To my children, Rilla and Simon, with love.
There are men of the valley
Who are that valley.
—Wallace Stevens
Bone Cage was first produced by Forerunner Playwrights Co-op, in partnership with Ship’s Company Theatre, at the Neptune Studio, Halifax, Nova Scotia, October 10–14, 2007 with the following company:
JAMIE
Michael McPhee
CHICKY
Kate Lavender*
KRISTA
Caitlin Stewart
KEVIN
John-Riley O’Handley
ROBBY
Matthew Lumley
CLARENCE
Hugo Dann*
LISSA
Sarah English
Director: Tessa Mendel
Stage Manager: Kay Robertson*
Set, Poster and Props Design: Corey Mullins
Lighting Design: Leigh Ann Vardy with associate Tom Barkley
Original Score and Sound Design: Terry Pulliam
Costumes Design: Andrea Ritchie
*appeared with permission of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association
• • •
Bone Cage was presented as a staged reading at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, on June 16, 2005, as part of On the Verge 2005 with the following company:
JAMIE
Benjamin Meuser
CHICKY
Laura Teasdale
KRISTA
Catriona Leger
KEVIN
Mark Muntean
ROBBY
Daniel Giverin
CLARENCE
Robert Welch
LISSA
Rachel Scott-Mignon
Director: Tessa Mendel
Stage Manager: Lynn Cox
Artistic Coordinator: Lise Ann Johnson
Characters
JAMIE, twenty-two, works a tree processor
CHICKY, twenty-five, Jamie’s half sister, works on the sod fields
KRISTA, seventeen, Jamie’s girlfriend, in high school
KEVIN, eighteen, Krista’s brother, works chainsaw
CLARENCE, fifty-two, Jamie’s father, on disability
ROBBY, thirty, considered slow, works for Chicky’s married lover
LISSA, fourteen, Robby’s sister, slow
Note about the Text
When an italized word appears in brackets it is not meant to be spoken, but rather inform the actor of the character’s feeling at that moment. When one appears at the end of a line following an ellipsis “…” it is the next word the actor would have spoken.
ACT I
Scene 1
Lights up to half. JAMIE sits on the rail of a steel bridge painted industrial green.
JAMIE is stroking the body of a dead blue jay. It is early morning and he has just come off the night shift in the tree processor.
There is the sound of a huge pulp truck travelling on a village road. The sound of it approaching, then the swamped noise of it passing too fast, and too close. The engine accelerates as it struggles up a steep hill and then fades as it leaves the village.
JAMIE
Oh yeah.
Everything in its path it eats.
Yellow birch spruce fir
White maple
It picks its teeth with the alders.
Bitter taste don’t matter.
Eats squirrels, porkies.
Mainly birds, lots still in the nests.
He holds up the jay looking at it carefully.
Not so safe after all.
To the tree processor
I’m the first beer of the day.
What’s needed to get it started.
At the end of every shift
It pisses me out on the ground.
I saw an eastern ghost once.
A cougar, watching me in the woods.
Biologists say cougars don’t exist around here.
That’s funny because I saw one
And he saw me too.
I said,
“You do exist same as me.”
And he said back, “There you have it, Jamie-boy.”
When I got a kid someday
Just born and everything
I’m going to go raid that fox den
That I know where it’s at
And go get a cub.
Foxes are always black when they’re cubs.
And I’m going to raise the baby and that fox up together.
Fox curl up in the crib at night
Baby play out in the woods all day
’Til their hair grows orange.
And their second teeth?
Razor sharp.
JAMIE drops the dead bird off the bridge into the river.
Scene 2
Lights up.
CHICKY sits next to the river.
CHICKY
I don’t know how my head gets tired mowing sod fields but it does.
It hurts all day like when I was waiting for Trav’s next breath, and then the next one.
There’s this elm tree on the edge of the river
I mow past fifty times a day.
It’s dead, been dead for a few years like all the elms.
This tree looks exactly like a scarred, burnt-out woman.
An old woman who had twenty kids and they all died of cancer of the brain while she was at the store.
The branches are broken off ’n what’s left looks like arms thrust over her head, panicked.
Where her breasts were are these two gaping holes and she’s got
a bigger hole that looks like a vagina opening up, only its below her ribs like where Christ was wounded.
She’s got a face too.
