Bone Cage Read online

  JAMIE

  F’ing Merv asshole.

  A-HOLE!

  KEVIN

  They asked me up to their camp tonight.

  JAMIE

  Merv did?

  KEVIN

  Not just Merv, there’s a bunch of them.

  JAMIE

  That’s one place you don’t want to go.

  KEVIN

  Just a bunch playing cards.

  JAMIE

  They’re looking for someone to get ugly at.

  CHICKY

  Kev, my smoke.

  KEVIN

  It’s coming.

  He throws one but CHICKY steps on it by mistake.

  Shit.

  They just drink and play cards.

  He throws down the package with the lighter tucked inside.

  JAMIE

  Don’t go.

  KEVIN

  You go.

  JAMIE

  Yeah but I’m me and you’re you.

  You go up there and you’ll come home one sorry ass.

  KEVIN

  I’m not going to fight nobody.

  JAMIE

  You go up there and I’ll beat the crap out of you myself.

  KEVIN

  Fuck you. I can go anywhere I want. I can take care of myself.

  JAMIE

  So you think.

  KEVIN

  Yeah well, I know something about you, don’t I?

  JAMIE

  What?

  KEVIN

  I ain’t telling.

  JAMIE shifts his weight so he is within striking distance of KEVIN, while pretending to hand him an empty beer bottle.

  JAMIE

  Is it about my stag?

  KEVIN

  Maybe. Maybe not. I ain’t telling you.

  JAMIE

  I’m going to be your sweet brother-in-law, you better tell me.

  KEVIN

  F you!

  JAMIE grabs KEVIN and pulls him into a headlock. He begins to tug on KEVIN’s arm to get him away from his hold on the bridge.

  I ain’t telling you.

  JAMIE succeeds in pulling him from the side.

  JAMIE

  Hope you can swim.

  KEVIN is very afraid.

  KEVIN

  Let go of me, man.

  JAMIE

  Think you know where that little hole is, that you’ve got to hit when you jump from here, or else your spine goes…

  JAMIE snaps his fingers in quick succession as KEVIN struggles.

  Just like that!

  KEVIN

  Let go let go let go of me.

  KRISTA

  Kev, you come down here.

  CHICKY

  Krista! Christ, Jamie’s throwing Kevin off the bridge, not the other way ’round.

  Fuzzy! Jamie. Let him alone right now!

  JAMIE

  She wants me to let go of you, Kev, should I?

  KEVIN

  I’m going to fall, Jamie… I’m gonna fall!

  JAMIE

  Better tell me.

  KEVIN

  It ain’t about your stag, okay?

  JAMIE

  What then?

  What, Kev, I’ll drop you.

  KEVIN

  I’ll tell ya, I’ll tell ya. I’m telling you, man. Just don’t get mad at me when you hear it.

  JAMIE

  You tell me, I’ll decide who to get mad at.

  KEVIN

  I heard Earl saying at the dance that he’s putting you on

  chainsaw for the summer.

  JAMIE

  No he ain’t. You don’t make shit on chainsaw.

  KEVIN

  Starting the Monday after your wedding, he said.

  JAMIE fakes it one last time like he’s going to drop KEVIN, then

  slowly lets go of him.

  JAMIE

  That’s funny, I’m giving my week’s notice this Monday.

  KEVIN scrambles out of reach.

  CHICKY

  Kevin, get your ass down here.

  JAMIE

  She wants your ass, Kev.

  KEVIN

  You can’t quit, Krista will kill you.

  JAMIE

  She don’t need to know.

  KEVIN

  She’s marrying you on Saturday.

  JAMIE

  A lot can happen in a week. In a week I might be the head of IBM.

  KEVIN

  He said the next time you quit, he wouldn’t take you back.

  JAMIE

  I don’t do dumb-ass work.

  KEVIN

  I’d rather work chainsaw.

  Freaked me out too bad, that one time in the processor.

  Everything tore up so bad, I couldn’t find my way out.

  Four hours lost in the woods.

  JAMIE

  I leave a tree standing where I go in.

  KEVIN

  Anyway, Earl won’t take you back.

  JAMIE

  Earl don’t have shit left to log.

  JAMIE hands KEVIN a newspaper clipping.

  KEVIN

  (reading) “Heli-logging. Training for men and women in an exciting high-paying career in B.C.’s Forestry Industry. Comprehensive three-month heli-pilot training program.”

  Like Krista’s going to leave the Valley and move out there.

  JAMIE

  Krista. Krista!

  KRISTA

  Get down here, Jamie, we’ve got to get to town.

  JAMIE

  A wife has to go where her husband goes, right?

  KRISTA

  Is he going to town?

  JAMIE

  A wife has to go where her husband goes, right?

  KRISTA

  Jaaaaaaaaaaamie, come on!

  JAMIE

  You better answer yes, or this wedding is off.

  KRISTA

  Yes. Okay, yes. Now can we go to town?

