100 Daze of the Saints: Four Movements and an Epiphany

2.3.2024

TIME: Then and now. Always changing.
PLACE: Depends who you ask and what you believe

1. One Day Outside the Southern Gates to Heaven.

ST. PETER and ST. PAUL argue about the Gate and its keepers. They are trying to choose who’s “IT,” but it’s not going well.

ST. PAUL:So that’s how it is, huh, and how it’s always gonna be:
You stay at the gate no matter what—and I do everything else.

ST. PETER: Yes.

ST. PAUL: I promo-ed the messiah-thing, remember. Got my head lopped off for the faith to flourish.

ST. PETER: Oh, I remember. But you weren’t there—at the last supper. When He told me to go and mind the gate. Handed me the keys. Asked me to be his pope.

ST. PAUL: But who knew what that was at the time?! No one, Fisherman. Nobody at all.

ST. PETER: Where were you when that happened?

ST. PAUL: Caesarea Confinement Center. In a cell by the Sea, but with no view of the sea until you were sent to Rome to be executed. I couldn’t stop talking about Jesus so the Romans locked me up.

ST. PETER: They also caught you stealing.

ST. PAUL: Only bus fare to Athens. A few drachmas here, a denarius when I got lucky. Listen, I just did what I had to, to help myself help Jesus and spread God’s word.

ST. PETER: Odds or evens?

ST. PAUL: Evens.

ST. PETER and ST. PAUL: One, two, three, shoot!

(THEY both shoot out two fingers.)

One, two, three, be free!

(THEY both shoot out one finger.)

(THEY go on shooting frantically while the Sun rises and then sets. It does so in fast motion. But the outcome is always equal. No one wins at this game.)

ST. PETER: I’m the rock.

ST. PAUL: I’m the writer—and publisher. Without me, who would remember Him? All those prison gospels sealed my fate. What does a “rock” do?

ST. PETER: Hold things up.

ST. PAUL: Let’s try a different game...

(Counting out with each fist, and a chin—like pounding out the choices.)

Winky, stinky, bottle of inky, cough a lot and you stink. Not because you’re dirty, not because you’re clean.
Just because you kissed a Caesar behind a magazine. One, two, three and you are it! Ha! I win.

ST. PETER: No, if I’m it, I get the gates. No more prison games, Paul-Saul.
You need to tend to the others. They need to learn how to secure the gates. Lead by example. Be a rabbi. That’s your true calling. It’s like a shepherd, but instead of sheep, you will oversee an army of Saints and Martyrs. They will give their all, with the right inspiration.

ST. PAUL: Why does the Big Gee need another layer of security? I mean, why now?

ST. PETER: Even the righteous are angry. That means they have weapons and
could break through the gates. Big Gee doesn’t like messy callbacks or painful transitions.

ST. PAUL: So how many?

ST. PETER: Only about a hundred.

ST. PAUL: So, I just pull them out of the Garden and push them out of the gates?

ST. PETER: No pushing. Asking. A true Saint does what is asked of them, Paul.

ST. PAUL: Doesn’t seem kosher. They lost their lives already, so why do it again?

ST. PETER: Do not question their will.

ST. PAUL: What if they say no?

ST. PETER: Shank them. Isn’t that something you learnt in prison?!
Make a shiv out of your right hand and sharp tongue and take care of it. This conversation is over.

(ST. PETER walks away briskly.)

ST. PAUL: I thought I was done with all that killing stuff. Why doesn’t it ever stop?
One hundred is the number of the Holy Flock. And now the flock has to die again? With or without wool. How many times can we rise?
Even the perfect number can only be sacrificed once. That’s what I used to think.

(A flash of lightning makes music and takes us to the West Gates.)

2. Another Day at the West Gates to Heaven.

ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA, a fighter for Jesus Christ, a Spaniard and
ST. HELEN of SKOVDE, a symbol of justice after death, a Swede, converse on a vast veranda.

THEY are having cocktails as the Sun sets.
There is mandolin music playing in the background.
It is probably the instrumental version of Led Zeppelin’s “Battle of Evermore.”
ST. IGNATIUS & ST. HELEN dance to the Sun while holding wine glasses filled with Something dark and aromatic. The contents spill as THEY dance.

