Bone Cage
Page 6
Merv’s got kids.
KEVIN
He don’t act like it. If you got kids you don’t dig up some other kid’s grave.
JAMIE
No – not some other kid’s grave.
Kev. Go get the sod from Reg, okay?
KEVIN
What about Merv?
CHICKY
You don’t know that it was him.
KEVIN
You kidding? You tell her, Jamie.
JAMIE
Maybe it wasn’t.
KEVIN
Jamie, he did it, I know it, you know it.
JAMIE
I’ll meet you at the grave – make it look like nothing happened there for Betty tomorrow.
KEVIN
Let me, Jamie. I’ll fix it up right.
Then I’m going to go get that son of a bitch.
KEVIN leaves. CHICKY looks at KRISTA.
CHICKY
Are you going to do something?
KRISTA
What? Besides Merv… he started it, right?
Kevin will be a mess in the wedding photos.
CHICKY
I don’t care about your (fucking) wedding pictures.
KRISTA
See, Jamie? Make her stop ruining our wedding.
Well?
I’m going home.
KRISTA seems to expect JAMIE to go with her.
I said I’m going home.
KRISTA leaves clearly angry.
CHICKY
I don’t think even Merv would do something like that.
JAMIE
It don’t matter to Kevin who did it.
He needs for it to be Merv.
CHICKY
Why?
JAMIE
Look, Chicky. Merv did something to Kev, Kev’s got to take Merv on.
If he wants to live around here anyway.
CHICKY
What did he do to Kev to make him so crazy?
JAMIE
I don’t ask what Merv the perv does. You saw him. They got him good and drunk that’s for sure. Maybe they fed him some Viagra, made him look at someone’s dick and told him if his pecker got hard it meant he’s a queer. Anyway, you know they got his underwear off him one way or another.
CHICKY
He’s acting like he’s going to kill Merv.
JAMIE
If Kevin got laid, sis, he’d be all right.
CHICKY
You know he might be the same to me as you.
JAMIE
You’re putting a lot of faith in shit Mom told you.
CHICKY
You tell Kev, that’s enough.
JAMIE
I’ll tell, don’t mean he’ll listen.
CHICKY
When are you going to B.C.?
JAMIE
Soon enough.
CHICKY
Not soon enough.
You’ve had that ad for months.
Have you called?
JAMIE
That ain’t your business, but yes I did.
CHICKY
So you are going?
JAMIE
Soon as I get the money together.
CHICKY
You quit your job.
JAMIE
Danny’s renting the trailer ’til spring. We’ll have enough to move out there by then.
CHICKY
You might have the wedding paid off by then.
Why are you marrying her? It’s not like you’re lovesick.
JAMIE
Now you sound like her. “Do you love me? Do you really really love me”? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccckkkkkkk.
CHICKY
She’ll stop you from going.
JAMIE
No she won’t. Krista’s going too.
CHICKY
You’d do better on your own.
JAMIE
I need one person with me who knows me.
CHICKY
You marry her, you’ll be stuck.
She’ll get pregnant…
JAMIE
No, we ain’t having kids for a long time.
CHICKY
You’re being a stupid married man, and you’re not even married.
JAMIE
Yeah, I heard Carol’s preggers.
CHICKY
Yeah, well, so I know what I’m talking about.
JAMIE
You know, sis, old Reggie’s using you up, same as he’s using up the interval land. What are you sticking around for?
CHICKY
Haven’t you noticed I’ve been taking care of you?
JAMIE
So now you don’t have to. And don’t wait around here for some someday family reunion. Mom probably doesn’t know who your father is, for sure.
CHICKY
I can’t stand living with you sometimes.
JAMIE
I’m not saying anything against you. It’s her I’m talking about.
CHICKY
You used to have a heart. You used to have feelings.
JAMIE
Yeah?
CHICKY
You weren’t like this before.
JAMIE
Before when?
CHICKY
I don’t know. Before Travis died. Before you quit school.
Before you started drinking every day.
JAMIE
You know what I feel these days?
CHICKY
What?
JAMIE
(pause) Nothing.
CHICKY
No… tell me.
JAMIE
Nothing is what I feel after a twelve-hour night shift shaking inside that machine. Hearing everything outside it get tore up. The men say don’t walk around a section you’ve just clear cut. Earl and them say if it makes you feel bad don’t do it. I can’t just walk away… leave things half-dead and dying.
CHICKY
Is that why you’re drinking, causing trouble with Merv?
JAMIE
Merv isn’t anything. All that is just… something stupid to do.
