Bone Cage Read online

  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.