Our Lady of 121st Street

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

  CHICKIE: Everybody always kicks his ass too, but he’s little. My boyfriend, he always says, “If I was as big as that retard—”

  CHARLIE: What retard?

  CHICKIE: Not you! Someone else!

  CHARLIE: Who?

  CHICKIE: I doan know.

  (Pause)

  CHARLIE: Lemme tell you something, Chickie. You ever watch the Star Wars movies?

  CHICKIE: Yeah.

  CHARLIE: You know what a Jedi Fighter is?

  CHICKIE: No.

  CHARLIE: Chickie, a Jedi fighter is Han Solo and Obi Wan Kenobi and those guys over there. Even Darth Vader, you know Darth Vader?

  CHICKIE: Yeah.

  CHARLIE: Even he was a Jedi Fighter, but he used his powers for Bad, so now he gotta wear a mask and shit. Jedi Fighters got powers, like, they could do anything, okay?

  CHICKIE: Yeah.

  CHARLIE: Ya understand?

  CHICKIE: Yeah.

  CHARLIE: Okay. I’m gonna tell you something, Chickie … Me, I’m a Jedi Fighter.

  CHICKIE: Charlie?

  CHARLIE: I’m serious, I got a Jedi name and everything. And I got powers. A lot a powers, but I can’t use them for Bad, or else I gotta wear a mask like Darth Vader, and I doan think that would fly too good in the city. I got Special Powers, but, why am I gonna waste them on Jimmy and Jose and RaRa and those guys? I can’t take the risk to lose my powers by accidentally doing Bad against them. But lemme tell you this: If me and you was to go out “just as friends,” and somebody tried to mess wit’ you or do you harm, you better believe I would use all my Jedi Powers against them, even if I had to cross the line against them and do Bad to them, even if I had to wear a mask for the rest a my life because a it. I wouldn’t care, ’cuz you would be protected and safe, and even if they took me to jail, I would give you money first so you could go eat shrimps, okay?

  CHICKIE: Okay.

  CHARLIE: Okay. Go get the pizza now.

  CHICKIE: Charlie?

  CHARLIE: Yeah?

  CHICKIE: Do you think you could show my boyfriend how to be a Jedi? Me and him, we’re supposed to go to Baltimore to see his friend Jon Seda the TV and movie actor, and maybe you could come too, and you could teach him how to be a Jedi, and maybe Jon Seda, he might wanna be one too, but mostly, you could teach my boyfriend ’cuz he’d prolly be good like you if you taught him. Could you do that?

  CHARLIE: I doan know.

  CHICKIE: Why not?

  CHARLIE: ’Cuz my doctor over there at the place, he said that to be a Jedi Fighter, you can’t lie, steal, and you can’t do drugs ever.

  CHICKIE: Oh … I think I’ll go get the pizza now.

  CHARLIE: Okay.

  CHICKIE: You want three YooHoos to drink, right?

  CHARLIE: Uh huh.

  CHICKIE: I’m gonna get a Diet Shasta, okay?

  CHARLIE: Yeah.

  CHICKIE: Can I get some gum for me and some of those little chocolate donuts for my boyfriend?

  CHARLIE: Okay.

  CHICKIE: Have you seen my boyfriend today?

  CHARLIE: Nah.

  CHICKIE: Okay.

  CHARLIE: Chickie?

  CHICKIE: What?

  CHARLIE: Nuttin’.

  CHICKIE: Okay.

  (CHICKIE exits. A beat.)

  SAMMY: Shoulda shoulda.

  CHARLIE: “Shoulda, shoulda,” Sam?

  SAMMY: What you doan tell ‘em, even if they know, they still doan know … cept if you doan want them to know. If you doan want them to know, then they know … they always know, cept if they doan know, which is why you gotta tell ’em. Should shoulda.

  CHARLIE: Buy ya a drink, Sam?

  SAMMY: Shoulda shoulda.

  Scene 4: Monday night. The bar.

  GREER: It was different then—

  SKANK: I get ya, man. You gettin’ him, there, Chickie?

  CHICKIE: He’s talkin’ about it was different then.

  GREER: I got a friend. Franklin. I call him up Friday night, and—this is important—it’s Friday night, okay?

  SKANK: Friday night.

  GREER: Not Monday, Friday! Oh! I need a drink. Barman! I’ll have another, but, please, with a twist. This is not a twist, this is a wedge. Twist good, wedge bad, okay? You wanna drink?

  SKANK: Sure.

  GREER: Barman, one for him.

  SKANK: How ’bout Chickie, can she have one too?

  GREER: She looks a little young.

