Our Lady of 121st Street
Page 9
VIC: Nieces and nephews.
BALTHAZAR: Well this one morning, it’s breezy, right, nice breeze, and I’m spacing out, staring over at New Jersey, lost, and all the sudden I’m aware that he’s stirring. So I look over my shoulder, and my boy, he’s, he’s feeling the breeze on him, and his face looks all puzzled—like he doesn’t understand, right? And his little hands, Vic, they’re doing this …
(BALTHAZAR mimes his baby trying to catch the wind.)
BALTHAZAR: He was trying, you know, my boy was trying to catch the wind, Vic … I always remembered that.
VIC: I bet that helps.
BALTHAZAR: It hurts, Vic … It hurts a lot.
(Beat)
(ROOFTOP enters, but INEZ is gone. VIC and BALTHAZAR sit silently. EDWIN is still sleeping on the bench.)
(Blackout)
(End of play)
JESUS HOPPED THE A TRAIN
for David Hoghe (1963-2000)
Jesus Hopped the A Train was originally produced by the LAByrinth Theater Company, John Gould Rubin, and Marie-Therese Guirgis at Center Stage, NY, on July 8, 2000, and subsequently produced by the LAByrinth Theater Company, Ron Kastner, Roy Gabay, and John Gould Rubin at the East 13th Street Theater on November 29, 2000. It was directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman; sets were designed by Narelle Sissons; costumes by Mimi O’Donnell; lights by Sarah Sidman; and original music and sound by Eric DeArmon. The production stage manager was Babette Roberts.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Angel Cruz John Oritz
Valdez David Zayas
Mary Jane Hanrahan Elizabeth Canavan
Charlie D’Amico Salvatore Inzerillo
Lucius Jenkins Ron Cephas Jones
SETTING
The action of the play takes place in New York City’s criminal justice system, largely in the yard of a special twenty-three-hour lockdown wing of protective custody on Rikers Island.
CHARACTERS
Angel Cruz, thirty years old, Latino
Valdez, thirties to forties, Prison Guard
Mary Jane Hanrahan, thirties, white, Public Defender
Charlie D’Amico, thirties, Italian-American, Prison Guard
Lucius Jenkins, forties, African-American
ACT I
Scene 1: Manhattan Correctional Center, “The Tombs.” Darkness. Late night. Angel Cruz, alone, tries to pray.
ANGEL: “Our Father, who art in heaven, Howard be thy name. Howard? How art? How? How-now? Fuck! Mothahfuckah … fuckin’. “Our Father, who aren’t in heaven” … who aren’t? Fuck! who—“Our Father who art (who art!!), Our Father who art in Heaven, how-, how-, how-, howl-ed, how-led, howling, howl, howl, Thurston Howell, fuckin’, fuckin’, shit!
INMATE #1: Shut the fuck up!!!
ANGEL: “Our Father who art in heaven, how-, how-, how-, fuck, how-, how-, how-, goddamn it, how-, how-, how …
INMATE #1: “How, how, how” my ass, mothahfuckah! Niggahs tryin’ to sleep up in this mothahfuckah!
ANGEL: “Our Father—”
INMATE #1: Shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: “Our Father—”
INMATE #1: Shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: “Our Father—”
INMATE #1: Shut the fuckety-fuck up!
ANGEL: You shut the fuckety-fuck up!
INMATE #1: You shut the fuckety-fuck up!
INMATE #2: Both a y’all, shut the fuck up!
INMATE #1: (To #2) Who you tellin’, “shut the fuck up”? You shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: “Our Father—”
INMATE #2: (To #1) I know you ain’t tellin’ me shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: “Our Father—”
INMATE #1: (To #2) I’m tellin’ you and that prayin’ niggah shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: “Our father who art in heaven—”
INMATE #2: (To #1) Don’t tell me shut the fuck up!
INMATE #1: (To #2) Shut the fuck up!
INMATE #2: (To #1) You shut the fuck up.
INMATE #3: All y’all niggas best shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: “Our father who art in heaven—”
INMATES #1, 2, & 3: Shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: Hal—Hal-hallowed! Hallowed be thy name!
INMATE #3: We’ll see you up at Rikers, mothahfuckah!
ANGEL: “Thy Kings will come—”
INMATE #1: Shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: You shut the fuck up!
INMATE #1: Shut the fuckety-fuck up!
INMATE #2: We gonna kill you, Cruz!