The peckers have been at her but she got these two eyes and the bark below them is buckled, like a mouth getting ready for a good bellow.
“I told you to stay away from the goddamn river.”
There’s a lot of power in her anyway
and she’s not too happy with me.
Rolling up the sod, taking up a layer of soil every time.
I tell her it’s a job so I can stay.
She tells me it’s my soul.
My soul, I tell her, isn’t worth anything.
She knows that because I’ve told her everything in the last three years as I’ve mowed past her.
I’ve showed her all my (pause) warts, let’s just say.
But still she waves those old arms at me
tells me I’m peeling away my only hope of redemption
thin layer by thin layer.
The lights expand to show KRISTA, standing behind CHICKY, fumbling with a tightly rolled square of paper. JAMIE and KEVIN are sitting up on the bridge. The distance is suggested by the fact KRISTA and CHICKY must shout up to the boys to be heard.
This is their summer hangout. They know this place like they know their own bodies. It is Saturday just before noon.
KRISTA
(reading) “Love…
Is patien
t and kind: love is not
Jealous, or conceited, or proud,
Or provoked; love does not keep
A record of wrongs; love is not
Happy with evil, but is pleased
With the truth…”
CHICKY
Krista what is that?
KRISTA
It’s our scroll.
(reading) “Love never gives
Up: its faith, hope and patience never fail.
Thank you for sharing with us every
Precious moment of this day.
Jamie and Krista.”
It’ll be rolled up by the plate and have a fuchsia ribbon tied onto it.
CHICKY
Do we always have to talk about the wedding?
KRISTA
Excuse me for wanting a perfect wedding day.
(pause) My guts are tender. I must be ovulating.
CHICKY
Krista if you aren’t having your period or PMS then you’re
ovulating, or you got break-through bleeding.
KRISTA
Doctor can’t find no reason for it.
The doctor told me to go off the pill soon as I can.
CHICKY
You said you didn’t want kids ’til you build.
KRISTA
When we’re married we can use something else.
CHICKY
What difference will being married make?
KRISTA
It will is all.
CHICKY
Yeah right. You hear anything about Carol from anybody?
KRISTA
No. Like what?
CHICKY
Nothing. Nothing I said.
KRISTA
You got some dances in last night.
CHICKY
Two fast ones.
KRISTA
Reg’s not going to slow dance you with Carol standing right there.
CHICKY
Reg slow dances Carol with me standing right there.
KRISTA
Even if they don’t have sex anymore, she is his wife.
CHICKY laughs.
What?
CHICKY
You are going to be just like all the rest you know.
Soon as you’re a wife I’ll be the enemy.
KRISTA
I told ya I won’t be. You won’t be.
CHICKY
Okay. You going for a swim?
KRISTA
No, I think I’m ovulating.
CHICKY
(Jesus.)
KEVIN sits to the left of JAMIE. He has his arm hooked around the side rail of the bridge. He is unable to unhook his arm for any reason, as he is afraid of heights. JAMIE is the ultimate cool to KEVIN’S excitement.
KEVIN
God that was fucking hilarious last night.
(What?)
Stealing Dolores’s flower box and dragging it to the diner.
Jesus were the sparks flying.
Practically tore the fucking bumper off the car remember?
(No?)
Duh-your-ass, Dolores? (Remember?) Duh your assssss.
Fuck.
Funniest idea you ever had. (FUCK.)
Hey Chicky… skinny dip… skinny dip skinny dip.
JAMIE
Is that all you think about – getting girls to take their clothes off?
KEVIN
Yeah.
Wouldn’t mind seeing Chicky skinny dip.
JAMIE
She’s too old for you, Kev. I saw Lissa at the store, she’s getting some nice apples on her.
KEVIN
She’s like fourteen.
JAMIE
Get them young, while they’re fresh.
KEVIN
Chicky and me got some excellent dances in last night. Slow ones.
She asked me.
JAMIE
You’re frigging eighteen, she’s twenty-five.
KEVIN
That means we are both at our sexual peak.
JAMIE
Shit. Anyway, old Reggie’s got his finger in her pie.
Stole her cherry when she was fifteen.
KEVIN
She’s your sister, for Chrissake.
JAMIE
She’s my half sister. What’s she to you? (pause)
Hey chicky chicky chicky, Kev’s got a hard-on for you.