  CHICKY

  Fuzzy, did you make that call?

  JAMIE

  You shut your trap about any call, sis. I mean it, too.

  CHICKY

  Krista, aren’t you curious about this call I’m not supposed to talk about?

  KRISTA

  Is it about my wedding present from Jamie?

  CHICKY

  Oh—(Christ). Has Jamie talked about quitting?

  KRISTA

  He’d better not. I got to pay for the hall and the supper with his next cheque. (urgent) Jamie.

  Chicky slips on her shoes and prepares to leave.

  JAMIE

  Where you going, Chicky?

  CHICKY

  Home to feed your father.

  JAMIE

  Let the whore come and cook his dinner.

  CHICKY

  That’s our mother you’re talking about.

  JAMIE

  (lightly) Your mother is a whore. My mother is a fucking whore.

  CHICKY

  Do you ever listen to what comes out of his mouth?

  KRISTA

  Well, your mom has lived with a lot of men.

  CHICKY

  (Jesus).

  KRISTA

  She left you kids when Travis was a toddler, what kind of mother does that?

  CHICKY

  Okay, I’m going now.

  KEVIN

  You leaving, Chicky?

  CHICKY

  I should have been leaving when I got here. I got four hours mowing yet, Reg’s stripping sod on Friday.

  JAMIE<
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  Hey! I ain’t ready to go.

  CHICKY

  I’m walking.

  KEVIN

  I’ll walk with you.

  JAMIE

  Kevin wants a blow job.

  KEVIN

  Shut up.

  JAMIE

  I said “new job,” Kevin wants a new job, a nude job.

  (laughs) Hey, sis. Save me some dinner.

  CHICKY

  Why should I?

  JAMIE

  ’Cause I’m your little brother, and you’ve got to take care of me.

  CHICKY

  Starting Saturday, I don’t, do I?

  KRISTA

  Call me.

  CHICKY and KEVIN leave.

  You coming down?

  Jamie?

  We got stuff to do in town today.

  JAMIE

  Like what?

  KRISTA

  Like I already said.

  JAMIE comes down.

  You’ve got to pick up the washing machine, too.

  JAMIE

  Don’t know why you’re buying their shit.

  KRISTA

  Dolores is getting her mother’s.

  JAMIE

  Dolores is getting her mother’s.

  KRISTA

  You’re in a pissy mood.

  JAMIE

  I’m ovulating.

  KRISTA

  A new one would cost us seven hundred dollars.

  JAMIE

  Wash at your mother’s.

  KRISTA

  I’m not doing that, I told you.

  JAMIE

  I got no place to store a washer.

  KRISTA

  Take it to the trailer!

  JAMIE

  Can’t.

  KRISTA

  You didn’t get the key from Danny yet?

  JAMIE

  Nope.

  KRISTA

  He was supposed to move out two weeks ago. He knows we’re

  getting married this week. You told him he had to move out. Why ain’t he moved out?

  JAMIE

  I’ll take it home for now.

  KRISTA

  Does Danny think he is going to live with us?

  I’m calling him and telling him he’s got to be out tomorrow.

  JAMIE

  I told him he could have the trailer until October.

  KRISTA

  Yeah, right.

  JAMIE

  That’s twenty-five hundred in cash.

  KRISTA

  No way. Jamie, where are we supposed to live? Not with your father.

  JAMIE

  He knows to leave us alone.

  KRISTA

  He hates my guts. He don’t speak to me.

  JAMIE

  We need the money, okay? Every time I turn around you need money for invitations, to rent the hall, to rent white fucking tuxedos to go with the fucking bought bridesmaid off-the-shoulder cocktail-length fucking dress. Then there’s the turkey sit-down meal and four hundred and fifty for the fucking DJ?

  KRISTA

  I don’t want to live with Clarence.

  JAMIE

  Krista, the trailer is worth more to us rented. We rent to Danny for

  a few months, we’ve got enough to get somewhere.

  KRISTA

  I told you I don’t want a honeymoon. It don’t matter to me.

  JAMIE

  I told Danny he has it.

  Fuck. You love me or you don’t.

  KRISTA

  I’m marrying you aren’t I?

  KRISTA kisses him playfully until he responds a little.

  Weddings cost money.

  JAMIE

  We’ll have enough by Christmas.

  KRISTA

  Christmas? Jamie!

  JAMIE

  I promise. I do I do I do.

  He starts to crow like a rooster. He does a sort of endearing rooster dance. KRISTA laughs. He kisses her hungrily.

  KRISTA

  No. Jamie, we have to go to town.

  JAMIE

  I can’t wait.

  KRISTA

  Not here.

  JAMIE

  Why not?

  KRISTA

  Robby might come back, or anybody.

  JAMIE

  So, never stopped us before.

  KRISTA

  Wellllll… I’ve been thinking.

  The wedding is Saturday.

  Maybe we shouldn’t, you know, make love until our wedding night.

