KEVIN
You’re not my sister.
CHICKY
(lightly) Krista and I fight like sisters.
KEVIN
No. With you I know I… with you, Chicky, I could… (do it).
CHICKY
Give yourself a chance. Don’t let the pricks around here take you down.
She kisses his cheek lightly. Chicky hands him the carving. Kevin hands it back to her.
KEVIN
I carved it for you. Prickly on the outside, soft on the inside, (pause) like you, Donalda. (speaking with a bravado he doesn’t really feel)
I hope Dad was a cheating bastard.
CHICKY
You are a good guy, Kev.
Sound of a cop car in the distance.
KEVIN
Shit. (pleading with sound) I’m sorry, okay. I’m sorry.
CHICKY
Go, go tell them you’re sorry.
KEVIN
Before they find me? (pause) Will they go easier on me?
CHICKY
If you tell them what Merv did.
KEVIN
No way. I’ll go find them, tell them I am sorry what I done tonight, but I’m never telling the cops what happened at the camp.
CHICKY
You going to stay out of his way now?
KEVIN
Merv won’t be able to find me, I’ll be at the Curl Hole getting that pine out.
CHICKY
Good.
KEVIN
Okay. Okay. Take you back to the dance, or are you waiting for… (Reg) ?
CHICKY
No. (pause) I’m waiting for the right (pause) time.
KEVIN
To go back? You and Krista will get over it, you two always do.
CHICKY
Good luck, Kevin.
CHICKY moves in and hugs him. He clings to her, then slowly breaks away and goes up the bank. CHICKY takes off her shoes.
A car arrives. As she moves to the river to dip her toes in one last time, JAMIE comes down the bank.
JAMIE
How’s it hanging, sis?
CHICKY
What are you doing here?
JAMIE
Down here in the dark is where I fit.
CHICKY
Did you see Kev on the road? He’s got himself into a pile of trouble.
JAMIE
A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
CHICKY
That is so stupid.
JAMIE opens the beer he is carrying. He indicates that he is right in this matter.
Where’s Krista?
JAMIE
Waiting in the car. She don’t want to ruin that white thing she’s wearing.
CHICKY
Nice, you guys are fighting. Wow, nine hours of wedded bliss.
JAMIE
(shrugs) Hey what can I say?
What are you doing down here?
CHICKY
I’m waiting ’til I’m sure Clarence will be asleep then I’m getting my clothes and getting out of there. I won’t live in that house, not after what he did.
JAMIE
Where are you going to?
CHICKY
I have no idea – far, far away.
JAMIE
Taking Reg with ya?
CHICKY
I’m a lay to him.
I’m what makes him a big man at the firehall.
I use to think it was love when we’d sneak out of the dance for a quick screw in the back seat of his car. I’d walk into that hall after and think they was all seeing that I had won something.
Tonight I wanted to hurt him like I’ve been hurting for… (ten years).
When he came out to the car I was gonna stick your hunting knife into him, not kill him, but stick it somewhere that I could be the only explanation. “Chicky did it. Did you hear? Chicky did it.”
JAMIE
Why didn’t ya?
CHICKY
He never came out. Promised he would but he didn’t.
JAMIE
Hey. Say the word and I’ll lay the beating on him he deserves.
CHICKY
He isn’t worth it. Reg is the worst kind of a shit. (at the moon) You fucking shit! That’s what I’m saying tonight, but I’m scared if I’m here tomorrow and he comes around smiling, I’ll fall back down the Reg well.
So I’m going.
JAMIE
Good, sis. Good on you.
CHICKY
What about you?
JAMIE
What about me?
CHICKY
What if I go out to where the heli-logging training is? Get set up in a place. You and Krista can come stay with me while you’re doing your training.
JAMIE
(mildly) Sounds good, sis.
CHICKY
I mean it.
JAMIE
(mildly) F’ing A.
CHICKY
You’re married now, we can leave together.
JAMIE
Yup… next spring.
CHICKY
Why not now?
JAMIE
Do you know how much it costs to fly a helicopter from this life to a new life?
CHICKY
But you said you’re going to get the money together, right?
JAMIE
Twenty-five thousand, no forty thousand dollars ’cause we’re flying at night.
CHICKY
Fuzzy…
JAMIE
Yeah…
CHICKY
Doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Krista can get a job. She’s not totally helpless.
JAMIE
Ah ah ah. Answer me this. If helicopter A left helipad B at C midnight and helicopter X left helipad T at 8 a.m. flying F backwards, how much math would you have to know to get to the goddamn fucking moon.
