Between Riverside And Crazy

Scene 1 opens at the breakfast table, where Pops and his friend, Oswaldo, chat. Oswaldo eats almonds and talks extensively about his caseworker’s recommendations for a healthy lifestyle, while Pops drinks whiskey and asks for Cool Whip to top his pie. Lulu, Pops’s son’s girlfriend, enters, wearing very little. Pops reacts to her appearance with disapproval: “How about a little robe then, something?” (7). The admonition washes over Lulu, and when Pops reminds her about their plans for dinner that evening, she kisses him on the cheek and calls him “Dad” (8). After Lulu leaves, Pops comments on Lulu’s appearance, saying “She may be nice, and she look good, but I fear the girl is retarded” (8). As Oswaldo expresses his gratitude to Pops for letting him stay in the apartment rent-free, Pops’s son, Junior, enters the scene. Pops begins to question Junior about his whereabouts the night before, money matters, and the “hot merchandise” (11) in Junior’s possession, and then he demands that Junior “go walk [the] damn dog” (11) that belongs to Lulu. Junior asks, “How many drinks you had this morning, Pops” (11), much to Pops’s irritation. Junior says he has cancelled his plans to go to Baltimore later, wondering how he is “supposed to feel comfortable going anywhere anyway with [Pops] drinking all day, climbing on ladders, doing all types of recklessness” (13).