Chapter One

This is a room in a tenement building in a black ghetto in New York City. There is a kitchen with a stove and a large refrigerator. A door to the outer hallway and another presumably to a bedroom. The hallway door is fitted with a bizarre collection of locks and bars. There is a cheap formica table in the room and two chrome and plastic chairs. There is a drawer in the table. On the table is a bible and a newspaper. A pair of glasses. A pad and pencil. A large black man is sitting in one chair (stage right) and in the other a middle-aged white man dressed in running pants and athletic shoes. He wears a T-shirt and the jacket-which matches the pants-hangs on the chair behind him.

Black: So what am I supposed to do with you, Professor?

White: Why are you supposed to do anything?

Black: I done told you. This aint none of my doin. I left out of here this mornin to go to work you wasnt no part of my plans at all. But here you is.

White: It doesnt mean anything. Everything that happens doesnt mean something else.

Black: Mm hm. It dont.

White: No. It doesnt.

Black: What's it mean then?

White: It doesnt mean anything. You run into people and maybe some of them are in trouble or whatever but it doesnt mean that you're responsible for them.

Black: Mm hm.

White: Anyway, people who are always looking out for perfect strangers are very often people who wont look out for the ones they're supposed to look out for. In my opinion. If you're just doing what you're supposed to then you dont get to be a hero.

Black: And that would be me.

White: I dont know. Would it?

Black: Well, I can see how they migh