MARY ANNE: No.
JT (savoring it): Mariana.
MARY ANNE (delighted): Yeah?
JT: Now, that sounds about right, don’t it? Got all the right colors in it and everything. Mariana.
MARY ANNE: Mariana. (She giggles.)
Beat.
JT: Mariana.
He moves closer to her. There is a noise offstage. Both turn, startled, as a TEENAGE BOY steps out of the underbrush, cradling a shotgun loosely under one arm.
MARY ANNE (flustered): Oh. Hi, Tommy. Umm . . . JT, this is Tommy Jackson. Tommy, this is—
TOMMY: “Just Terrific” Wells. Yeah, I heard.
JT: Ah, the boyfriend, yes? Well, it’s a rare pleasure to make your acquaintance, young man. You’re a very lucky fellow . . .
He starts towards Tommy, hand outstretched, but stops when the boy shifts his gun.
. . . but I guess you know that.
TOMMY (laconically): I been told.
JT: Yes, well . . .
MARY ANNE: Be nice, Tommy.
TOMMY: Like you were?
MARY ANNE: We weren’t doin’ nothin’.
TOMMY: Not yet anyways.
JT: Now, Mr. Jackson, I think there’s just a little misunderstanding here. . . .
TOMMY: Take another step, Mr. “Just Terrific,” and I’m gonna misunderstand a hole the size of a butternut squash in the middle of your chest.
MARY ANNE (moving between them): Now damn it, Tommy, you just put that gun up right now, you hear me? Right this minute. Or I ain’t never gonna speak to you again, as long as I live!
TOMMY (grudgingly obeying): Well, what’s he doin’ here, huh? Answer me that!
MARY ANNE: Well, I’m sure I don’t know, Mr. High and Mighty—why don’t you just ask him yourself? You ever think of that? No, I guess not. I guess some people been up the creek and outta town so long that they plum forget their manners. Mr. Wells, would you be good enough to tell this poor, ignorant hillbilly what you’d be doin’ in these parts?
JT (grinning): Well, now, that’d be a real pleasure, Miss Rowen. Fact of the matter is, I’m here to see your daddy.
Stunned silence.
MARY ANNE: My pa?
JT: Well, if your daddy’s a Mr. Jed Rowen of Howsen County, Kentucky, currently living up on Shilling Creek, I guess I am. I’m a storyteller!
Blackout
Fast country music, violins and mandolin, fading up and then down into general laughter.
SCENE TWO
Lights up to reveal the interior of the Rowen house. JT, Mary Anne, Tommy, JED ROWEN, and his wife, LALLIE, are all seated around a wooden plank table, the remains of a country dinner in front of them.
JT: I tell you, Jed, there ain’t nothing like a home-cooked meal. Now, you might think a traveling man like myself, eating at some fancy restaurant every day of the week, is a man to be envied. But there are moments, sir, when I’d trade it all, every green bean almondine and French this and French that, for a piece of cob-cured country ham and redeyed gravy like I had tonight.
LALLIE: It was all right then?
JT: All right? Ma’am, the President doesn’t eat better’n this in the White House!
LALLIE: Mare, I’ll get the coffee, you clear the men’s plates and then get yourself somethin’ to eat.
MARY ANNE: I’m not hungry, Ma.
LALLIE: What’s wrong with you, girl?
MARY ANNE: Nothin’. Just not hungry.
JED: Leave the child alone, Lallie. She’s too busy feastin’ her eyes and fillin’ her ears to pay much attention to her belly.
Tommy laughs.
Pity one can’t say the same for you, Tommy Jackson.
Tommy shuts up. Both women bustle around.
JT: You sure a mighty fortunate man, Jed.
JED: How you figure that, JT?
JT: Because, sir, you got the one thing a man needs to live a life worth livin’.
JED: That bein’?
JT: Your independence. You’re not beholden to any man for anything on your . . . how many acres would you say you have?
JED: Oh . . . ’bout three, four hunnert acres.
JT: On your three-hundred-odd acres here in the middle of God’s country, you’re a virtual king. Republican nobility.
JED: Republican?
JT (quickly correcting his error): Figure of speech, Jed. What I mean to say is, you and the people like you, your neighbors, they’re what makes this country great! I take it you served in the “Glorious Cause,” sir?
