America Finding Her Way
Page 16
deep, dizzy- ) Hate...?
Jen: You never told me you were married in Canada, Mother.
Kate: (Disoriented) Baby, please...
Jen: There's a flip over your registration. Mike's afraid it'll get out.
Kate: Oh god.
Jen: So, you weren't married till I was three?
Kate: (On overload) Jen...
Jen: And I'm a bastard. Jamy's your heir.
Kate: That's bullshit, and you know it! If it mattered, I'd have made sure you knew.
Jen: Can you tell me, for starters, who my father is?!
Kate: (Flaring) A lot better than I can tell you Jamy's!
(Jen stunned. Clutching the box, she backs away)
Kate: (Collapsing) Jen, wait.
Jen: It's Mike, isn't it.
Kate: Why are you so young?
Jen: It is him.
Kate: Like you’re always on fire.
Jen: Am I like you?
Kate: More than one thing can be true, Jen.
Jen: And you left them both.
Kate: It didn't work, Baby. We threw our lives away.
Jen: On the war? Did both men fail you?
Kate: (Breathless, beaten) Jen...
(Phone rings)
Kate: (Picking it up) Yes, I'll do it. He'll be ready. (Lowering the phone) Dr Nicklaus is waiting for Jamy.
(Turned to stone, Kate prepares Jamy to be transferred. Jen starts to leave, then stops in the door– )
Jen: If you don't stand with Daddy now, he'll throw this nomination away. Is that what Jamy wants?
Kate: (Rigid, careful, as she works– ) Your father's not that simple. Back then, he was rebelling.
Jen: Against Jacob?
Kate: What else? We’re all debris from our parents' wars.
Jen: Not this time. The crimes of his father will not be visited on Daddy.
Kate: (Shaking, her hands on Jamy) Then you tell me what Jamy wants! I swear I’ll listen. I will!
(Upper level – glow begins, will reveal Gaia facing sunrise – arms stretched toward it. Below, Jen is frightened by Kate, backs away– )
Jen: I don't know. (Runs out, clutching box)
Kate: Tell me!! (Collapses, sobbing uncontrollably)
(Above, Mike appears, mud-covered, weak, and sees Gaia)
Mike: (Gasps) Gaia! I’ve been looking…everywhere...
(Gaia will not stop her prayer)
Mike: Gaia, is it you? Answer me!
Gaia: Hmmmph. Blind as ten bats.
Mike: The boy needs you. Jamy needs you. Please. He’s…
Gaia: Straighten up, will you? Couldn’t wipe your own nose. The father stands straight!
Mike: I’ll take you to Jamy, Gaia. Will you come? Please come with me.
Gaia: Got a coffee? Dark, three sugars. Don’t spill it.
(Scrim filled with ocean, loud surf, dawn is breaking. Kate, bent over Jamy, doesn't hear Mike stumble in. He touches her)
Mike: Kate...
(Feeling his touch, she turns into him, embraces him, desperately weeping)
Kate: Oh, Mike...
(Jen has returned, stands in the door, watching Mike and Kate)
Mike: (Still holding Kate) I found her.
Kate: (Gasping) Gaia?
Mike: Standing at the water. Her arms stretched to sunrise.
Kate: Oh god...he'll wake for her.
Mike: She's downstairs. She wants Alan. She won't come up unless she sees him.
Kate: (Running to door) I'll find him. Ring here if Jamy... If anything... (Seeing Jen, embraces her) It's all right, Baby. It's all right now.
(Kate rushes away. Mike, looks at Jen, and bends over Jamy)
Jen: (Pause) It's Mom you came back for, isn't it?
Mike: He feels Gaia near. He has to.
Jen: I must have been a nuisance. Forever untying your shoelaces.
Mike: (Looks at Jen. Beat. Carefully– ) Alan ran off to Canada. Kate was angry. I was there.
Jen: Then you left, too, for the war?
Mike: Yes.
Jen: And Jamy?
Mike: (Pause) We didn't know.
Jen: (Lump in her throat) Does she love you?
Mike: Who knows? Anymore than then. It's not so strange. Something about connection.
