The Kentucky Cycle

by Robert Schenkkan

  ABE (smiling): Actually, I was figurin’ to hire on as a miner.

  TOMMY: A miner? Well, they hired worse, I guess.

  ABE: Blue Star a good company?

  TOMMY: All the same, ain’t they?

  ABE: You spoke the truth there, brother.

  Tommy just looks at him.

  TOMMY: Steinman. You a Jew?

  ABE: Make a difference to ya?

  TOMMY: Hell, I work with niggers. Coal don’t care. Neither do I.

  Blackout. Steam whistle.

  SCENE TWO

  The tipple office.

  Tommy and Abe stand facing Andrew.

  ANDREW: You ever been to West Virginia? Colorado?

  ABE: “Hell and Repeat”? No sir, I ain’t been there.

  ANDREW: Blue Star don’t need no troublemakers.

  ABE: No sir.

  ANDREW: You know this man, Jackson?

  TOMMY: No sir. Not exactly. He’s family on my mother’s side. Second cousins or somethin’.

  Andrew turns to Abe.

  ANDREW: You load your ten a day, six days a week, keep your head down and your nose clean, and we’ll do just fine. Make trouble and I’ll tear your balls off. We on the scrip system here, Company money only. You get paid on Saturdays, and we got everything you need at the Company store. And the Company whorehouse. Happy to write you down you find yourself short. Questions?

  ABE: When do I start?

  ANDREW: Week from tomorrow.

  Abe and Tommy start to leave.

  Jackson?

  Abe steps “outside” and waits.

  Company can’t write you no more credit. Food, coal, medicine, funeral expenses—hell, you owe me for everythin’. . . .

  TOMMY: Yes sir. We took in this boarder, that should help some.

  ANDREW: You mean your mother’s “cousin”? (Laughs.) You people! You really think you can teach your ole granny to suck eggs?

  TOMMY: My boy, Joshua, should be ’bout ready to start work. He’s old enough.

  ANDREW: I don’t think another slate picker’s gonna dig you outta this hole you in, Jackson. Mind you, if it were up to me . . . but ya just can’t let your personal feelin’s get in the way of business, can ya?

  TOMMY: No sir.

  ANDREW: Hell, I don’t know, mebbe we can work somethin’ out. I can always use a smart fella like yourself down in the mines. I pay real well for certain kinds of information.

  TOMMY: Information?

  ANDREW: You know what I’m talkin’ about. You think about it.

  He dismisses Tommy, then:

  Tommy? Everybody got his own lookout. If I was you, I’d look out for my family.

  Tommy leaves. Lights down on the office. Abe catches up with Tommy.

  ABE: That Winston fella, he’s a piece of work, ain’t he?

  TOMMY: He had’em a brother over in Carolton, was kilt last year inna strike. He been shittin’ himself ever since.

  ABE: Sounds to me like maybe they kilt the wrong brother.

  TOMMY: Where you say you from?

  ABE: I didn’t, exactly.

  TOMMY: Well, if you was.

  ABE: West Virginia.

  TOMMY: That ain’t what you told Mr. Winston.

  ABE: No, I guess I lied.

  Beat.

  TOMMY: I heard a bunch of people got kilt up there in West Virginia, near Paint Creek.

  ABE: Yeah? I heard they got themselves a Union. Listen, thanks for helpin’ me out there, “cousin.”

  TOMMY: Look, let’s you and me get somethin’ straight here. I ain’t your brother, your cousin, or your friend. If you was on fire I wouldn’t take the time to piss on you. Right now my family needs the money, and you can stay as long as you can pay. When you can’t pay or when we don’t need the money, you’re gone.

  ABE: Look, I’m just tryin’ to—

  TOMMY: Don’t say nothin’. Don’t tell me nothin’. I don’t wanta know.

  Tommy exits. Steam whistle.

  SCENE THREE

  Night. Mary Anne sits on the side of the bed, sponging Joshua’s face with a cloth. She sings. Abe watches.

  MARY ANNE: Farther along, we’ll know all about it.

  Farther along, we’ll understand why.

  Abe joins in softly, and Mary Anne stops immediately.

  ABE: Cheer up, my brothers, live in the sunshine.

  We’ll understand it all, by and by.

  MARY ANNE: Ain’t you got nothin’ better to do?

  ABE: Not really.

  JOSHUA: No! Noooo!

