Between Riverside And Crazy

Junior is Pops’s son; he lives with Pops and Lulu, his girlfriend. Junior has a difficult past, having engaged in criminal activity and been sent to prison, but at this stage in life, he seems to be trying to straighten himself out. Junior’s attempts at living on the right side of the law are only marginally successful, as it is suggested that he is still involved in shady activity involving merchandise towards the end of the play. 

Junior’s relationship with his father is strained, and his references to his mother mention a closeness that Junior does not enjoy with Pops. Pops and Junior do engage with each other, but their exchanges are often characterized by tension and impatience. Junior’s relationship with Lulu is also difficult in certain ways; he views her sometimes as a child for whom he is responsible, rather than an equal. No matter the challenges that these relationships bring, Junior still persists in trying to communicate openly and emotionally with both his father and his girlfriend, revealing a sensitivity in Junior that may be even more tender since the death of his mother months earlier. 

Further, we see in Junior’s criminal activity a cycle of men in this family going against the ways of fathers. Pops chose his career and life trajectory in part out of retaliation against his father. Pops, himself, a cop, has a son in Junior who becomes a criminal, and is thereby diametrically opposed to the career path of Pops.  

Oswaldo is a friend of Pops who is newly sober and living in the apartment with Pops temporarily. He has some annoying habits, but Pops is patient with Oswaldo, demonstrating a deference towards his friend that he withholds from Junior. Oswaldo is grateful to Pops for his generosity, and he tries hard to express his appreciation. Oswaldo experiences a relapse in his recovery from alcohol when he goes to visit his father and they have a confrontation; he returns to the apartment drunk and has a drunken exchange with Pops, who has also been drinking. The last the audience sees of Oswald, he is demanding a credit card from Pops. Oswaldo’s role in the play is to provide a parallel father-son relationship to compare and contrast with the relationship between Pops and Junior. 

Lulu is Junior’s dim but attractive girlfriend, and she lives in the apartment with Junior and Pops. Her preference to walk around the apartment in skimpy clothing disturbs Pops and causes him to question her integrity, but she has a strong enough personality to tell him that though she may look like the type to be unfaithful to Junior, she is not a cheater. Lulu’s relationship with Junior is difficult to take seriously as she lies about being pregnant in order to manipulate Junior and toys with him in other ways to get what she wants. He seems to accept such treatment. 

Lulu’s purpose may be to provide comic relief and lightness during some of the heavier moments in the play. Lulu is also an interesting female character to compare and contrast with Detective Audrey O’Connor. The two women are similar in their attachment to their imperfect partners, but Audrey’s engagement to Lt. Dave Caro and her job as a detective make her a foil to Lulu, who is in an unstable relationship with Junior despite her reliance on him and Pops for a place to live.  

The Church Lady is a nameless character who comes to visit Pops at home and seduces him with the intention to rob him. She is Brazilian and beautiful, and she dresses in a striking way, calling attention to her body and mitigating the effect of her overtly-religious jewelry. When she visits Pops, she talks directly with him, which disarms Pops; he does not expect such open conversation with a churchgoer. 

The seduction scene involving Pops and the church lady is interesting because she is attempting to use her sexuality to gain Pops’s confidence. In this duplicitous move, of which Pops claims some awareness, she actually gives Pops back his confidence in himself as a man. For years, Pops has been impotent, yet the church lady somehow defeats the psychological barriers that have inhibited Pops, and he now feels like a real man again, despite experiencing a heart attack during their intimate encounter. 

At the end of the play, the church lady tries to refuse Pops’s gift of Audrey’s diamond ring, confessing her dishonesty. At heart, the church lady is a good person, like many of the other characters in the play who have lived life according to their own rules with little regard for societal boundaries. 

Detective Audrey O’Connor has a close relationship with Pops, one close enough to inspire her to ask Pops to walk her down the aisle when she gets married to Lieutenant Dave Caro. Her attachment to Pops as a father figure is based on their previous working relationship, when Pops was a senior officer and O’Connor was a rookie on the NYPD. 

When the detective and her fiancé, Lt. Caro, come to Pops’s apartment for dinner, the atmosphere turns from friendly and jovial to tense and uncomfortable rather suddenly. This shift can be attributed to Lt. Caro’s insistence that they discuss Pops’s court case, which Detective O’Connor is clearly loathe to do, but she is helpless to change the direction of the gathering. Though O’Connor must be a strong woman to be working as a NYPD detective, she struggles to assert herself when pressured by two men about whom she cares deeply. At the end of the play, she even gives Pops her engagement ring, which she claims to love, just because he demands it of her, revealing that her allegiance to Pops may be stronger than her devotion to her fiancé.