Jen: (Hard) The same fire?
Mike: Oh my darling Jen, please don’t worry. Your father, my friend...is a king; I’ll serve him well.
Jen: Then you and Mom…
Mike: In a right world with love in it, the queen stands with the king. I came back for them both, Jen. I need all of you.
(Mike lays his head on Jamy. Jen watches, then brings the clipping she spread out)
Jen: He was Lakota. You want to see?
Mike: (Picks up the clipping) Amay-jabul! Oh Jen.
Jen: It's out of Jacob's files. Long before Jamy.
(Excited, Mike puts clipping into projector. On scrim: First, the masthead of newspaper, then sweep to a photo like Jamy's dream: It is an antique picture of a boy famine victim, carrying a smaller girl)
Mike: (Reading caption) "Amay-jabul, a seven-year-old Lakota Indian, carries his sister Fanel on a forced relocation march. Their mother, Gaia, collapsed in the dry river bed two days earlier."
Jen: (Quietly, moved– ) Earth was given to all, but they no longer had a place in it, and…they were bewildered by this evil that was killing them.
Mike: (Nearly weeping) Jamy, I found Gaia. She’s coming to you.
Kate: (In the door) Alan’s with her. Feels like she’s…raw power.
Mike: (Smiling) Yeah – regular force field. I’ll go down. (Exits)
(Kate moves to Jamy, and places the stone in his hand)
Jen: You think Gaia can wake him?
Kate: If anyone on earth can. (Calm) Jen?
(Kate waits till Jen looks at her)
Kate: You think I hate this country?
Jen: It’s all I remember – you raging against the USA.
Kate: But that’s not hate.
Jen: Don’t give me that, Mother. This hate of yours is the fiercest thing in my life!
Kate: (Breaking) Because it’s not hate. It’s love! Don’t you know? Can’t you tell? I love this country. Much too much.
(Kate shaken; Jen wants to embrace her, but can’t move)
Jen: Then why…?
Kate: Because it hurts so much, when we do evil.
Jen: Mother, I…
(Overcome, Kate cups Jamy’s hand, and the stone in it. When she looks up, her face is radiant)
Kate: Look here. It’s only a little stone, but it’s everything to Jamy. Like dirt we run through our fingers – it’s nothing…but life itself. So I’m going find what this stone means to Jamy. But I’ll tell you, I think it means Gaia. This Gaia, every Gaia. He found her, and he cares. And that’s all we need.
Jen: Mom…
Kate: Tell me, Jen – who are we to remove Gaia’s home, and make it painful, dangerous, impossible for her to live? Have we more right to life than she, because we’re richer? Who will protect the Gaias, if not us? We have to hold all this life! (Beat) I don’t know how I’ll do it, Jen. But this wrong is burning in me now. So I promise you, and Jamy, that this fire will not die until I know what to do…and see it done.
Jen: (Staring at Kate, pause) I didn’t…want to tell you…
Kate: Don’t say anything.
Jen: Mimi says Wakanda is yours.
Kate: What?
Jen: (Hands Kate the box) She said “Now it’s Kate’s.”
Kate: What does she think I’ll do? (Beat) Do you understand what it is, Jen? It’s huge.
Jen: Guess she decided you’re her heir after all.
Kate: Before her son? She’s taking away with one hand, and… She’s trying to drive us somewhere.
Jen: She knows you’re against Daddy.
Her attorney’s bringing papers this afternoon.
Kate: (Hugs the box to her) Wakanda.
Alan: (In the door) Dr Nicklaus won’t let Gaia up.
Kate: I’ll deal with him. (She doesn’t move) Alan?
Alan: What.
(Kate extends the box toward Alan)
Jen: Mom…
Kate: This box has come for you.
Alan: Leave it, and come.
Kate: Yes.
