Bone Cage Page 3
JAMIE
Depends. Might be laid off.
CHICKY
I haven’t heard that Earl is laying off men.
JAMIE
I don’t work chainsaw.
CHICKY
(hopeful) You’re quitting?
CLARENCE
He’s being laid off, didn’t you hear him? People don’t listen. Oprah had a man on there who said mothers talk to their kids five minutes a day. That’s a God-awful thing. Don’t know their kids from their own assholes.
JAMIE
From a man who hasn’t used his asshole in ten years.
CHICKY
Don’t start on him.
JAMIE
Five minutes is about four minutes and thirty seconds longer than we ever talked, Dad.
CLARENCE
Used to talk before you know who came along.
JAMIE
Get real.
CLARENCE
You used to watch the games with me.
JAMIE
That ain’t talking, Dad. Okay, Chicky, time us.
CLARENCE
I got nothing to say.
JAMIE
Ask me about my job.
CLARENCE
You just said.
JAMIE
Ask me how my job makes me feel. Does it make me feel important or (leans hard here) fulfilled, or does it make me feel like a pile of steaming yellow s-h-i-t.
CLARENCE
I ain’t talking to you when you’re in a mood.
CLARENCE turns up the TV volume.
JAMIE winds up like he is going to kick the screen in, then stops and taps the off button with his boot toe.
JAMIE
Time please.
CHICKY
Fuzzy. Fifteen seconds, okay?
JAMIE
Oprah, be proud of us.
JAMIE turns the TV on. He heads out the door.
CLARENCE
You going to town?
JAMIE leaves.
He going to town?
CHICKY
He told you he was.
CLARENCE
Tell him I need him to pick me up something.
CHICKY
Jamie won’t go to the liquor store for you now. You’ll have to get your drinks over to the firehall.
CLARENCE takes the drawing out again.
CLARENCE
Remember how quick Trav learnt to ride a bike?
“Dad,” he says to me. “Dad what are those wheels on to it?” “’Ems the training wheels Trav,” I says to him. “Take them off, Dad, they’re fucking stupid.” Not a day over three years old, and riding a two-wheeler.
He looks good now don’t he?
CHICKY
Jesus.
I don’t know why you did that, Clarence, sent away for that artist rendition.
It’s like you don’t want that hurt to ever stop.
I want it to stop so bad.
She goes into the bedroom, slamming the door.
Lights out.
Scene 4
Sound of a car pulling up, door slamming, car peeling away.
KEVIN, bawling like a calf, is heard outside.
KEVIN
Jamie, Jamie, Jamie.
Loud thumping on the door. KEVIN staggers into the room, slightly illuminated by the porch light through the door. KEVIN is wearing a torn pair of underwear that he must hang on to, to keep from exposing himself. He stumbles around the kitchen knocking the chairs and collapses onto the floor.
The kitchen light comes on. JAMIE stands in the doorway. He has just woken up and is wearing only his jeans.
JAMIE
Jesus. (Jesus.)
Kev. Kev.
Jesus, you got the shit beat out of you.
CHICKY comes in.
Get the door, Chicky.
CHICKY
Is he all right?
Throughout the scene, JAMIE handles KEVIN gently while verbally abusing him.
JAMIE
Well, he ain’t in very good shape.
KEVIN starts to throw up as Jamie tenderly rolls him over on his side. CHICKY moves away from the stench.
No blood in it, at least. He can’t be bad inside.
KEVIN starts roaring like a bull calf and flailing his arms about.
KEVIN
I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you, you. I’ll kill you.
JAMIE
It’s me, Jamie, you asshole.
CHICKY gets a bucket and cloth.
KEVIN
Jamie… Jamie.
KEVIN throws up again.
CHICKY starts to clean up.
JAMIE
What do you think you’re going to do?
CHICKY
Clean up.
JAMIE
He’ll do that tomorrow when he’s good and hung over.
KEVIN
Who’s that, Jame?
CHICKY
It’s me, Kev.
KEVIN
I’m sorry, Chicky. I’m sorry I’m sorry.
JAMIE
Yeah you’ll be sorrier, too. Sit up.
KEVIN
My head hurts.
JAMIE
Come on, sit up. You ain’t hurt so bad that I won’t take a couple of swings at ya myself if you don’t do as I say. Sit the F up!
KEVIN manages with help.
CHICKY
Who beat you, Kevin?
JAMIE
Merv, right?
I warned you, didn’t I?
I should throw you out the goddamn door.
I should let you sleep in the goddamn manure pile tonight, where you belong.
CHICKY
How did he get out here?
JAMIE
Must have scared them.
Scared he was gonna choke on his own puke.
You got dropped off in the ditch like some useless piece of shit of
a dog.
CHICKY
Fuzzy, he’s really hurting.