MARY ANNE: My daddy was a hero—he fought with Quantrill!
JED (warning): Now, Mary Anne . . .
MARY ANNE: Well, you did!
JT: Is that a fact?
MARY ANNE: My daddy saved Quantrill’s life!
JT: Isn’t that somethin’!
MARY ANNE: That was in Lawrence, Kansas. Tell him, Daddy. . . .
JED: It wasn’t really all that much. . . .
LALLIE: Go on, Jed. . . .
TOMMY: Go on, Mr. Rowen. . . .
MARY ANNE: See, they was trapped in this house in Lawrence and the Yankees had set it on fire and—
JED: MARY ANNE! (Beat.) JT’s the storyteller here. You gonna put the poor fella outta work.
JT: What was he like, Quantrill? I mean, you hear so many different things.
LALLIE: He was a real gentleman. That’s what Jed always said—isn’t that right, Jed?
JED: Well . . . I guess he was a lot of different things to different people, but . . . he always treated me square. Maybe, Mr. JT, you’d like a drop of somethin’ a mite stronger than coffee, to settle your stomach?
JT: Well, sir, I’m not ordinarily a drinkin’ man, you understand, but as this is a special occasion, I’d be honored to raise a glass with you.
JED: Mare, you get down that ole mason jar and a couple of glasses.
LALLIE: Now, Jed, you promised . . .
]ED: I know what I’m doin’, Lallie. . . .
LALLIE: But you know your stomach can’t take it, Jed.
JED (warning): Lallie . . .
LALLIE: You go ahead, but don’t you be wakin’ me up in the middle of the night with them terrible dreams of yours!
JED: I said, I know what I’m doin’, woman!
Lallie gives him a withering look as Mary Anne returns with mugs and the jar. Jed folds.
Well, hell, get me a pitcher of buttermilk then.
Lallie smiles and exits, returning quickly with a pitcher. Jed pours a clear liquid out of the jar into two mugs. Then, sorrowfully, he pours buttermilk into one of the half-filled mugs.
Terrible thing to do to good corn liquor. (Looking at JT:) I don’t suppose you’d care to . . .
JT (straight-faced): Ordinarily yes, but I’m tryin’ to cut back on the buttermilk.
JED: So was I.
JT: To your health.
JED: Mud in your eye.
They drink.
JT: Oh Lord, that is elixir of the gods. Pure liquid Kentucky.
JED: Heaven in a mason jar.
TOMMY: Mr. Rowen, you spect I might have some?
JED: Well, sure, Tommy—help yourself, boy . . . (To JT with a wink as Tommy reaches over:) . . . to the buttermilk!
General laughter, to Tommy’s embarrassment.
JT: Well, I want to thank you good folks for havin’ me in like this, but I know there’s nothin’ free in this life, so I reckon it’s time to sing for my supper, as it were.
Murmurs of approval and enthusiasm.
JED: Mr. JT, afore you get to spinning’ us a yarn, maybe you could say a word or two ’bout what’s goin’ on out in the world.
JT: Well, sir, we got us a new president, of course—fella named Grover Cleveland.
JED: Cleveland? Who�
��s he?
JT: Democrat.
LALLIE: Praise be to God!
JED: A Democrat! Lord, we waited long enough for that! Lallie, pour us another round—this is cause for celebration!
TOMMY: Where’s he from?
JT: New York.
JED: New York? New York?! Hell, I ain’t drinkin’ to no Yankee Democrat! What they gonna hand us next—Christian sodomites?
LALLIE: Jed!
TOMMY: What’s a sodomite?
LALLIE: Never you mind!
JED: Read your Bible, boy.
TOMMY: Is that the fella who’s so helpful and all?
MARY ANNE: That’s Samaritan.
JED: Oh Lord, this is why us folks in the mountains don’t miss the world out there: the news is always bad.
JT: Well, I got one piece of news I think you’ll like.
JED: It ain’t likely.
JT: Ulysses S. Grant died four weeks ago.
JED: Dead!?
TOMMY: Hot damn!
LALLIE: Tommy Jackson, you watch your language in this house!