He throws the beer bottle towards the moon.
CHICKY
Jamie…
JAMIE
Hey, I know the answer and the answer is “Fucked if I know.”
CHICKY
You can learn the math. You’re not dumb.
JAMIE
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CHICKY
I can’t wait until spring, Jamie. I’m leaving tonight while I am too scared to stay.
She picks up her handbag.
You coming back to the car? Your bride is waiting.
JAMIE
In a minute. Nature calls. You were a mother of a sister to me, Chicky.
CHICKY
You’re Krista’s problem now.
CHICKY moves in to give him a hug but he neatly avoids it.
JAMIE
You going so I can take a whiz, or what?
CHICKY
See ya. I’ll call.
CHICKY goes up the bank.
Lights down.
Scene 15
Lights up. KRISTA makes her way down the bank in her wedding dress. She has JAMIE’s white tux jacket draped around her shoulders. The bottom of the dress is muddy.
KRISTA
Jamie, I’ve been waiting forever. Look at my dress. Mud won’t come out either.
Jamie we got to get back to the dance. Jamie! You said you was only stopping to have one smoke then we was going back.
KRISTA sees his wedding shoes next to the shore.
Jamie. Jamie.
Lights up on “the high,” the top of the bridge frame. JAMIE, drunk, sways slightly as he looks down at her.
JAMIE
Nice dress. You look like a ghost.
KRISTA
It’s
wrecked, thanks to you.
Get down here and get your shoes on.
JAMIE
You ain’t the boss of me. (laughs)
KRISTA
We got our wedding guests at the firehall.
JAMIE
They ain’t the boss of me, either.
KRISTA
You didn’t have to get mad at me.
You were the one telling everyone we’re going to B.C.
I never said I would go to B.C., Jamie.
JAMIE howls like a coyote.
Don’t be doing that, you’re not jumping.
Jamie, you hear me, you are not jumping off the high on our wedding night. Jesus, Jamie, it’s dark! You can’t see where you’re jumping to.
JAMIE howls again, louder, wilder.
If you jump, Jamie, I will never talk to you again.
You listen. I won’t, not one word I won’t. I’ll be like Chicky’s being to me, for the rest of our lives.
I won’t talk to you, Jamie, you frigging, Jamie.
JAMIE howls but it is broken off. JAMIE disappears from sight.
JAMIE
Jesus Jesus Jesus sweet fucking Christ
The waters never seemed so far away.
I ain’t drunk enough! Jesus, I ain’t drunk enough.
Ain’t I in the water yet?
Where’s that fucking hole?
I see it now.
I see it.
Fucking Christ I’m missing it.
It’s way the fuck over there.
It’s too fucking late. I’m hitting the water.
It’s like entering Krista when she’s dry and I’m hard.
Pop pop pop my backbones are whipping back my neck
Snapping my head like a chain strung too tight letting go.
Jesus, is this it?
This is it then?
Krista out there standing by the water got her hands cupped like she’s gonna say my name.
Gonna call me back.
I stare up, up through the surface waiting for Krista to say,
waiting for her words to break through the blue of it.
But then the water is like a screen and I’m watching our life together played out.
I’m seeing it, Krista, our life you and me.
I see that baby you got curled inside of you that you don’t know about yet, only he’s four years old.
He’s four and he’s just shit himself because of the beating I laid on you
So I slap you again to teach him not to shit himself.
And I see that Christmas, I’ll put the tree and all the presents out in the snow
Because you forgot to get my beer
And it’s Christmas Eve and I don’t got my goddamn beer.
Krista
Krista call my name
And I’ll come out of the water
And we’ll go back to the dance.
Next week when we know about the baby in you, Earl’s gonna call me up. Tells me he’s gonna sell the tree processor. Tells me if I buy it he’ll hold the mortgage for me. And I do it ’cause maybe it’s the way a dumb ass can get somewheres. And I’m inside the machine every night, I’m doing it, taking the woods down in two counties ’cause there is always the payment, the goddamn fucking (this is Jamie’s most deeply felt moment – it is of a fox forced to chew off its own leg to escape the steel trap) payments.
The alcohol’s always right there, too, so I don’t have to think about why I never went away that time.
The bird in the cage is me.
I am the bird of death, with the soul of the woods in my beak.
Only I can’t say that stuff except with my fists.
One night I must have been changing a hose they tell ya.