ST. IGNATIUS: I have stopped wondering why I am alone.
I watch people gathering in groups of twos and threes or far too many...
They struggle to smile, to touch, to say how much they have missed one another. I’m alone because I have accepted that none of this is real.
Toma mi mano. (HELEN takes his hand.) See? Not flesh anymore.

ST. HELEN: Feels squishy. There’s a membrane around it. Like jellied fish. The kind that comes out of a jar. Is that your stigmata?

ST. IGNATIUS: Stigmata is holes and blood. And swollen eyes that never stop leaking. This is not that.

ST. HELEN: Oh. Yah.

(Pause)

Feels like fish.

ST. IGNATIUS: ¡Exactamente! ¡Como peces!

ST. HELEN: Is Gud like en fisk?

ST. IGNATIUS: There are so many of them. And all of them like God? I doubt it. Mi Dios tiene piel como el polvo de estrellas.

ST. HELEN: Is that why you hate every mortal?
Because they let Gud tumble through their fingertips?

ST. IGNATIUS: Can you teach me about justice, Helen?

ST. HELEN: It’s a waterfall that keeps falling even after someone throws their head back to laugh and slips, crashing onto the rocks below. Even though a skull’s been cracked,
the water will keep flowing.
You will respect the water and the rocks—even if you don’t remember to do so, until that very last moment—before your head splits open on the rocks below.
And then you know what justice is.

ST. IGNATIUS: Something that hurts and breaks bones and makes you believe that there are things in the world more powerful than you.

ST. HELEN: Just keep your fingers together, Ignatius.

ST. IGNATIUS: I’ve forgotten how.

ST. HELEN: (HELEN takes his hands and closes it with hers into a tight fist.) There.

ST. IGNATIUS: Así.

ST. HELEN: Precis så. (pron. Precis so) Why did Paul leave us out here?

ST. IGNATIUS: To keep out all those devils. Don’t you hear that buzzing? See that dark cloud rising?

ST. HELEN: Darkness comes so often now no one notices that the Earth is dying.

ST. IGNATIUS: But Heaven is Live.

ST. HELEN: For now...

(A flash of lightning brings rain and leads us to the North.)

3. Yet Another Day outside the North Gates to Heaven.

The Lily of the Mohawks aka Saint Kateri Tekakwitha is looking for something
in a forest of white-barked trees and blue sky. SHE is alone talking with the wind.

ST. KATERI: I will never find it here in a land of so much white.
My shoe has been swallowed. (A wind blows by.) It smells of lilies now poured from a stained glass filled with the air after a steady rain.

(SHE waits. A silence.)

My people say I betrayed them by believing in White Man’s God, but I think God has

no color. He is a blank page that I can shine myself on. I will stay safe in his arms. I believe in him who makes the Sun rise. He made my face shine when I left the Earth.
I no longer needed a blanket to hide my scars. Once I chose to love him, I could choose a holy name, a saint name. My name in Mohawk meant “Girl who bumps into things.” Not a very loving name, but after the smallpox I couldn’t see very well. I covered myself so people wouldn’t laugh at the marks on my face. And I vowed to die a virgin.

(SHE waits. A silence.)

I wonder at the wisdom of that choice. At twenty-four, to wander this forest alone is too quiet. Too lonely. On Earth, I had people to heal. Here I have no one. Why would God leave me wandering like this? I have so many questions...but when I’m alone, I tell myself stories. And often I listen to the stories in the wind.

(A silence.)
Is that why You left me here? To find the right story that leads to the next life?

(Pause)

Is this what I must do to keep you safe? Aren’t you supposed to keep me— aren’t you supposed to keep me...aren’t you—I’m just an echo of myself. That’s what happens—that’s what happens—when you betray your people.

(Pause)

You were supposed to hold me up and make me whole and let me live forever in your grace, but there’s only wind here. You just turned me into a sad song sung to the tune of an empty forest— and there is no reward for sacrificing the trees.

(Pause)

How long must I patrol White Father’s house?

(A flash of lightning sets a tree on fire and brings us to the South.)

4. At the Southern Gates to Heaven.

ST. MARTÍN de PORRES of Lima, Peru & ST. JEANNE d’ARC of Domrémy, France cook a stew over an open fire. SHE adds logs to the fire, HE stirs the pot. THEY both add cut vegetables and greens to the pot.

ST. MARTÍN: This is how the nuns in Lima taught me to make Chupe de Olluca.