JED: Well, I’ll be damned!
LALLIE: Very likely, Jed Rowen—you and Tommy Jackson both for your blasphemous ways!
JED: Oh, hush up, woman—it’s just words. Way I always understood it, Lord don’t care what you say, it’s what you do. What’d he die of?
LALLIE: “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.”
JED: Lallie, as much sin as there is in eastern Kentucky, I don’t think the Lord’ll notice some bad language.
LALLIE: “Not a sparrow shall fall but what He won’t see it.”
JED: ENOUGH! Tommy, pour everybody some corn liquor and I think we’ll skip the buttermilk this round! Now, JT, maybe you’d favor us all with that story you promised.
JT: Well, sir, it’d be a privilege.
Throughout JT’s story, the other characters feel free to comment and respond: Jed and Lallie with quiet pleasure, Mary Anne with enthusiasm, and Tommy with growing envy and resentment.
I knew a feller once, luckiest man in the world! I remember him and me once went coon huntin’. Had a terrible time! Lost a dog, most of our shells, and when we finally did tree this old coon up a sycamore, couldn’t get a decent shot at the critter. Well, by this time it was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.
TOMMY: Well, that was pretty dumb, goin’ huntin’ with no moon out.
MARY ANNE: Be quiet!
JED: Let the man finish his story.
JT: Anyway, we turned around to go home real dejected-like, when all of a sudden the clouds cleared the moon—which was full, of course—to reveal a sight that’d freeze your blood.
MARY ANNE: What?
JT: There in front of us was a big old mama grizzly bear and her cub! Now, my friend only had one shell left in his gun, and I had nothin’ atall, so we turned to run, but there behind us was the biggest rattlesnake I ever seen! We was trapped! I fell to my knees sayin’ a prayer, and as I looked up, I remember seein’ this huge old flock of geese flyin’ over us. Then my friend shot the grizzly bear.
Well, sir, there was a terrible explosion as his gun blew up in his face! Anybody else’d be dead or blind at least. But my friend was so lucky, this is what happened: the bullet kilt the she-bear dead; a piece of that stock kilt the rattlesnake and skinned him at the same time; and that old barrel flew up and knocked the lead goose so cold he fell into the river. Well, course all the other geese followed him—must’ve been about a hunnert—right into the river and drowned themselves! Well, I commenced to skinnin’ the bear while my friend waded the river to collect all the geese. Took him half an hour and when he stepped out of that creek, wouldn’t you know it, he found about fifty pounds of fish stuck in his boots!
We gathered up the bear, the fish, the geese, and the rattlesnake and was just about to start off when that coon we’d been huntin’ fell out of the tree stone dead at our feet. Seems in all the ruckus, that baby grizzly had climbed up the same tree to hide, scarin’ that coon to death! You talk about luck—well, I guess that friend of mine was full of it!
General applause.
TOMMY: Well, somebody was sure full of somethin’.
JED: Now, what’s that supposed to mean?
TOMMY: What do you think?
JED: Keep a civil tongue in your head, boy.
JT: I’m sure the child don’t mean any harm, Jed. You know how kids are at that age, liable to say all kinds of stupid things. Puts me in mind of a story I once heard about a couple of kids usta live over in Perry County. Seems there was these two families, the Montages and the Caplets, and they’d been a-feudin’ long as anyone could remember.
Now, the Caplets had a daughter name of Juliet, though everybody called her ‘‘Jewel,” I guess ’cause she was so pretty. Anyway, she’d been promised to this Thomas fellow, about whom the nicest thing you could say was, he’d a few chairs missin’ from his attic. Problem was, Jewel was in love with this other fellow she’d just met, a real nice-lookin’ stranger, name of Jack. She’d made up her mind that she was goin’ to marry him and live in New York City in a big old skyscraper.
Unbeknownst to her, Jack was a Montage, and when she found out, it like to break her heart. But he said it didn’t matter to him, her being a Caplet, so they planned to get married anyway, in secret, and then run off together. Well, right after the weddin’, Jack ran into a whole mess of Caplets, and afore you know it they drew on him and he had no choice but to defend himself. He dropped about five of ’em ’cause he was a crack shot, and then he lit out of town, leavin’ a message for Jewel to join up with him in Louisville.