I must’ve disconnected the kill switch on the seat they say.
I took a stupid chance and she shifted and I lost my balance or
I jumped and over she went on to me they tell you, and the cops are at the door telling you I’m dead.
But you ain’t sad, you’re scared.
When they give you my wallet you find the ticket to the jewellery store in town.
You find out I got forty dollars down on a heart ring for you for Christmas. When you put that ring on your finger the bad things,
the ugly things is all gone.
You pay it off and you wear it telling the boys how it was a surprise and how much I really loved you.
And I can’t say if I hadn’t died that day if I ever would have paid it off ’cause maybe you would have made me mad.
Or I needed to fix the truck and I might have gone in and got my money back.
I see it all, Krista.
I see it all.
If you call my name, just once
If you say it, say “Jamie”
My backbone strings itself together
Heals itself just like that (snaps fingers) and I’ll come out of the river,
You’ll dance in your wedding dress
And everything will happen just as I’ve said.
Alls you got to say is “Jamie”
Say “Jamie” and all this will come to pass.
There is a very long pause as KRISTA waits for JAMIE to break the surface.
KRISTA
I swear to God.
I swear to God.
I told you not to.
I told you.
You ain’t coming up
You ain’t coming up.
You shit
I hate you.
You fucking fucker.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Jamie.
JAMIE walks out to her. He picks up his shoes. He holds out his hand. KRISTA notices the knife on the beach. She picks it up and hands it to Jamie. As they walk over the bridge JAMIE is staring straight ahead and KRISTA is staring up at his face.
The end.
Acknowledgements
To Tessa Mendel, who both dramaturged and directed the first production of Bone Cage. Thank you for your tough, insightful questions. Your unwavering belief in my work these past fifteen years has been a lifeline.
This play was written with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. A first draft of Bone Cage was commissioned by Mulgrave Road Theatre through a Nova Scotia Arts Commissioning grant.
The playwright gratefully acknowledges the support of Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre, the National Arts Centre’s On the Verge 2005, Exodus Theatre, ScriptLab (Toronto), Playwrights Workshop Montreal, Theatre B.C. National Play Competition 2002, Forerunner Playwrights Co-op, Ship’s Company Theatre, and Nova Scotia Tourism, Culture and Heritage.
Special thanks to: Andrea Dymond, Natasha MacLellan, Pamela Halstead, Tessa Mendel, Philip Adams, Jenny Munday, Paula Danckert, Janis Spence, Leah Hamilton, Laura McLauchlan, Karen Klee Atlin, Lenora Steele, Chris Heide, John Dunsworth, Christine Birnie, Angela Rebeiro, Annie Gibson, Jodi Armstrong, Don Hannah, Peter Rogers, Garnet C. Banks, Tom Banks, Dan and Diana Banks, Claudia Mitchell and my parents Garnet and Kathleen Banks.
About the Playwright
Other plays by Catherine Banks include Eula’s Offer, The Summer of the Piping Plover (UpStart Theatre); Three Storey Ocean View (Mulgrave Road Theatre, Toronto Equity Showcase); and Bitter Rose (Women’s Theatre and Creativity Centre). Bitter Rose has aired on Bravo! Canada. Her work has been performed in Manitoba, Toronto and St. John’s at the LSPU Hall. Three Storey Ocean View won the Silver Medal in the 1995 du Maurier National Play Competition and was nominated for a Merrit Award for best new play in 2000. Bone Cage was awarded the Special Merit prize in the 2002 Theatre B.C. New Play Competition, was showcased at the National Arts Centre’s On the Verge 2005 and won the 2008 Governor General’s Literary
Award for Drama. Catherine is also the recepient of the 2008 Nova Scotia Established Artist Award. Her work is poetic, darkly humorous, courageous and beautifully theatrical. Some of her characters, Lud in Three Storey Ocean View and Clarence in Bone Cage, have been described as Atlantic Gothic. She currently lives and writes in Sambro, Nova Scotia.
Bone Cage © Copyright 2007 Catherine Banks
The poem “Bird Cage,” F.R. Scott’s translation of “Cage d’Oiseau” by Saint-Denys Garneau is used with the permission of William Toye, Literary Executor to the Estate of F. R. Scott.
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Front cover painting Flooded Stand of Pine by Karen Klee-Atlin. Acrylic on wood,
45 x 45 x 9 cm, 2007.
Cover Design and Production Editor: JLArt
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada.
ISBN: 978-1-77091-034-8
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