CAST OF CHARACTERS

PROFESSOR: A homeless, mid-40’s African-American man, who obviously grew up in a decent neighborhood and had a very good high school education.  A very philosophical type yet physically domineering.  He goes from a contemplative reverie to friendly communication with CRISPUS during the play.

CRISPUS: Another homeless, African-American man, mid 30’s who, unlike Professor, has spent almost all of his life working.  Very little education.  A bit hardened by his experiences but he does like and respect PROFESSOR.

TIME:  It is present day.  A night in early spring.

SETTING:  Some vacant lot in the city. A wall full of graffitti is in the background and mounds and mounds of garbage.

A HOLY THURSDAY LAMENT or THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH

(Curtain opens with a scene of piles 

and piles of trash, under which, hidden from the audience, CRISPUS 

is sleeping.  PROFESSOR kneels

center stage, gazing up at the sky.

He says his lines without looking at CRISPUS.)

PROFESSOR

What goes through one’s last night on earth?  What thoughts flutter like demonic butterflies or lay heavy like anchors on your chest?  Men . . . women . . . teenagers! . . . yes, even children!  Awaiting execution or lying in hospital beds knowing that the fight is over, the end is soon.  Jesus . . . or Bigger Thomas . . . or Plato . . . or Saddam Hussein — how did they deal with the scant, dim hope that must arise that somehow — somehow! — the absolutely inevitable might not take place!

CRISPUS

(Sitting up, rising out of the trash.)

Shit, man!  What kind of smack you talking when you should be sleeping?

PROFESSOR

I’m talking about . . . the Unsayable.   The Unspeakable.

CRISPUS

You mouth sure moving an awful lot for something Unsayable.

PROFESSOR

Crispus, did the thought ever take hold of you — I mean really possess you — that we are essentially no different than, say, a brave person who performs a heroic act?

A Holy Thursay Lament, p 2

CRISPUS

What the — we live in a shithole.  We live where no one can ever find us or really help us or see us.  We broke.  We fuckin’ invisible.  What we got in common with some superhero?

PROFESSOR

The darkness!  We somehow have wound up running our fool heads off deeper and deeper into the darkness.

CRISPUS

(Leans closer to PROFESSOR.)

Man, the way you talking it sound like you gonna off yourself.

PROFESSOR

(Laughs.)

No, no.  Not at all.  I’m talking about why we are here?

CRISPUS

‘Cause we broke.

PROFESSOR

Aw, I know that.

CRISPUS

‘Cause we poor.  ‘Cause we ain’t got shit.  ‘Cause no one want us.  That enough “causes” for you?

PROFESSOR

But that’s just it!  That’s the darkness!  What is the very reason for our existence?

CRISPUS

Aw, fool, don’t be so poetic.  Shit bad.  We survive one day or a few — we doin’ good.  Case closed.  Now, lemme sleep.

(Lays back down.)

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 3

PROFESSOR

  (Turns to CRISPUS.)

What are you running from?

CRISPUS

(Rising up quickly.)

Running!  Do it look like I running?  I had a job, home, a bit of family!  I lost it all.  Lost it!  Weren’t no running.

PROFESSOR

And you ended up lost in this night of — what? . . . Nonexistence?

CRISPUS

Look.  One day or another, unless a miracle happen, you and I gonna die.  Maybe, it be soon.  Maybe not.  Maybe it stupid fighting it off —

PROFESSOR

And, maybe, if we just give it up, death will come to us like a puppy.

CRISPUS

(Pauses, leans closer.)

Ah, look, man.  If you thinking of offing yourself, lemme have your boots.

PROFESSOR

(Laughs loudly.)

Hey, when I’m gone you can have it all!

CRISPUS

You ain’t got nothing but them boots.  Why you talking all this shit anyway?

PROFESSOR

Crispus, do you realize what day it is?

 

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 4

CRISPUS

It you birthday or something? Anniversary of bein’ broke?

PROFESSOR

Naw, I mean today is a day everyone knows about.

CRISPUS

Ain’t it Thursday?  We got grub at the Jewish place so it be Thursday.

PROFESSOR

Yes, but it’s Holy Thursday.  You know what that is, don’t you?

CRISPUS

That the day Jesus served bread and wine to everyone.  Now shut the fuck up.  You making me hungry.