Well, she wanted to, but her daddy was real set on her marryin’ this Thomas fellow, even if he was close to bein’ an idiot. So Jewel went to see this old witch woman and get some help. This here witch, she give her some herbs which’d put her into a sleep like she was dead or somethin’. The plan was, this witch’d get word to Jack to come back and dig Jewel up after she been buried and then they could sneak off. So Juliet took them herbs and everybody thought she’d died and they buried her just like they’d planned. Only thing wrong was this old witch got a terrible arthritis which kicked up about then and slowed her up somethin’ fierce. By the time she got to Louisville, Jack had already heard that Jewel was dead and, crazy with grief, he’d gone back home.
That night he snuck into the graveyard to say goodbye to his sweetheart and then kill himself. Well, who should he stumble into with a shovel in his hand but Thomas! Lord knows what he was doin’ there, diggin’ up dead bodies, but like I said, he was a strange sort of boy. Well, they started to fight, of course, kickin’ and gougin’ each other somethin’ fierce. In the middle of this, Jewel wakes up and sees Thomas chokin’ her Jack to death! She gotta lot of spunk, that girl, and afore you could blink, she picks up a shovel and bashes Tom’s head in.
Then she explained everything to Jack, who was real glad to hear she wasn’t dead and all, and the two of them run off to New York City, where they was real happy!
Everyone applauds.
MARY ANNE: I like that story!
TOMMY: You son of a bitch! I’LL KILL YOU!
He leaps across the table at JT and knocks him to the floor. Jed pulls Tommy off and then throws him across the room.
JED: What the hell get into you, boy!
TOMMY: I ain’t no fool!
JED: Well, you sure actin’ like one!
TOMMY: I see what’s goin’ on here! This stranger come dancin’ in here with his smiles and his stories and everbody falls all over themselves offerin’ him this and that, like he some kind of prodigous son, home from the wars!
MARY ANNE: Prodigal.
TOMMY: I seen you moonin’ over him, makin’ big cow eyes! “Oh, I like that story, I dooo!”
JED: I think you better get outta here, b
oy.
TOMMY: I’m goin’! Hell, you couldn’t pay me to stay. Maybe I make a fool outta myself like you say, old man. But Mr. Silver Tongue stay here tonight with his stories and I bet Mary Anne make a bigger fool outta you by tomorrow mornin’!
Tommy starts to leave, and as he goes, he reaches for his gun by the door. Jed blocks his way.
Gimme my gun!
JED: You cool off. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll talk about it.
TOMMY: Gimme my gun, god damn it!
JED: You keep pushin’ it, son, and I’m likely to do just that.
TOMMY (near tears with humiliation): Oh, come on, Jed, gimme my gun!
JED: Or what? You gonna cry, maybe? Stamp your feet and shout? Wet your pants? Don’t know why your daddy let you carry a gun, boy—you ain’t got the balls to use it or the sense to know when. Now get outta here, ’fore I turn you over my knee. Go on. Get!
TOMMY: I ain’t forgettin’ this. (To JT.:) I ain’t forgettin’ you.
He runs off. Jed empties the gun.
JED: Damn fool kid.
JT: Mrs. Rowen, I surely wanta apologize for bringin’ trouble into your home. I was just havin’ a little fun. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.
LALLIE: Don’t you worry your head about it, JT—I never did like that Jackson boy nohow.
JED: What she means is, she never thought he was good enough for our Mare.
MARY ANNE: Pa!
LALLIE: Well, he ain’t.
JT: Well, you gotta problem there, ma’am, ’cause you gonna have to look far and wide to find the right somebody for this young lady. (Beat.) Well, it’s late, and I best be movin’ on.
MARY ANNE: No!
LALLIE: Surely you’re gonna spend the night here?
JT: I wish, but I got obligations. . . .
MARY ANNE: Couldn’t you give us just one more story ’fore you go?
JED: There’s an idea, one more story and another wet somethin’ to go with it.
JT: Get thee behind me, Satan!
Everybody laughs.
Well . . . all right!
General applause and bustle as everyone settles and Jed pours drinks.
The Kentucky Cycle Page 12