What makes you feel better after a sunny afternoon of stripping the top soil off interval land?
CHICKY
I certainly don’t go beating up people.
JAMIE
Have you looked at Reg’s wife lately? Carol looks like you’ve given her a bruising more than once.
CHICKY
Jesus.
JAMIE
And you’re worried about what I’m doing to Merv’s kids?
CHICKY
Jesus you’ve got some nerve.
Well, I’m not being the maid of honour for your funeral.
JAMIE
I told her you will.
CHICKY walks out the door.
You are right, sis, I have some nerve, but it’s shot to hell.
Nothing another beer won’t fix.
JAMIE takes a long drink.
Lights out.
Scene 11
Thursday, early evening, KRISTA is sitting at the table. A garment bag is draped over the table.
CHICKY comes in from work and half turns to leave when she sees KRISTA.
KRISTA
Hi.
CHICKY
Hi.
KRISTA
I brought your dress. She did a good job hemming it.
CHICKY looks at her puzzled.
Jamie told me you’re still gonna be my maid of honour.
CHICKY
He did? Oh what the (fuck). Yeah, yeah.
KRISTA
Thanks for, you know, saying you’ll do it.
I think you were right. I should have gone with black heels not
white sandals with the fuchsia dress.
CHICKY
It doesn’t matter. (trying again) It’ll look okay. Good.
KRISTA
I’m trying so hard to make everything nice.
CHICKY fiddles with a smoke but doesn’t light it.
I was talking to Reg’s wife.
She said something I thought I should tell you.
CHICKY
Why would I want to know what she says?
You’re thinking like a wife.
KRISTA
Carol said that at the beginning when Reg started seeing you, she never stopped him because you was in love with him, and you was only fifteen and she couldn’t bear to see you hurt that bad.
CHICKY
What’s that supposed to mean?
KRISTA
She was being nice.
CHICKY
What are you telling me that for?
KRISTA
Don’t you want to know it?
CHICKY
I didn’t say I’d be your maid of honour, but I’ll be your maid of
honour, but don’t you ever talk to me again!
KRISTA
Chicky… Chicky.
We’re doing the groom’s family pictures here at 2:30.
You can come get ready at my house if you want.
CHICKY ignores her. KRISTA leaves.
Lights down.
Scene 12
Late Thursday night. CHICKY is curled up on the couch, asleep. CLARENCE comes in carrying a well-wrapped parcel ready for the mail. He takes an apple from the sideboard and a large jack-knife from his pocket. He cuts the apple with the knife bringing pieces to his mouth on the knife. He watches CHICKY. He goes to the couch and kneels beside her. He leans into her, laying his hand reverently on her belly.
As soon as his hand touches her, she wakes and pushes him hard onto the floor.
CHICKY
Get the fuck away from me.
CLARENCE
Chicky, I need to talk to you.
She sees the knife.
CHICKY
Jesus, what are you doing with that knife?
What you coming at me with a knife for?
CLARENCE
Here.
He gives the knife to her.
I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was sitting at the table eating an apple is all, and I got to thinking about you, Chicky.
CHICKY
I don’t want you thinking about me.
How would you like it if I came at you with a knife? Uh? Uh? I’m the one who’s got reason to do it, too.
CLARENCE
I was eating an apple, Chicky, that’s all.
CHICKY
Couldn’t hold me down that time, so you gonna do it with a knife.
CLARENCE
I wasn’t touching you like that that time.
You thought I was touching you like that?
CHICKY
You crawled into my bed.
CLARENCE
I was missing Trav.
That’s all. I swear on Trav’s grave that’s all.
Did I ever once before, or after that, bother you, Chicky?
No, not once, you know it.
CHICKY
You just had your hand on my zipper.
CLARENCE
No, not on your zipper. I was touching you there, because what you got inside is precious, Chicky.
CHICKY
What are you raving about?
CLARENCE
Mom’s eggs are past it now. She used them goddamn hard anyway. They won’t work for this, not her eggs but you’re his half sister and you’re only twenty-five…. Listen! There’s this place, Chicky. There’s this place that can clone Travis. Alls you need is good eggs, your eggs would be good for this, and his DNA – I got that.
CHICKY
You’re crazy. Nothing’s going to bring him back.
CLARENCE
This will.
CHICKY
How can you be so stupid? They’re taking your money off you.
That’s all they’re doing. There isn’t a place where they clone people.
CLARENCE
Give me your eggs and I’ll show you.
CHICKY holds the knife up to her belly.
CHICKY
What do you want? You want me to slice open my belly and hand them to you like this? Like this?