(Lies back down.)

PROFESSOR

(Looks back at the sky.)

But, also, the night He agonized over His death in the garden — His last night on earth.

CRISPUS

And like I say, if you thinking it you last night on earth lemme have them boots.

PROFESSOR

I’m wondering if all men and women have the same feeling — wanting to hope but not wanting to give in to it because of what is inevitable, because if you’re going to die you want to do it right.

CRISPUS

Naw!  You just die, kicking and fussing and yelling at God to help your dying ass!

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 5

PROFESSOR

The way I’m thinking, hope might be the enemy.

CRISPUS

(Rises on elbows)

If hope the enemy then giving up the friend.

PROFESSOR

You see, Crispus!  You see!  It’s like we’re sandwiched between the two, hoping and giving up pressing in on us.  And we don’t want either because each could overwhelm us . . . and kill us!

CRISPUS

(Rolls over, back to audience.)

Shit!

PROFESSOR

(Sings in heavy metal, headbanger style.)

“I’m a social reject from the Christian Church

because I didn’t wear a tie on the Feast of Christ’s birth.

(CRISPUS  rolls over.)

And my shoes weren’t shined and my hair wasn’t combed

on the night when He prayed in the garden alone.”

CRISPUS

(Lifts himself up on an elbow.)

Where you get that, Professor?

PROFESSOR

(From this point on his reverie ends.  He talks to CRISPUS.)

I wrote it.

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 6

CRISPUS

Wrote it!

PROFESSOR

Yes, sir!  I wrote that when I was playing in a Christian rock band.

CRISPUS

Christian rock!  What black folks need rock when they got R and B . . . and gospel.  Rock ain’t nothing but the blues gone flat and funky.

PROFESSOR

We were part of the Afro-punk scene.  There’s a whole movement of black people who are into heavy metal — a whole movement, Crispus!  So some friends and I, being church kids, we formed what may have been the very first Christian Afro-punk band.

CRISPUS

Wanting to serve the Lord and all?

PROFESSOR

Well, that’s certainly what we said.  We were quite young, you know.  We just thought that it would be a cool job — writing songs and making music all our lives and having people love us for it.  We actually played at a few Afro-punk festivals.

CRISPUS

No, shit!

PROFESSOR

    (Gets on his feet.)

Oh, we had this really great song — a lot like Zeppellin’s “Black Dog.”

    (Plays air guitar.)

“Jesus was a guru.

He was a buddha, too.

Krishna and the others —

unfit to tie his shoe.”A Holy Thursday Lament, p 7

It had this driving bass line.  And I played a good rhythm to it.  And it was tight, so tight.  We were always so in sync when we played it.  It was like it was just impossible for us to miss a beat.  And the singer!  The singer did it like a black Pentecostal preacher.

(Mimics a preacher.)

He would criss-cross the stage, pointing his finger and staring down the 

crowd.  And the crowd!  Oh, my God, the crowd would just go nuts!  They were just a mass of energy and enthusiasm and enlightenment.  Like they were suddenly turned on by this one idea.  Just bopping their heads and gyrating and giving off this vibe like they were saying, “Preach it, brother!”

CRISPUS

(Leans forward, smiles mischievously.)

Lots of chicks, huh!

PROFESSOR

(Sits down, stretches out legs, more relaxed.)

There was this cute, little cinnamon color girl who used to follow us.  I don’t know where she got the money to do that.  First time I saw her, I thought, “Oh, that’s cool.  An Indian girl into our scene.”  But when I finally talked to her, I found out one parent was Black and Native American and the other was Afro-Guatemalan or something like that.  I talked to her a few times.  I really thought we might have had something.

(Pauses.)

CRISPUS

Oh, you ain’t leaving the story hanging there.

PROFESSOR

Well, the scene we were into, there was this vibe that sort of carried us.  Of course, we all thought it was God.  I was so certain, so freaking certain —

(Looks at palm of hand.)

as certain as I am that my hand is in front of my face  — that the band was going to make it.  Not make it big.  We all knew we’d never be big stars.  But successful.  We would be successful and the cute cinnamon girl and I would hook up, get married and I’d be teaching my sons and A Holy Thursday Lament, p 8

daughters to play guitar.  When it ended, Crispus, it wasn’t just the end of a band.  Or the loss of a dream.  It was the loss of feeling alive.