JAMIE
Help me get him up on the chair.
They manage to get him on a chair at the table. KEVIN lies with his head in his hands. CHICKY takes a blanket off the couch and wraps it around KEVIN.
Go to bed, Chick.
CHICKY
Aren’t you taking him to emergency?
JAMIE
No.
CHICKY
What if he’s hurt inside?
JAMIE
I’ve seen a hell of a lot worse, and they didn’t see no doctor.
CHICKY
Call the Mounties on Merv.
JAMIE
They won’t do nothing.
You call the cops, next thing you know you’ll be lookin’ like this.
JAMIE gently lifts KEVIN’S head. His face is bruised and his mouth is bleeding.
KEVIN
Chicky, I’m sorry… I threw up on your floor. I’m sorry.
CHICKY
It’s okay, Kev. Are you okay? (pause) Kev?
KEVIN
I like you Chicky. I didn’t mean to puke… look, look at that. Oh no.
JAMIE
He’ll survive.
KEVIN
Oh God, I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself.
JAMIE
Go to bed, will you, so he’ll shut up.
CHICKY leaves. JAMIE holds his face in his hands.
Let me look. Let’s see your teeth. Jesus, you’re some fucking lucky. Bet you’ve got some loose ones.
KEVIN
Jamie?
JAMIE uses a cloth to d
ab gently around his eyes and mouth. KEVIN shakes his head as if a thought has escaped him.
JAMIE
I told you, didn’t I? I told you they just look for someone to get ugly at, didn’t I?
KEVIN
I know you said. I know it.
JAMIE
That’s right. Don’t go to the camp with those guys, didn’t I say?
KEVIN mumbles.
What? They said you was what?
KEVIN
I must be… I must be… if I never went then I must be… a bum boy.
JAMIE
They got what they wanted, didn’t they? Merv got you up there.
KEVIN
They they they… was doing…
JAMIE
And that’s what I told you.
KEVIN
They made me… they said if I didn’t do it, they said they was gonna cut my balls up the… (middle) They made me… they made me…
KEVIN starts to bawl.
JAMIE
I don’t want to hear what those pervs made you do. You keep that goddamn stuff to yourself. You hear me?
KEVIN nods holding his head.
Don’t tell nobody. Nobody.
KEVIN
Make those fuckers pay.
JAMIE
You went swimming with the alligators.
KEVIN
Make those fuckers pay.
JAMIE
It was your own goddamn stupid fault. When your eyes is better, when every last bit of blue and green and yellow’s all gone, I’m going to punch them black and blue to teach you a lesson.
KEVIN moans.
You can sleep in Clarence’s chair, it cleans up easier.
JAMIE guides him to the chair and settles him in. He notices
the manila envelope and opens it staring intently at the artist
rendition.
KEVIN
I’m sorry, Jamie.
JAMIE turns the picture over and reads the back. He puts it back.
I’m sorry, Jamie.
JAMIE
F— sorry, Kev.
Merv’s got nothing to do except truck pulp and think up trouble.
I’m telling ya something now because you ain’t going to remember what I’ve told you tomorrow.
KEVIN is half-awake through this.
KEVIN
I’ll ’member, Jame.
JAMIE
No you won’t.
Unless you’ve got extend the memory for alcohol blackouts.
I don’t want you to remember what I’m telling ya anyway because this is something you have to figure out for yourself. You got to take Merv on now. YOU. Because if I have to help you, Merv’s gonna have your balls forever.
KEVIN
No no no no.
JAMIE
Don’t you bawl. Go to sleep.
JAMIE starts to go back to bed.
KEVIN
Jame. They was talking about your stag. They gonna get you
drunked up and dress you up in women’s clothes. They was
saying they’re all going to bring bras and stuff. Merv gonna bring
a maxi-pad he said, to stuff down your panties. After you pass out he gonna take you into town and leave you in the Tim Horton’s parking lot dressed like that.
JAMIE
Okay, Kev. Good thing you told me.
KEVIN
Good on me, eh, Jamie? (He beams, laughing through smashed lips.)
JAMIE
Good on you, bud.
Sleep it all off.
JAMIE leaves.
Lights out.
Scene 5
Midnight, Sunday night. CLARENCE sits in the chair staring at the television screen. The head and shoulders of Travis are on the screen but move in a whirling motion.
CLARENCE
Stop doing that now… stop moving for Chrissakes. I got to talk to you. There’s this place in Scotland, where they got it now that they can clone people. Don’t matter how long you’ve been dead, alls they need is a chip of your bone to get your DNA and they can make you all over again. I’ve been thinking if we took one of Chicky’s eggs and DNA from you… well that’s the thing ya got to let me do the thing… ya got to not care about it so you’ll be born again. The government’s doing it now. The USA government has Johnny and Robbie Kennedy living little kids now, but they’ll be back. Then you’ll see. There will be resurrections, just like that Bible picture you loved, of people out of their graves, looking cured of dirt-bike accidents, and cancers and, well, not AIDS, they’ll make a rule about that, but you’ll be born again. I’ll live to see that, Trav, I’ll live to see that, by God.
