Church, or you just became a secular Jew.
JESSIE: Either way, I say amen.
CHESTER: Amen back to you! Donaldo, you saw the truth as a child and preached it right here as a man. It is a unanalyzable fact that when the many commit to caring for the few that all of us achieve nobility, and our lives meaning. You knew that once.
(Donaldo stands apart.)
DONALDO: But how do I know it again? How do I know it now?
CHESTER: Stand still. Let the spirit find you.
(Jessie moves to the piano and begins to play. She sings, and the others join in.)
JESSIE:
I shall not be
I shall not be moved
I shall not be
JESSIE AND CHESTER:
Shall not be moved
Oh like a tree that’s planted by the water
I shall not be moved.
REED: I’d like to learn that tune. Could you sing it again?
DONALDO: Wait. Let me.
I shall not be
I shall not be moved
I shall not be
I shall not be . . .
(His voice breaks.)
I don’t want to do this alone. Help me.
(They start the song again. Even Ethan joins in. As the song moves toward conclusion, Chester walks toward Donaldo. Donaldo meets him. They embrace.)
END OF PLAY
COURTESY OF NEW YORK STAGE AND FILM
JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY is the author of numerous plays, including Doubt: A Parable (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best Play), Outside Mullingar (Tony Award nomination for Best Play), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Beggars in the House of Plenty, Dirty Story, Where’s My Money?, Four Dogs and a Bone, Defiance and Storefront Church. His sole television outing resulted in an Emmy nomination for Live from Baghdad (HBO). In the arena of film, Moonstruck garnered him an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Mr. Shanley wrote and directed both Joe Versus the Volcano and Doubt; the latter earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2008, the Writers Guild of America recognized Mr. Shanley’s contribution to film with a Lifetime Achievement Award.