  Joshua sits upright with the force of his delirium. Mary Anne struggles to hold him down.

  MARY ANNE: It’s okay, baby. I’m here. Mama’s here. Ssshhhh.

  Abe comes over and helps bold Joshua.

  ABE: ’Stead of just wipin’ him down, if you was to wet them rags of yours in cold water and hold’em on his neck and on his wrists like this, it’ll help’im more. It’ll cool his blood down.

  Mary Anne hesitates.

  Go on, I’ll watch’im.

  She exits. Abe restrains Joshua.

  That’s right, boy, you fight it. Fight it hard. That’s right.

  MARY ANNE (returning): I’ll take’im.

  Abe sits back in his chair.

  ABE: You might boil his drinkin’ water from now on, if you’d a mind to.

  MARY ANNE: Boil it?

  ABE: It’s in the water, what’s makin’im sick.

  JOSHUA: Mama.

  MARY ANNE: Right here, son. I’m right here.

  ABE: It’s a good name, Joshua—onna my favorites. “And the sun stood still in the sky and the walls came a tumblin’ down.”

  MARY ANNE: Yeah, well, last time I looked Jericho was still standin’. (Beat.) He had him four brothers all die of the same thing.

  ABE: I’m sorry.

  MARY ANNE: Yeah. Well, “sorry” don’t mean spit, do it?

  ABE: No ma’am. Had me a friend usta say the same thing. Said, “Abe, if I had me a bullet for ever time some sob sister was ‘sorry,’ there’d be a lotta dead folks lyin’ around.” You remind me a little bit of her. Mary Jones is her name, though most folks just call her Mother. Mother Jones? She lost her whole family to a fever.

  Spot comes up on MOTHER JONES. She sings “Farther Along” quietly as she rocks an infant.

  This was down in Memphis. Terrible yella fever come along. The rich folks all lit outta town, of course, and the hospitals and the churches closed up, and so the poor folks was just stuck there. Well, she sat there, all alone in her house with her poor family, through days and nights of grief. Nobody came, nobody—

  MARY ANNE: Don’t you never shut up?!

  Spot out on Mother Jones.

  ABE (genially): There you go—she usta say the same thing. “Lord, Abe, you gotta bad case of mouth on you!”

  MARY ANNE: What d’you want?

  ABE: Nothin’.

  MARY ANNE: You want somethin’ here, don’tcha? Don’t tell me you don’t.

  ABE: I’m just makin’ talk, that’s all.

  MARY ANNE: Don’t lie to me! You ain’t no miner. You one of them organizers, ain’t ya?

  Beat.

  ABE: Yes ma’am.

  MARY ANNE: Don’t you bring no trouble on my house.

  ABE: You tell me to and I’ll go right now.

  MARY ANNE: You bring trouble in here and I’ll make you wish the Company had caught ya. We dint need the money I’d throw you out right now.

  Tommy enters, drunk.

  TOMMY: What’s goin’ on in here?!

  Joshua sits up in bed.

  JOSHUA: Mama.

  MARY ANNE: Joshua?

  ABE: His fever’s broke.

  Steam whistle.

&nb
sp; SCENE FOUR

  Lights down on the house and up on a bar. An animated all-male crowd spills onto the stage, cheering a brutal fight between two of its members. It ends. The victor, Tommy, staggers over and sits down, a little drunk. When the noise settles, Abe sits down next to him with two beers.

  ABE: Here. This one’s on me.

  Tommy considers, takes the drink.

  Gotta mighty sweet hook there. Y’ever fight for money?

  TOMMY: I dig coal for money. I just fight for fun.

  ABE: Sure like to watch a man do what he does well. Your dancin’ partner back there, what’s his crime?

  TOMMY: He looked like you.

  ABE: And you dint think the poor bastard suffered enough already? I hear, as good as you are in a fight, you even better in the mines.

  TOMMY: That a fact.

  ABE: Everybody ’round here says you wanta know somethin’ about coal mining, you talk to Mr. Jackson. ’Course, that got me to thinkin’—how come a man like that, with that kinda knowledge, why don’t the Company make him a mine engineer, foreman at least. Don’t make sense, do it?

  TOMMY: That’s just the way things is.

  ABE: But do they hafta stay that way, you reckon? Maybe we just been beatin’ up on the wrong people. ’Course, that’s what the Company wants us to do, I guess. They probly figure long as we too busy beatin’ the shit outta each other . . .