KEVIN
Shut up.
JAMIE
She can’t hear me. Hey Chicky. Chicky.
CHICKY
What?
JAMIE
Kevin wants a date, don’t you, Kev?
Well, he’s too fucking shy to ask but he does.
CHICKY
Fuzzy, lay off him.
JAMIE makes kissing noises back at her.
How’s your head, anyway?
JAMIE toasts her by opening a new beer.
JAMIE
My head is just fine.
CHICKY
Jesus. Do you see what you’re marrying?
KRISTA
He looks some handsome in his tux, wait ’til you see him.
ROBBY enters wheeling a bike. Stands looking over the side of the bridge.
CHICKY
Hey, Robby.
ROBBY
Hi, Chic-ky
KEVIN
(mimics) Hi, Chic-ky.
JAMIE
If it isn’t a member of the social gimp family.
CHICKY
Shut up.
JAMIE
What? Being a social gimp is a good thing isn’t it, Kev?
CHICKY
You two shut up.
You haying for Reg next week, Robby?
ROBBY
Driving the John Deere tractor.
JAMIE
Didn’t Reg tell you, RobBob, he’s using oxen this year!
ROBBY
No he ain’t.
CHICKY
Don’t be so goddamn mean.
JAMIE
RobBob knows I’m jokin’ with him, don’t ya, RobBob?
ROBBY
Someone took Mom’s flower box last night – dragged it way down to the diner.
JAMIE
Oh my God, is that right?
ROBBY
Left it at the diner.
JAMIE
Who did that?
ROBBY
I know.
JAMIE
Oh you think you know, do you?
KEVIN
Tell us.
ROBBY
I know who did. I’m not telling.
JAMIE
Good thing.
ROBBY
I know who did it.
Woke Mom up.
Woke Lissa up.
Yelled at us.
Break the porch light.
Take Mom’s flower box. I know it.
JAMIE
But you’re not telling right?
ROBBY
Gonna do something if they don’t stop.
JAMIE
I bet they’re scared, whoever they are.
ROBBY
Make them sorry. Make them be sorry.
ROBBY turns and rides off.
JAMIE
Well, I’m shaking, what about you, Kev?
CHICKY
You guys!
JAMIE
Did he say it was us?
CHICKY
If it wasn’t the two of you, who was it?
JAMIE
How the hell should I know?
CHICKY
Leave them alone. They don’t hurt anybody.
JAMIE
Jesus, how many times have I got to say it wasn’t us!
CHICKY
Kev, you take it back today.
JAMIE
Yes, Kev, you do that.
KEVIN
I think it might be pretty hard on the bumper, Jamie.
JAMIE
Hell, I’ll take the tractor and charge Robbie’s old man twenty bucks.
CHICKY
Fuzzy!
JAMIE
I’m funnin’ ya. I’ll build them a goddamn new flower box, how’s that?
CHICKY
You should!
KRISTA
Maybe it wasn’t Jamie and Kev.
CHICKY
Krista, look at them.
KRISTA
I’m just saying, Robbie could be confused.
CHICKY
He isn’t retarded and he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Lissa is sweet and good. Dolores’s house is the cleanest in the village. They run a farm. They’re good workers.
KRISTA
Well, they’re not too bright.
CHICKY
How in the hell would anyone in this place know? The most
intelligent person in the world could live next to them and they wouldn’t know it. A saint could move into the village and no one would give a shit. Mother Theresa could rise from the dead, go to
a dance at the firehall to bless the goddamn works of them, and
I bet all Jamie would do is crack jokes about her tits.
JAMIE starts walking along the bridge rail.
KRISTA
Why are you so down on him? To me, too.
I’m marrying him in six days you know.
CHICKY
It’s not too late to change your mind.
KRISTA notices JAMIE.
KRISTA
Sit down, Jamie.
CHICKY
You know he’s going to do it if you watch him.
KRISTA
Well I told him when we’re married he ain’t jumping off the high no more.
CHICKY
When you two are married it will be you up there doing the death dance.
Hey, Kev!
Kevin. Hey!
JAMIE
Hey, Kev, she wants you, man.
CHICKY
Throw me a smoke.
JAMIE sits down. KEVIN takes out a smoke without letting go of the bridge.
There is the sound of a car engine wide open squealing through the village.