ANGEL: I’ll kill all a y’all! I’ll kill all a y’all little bitches!
(A GUARD enters, club in hand.)
GUARD: Hey! What’s goin’ on in here?
INMATE #1: Crip out.
INMATE #2: Crip out.
ANGEL: Whatch’all tryin’ ta say? You Crips? Fuck the Crips!
GUARD: Hey!
ANGEL: Fuck Crips!
GUARD: Cruz, since this is your first night with us—
ANGEL: “Our Father, who art in heaven—”
GUARD: Hey!
ANGEL: “Our Father, who—who—who …
GUARD: Cruz!
ANGEL: “Our Father—”
GUARD: Shut the fuck up!
ANGEL: Fuck you!
GUARD: What?
ANGEL: “Our Father—”
GUARD: Fuck me?!
ANGEL: “Our Father who art in heaven—”
GUARD: Fuck me?!
ANGEL: “Hallowed be thy name, Hallowed be thy name—”
(The GUARD enters ANGEL’s cell.)
GUARD: Did you just say “Fuck me”?!
(Lights crossfade.)
VALDEZ: I know an ex-con who did seven years for murdering a nice hot dog vendor. He slept soundly every night, undisturbed by his conscience. He now lives at Gun Hill Road in the Bronx, so beware if you happen to be around that area. He has no regard for human life, including his own. I would like to take his late-model Sport Utility Vehicle and drive it through his front door, accelerate past his bathroom, and come to a violent, crashing halt right on top of his head, but the law prohibits me. Instead, I simply wish that he dies soon and painfully. Whenevah I see him, I say, “I wish you die soon and painfully.” Before I became a corrections officer, I worked for the Department of Sanitation hauling garbage. It used to amaze me, the valuable items people would cavalierly discard. It angered me. Couches, alarm clock radios, family photos. I often wanted to go to people’s apartments and throttle them. One time I saw a guy throw out a very nice color television set. I asked him if it still worked. He said yes. I asked him why he didn’t just give it away instead of trashing it. He smirked at me. I slapped him. People think everything is replaceable. Everything is not replaceable. People believe they go through life accumulating things. That is incorrect. People go through life discarding things, tangible and intangible, replaceable and priceless. What people do not understand is that once they have discarded an irreplaceable item, it is lost forever …
Scene 2: Manhattan Correctional Center, legal consultations room. Mary Jane and Angel (beaten up) midstream.
ANGEL: What I want is a fuckin’ lawyer! Is it possible, in this nightmare—I mean, what the fuck is this?—Even on TV they get a lawyer—
MARY JANE: I am a lawyer, I’m your lawyer—
ANGEL: I wanna real lawyer!
MARY JANE: I am a real lawyer, and you are my real client.
ANGEL: Fuck that!
MARY JANE: You wanna see the paperwork?
ANGEL: Fuck the paperwork! Why didn’t you check the paperwork before you came in here talkin’ all kinda shit when you didn’t even know who you was speakin’ to?
MARY JANE: Look, I am sorry for the mix-up, I—
ANGEL: The “mix-up”? Is that what just happened before? We had a little “mix-up”?
MARY JANE: I said—
ANGEL: Do you always have these little mix-ups? Or do you just never know who anybody is?
MARY JANE: I’m sorry!
ANGEL: I ain’t Hect
or Villanueva!
MARY JANE: I know that.
ANGEL: Hector Villanueva: No aqui!
MARY JANE: Okay, what I need from you—
ANGEL: Need? You gonna sit there and talk to me about what you need? I’m incarcerated, lady! Why can’t we talk about what I fuckin’ need?!
MARY JANE: What do you need?
ANGEL: I need a damn lawyer!
MARY JANE: Which is why I’m here—
ANGEL: This is bullshit! This is racism is what it is, racism! If I was white, I’d have mothahfuckin’ Perry Mason sittin’ here wit’ the little glasses and the beard talkin’ fuckin’ strategy. Instead they give me some bumblin’-ass Wilma Flintstone don’t even know who I am!
MARY JANE: You’re Angel Cruz, you’re thirty years old, you live with your mom on Tiemen Place, West Harlem. You have one felony prior, a robbery, you were sixteen. You work as a bike messenger. You had a year of college, you played soccer—
ANGEL: I never played soccer!
MARY JANE: You’re charged with attempted murder, I know that.
ANGEL: Attempted murder?!