  TOMMY: Thanks for the drink.

  Tommy exits. Abe watches. Blackout.

  SCENE FIVE

  Exterior, Rowen house. Abe sits in the sun sewing a pair of pants. Mary Anne enters with a basket of beans. She stands watching him.

  ABE: How’s Joshua?

  MARY ANNE: Good It’s all I can do to keep him in bed now. Gonna hafta tie’im down, I reckon.

  She sits and snaps beans. Beat.

  ABE: What? What’re you grinnin’ at?

  MARY ANNE: I hope you move a shovel better’n you work a needle.

  ABE: Well, it’s the effort that counts.

  MARY ANNE: Not if your pants fall down.

  Joshua enters.

  JOSHUA: Hi.

  MARY ANNE: What’re you doin’ outta bed? Get back in there.

  JOSHUA: I’m tired of bein’ in bed—I wanta be out here with y’all!

  MARY ANNE: Okay, but just for a little while. And when I say “scoot,” you get your bottom back in there! Here. You sit here in the sun—I’ll get you a blanket.

  JOSHUA: I don’t need no blanket.

  MARY ANNE: You want to go back to bed right now?

  JOSHUA: No ma’am.

  MARY ANNE: All right then.

  She exits.

  ABE: Hey, Joshua, I’m Abe. You ’member me?

  JOSHUA: Sorta. You ain’t from New York, are ya?

  ABE: No.

  JOSHUA: I think I got you kinda mixed up in my mamma’s stories. When I’m sick, she always tells me stories ’bout things.

  ABE: Like what?

  JOSHUA: Old times, I guess, ’fore the mines. People livin’ in big old oak trees—somethin’ like that. It’s all kinda jumbled up.

  Mary Anne returns.

  MARY ANNE: Here, drink this water and then wrap yourself up good.

  JOSHUA: This tastes funny.

  MARY ANNE: That’s ’cause I boiled it.

  JOSHUA: Well, I don’t like it.

  MARY ANNE: You wanta be better, don’tcha? Then you drink it up. (Beat.) That Mother Jones person you was talkin’ about . . . what ever happened to her?

  ABE: Well, first time I met her was in West Virginny, ’bout seven years ago.

  Spot up on Mother Jones.

  MOTHER JONES: Abraham. That’s a good name, one a my favorites in the Bible. Abraham and Isaac. They still offerin’ up our boys in these hills, Abe, and we here to put a stop to it.

  ABE: Lord, she’s a fearsome woman—don’t take back water from nobody! We was organizin’ Paint Creek back then, and these gun thugs was threatenin’ us. . . .

  MOTHER JONES: You muzzle that damn mug of yours up. I ain’t afraid of ninety-nine hundred of you! I would clean you up just like a sewer rat!

  JOSHUA: She really said that?

  MARY ANNE: Abe . . .

  ABE: I was right there, those gun thugs no further from me’n you are now.

  MARY ANNE: Git inside, Joshua.

  JOSHUA: I wanta hear the rest of the story.

  MARY ANNE: INSIDE!

  Joshua exits. Spot on Mother Jones out.

  I warned you, don’t you be bringin’ no trouble into my house.

  ABE: Seems to me whatever troubles you got was here a long time ’fore I showed up.

  MARY ANNE: Well, then I’ll just clean up my own mess, thank you very much.

  ABE: Mary Anne . . .

  MARY ANNE: I don’t need no stranger to come in here and—

  ABE: You ain’t by yourself, you know? You ain’t the only one hurtin’.

  MARY ANNE: What d’you know about it? Nothin’! You don’t know nothin’ ’bout me or my life!

  ABE: I know what I see—a good woman, tryin’ to keep her head above water. . . .

  MARY ANNE: There ain’t nothin’ good about me!

  Beat.

  ABE: Why do you say that?

  MARY ANNE: Look at my family. Look how we live. Five kids, buried four of ’em—what the hell kind of mother is that?

  ABE: That ain’t your fault.

  MARY ANNE: Whose fault is it?

  ABE: Them bastards up on the hill.

  MARY ANNE: And you think you gonna just waltz in here and tell us all a buncha stories and they’re gonna start singing hymns and passin’ out baked biscuits!

  ABE: That wasn’t no story I was tellin’ your boy! Paint Creek really happened—I was there. That was the truth.