(Kate places the box gently below Jamy’s feet, then leaves with Alan. Jen puts her hand on the box, looking at it, then speaks tough to Jamy)
Jen: You sure do know how to make a scene. (Beat) But I dare you to do one I can’t handle, you little brat. (Fighting tears) Look at you – left us on our own again. Useless grownups. (Beat) So wake up now, Ok? (Beat) Tell you what, you’re right. Daddy could be a Chief. “Whatever you need from a Chief, he gives it to you. His whole heart, his whole mind…for his people.” And Mama. Jamy, you’ll never guess what Mama promised.
(Jen leans and kisses Jamy. As she draws back again, his head turns toward her)
Jen: Jamy? (Excited, watching him) Do you feel Gaia? She’s coming.
Jamy: (Murmur, eyes closed) Gaia.
Jen: Yes!
Alan: (Coming through the door) Mom's getting her way with Nicklaus. When they come up... (Sees Jamy) He moved his head?!
Jen: Yes.
(Excited, they watch Jamy. Mike's at the door)
Mike: They're coming.
Alan: He moved.
(Mike sits at Jamy's feet, picking up the box to make room. Jen takes it from him)
Jen: Wakanda.
Mike: What?
Jen: (Opening the box) Look in the box, Dad. Now.
(Alan, reluctant to take his eyes off Jamy, lifts out a document)
Alan: It's...a third of the Project, the missing tract.
Jen: Mimi gave it to Mom.
Alan: She’s been sitting on it, and now she's handing it over?
Jen: She said "Alan's become Jacob. His action be damned."
Alan: What do you think?
Mike: I think nobody can run you.
(Kate appears, breathless. Alan's putting the deed back in the box)
Jen: Mom!
Kate: Gaia's on the floor. (Swiftly bends to examine Jamy). They wrapped her. It's grotesque. She doesn't seem to notice. (Cry of pleasure) He's asleep! Only asleep now!
Mike: (Dropping to embrace Jamy's feet) Jamy!
Kate: (Sees Alan with box) You have Wakanda? Now you can do anything. (Takes a deep breath) Jamy may not...recognize us. It's normal. Don't...
(Silence. All are poised, waiting)
Mike: His eyes!
(Jamy opens his eyes)
Alan: (Softly) Jamy.
(Gaia appears, wrapped completely in white. She stands. Distant drums)
Jamy: Gaia?
Gaia: The child is awake.
Kate: Yes, Gaia. The child, too.
(Distant cheering. Alan looks at Kate, then places box in Jamy's hands. On scrim, in blending layers – wilderness, then Indian camp, then city, and so forth...as Gaia stands over the gathered family)
END OF PLAY
TRACKING BLOOD WHITE
A magic tale set in America, now.
A dying town vs. its Native American neighbors and a killer bear
that haunts the mountain they share.
Action is conjured by a company on an open stage. Scenes flow like story theatre, from tavern to forest to everywhere.
Lighting and sound are important. Thin pine trunks and a giant sky are ideal.
Needs 6 women, 4 men, a child
CHARACTERS
MATU-------old as can be, Native American – warm as earth, angry as fire, has nearly forgotten her dreams.
BEN---------barkeep, (doubles HOYATU) – town anchor, solid, wry.
DOVE-------barmaid – half-soul, sexy, battered.
JIMBO------hunter – man’s man, joker with a good heart.
KAT---------Jimbo's wife – funny, wise, resilient, with secret sorrow.
TEDDY-----young hunter – rangy, like a colt trying on life.
FAYE-------Teddy's wife – melting bride, a step ahead of Teddy.
BRAD-------hunter – virile local hero, nature-loving builder who’s losing his loved ones.
LENA-------Brad's wife – transplanted artist, vivacious until crushed by her child’s trouble.
JAWEA-----(sounds like “Maria”), teen's, Native American – found soul, rough, serene in her healing ability, but defenseless.
SALLY-------young as can be, Lena and Brad's daughter – bright, sweet-natured, but ill - lost herself in the woods
HOYATU----old as can be, Native American (doubles Ben) – cynical, bitter, his immense power is crumbling with rust.
TRACKING BLOOD WHITE
Prologue – Campfire
Dark. Drum that fades to wood flute. From dark. Soothing voice of Matu telling Jawea the story. Gradually flickering glow of campfire reveals