  JAMIE

  Funny.

  KRISTA

  To make it more special.

  JAMIE

  Krista hon-ey!

  KRISTA

  Please.

  JAMIE

  Okay, starting Friday night.

  KRISTA

  I’m spotting.

  JAMIE

  Christ.

  KRISTA

  He said we have to go off the pill after we’re married.

  JAMIE

  This wedding is really starting to suck the big one.

  KRISTA

  Don’t say that.

  JAMIE

  It’s not like not doing it is gonna turn you into a virgin.

  KRISTA

  Okay, let’s do it, so we can get to town.

  JAMIE

  What about the… (spotting)

  KRISTA

  It don’t hurt or nothing, just spotting a bit.

  JAMIE

  Baby, I wouldn’t last seven days! You make me wait that long, and

  the minute you say I do, I’ll be on you. The minister will be saying, “I said kiss the bride, not screw her.”

  KRISTA

  I hate it when you call it that.

  JAMIE

  Sorrrry. I said to kiss her not make love to her. Make love to her. Make lovvveee to her.

  JAMIE kisses her grandly until she is laughing.

  Oh, baby, you know what I like.

  KRISTA

  Soon as we’re married I’m divorcing you.

  JAMIE pulls her down on the sand.

  KRISTA takes the hunting knife off his belt and holds it to her mouth. Her tongue touches the tip.

  JAMIE

  Why do you like that? Doing it with the knife?

  She lays the knife carefully beside them. She begins to kiss him.

  KRISTA

  It makes it more fun.

  It makes it fun-er.

  They kiss.

  Lights down.

  Scene 3

  CLARENCE sits in his chair with his ear to the phone.

  CLARENCE

  Betty? You didn’t let me finish. I’m saying they got places now, not like when Trav died, there are places now. I’m just saying don’t

  cremate him, because then you got no cells, no DNA.

  CHICKY comes in.

  (pause) Yeah, Ronnie, I was explaining it to Betty. I’m not trying to kill her with nonsense. I’m trying to be a good neighbour, to give her scientific information…. It’s been on “Oprah,” it’s been on “Larry King Live,” Jesus I’m giving ya hope…

  The phone has obviously been disconnected.

  CHICKY

  You’ve got to stop calling Betty.

  CLARENCE

  I been wondering if there was going to be any dinner around here.

  CHICKY

  You heard me.

  CLARENCE

  They should have flown him straight to Florida.

  CHICKY

  For Chrissakes Clarence. The
woman’s lost a child. She’s beside

  herself.

  You should know that.

  CLARENCE

  I do know. I do know.

  I’m telling her they got equipment down there.

  CHICKY

  He’s dead. He died at the scene.

  CLARENCE

  They put them in liquid oxygen. Twenty-five years from now they’ll have a cure for it.

  CHICKY

  There is no cure for a ten-year-old, without a helmet, flying off the back of a dirt bike onto the highway. Don’t call Betty again.

  CLARENCE sulks. But he has news that he can’t hold back on.

  CLARENCE

  I got something in the mail today.

  I got something to show you, Chicky.

  CHICKY

  I thought you wanted your dinner.

  CLARENCE

  Look, I got it right here.

  Here.

  CLARENCE opens a large brown envelope and takes out a pencil drawing of a young man of about nineteen.

  CHICKY

  Who’s that supposed to be?

  CLARENCE

  It’s an artist rendition.

  Read the back.

  CHICKY

  (reading) “Extend Your Memory is proud to present you with this portrait of your son…”

  CLARENCE

  Travis, yes!

  Jesus, didn’t you recognize our little Trav?

  CHICKY stares at the drawing.

  It’s what he’d look like today. I sent that school picture of Trav before he got sick to this artist in the States, and that fellow took it and drew him nine years older.

  CHICKY gives the drawing back to CLARENCE.

  He looks good don’t he?

  CHICKY

  How much?

  CLARENCE

  Don’t matter.

  CHICKY

  We still owe on the headstone. What did Jamie say?

  CLARENCE

  I’m telling Jamie I’m paying for it out of my disability.

  CHICKY

  Yeah, you pay for that, then we pay for your smokes.

  CLARENCE

  Where you been half the day anyway?

  CHICKY

  At the river with Jamie.

  CLARENCE

  Ain’t he working?

  JAMIE comes in. CLARENCE quickly tucks the picture out of sight.

  CHICKY

  Apparently no.

  Thought you were taking Krista to town?

  JAMIE

  I am. I had to check on Sky. He’s off his food.

  CLARENCE

  A bird can’t survive after hittin’ a power line. Not even a big bird like him.

  JAMIE

  Vet said he could. He had been eating good.

  The burn is healing up.

  CLARENCE

  Eagles that can’t fly lose their will to live.

  JAMIE

  Like a man that can’t work, right, Clarence?

  CHICKY

  Speaking of work, are you working nights this week?