  MARY ANNE: Truth? Hell, I may be nothin’ but a dumb hillbilly, but even I know there ain’t no such thing as truth.

  ABE: If you believe that, how do you make it through the day?

  MARY ANNE (fiercely): Habit!

  ABE: Now, who’s lyin’? That’s dirt under your feet, Mary Anne, and stars over your head, and it don’t matter what anybody told you ’bout them, you know they’re real, you know they’re the truth.

  MARY ANNE: They tore my stars down a long time ago. Stars and moon and all!

  ABE: That’s just what they want you to believe.

  MARY ANNE: I cain’t, Abe! Cain’t you see. . . . I cain’t.

  Blackout.

  SCENE SIX

  Abe whittles a piece of wood. Joshua enters.

  JOSHUA: Whatcha makin’?

  ABE: Don’t know exactly. Figure the wood’ll tell me when it’s ready.

  JOSHUA: You talk to a piece a wood?

  Abe shrugs.

  My daddy says you’re crazy.

  ABE: Your mama ain’t too wild ’bout me either. What d’you think?

  JOSHUA: Make up my own mind, I guess. You gonna work with my daddy in the mines?

  ABE: You bet.

  JOSHUA: Me too. When I’m old enough.

  ABE: How old are ya?

  JOSHUA: Twelve. Next April. You dint finish your story the other day.

  ABE: No, I guess I dint. Where was I?

  Mary Anne enters.

  JOSHUA: You and Mother Jones was face-off with them gun thugs.

  ABE: Right. Well, Mother Jones just stared’em down, cool as ice. . . .

  Abe and then Joshua see Mary Anne.

  MARY ANNE: Joshua.

  JOSHUA: Yes’m?

  Beat.

  MARY ANNE: When you finish up out here, you come in, get somethin’ to eat.

  She exits. Abe smiles.

  ABE: Well, Mother Jones just stared’em down, cool as
ice, and then marched into that town. The folks was all scared, of course, but she wasn’t gonna have no part of that.

  Spot up on Mother Jones. PEOPLE gather around Abe and Joshua, making them part of the group she is addressing.

  MOTHER JONES: Boys, when I got in town today you were afraid to look at me, like a buncha damn cowards. Well, I been in jail more’n once and I expect to go again, and if you are too cowardly to fight, I’ll fight by myself! You oughta be ashamed of yourselves, actually to the Lord you ought, just to see one old woman who is not afraid of all those damn bloodhounds!

  JOSHUA: Damn.

  ABE: Then, after she’d pour’d in the powder, she lit the match.

  MOTHER JONES: The time is here! If you want the Union, you have got that right, but don’t beg the masters! Don’t beg’em! And don’t fear their bullets. How many guards have they got? Shoot, we could take on a whole army and still clean the whole bunch out!

  ABE: Fire in the hole!

  MOTHER JONES: UNION!

  The CROWD surges offstage, chanting “Union!” Spot out on Mother Jones.

  ABE: And we marched up there and the guards ran before us like yella dogs, just like she said they would, and we got us a union.

  JOSHUA: Damn! I’da sure like to seen that.

  ABE: Hold on, I think I’m hearin’ somethin’. (He “listens” to the piece of wood.) It says, ‘‘I’m a whistle.” (He blows on it.)

  JOSHUA: Whatcha gonna do with that when you’re done?

  ABE: Can you read?

  Joshua nods. Abe pulls a pamphlet out of his pocket.

  Read this. Out loud. I carve better to a good speech.

  Joshua begins to read.

  JOSHUA: “I say to you that the next . . .”

  ABE: “Generation . . .”

  JOSHUA: “. . . will not charge us for what we have done, they will charge and . . .”

  ABE: “Condemn.”

  JOSHUA: “. . . us for what we have left undone. Your children will be free. Freedom or Death.”

  ABE: Okay. Now gimme that last line again, and put a little somethin’ behind it. Like you was talkin’ to a whole crowd of folks.

  JOSHUA: “Your children will be free. Freedom or Death!”

  ABE: Yeah, that’s the way.

  Tommy enters.

  Lord, your boy here’s smart as a whip, Tommy—he reads real good. Give’im that first part, Joshua.

  JOSHUA: “The next generation will not charge us for what we have done, they will charge and condemn us for what we have left undone—”