CRISPUS

So what happened?

PROFESSOR

Drugs.

CRISPUS

Yep.  Always.

PROFESSOR

We were really touring, really working.  All of us were just busting our ass to make it work.  It just got to be too much — and, well, prayer didn’t kill the pain or perk us up the way blow did.  I was lucky I wasn’t into it as heavily as our bass player.  My God, he was in rehab for years and years until he couldn’t take it anymore.

CRISPUS

What he do?

PROFESSOR

He jumped off a bridge.  He climbed all the way up in sub-zero weather, all the way to the top of that steel web.  Some asshole filmed the whole thing instead of calling the police.  Then he jumped.

(Sighs heavily.)

They found crumpled pieces of paper in the wastebasket.  It seems he made a few attempts to write a suicide note but just couldn’t find the right words.

CRISPUS

The Unsayable?

PROFESSOR

(Kneels again.)

It could be, Crispus.  It could be.A Holy Thursday Lament, p 9

(Sings slower, in a whisper.)

“I’m a social reject from the Christian Church

because I didn’t wear a tie on the Feast of Christ’s birth.

And my shoes weren’t shined and my hair wasn’t combed

on the night when He prayed in the garden alone.”

(Pauses.)

CRISPUS

(Kneels, too.)

You never get passed the garden part.

PROFESSOR

(Laughs, sits back, relaxed.)

I don’t remember anymore.  I just don’t remember what I wrote.  And it’s strange, Crispus, because I remember every single line of every single one of our songs but that one.  And it happened so quickly, too.  We just finished touring and we were partying, partying really hard. Well, I woke up on this bitterly cold winter afternoon in this unheated, skank apartment with the sun just blaring through the windows.  Everyone, everyone in the band was just lying all strung out and unconscious on the floor.  I started singing that song to perk me up because I felt just awful.  I stopped at that line, looked around at everyone, half-dead and blown away, and I said, “My God, we’re fucked!”  I left that day and went into rehab.  When I got out I didn’t have a dollar to my name and didn’t feel any sense of life at all.  So I just drifted.  I started running.

CRISPUS

You pray, Professor?

PROFESSOR

You know . . . if you asked me that at any other time, on any other night, I would have replied with an emphatic “Not anymore.”

CRISPUS

But?

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 10

PROFESSOR

But tonight, with all that my mind has been taking in and the feeling that’s growing in my soul here tonight, I can say that I’m not really sure.  I’m just not sure if I’m praying or not.

CRISPUS

How you mean?

PROFESSOR

Well, it could be this running in the dark of night is somehow prayer.  It could be this fine line between not letting hope take too much control and yet not going the other way and giving into despair  — this is in some way a form of prayer.

CRISPUS

It just survival instinct.  We do what we do to survive.  No different than fish or squirrels or bears.  Just humans more complicated and talk smack and call it “the Unsayable.”  Ain’t no prayer, Professor.

PROFESSOR

I don’t know. Crispus.  The survival instinct is something that keeps you alive just for the sake of being alive.  But what if in this situation of ours, this continual last night on earth we always experience, what if there’s something we can find or discover here.  Some . . . well, some new thought or new idea or new experience that no one else has had.  Or only people like us, like we are, we’re the only kind of people who can find it.

CRISPUS

(Leans closer, whispers)

Professor, you know the Holy Thursday story?  

PROFESSOR

Of course, I do.   I was a church kid.  I heard that story year after year after year.

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 11

CRISPUS

Yeah, well, you don’t remember it too well.  Know what Jesus found that night?  Judas!  Judas come, give Him a kiss and then the cops rush in and haul off his ass.

PROFESSOR

But do you remember the guy who ran off naked?  They grabbed him by that linen cloth he had wrapped around him and as he pulled away it ripped off.  And he ran into the night.  What did he find eventually?

CRISPUS

Cops, fool!  Cops somewhere beating his ass then arresting him ’cause he got no clothes on.  Now lemme get some sleep.

(Lays back down, arms across chest.)

PROFESSOR

Ha!  The spirit is willing . . . 

(Sings softly, slower.)

“I’m a social reject from the Christian –“

CRISPUS

    (Sits up, quickly.)