The sound of CHICKY and KRISTA arriving.
They are “shhhhhing.”
CLARENCE swallows his drink and scrunches down in his chair like he is sleeping. CHICKY comes in with KRISTA. KRISTA is wearing a shower hat made out of a paper plate with all the ribbons and bows attached from the gifts she opened.
KRISTA stops at the door, noting that the TV is on, and gestures at CHICKY that she won’t come in. CHICKY walks over to the TV, turns it off.
CHICKY
He’s dead to the world.
KRISTA
He’ll wake up if he hears me.
CHICKY holds up an empty rum bottle.
CHICKY
Not sleeping… passed out.
KRISTA
You going to put him to bed?
CHICKY
(Gross.) Not likely.
Take that stupid thing off.
KRISTA
I like wearing it.
I was totally surprised.
When they all shouted surprise, I almost pissed myself.
CHICKY
I thought you had guessed.
KRISTA
No, I swear.
I was so mad when Carol said that.
Who invited her?
CHICKY
It was an open shower.
KRISTA
She just came to say it.
CHICKY
(tired) Yeah, Carol’s a bitch.
KRISTA
If I was you, I’d get pregnant, too.
CHICKY
Right.
KRISTA
Reg would have to leave her then.
CHICKY
Why?
KRISTA
I mean he would want to. He must want you to have his babies.
I want to have Jamie’s. Don’t you want to have his babies?
CHICKY
I haven’t used birth control since I was sixteen.
He might have left her back then, if I had got knocked up.
KRISTA
I hate that expression.
CHICKY laughs.
She is such a cow.
CHICKY laughs.
What are you gonna say when you see him?
CHICKY
Congratulations.
KRISTA
Maybe you should see a doctor.
CHICKY
What for?
KRISTA
Maybe you just got to have some little operation like Mom did. Get your tubes flushed? Well it worked for Mom. She tried to have kids for ten years. She got her tubes flushed, and then Kevin and me came one, two, like that.
CHICKY
Anyway, I know why I can’t have his baby.
KRISTA
Why?
CHICKY
God’s saying to me, “You’re screwing another woman’s husband.
I will not allow his seed to grow in your womb.”
KRISTA
If God had that rule, your mother never would have
had you.
CHICKY
What do you know about it?
KRISTA
Nothing. I heard he was a married man, is all.
CHICKY
Did you “heard” who the married man was?
KRISTA
Nobody knows, do they? Sorry. Anyway “God saying,” that’s weird holy-roller stuff. You don’t even go to church.
CHICKY
This has nothing to do with the church, this is about the balance of… I don’t know. When I lay down in my bed at night, and I put my hand here, I can feel Reg’s sperm running under my fingers… like lamprey eels running up the river. Me not having a baby seems like the way of the world, or something.
Like the world has rules.
Like because of what Mom did to Trav, she caused his cancer.
KRISTA
Nobody can cause a brain tumour.
CHICKY
When she left us he was three years old. The doctor said that tumour started when he was three years old. Maybe when she told him the first time, she told him she was going to come and get him, she said those words, “I’ll get you next week, Trav,” and then she didn’t. Well those words were inside his head with no place to go, so they seeded in his brain, a spore of a tumour started, and got fed all those years with her broken promises until Trav was nine years old and it was incurable.
KRISTA
Carol being pregnant has got you down, Chicky, you don’t think that.
CHICKY
A tumour grew inside his brain and he died.
When Jamie goes on about retards and homosexuals, I think God’s going to make one of your children retarded or gay… Jame boy. See if he doesn’t.
KRISTA
That’s a nice thing to say. They’ll be my kids too.
CHICKY
Don’t marry him.
KRISTA
What?
CHICKY
I’m serious.
KRISTA
We just came from my wedding shower that you put on for me.
CHICKY
You want the wedding, the dress, the scroll tied with a fuchsia ribbon.
You want to see the teachers’ faces when you walk into graduation with a gold band on your finger.
But do you want Jamie?
KRISTA
I’m marrying him, aren’t I?
CHICKY
He can be so hard. You’ve seen him be hard. He’s getting worse.
KRISTA
He won’t be like that when he’s happy.
CHICKY
With you?
KRISTA
He wants to marry me.
CHICKY
Why?
KRISTA
Because. I. Love. Him. Your mother never did. His father goes on and on about Travis Travis Travis as if Jamie was never born. I guess because he’s marrying me, now his sister hates him too.