Between Riverside and Crazy (TCG Edition) by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Author:Stephen Adly Guirgis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781559368421
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
Published: 2015-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

(Lieutenant Caro advances toward Pops.)

LIEUTENANT CARO: Walter, c’mon—

POPS: Hey! Don’t you come up on me!

DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: The night you got shot, Walter—you were off duty, you never ID’d yourself as a police officer, and your blood alcohol level was one for the record books!

POPS: So I got good and stinkin’ drunk on my own dime, on my own time, and then the white rookie comes, opens fire on me—and that’s my fault?!

DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: In an after-hours bar at six in the morning, populated with hookers, pimps and violent felons—a bar that was flagged by our precinct as a no-fly zone for cops—

POPS: You think I was associating? You think those criminals were my friends?

DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: I have no doubt whatsoever that there wasn’t a person in that club that you didn’t hold in complete contempt—including yourself, Walter.

POPS: The person I hold in contempt is you, Audrey—you and Lieutenant Ass Lick over there—so save the Dr. Phil “I don’t like myself” bullshit for somebody else. “I don’t like myself”?! Show me one cop who actually does his job, sees what we see, becomes what the streets make us become—show me one cop who did what I did for thirty years who “likes” himself!

LIEUTENANT CARO: Okay now, emotions are running high—

POPS: Everybody hates fuckin’ cops—even cops hate cops. And everybody especially don’t like black cops! White cops were never comfortable with us, black civilians think we Uncle Tom, white civilians think we uppity, and everybody damn else sees we’re black and thinks we’re somehow not entirely qualified to carry a badge and a gun—

DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: Walter—

POPS: “Do I like myself”? Hell no! Do I drink? Hell yes! Thirty years, I gave everything to the job, and you got the nerve to come at me with: “Whose fault is that really, Walter?” That white rookie opened fire on me, Audrey! And he called me “nigger” while he did it. Six shots—N.I.G.G.E.R.—that’s what that was! He shot everything black in the whole joint and somehow didn’t hit anything white. Now how the fuck is that possible—and don’t I have the same right as anybody else to sip on a damn margarita and not get shot the fuck up in the process?

DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: It’s not your fault that he shot you, Walter. It’s your fault that you were there. You clocked out at nine P.M. that night. Bars close at four. Seven hours wasn’t enough for you?

POPS: I drink sometimes. And I pay my own way when I do.

DETECTIVE O’CONNOR: And you paid an awful lot for those last few drinks that night, didn’t you? “Whose fault was it?” It was the rookie’s. “Whose fault was it really?” I can’t answer that. But I know Delores, your wife, had an opinion on that subject. Because if you didn’t have to be at an after-hours bar at six A.M., this never would’ve happened. But you did have to be there, didn’t you? And, Walter, if I walk outta here right now and a safe falls on my head, it’s not my fault.

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