  CHICKIE: People say I look young, but then, when they see me up close, they say I don’t look so young as they thought I was before they saw me up close.

  GREER: Right, fine, whatever, give her a drink. So anyway, I call up my friend Franklin: “Franklin, it’s been so long, blah, blah, blah, I miss you, ‘I miss you too, we should get together, I was just thinking of you,’ la la la la la.” So, I say, “Where you going out tonight?” Now, lemme tell you something about Franklin. Back in the day, if you wanted a party, just look for Franklin, because, I don’t care if it’s the deadest night of the week, if you find Franklin, you are gonna find a party, and a damn good one too. I’m talkin’ about the Funhouse, Peppermint Lounge, the old Danceteria, I’m talkin’ ’bout the Limelight when the Limelight was the Limelight! Palladium, the Pyramid, I’m talkin’ about Studio 54. I’m talkin’ about doing blow with Mick Jagger and Miss Liza Minnelli till eight a.m. in the back of the limo and someone’s grabbin’ on your you-know-what,’ and somebody’s got someone’s tongue in someone’s somethin’, and everyone’s feelin’ it, you hear what I’m sayin’?

  SKANK: It’s a fuckin’ party.

  GREER: Lord have Mercy, but it was. So I says to Franklin, I says, “Whatchu doing tonight, girl”? He says—I swear to God, if I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’—he says, “Well, Greer, I’m making a pot a tea and watching The Blue Lagoon.” I says, “Creature from the Blue Lagoon”? He says, “No, Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins Blue Lagoon.” I says, “C’mon, girl, turn, off that TV, let’s do it like we used to.” He start talkin’ ‘bout AA this, “jogging” that, and do I wanna go to a “meeting.” You hear what I’m sayin’?

  SKANK: That’s rough, man.

  GREER: Mothahfuckah started talkin’ ’bout “The Lord.” You feelin’ me?

  SKANK: Shit.

  GREER: I mean, when a man start talkin’ ‘bout “The Lord,” well, I was raised Baptist, I have heard absolutely all I need to ever hear about the damn “Lord.” You wanna talk to me about “The Lord”? You better be the damn Lord—or else it’s “get out a my kitchen, girl, ’cuz breakfast is definitely over”! I mean, am I wrong?

  SKANK: Nah, man, I’m—

  GREER: Everybody I know, it’s the same shit: AA, NA, DA, GA … Name any fuckin’ A,” I know a mothahfuckah fallin’ for it! You know they got a support group for people who think they gettin’ too much sex? I mean, please. Have you ever known a man—gay, straight, whatever—have you ever had anybody, ever, come up to you talkin’ about “Oh, man, I am getting just too much booty, and the more booty I get, the more miserable I am”? Nigga, please.

  SKANK: It’s ridiculous.

  GREER: It’s depressing is what it is. Used to be, take work for example. Everybody could go out, have a good time. Now? Shit. These assholes I work with, all they wanna do is drink one Lite beer or one faggot spritzer and go home and shave their damn bodies and pump iron and eat alfalfa sprouts and meditate and watch that damn Calista Flockhart Skinny Bitch Show. You seen that show?

  SKANK: Fuck that show, man.

  GREER: I’ll tell you right now: I never saw that show and I never will! I got better things to do with my time than watch some skinny bitch being a skinny bitch. (Pardon my language, but that’s how I feel.) And I don’t need “The Lord” to tell me how to feel, or what to watch, and Christopher Atkins not withstanding, I will eat a damn pussy before I stay home on Friday night makin’ tea and watching the damn Blue Lagoon! I need a drink and I need a smoke ’cuz I’m workin’ up a sweat here. What are you smokin’?

>   SKANK: Lemme check. Chickie? What are we smokin’?

  CHICKIE: We got, like, different kinds. No, wait. We don’t got different kinds. We got two Viceroys, a Merit, and a Newport, but that’s for me ’cuz that’s my brand. We got four cigarettes.

  GREER: What’s her name?

  SKANK: Chickie.

  GREER: Chickie, why don’t you go out and pick us up a pack of Dunhills. (To SKANK) You like Dunhills?

  SKANK: Absolutely.

  GREER: They’re from England, you know.

  SKANK: Really?

  GREER: Oh yes. All the best tobaccos, they come from England.

  SKANK: Right, yeah, I heard about that.

  GREER: Here’s ten dollahs, Chickie.

  CHICKIE: They cost ten dollahs?

  GREER: No. Bring me the change.

  CHICKIE: Okay.

  SKANK: Hey, Chickie, pick up a coupla a those little chocolate donuts. You know those little chocolate donuts they’re like fifty-nine cents?

  CHICKIE: The kind you like?

