Grief Street

circa 1880.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Annie (Ruby); the offstage presence of Sweeney (Quent, with hand over mouth); and Malloy (also Quent), a customer awaiting his turn for a room and prostitute.
DENOUEMENT: an exchange between Annie and Malloy underscores the themes of memory, immigrant community, and political ideals arising from within a mystery narrative, in which a simple policeman—somewhat dull, but tenderhearted—confronts pure evil in his hunt for the killer of an American dream.

    ... And there was now no mistaking the message. Nor the messenger I myself was after in the real life mystery of who was killing the dreamers of Hell’s Kitchen:

SWEENEY
(Offstage) Come turn up the light here, will you, Annie darling? It’s so dark I ain’t finding me girl I bought and paid for.

ANNIE
(Shouting up the stairway) The bloody sun hasn’t light enough to brighten your pecker, Mr. Sweeney.

SWEENEY
Aw, g’way with you!

ANNIE
(Addressing MALLOY, seated at the bar) Listen to himself, will you? Can’t even find the lamp. Most people go all their lives like him—fool blind, too stupid to walk ’round and find the gas wick so’s they can turn it up and see.

MALLOY
A man living in this godforsaken quarter of the city, I say he’s got the right to the peace and quiet of the dark.

ANNIE
But there’s no comfort in that either, fool man. Never no peace in turning a blind eye to the grief of these streets. And sure no comfort in fatuous
slogans by the political hacks. They’re the ones putting daft into your head, Malloy.

MALLOY
Just how’s that?

ANNIE
Persuading you to believe there’s somehow comfort in blindness. As if we’ll not be trampling each other to death when we’re all crowded up into one dark room.

MALLOY
Your mouth’s making more of the moment than warrants. I come here for the plainest peace and comfort there is—Annie Meath’s whisky and Annie Meath’s girls.

ANNIE
Oh, another blind pig I’m entertaining, is it? Shame on you, Malloy, forgetting what you come for— deep down, I mean. The promises, I mean.

MALLOY
Oh, Gawd—what promises?

ANNIE
Life... liberty... the pursuit of happiness. Are you forgetting how it was back there in the starving fields of the other side of the ocean?

MALLOY
Well, I’ll thank you not to be morbid! Jaysus, woman—who’d want to dwell on fear and hunger and dying? Sure now I remember it all. And sure I remember first hearing the promises. But you’d do well to remember this, Annie: promises are made to be broken, even American promises.

ANNIE
You’re a cynical bastard, Malloy.

MALLOY
Nae, merely a man who wants no further trouble in his poor life.

ANNIE
But don’t you see? You’ve troubles all the same. No matter, you’ve got to live with the results, whether or not you heed the warnings of failed promises.

MALLOY
Oh, Christ—what warnings are you meaning?

ANNIE
These here are the meanest streets of New York we’re in. And the meanest thing about them’s how we’re only steps from other streets—where people are living like the kings of old Tara.

MALLOY
Wake up, Annie Meath. Always been the rich, always been the poor.

ANNIE
That’s the curse of the other side. Here it’s America—where they’ve pledged to us poor that we’ll not suffer such brutality as we’ve fled. But I’ll give you this, Malloy: you’re right about broken promises.

MALLOY
Hah! So you see it plain, my way.

ANNIE
Not plain, Malloy. I see the divide of money increasing, all right—and no effort by the pols or the press to halt it, as both lying institutions profit by keeping us people down. I see the poor kept drugged and drunk, and ignorant. I see our own ignorance of one another breeding fear, and our fear becoming hatred; I see unintentional remarks and gestures read as attacks on respect, which is all that poor folk have left to them.

MALLOY
You’re saying the old curse is coming back?

ANNIE
Aye. It’s a senseless time we’re living, ain’t it? Shame on people finding comfort in being deaf, dumb, and blind to the sorrows of folks kept down. But I tell you—the last straw’s coming. And blood will run in the streets.

MALLOY
Ain’t it strange—a bawd like you blowing the bugle?

ANNIE
I’d be happy to stand aside for some proper crier. Tell me where he is, Malloy. Can you see him, can you hear him? Is there anybody respectable telling us we’re living the crime of lies gone to secrets if we don’t remember? Anybody respectable telling us