You ain’t gonna let me sleep, is you?

PROFESSOR

An important meeting early in the morning?

CRISPUS

SHIT!

PROFESSOR

(Looks at him.)

Do you pray, Crispus?

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 12

CRISPUS

Naw.  Maybe when I was a kid.  My Ma drank so we really never got into church a lot.  I worked.  Soon as I could.  Lied about my age and worked after school and weekends.  Let me tell you, I worked.  Barely got out of high school, I sleep so much in class.  But no, I never did pray.  Still don’t.

PROFESSOR

Never?

CRISPUS

Naw.  But there be this one time, weren’t too late at night when I’m walking down Jackson toward the Mission and I goes by the Holding Pen.  You know that little park they got there, we used to sleep before Bossman beat us outta there.  Well, I was going along and they have them hedges there.  Well, I hear someone singing that ole Sam Cooke song  — what’s she called?  Change — change comin’ down.

CRISPUS and PROFESSOR

“A Change is Gonna Come!”

CRISPUS

Yeah, that it.  Well, I hear this baritone, he sing about — how it go? — being born on the river and he and the river still flowin’.  Something like that.  Anyway, it be the voice, the voice and the way the words carry out into the night.  Well, it makes me stop, just stop and say, “So this what church folks feel.”  That the closest I come to anything like prayer.

(Still kneeling, PROFESSOR leans close to CRISPUS.)

PROFESSOR

Do you remember the night LaShaun was killed?

CRIPSUS

(Lays back down.)

Fuck off!

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 13

PROFESSOR

It’s sad.

CRISPUS

Fucking sad.  Now, leave it alone.

PROFESSOR

Her life was a series of “if’s.”  If her mother wasn’t alcoholic, if she didn’t get involved with crack, if she didn’t meet Bossman that night —

CRISPUS

(Jumps up quickly, grabs a board, starts swinging it violently.)

If she had a better bigger brother!  Huh?  If her bigger brother be a better man!  Right, Professor?  Right?  That if, too.

PROFESSOR

Yes.  That if, too

CRISPUS

(Makes to attack PROFESSOR.)

You goddamn son of a bitch.

PROFESSOR

Is it true, then?

CRISPUS

No! . . .  No.  Shit!  

(Flings the board down, violently.  Paces back and forth.)

I did everything I suppose to do.  Work 40 hours a week.  Grab me all the overtime I can.  Get me a weekend job.  I work and work and work and I bring the money into the home and it go out by Mama’s drinking and her drugs.  In the end, I couldn’t trust neither of them!  You know how many times I have to sweet talk the judge and kiss cops butt to get her black ass out of jail.  LaShaun owe me big time and she ain’t never gonna pay me back.  I shoulda pushed her ass out into the street — that’s what I should A Holy Thursday Lament, p 14

have done.

PROFESSOR

But you didn’t.

CRISPUS

(Collapses on the floor, sits holding knees.)

She my sis.  She kin, that’s why.

(Sighs, heavily.)

Shit, I remember her as a little kid with these braces, you know.  And tall — ooh, that girl be tall!  Taller than any girl her age, a real beanpole of a girl with this big smile full of braces.  Use to think, “Damn, those braces expensive!”  And I see that smile, like . . . like the Cheshire Cat —

PROFESSOR

Alice in Wonderland!

CRISPUS

Through the Looking Glass.

PROFESSOR

Oh.

CRISPUS

Anyway, I see that smile and I think she gonna be beautiful.  She gonna be one real pretty girl and have every player in the neighborhood gettin’ in her drawers and she never gonna be able to tell the difference between a player and a real straight guy.  And then she get pregnant and lose all that prettiness.  Then I worry she ain’t gonna be pretty.  She gonna wind up being some old sour church lady thinkin’ the world so bad that Christ coming soon — though He ain’t shown up in two thousand years.  And she gonna look down on young people because they havin’ fun and living.  And then I don’t know what the fuck to wish for.

PROFESSOR

So what did you do?A Holy Thursday Lament, p 15

CRISPUS

Bury myself in work and hope I have ‘nough money to fix things if they go wrong.

PROFESSOR

And they did.