ST. JEANNE: Convenient for them. Throw everything in one place and voilá you have soup. Nuns are not known to be great innovators.

ST. MARTÍN: Why are you so harsh?

ST. JEANNE: Those women never believed me.

ST. MARTÍN: That was a long time ago. Peel me some more Ollucas. And cut them thinner. So they get nice and soft. And add that big squash. And those potatoes.

ST. JEANNE: This is just like a Vichyssoise, but more colorful. Vichyssoise is relentlessly white. When I get back into Heaven, I am going to ban white from all foods and clothing. The living rely too much on that color. Or lack of color.

ST. MARTÍN: Put the beans in now along with the corn.

ST. JEANNE: Yes, chef.

ST. MARTÍN: Everything is not a confrontation, Jeanne.

ST. JEANNE: Then why are you bossing me around all the time, Martín? Making me do strange things?

ST. MARTÍN: Like cook? Because we have to eat.

ST. JEANNE:I could kill something. And we could roast it. This soup thing—

ST. MARTÍN: It’s more of a stew. A tuber stew.

ST. JEANNE: (As SHE slices tubers with her broadsword.) Same but thicker.

ST. MARTÍN: How long do you think we have to stay exiled like this?

ST. JEANNE: Why do you think they chose us?

ST. MARTÍN: Our bravery?

ST. JEANNE: Our insanity?

ST. MARTÍN: It’s been ninety-nine days. Perhaps we will never get back into the Kingdom.

ST. JEANNE: I’ve fought for Heaven since I learned I could fight. Isn’t that enough?

ST. MARTÍN: I fought for justice.

ST. JEANNE: With your broom?

ST. MARTÍN: Sometimes. I brushed animals away from the butcher’s shop to save them from slaughter.

ST. JEANNE: Can’t fight real battles with a broom.

ST. MARTÍN: I did.

(THEY stare at each other for a moment and then resume stirring the pot and gathering wood.)

ST. JEANNE: Anyway.

ST. MARTÍN: Yes?

ST. JEANNE: This scares me, Martín.

ST. MARTÍN: I thought you were never scared, Jeanne. Jeanne the Avenging Angel.

ST. JEANNE: There’s nothing to fight for here. But we are waiting for the fight that ends everything.

ST. MARTÍN: Should we sing? Singing always makes me feel better.
There is a song I heard one of the sisters sing once. It went like this:

(HE sings.)

“One hundred days of burning Earth turning the water to dusty dust.
You can grind it for all it’s worth

But this water will never rust.
This water is made of Martyr’s tears, And Saint’s missing body parts.
In a crypt, in a church, bury my fears. With my thumb? My toe? My heart?”

ST. JEANNE: Lovely song.

ST. MARTÍN: If you sing it with me, it will pass the time.

ST. JEANNE: Will it help me forgive the forsaking of us in this celestial prison? Outside the place we were promised would be ours forever?
I was burned alive and heard the voices making promises—

ST. MARTÍN: You heard false Gods, Jeanne, you heard the rush of your own breath leaving your body in fire and burnt embers. You heard yourself sizzling into eternity. But no promises.
When I died, I expected nothing. A black Peruvian who was treated like a freak by the clergy. I amused them and then I confused them with my kindness. But expect.
No, not ever. Not anything.

ST. JEANNE: (Singing)

“This water is made of Martyr’s tears—"

(ST. MARTÍN joins in.)

ST. JEANNE & ST. MARTÍN (In unison): “And Saint’s missing body parts.
In a crypt, in a church, bury my fears.
With my thumb? My toe? My heart?”

(A flash of lightning brings us to an epiphany.)

5. Epiphany.

A strobe light catches all the SAINTS who move in different, painful contorted ways. Then ST. PETER moves into a light to give the Homily and the strobe freezes.

ST. PETER: This is the story of the one hundred saints and martyrs who you will never hear from again because they were enlisted into the secret army of Heaven to protect it from the contradictions of being human. They thought they were saved but they were truly the saviors. And that is why you have forgotten them.

I am the only one with keys, so me, you will remember. I am the rock.

(Under his breath)

Rock, paper, scissors...rock, paper, scissors...rock, paper, scissors, bomb...rock, paper, scissors, bomb, missile...rock—

(An explosion of everything.)

(BLACKOUT)

End of play for now...