  SKANK: Yeah. Those kind. (To GREER) Do you mind if she picks up a coupla—

  GREER: Be my guest.

  CHICKIE: Can I get a Jamaican Beef Patty? They cost a dollah, but he gives it to me for seventy-five.

  GREER: Fine, fine. But please, be quick.

  CHICKIE: Okay.

  SKANK: Chickie?

  CHICKIE: Yeah?

  SKANK: Pack a Kools.

  CHICKIE: Okay.

  SKANK: And a Chunky. (To GREER) You like Chunky?

  GREER: Sure.

  SKANK: Two Chunkies. (To GREER) Should you give her more money?

  GREER: She has enough.

  SKANK: Right.

  CHICKIE: (To SKANK) You wanna come?

  SKANK: Nah … Unless—Hey man, you feel like some blow? I know where to get some dynamite blow.

  GREER: Good stuff?

  SKANK: Good? This shit is, gimme twenty dollahs, I’ll get us a nice bag, we’ll party. You wanna party, man?

  GREER: Maybe later.

  SKANK: Later? See, later, they might be sold out ’cuz this stuff is like, it’s really great, it’s, it’s … it’s from fuckin’ … fuckin’ … it’s from—

  CHICKIE: Forty-seventh Street.

  SKANK: No! “Forty-seventh Street,” listen to her. You know where it’s from? It’s from Peru, this shit. Peru-tian, man. Gimme thirty dollahs, believe me, this coke, you do a coupla lines, you could lift a bus, man. Serious.

  GREER: Why don’t we let Chickie here get our cigarettes, we’ll have another drink, and we’ll talk about it.

  SKANK: You wanna talk about it?

  GREER: Is that okay with you?

  SKANK: Yeah, sure, of course.

  GREER: Great, so hurry back, Chunky.

  CHICKIE: Chickie.

  GREER: I’m sorry, I’m thinking about that Chunky. (To SKANK) Excellent idea, by the way.

  SKANK: What?

  GREER: The Chunky.

  SKANK: Oh, yeah, Chunkies, they’re great. Yeah. You know what’s good?

  GREER: What?

  CHICKIE: So, you wanna come with me?

  GREER: He’s staying with me.

  SKANK: Yeah, baby. I’ll be here.

  CHICKIE: Oh … okay.

  (CHICKIE exits.)

  GREER: Barman! Another round, s’il vous plait!

  SKANK: S’il vous plait, huh?

  GREER: It’s French. Do you speak French?

  SKANK: Sometimes, yeah.

  (Pause)

  GREER: So tell me what’s good.

  SKANK: Huh?

  GREER: You were saying …

  SKANK: Oh, yeah, right. About the Chunkies. What’s good is, you go to a deli, right? And you order a large hot chocolate, but you tell them to stick a Chunky in the bottom, right?

  GREER: I love, love, love, love chocolate.

  SKANK: Yeah. Then what you do is, you sprinkle a little blow in it and you mash up a coupla Percoset, and you stir that in too.

  GREER: Oh, my God! Then what?

  SKANK: You drink it.

  GREER: With a straw? With a spoon? What?

  SKANK: I juss use my mouth.

  GREER: I bet you do. Wow! Just, “Wow”!

  SKANK: Breakfast a champions—

  GREER: Can I tell you something? No, I better not. I need a smoke. I need a smoke now.

  SKANK: Lemme ask Sammy. Sammy? Sammy, got a smoke? (To GREER) I’ll just go through his pockets, he won’t mind.

  (SKANK goes through SAMMY’s pockets, finds a pack. SAMMY grabs SKANK’s arm and stares at him vacantly.)

  SKANK: Hey there, Sammy, I was just lookin for a—

  SAMMY: Whaddya wanna do, hold my hand?

  SKANK: What?

  SAMMY: Pat McDonagh says you’ll stop asking for the money if I was to just hold your hand.

  SKANK: Sammy, it’s me.

  SAMMY: I like whiskey, you like tea.

  SKANK: Sammy, man, hey, hello?

  SAMMY: I’m not Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart isn’t Jimmy Stewart. You think Jimmy Stewart don’t like a little ass with his biscuits?

  SKANK: (To GREER) Help me out, man.

  GREER: Hey, mister! Can I buy you a drink?

  SAMMY: Huh?

  (SAMMY releases SKANK.)

  GREER: Barman, a drink for the gentleman.

  SAMMY: Thanks.

  GREER: No problem.

  SAMMY: You seen my wife?

  GREER: I don’t know your wife.

  SAMMY: I didn’t ask you do you know her; I said, did you see her?

  SKANK: We haven’t seen her.

  SAMMY: Good. You sure?