CLARENCE
They don’t need to cut you open, they wash them out.
Then they take the DNA from Trav…
CHICKY
Travis. Travis. I know I’m not a blood relative. I know that, but I’ve lived in your house since I was three years old. Doesn’t that mean anything?
CLARENCE
You was awful good to Travis. You watched him and talked to him.
He always wanted Chicky after he got sick.
CHICKY
That’s the only thing? What I did for Travis.
Don’t you ever see me?
Donalda— (fuck) I hate my name.
Has anyone ever seen me my whole life?
CLARENCE
I’d sit and watch him lying next to you, his face whiter than the
hospital sheets.
That time, Chicky, that one time I thought if I could lay next to you like he had, maybe I could stand him being…
CHICKY
Dead.
Dead.
Artist’s renditions, make-believe cloning places won’t change that.
CLARENCE
I’m telling you it will work.
I’m sending his DNA.
CHICKY
Was it you?
Oh, Dad, it wasn’t you, was it? Digging up Trav’s grave?
CLARENCE
Kevin told you. It was Merv.
CHICKY
I know what Kev wants to think.
Where did you get his DNA from, then?
CLARENCE picks up the parcel holding it tightly.
CLARENCE
We got things around.
CHICKY
You couldn’t dig up his grave, could you, Dad?
CLARENCE
I got his baby teeth, don’t I?
CHICKY
Is that what you’re sending them, you swear it?
Show me what you’re sending them.
CLARENCE
I don’t got to show you nothing.
Are you going to give your eggs to Trav or not?
CHICKY
No, Clarence.
CLARENCE
I thought you loved him.
I thought, “Chicky will help me bring him home.”
CHICKY
No. No!
CLARENCE
No, but you’ll let that one stink them up.
Yes, I mean Reg.
CHICKY
Reg isn’t you, Clarence, he don’t want anything from me. He don’t ask me to clean his house or clean up his shit. Reg is the one person in my life who loves me. Reg. When Travis died he held me, the only one, he held me. He’s loved me since I was fourteen.
CLARENCE
You ain’t fourteen stupid anymore.
Reg gets the only thing he wants from you every time he spreads your legs.
CHICKY
Jesus jumping Christ.
She lunges at him. CLARENCE leaves quickly.
I’ll do it, too. I swear I will.
CHICKY puts the knife down on the table.
Lights dow
n.
Scene 13
Saturday afternoon. CHICKY sits at the table sipping wine. CLARENCE is watching TV. LISSA bursts in with KEVIN close behind.
LISSA
Hi, Chicky. Where’s the bride?
CHICKY
She’s fixing her dress, Lissa, what are you doing?
LISSA
Keving said I can watch.
KEVIN
She was already waiting at the church. I told her it was gonna be
a hour before it started. Krista won’t care, will she?
CHICKY
Probably.
KEVIN
You sit here, Lissa. Stay out of Krista’s way.
LISSA
Okay.
JAMIE and KRISTA come out of the bedroom together.
KRISTA
Well, is your mother coming or not?
CHICKY
She said she would see you at the church, Jamie, or the firehall for sure. She said to tell you she’ll make one hell of a grandmother.
JAMIE
I told you she wouldn’t come here for the pictures.
LISSA
I like your bride’s dress, Krista.
KRISTA
What is she doing here?
CHICKY
She can watch, can’t she, Jamie?
JAMIE
Okay with me.
KRISTA
Nobody is supposed to see the bride before the wedding.
CHICKY
We’re all seeing her, one more won’t matter.
LISSA
That’s a pretty bride veil…
KRISTA
Don’t talk to me, Lissa.
Okay. You heard, (referring to the photographer) the groom’s family first.
CLARENCE, JAMIE and CHICKY move as though they are being directed by a photographer. JAMIE sits and the others gather behind him. They hold a pose as KRISTA speaks her monologue. On the last photo CLARENCE holds the picture of Trav to his chest.
When I was a kid I had a thing about jackets and coats.
Jeez I hated walking the road in a new one. Thinking all those moms looking out their kitchen windows, and people driving by asking themselves, “Now who is that walking down the road.”
Like for a day or something nobody would know who I was.
That won’t ever happen when Jamie and I are married.
Marrying Jamie, people will always know who I am.
LISSA
Keving, how come you’re not in the picture?
KRISTA
Lissa, shhhhh.
You’ll have to leave.
LISSA
Pretty shoes.
KRISTA
Bride and groom with groom’s parents… parent.
JAMIE, KRISTA and CLARENCE pose.
CHICKY moves away. She starts to speak as they go through the poses.