MARY JANE: That surprises you?
ANGEL: Ya see, bitch? Dass exactly what I’m talkin’ ’bout! All I did—
MARY JANE: Stop!
ANGEL: All I did was shoot him in the ass. What the fuck is “attempted murder” about that, huh?! Stupid ass!
(MARY JANE rises, begins collecting her things.)
ANGEL: What are you doing?
MARY JANE: I’m leaving.
ANGEL: Why, ’cuz I called you a bitch?
MARY JANE: No, because you just confessed to me.
ANGEL: Confessed? Confessed what?
MARY JANE: You just admitted to me that you did the shooting.
ANGEL: No I didn’t!
MARY JANE: You just said, “All I did was shoot him in the ass.”
ANGEL: SO?
MARY JANE: So now you get your wish: I can’t adequately defend you now, so you’ll get another lawyer.
ANGEL: What if I don’t want another lawyer?
MARY JANE: You just got through haranguing me—
ANGEL: “Haranguing”?
MARY JANE: Haranguing: it means—
ANGEL: I know what the fuck it means. Whaddya think? I’m a Puerto Rican, therefore I’m a mothahfuckah who can’t know shit?
MARY JANE: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking—
ANGEL: I know a lot a fuckin’ shit!
MARY JANE: Well then, know this: When the next lawyer walks in here, tomorrow, or the day after, try not to confess to him—
ANGEL: Tomorrow?
MARY JANE: Because when you confess to your lawyer, Angel, it means we can’t put you on the witness stand—
ANGEL: Hold up—
MARY JANE: Because if we did put you on the witness stand, we would be suborning perjury and I’m sure, of course, that you know what “suborning” means, but on the off chance you might’ve missed that vocabulary word during your high school years at Power Memorial, let me refresh you: it means if you’re lying up there, we can’t know about it—
ANGEL: Okay.
MARY JANE: And if we do know about it, we’re obligated to inform the court.
ANGEL: So—
MARY JANE: And if we don’t inform the court and someone finds out about it, then we get in a lot of trouble!
ANGEL: If you had toal me this shit before—
MARY JANE: And another thing: If a public defender confuses you with someone else, it might be because they have dozens of other cases and they made an honest mistake! This is the criminal justice system you’re in now. Mix-ups happen here!
ANGEL: So whatchu gonna do about it?!
MARY JANE: What am I gonna do?
ANGEL: ’Cuz I ain’t got till tomorrow—
MARY JANE: Let me give you a little tip: The trick, Angel, is not to have a lawyer who makes no mistakes, but to get the lawyer who A) makes the least mistakes, and B) is either green enough or masochistic enough to actually give a shit about their clients.
ANGEL: So which one are you?
MARY JANE: I’m neither.
(MARY JANE exits.)
Scene 3: The yard. Protective custody, Rikers Island. Lucius Jenkins, an older inmate, is in an outdoor cage burning through the end of a vigorous workout. D‘Amico rises from his seated post.
D’AMICO: Still workin’ out, huh, Lou?
LUCIUS: Feelin’ good, Brother Charlie, in fine feather! How’m I looking?
D’AMICO: Lookin’ good, Lou.
LUCIUS: Ever tell you I was a champion swimmer and springboard diver in high school?
D’AMICO: Were ya?
LUCIUS: Back in the day, brother, back in the day. Olympic caliber. Got a cigarette for me, brother?
D’AMICO: Sure thing, Lou.
LUCIUS: Gimme another one for behind my ear … The Lord loves ya, Charlie.
D’AMICO: Thanks, Lou …
LUCIUS: Dig that sun, Charlie.
D’AMICO: Yup.
LUCIUS: Sun shines on me, sun shines on you.
D’AMICO: Yup.
LUCIUS: It ain’t sunnier over there by you, is it?
D’AMICO: Nope.
LUCIUS: You got dat right. Praise be!
D’AMICO: Could I ax you sumtin’, Lou?
LUCIUS: You ain’t messin’ up again, are ya brother?
D’AMICO: Nah, it’s just, I heard you turned down an interview, some kinda life story on Court TV?
LUCIUS: Television’s the number-one narcotic we got going on up here in America! Keeps a man idle and stupid. Might as well pump heroin into the airstream. Same difference … TV! Ha! “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” “Who Wants to Kiss My Narrow Black Ass?” I’d say that’s a lot more like it. And that’s pretty much what I told them TV folks.