CRISPUS

There this one time, this — one — time.  She come in with those braces and that smile and those skinny beanpole legs sticking outta shorts and she got this puppy.  This little black puppy all squirming around in her bony fingers and licking her face and she got just this big goddamn beautiful smile! 

(Rises and starts pacing back and forth.)

Well, I launch into “What’s the matter with you, girl, pets is expensive and don’t you care none that your Mama got allergies?”  — which be the lie I used to cover Mama’s drinking and she knew it a lie.  And don’t she want to go to college and better herself and all.  And then I tell her to take that puppy back where she got it.

(Stops suddenly, stares into space, begins to tremble.  He speaks haltingly, as if he can’t breathe.)

And I never see that smile again.  Never again.  The braces come off and no smile.  Big birthday parties and no smile.  Driver’s license. Good grades in school —  “I’m proud of you, girl!”  And no smile.

(Begins to cry.)

A fucking puppy.  A fucking puppy.  Her insides die over a fucking puppy.  I killed her.  I did.  Years before that son of a bitch copper Bossman.  That fucker and I — we both did it!

(Comes over and towers over PROFESSOR.)

And me?  Me?  I’d give anything for another chance.  I’d cut off both arms, live in a wheelchair and piss in a bag.  I’d gladly end up like this again and die right here —

(Points to where he was sleeping.) 

Yes!  Right here in this shitpile with a big shitass grin on my face if I could go back and just let her keep that mother fucking puppy.

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 16

PROFESSOR

But here you are.

CRISPUS

Ain’t that simple.  Or maybe it is.  I just didn’t get out of bed one day.  I just shut down.  Didn’t even make the decision.  Didn’t say, “I give up.”  I just couldn’t get out of bed.  They stick me in a mental hospital and I’m in there for weeks and weeks.  Then they kick me out.  Lost my jobs. 

LaShaun and Mama lost the apartment.  And like you — whatever inside, it gone.  But there’s no running.  Just drifting.

(Collapses to the floor, head between his knees.)

LaShaun dead.  No matter who kill her or how she die.  And it happen long ago.  Why bring it up now?

PROFESSOR

It was a life that was touched by uncertainty.

CRISPUS

She dead, fool. Ain’t nothing uncertain about that.

PROFESSOR

But, Crispus, don’t you see?  Her life was such a long series of “if’s.”  I suppose every single life is.

CRISPUS

‘Spcially after you dead.  Can say all the “if’s” you want.  Don’t change nothing.  You dead.

PROFESSOR

But we’re not dead, Crispus.  We’re alive, still.  But why are we here?  Why are we sitting in some vacant lot instead of me touring with that cinnamon girl and you and LaShaun and your Mama living in a nice house somewhere and not busting your ass anymore?  What “if” did we not see or overlook?  Or could we have seen it?  And — and is there something to discover in this darkness that we wouldn’t find in, say, a penthouse?  We have memories, thoughts, ideas wrapped around feelings 

A Holy Thursday Lament, p 17

and dreams and emotions.  Bears and squirrels don’t have that.

CRISPUS

So what you gonna do?  How you gonna figure this out?

PROFESSOR

Listen,!  Do me a real big favor, Crispus.  Let’s keep a vigil.  A holy vigil.  Let’s stay awake all night until the sun rises.  And . . . and . . . well, let’s remember LaShaun and think why Bossman is such a mean, badass cop.  

Let’s go back and retrace how we got so fucked up; maybe, what we should have done instead.  Let’s try to remember as much as we can and see if we can find some truth in our lives.  Bascially, let’s sing and pray and wait.

CRISPUS

Like Christ waited for Judas to bring death.

PROFESSOR

Maybe.  Maybe.  But, let’s see if we can dig some truth out of our lives.

CRISPUS

Well, you ain’t gonna lemme sleep anyway.

(Moves closer to PROFESSOR.)

What you want to try to remember first?

PROFESSOR

Well, let’s see.  We should start with something simple I guess.  Hmm.  Okay.  Let me see if I can remember all the lyrics to that song first.

“I’m a social reject from the Christian Church”

(Lights begin to go down slowly.)

“Because I didn’t wear a tie on the Feast of Christ’s birth.”

PROFESSOR and CRISPUS

“And my shoes weren’t shine and my hair wasn’t combedA Holy Thursday Lament, p 18

on the night when He prayed in the garden –“

(Lights out.)