Bone Cage (2 page)

KEVIN

Fuck you. I can go anywhere I want. I can take care of myself.

JAMIE

So you think.

KEVIN

Yeah well, I know something about you, don't I?

JAMIE

What?

KEVIN

I ain't telling.

JAMIE shifts his weight so he is within striking distance of KEVIN, while pretending to hand him an empty beer bottle.

JAMIE

Is it about my stag?

KEVIN

Maybe. Maybe not. I ain't telling you.

JAMIE

I'm going to be your sweet brother-in-law, you better tell me.

KEVIN

F you!

JAMIE grabs KEVIN and pulls him into a headlock. He begins to tug on KEVIN's arm to get him away from his hold on the bridge.

I ain't telling you.

JAMIE succeeds in pulling him from the side.

JAMIE

Hope you can swim.

KEVIN is very afraid.

KEVIN

Let go of me, man.

JAMIE

Think you know where that little hole is, that you've got to hit when you jump from here, or else your spine goes…

JAMIE snaps his fingers in quick succession as KEVIN struggles.

Just like that!

KEVIN

Let go let go let go of me.

KRISTA

Kev, you come down here.

CHICKY

Krista! Christ, Jamie's throwing Kevin off the bridge, not the other way 'round.

Fuzzy!
Jamie
. Let him alone
right now
!

JAMIE

She wants me to let go of you, Kev, should I?

KEVIN

I'm going to fall, Jamie… I'm gonna fall!

JAMIE

Better tell me.

KEVIN

It ain't about your stag, okay?

JAMIE

What then?

What, Kev, I'll drop you.

KEVIN

I'll tell ya, I'll
tell
ya. I'm telling you, man. Just don't get mad at me when you hear it.

JAMIE

You tell me, I'll decide who to get mad at.

KEVIN

I heard Earl saying at the dance that he's putting you on

chainsaw for the summer.

JAMIE

No he ain't. You don't make shit on chainsaw.

KEVIN

Starting the Monday after your wedding, he said.

JAMIE fakes it one last time like he's going to drop KEVIN, then

slowly lets go of him.

JAMIE

That's funny, I'm giving my week's notice this Monday.

KEVIN scrambles out of reach.

CHICKY

Kevin, get your ass down here.

JAMIE

She wants your ass, Kev.

KEVIN

You can't quit, Krista will kill you.

JAMIE

She don't need to know.

KEVIN

She's marrying you on Saturday.

JAMIE

A lot can happen in a week. In a week I might be the head of IBM.

KEVIN

He said the next time you quit, he wouldn't take you back.

JAMIE

I don't do dumb-ass work.

KEVIN

I'd rather work chainsaw.

Freaked me out too bad, that one time in the processor.

Everything tore up so bad, I couldn't find my way out.

Four hours lost in the woods.

JAMIE

I leave a tree standing where I go in.

KEVIN

Anyway, Earl won't take you back.

JAMIE

Earl don't have shit left to log.

JAMIE hands KEVIN a newspaper clipping.

KEVIN

(reading)
“Heli-logging. Training for men and women in an exciting high-paying career in B.C.'s Forestry Industry. Comprehensive three-month heli-pilot training program.”

Like Krista's going to leave the Valley and move out there.

JAMIE

Krista.
Krista!

KRISTA

Get down here, Jamie, we've got to get to town.

JAMIE

A wife has to go where her husband goes, right?

KRISTA

Is he going to town?

JAMIE

A wife
has to go
where her husband goes, right?

KRISTA

Jaaaaaaaaaaamie, come on!

JAMIE

You better answer yes, or this wedding is off.

KRISTA

Yes. Okay, yes. Now can we go to town?

CHICKY

Fuzzy, did you make that call?

JAMIE

You shut your trap about any call, sis. I mean it, too.

CHICKY

Krista, aren't you curious about this call I'm not supposed to talk about?

KRISTA

Is it about my wedding present from Jamie?

CHICKY

Oh—
(Christ)
. Has Jamie talked about quitting?

KRISTA

He'd better not. I got to pay for the hall and the supper with his next cheque.
(urgent)
Jamie.

Chicky slips on her shoes and prepares to leave.

JAMIE

Where you going, Chicky?

CHICKY

Home to feed
your
father.

JAMIE

Let the whore come and cook his dinner.

CHICKY

That's our mother you're talking about.

JAMIE

(lightly)
Your mother is a whore. My mother is a fucking whore.

CHICKY

Do you ever listen to what comes out of his mouth?

KRISTA

Well, your mom has lived with a lot of men.

CHICKY

(Jesus).

KRISTA

She left you kids when Travis was a toddler, what kind of mother does that?

CHICKY

Okay, I'm going now.

KEVIN

You leaving, Chicky?

CHICKY

I should have been leaving when I got here. I got four hours mowing yet, Reg's stripping sod on Friday.

JAMIE

Hey! I ain't ready to go.

CHICKY

I'm walking.

KEVIN

I'll walk with you.

JAMIE

Kevin wants a blow job.

KEVIN

Shut up.

JAMIE

I said “new job,” Kevin wants a new job,
a nude job
.

(laughs)
Hey, sis. Save me some dinner.

CHICKY

Why should I?

JAMIE

'Cause I'm your little brother, and you've got to take care of me.

CHICKY

Starting Saturday, I don't, do I?

KRISTA

Call me.

CHICKY and KEVIN leave.

You coming down?

Jamie?

We got stuff to do in town today.

JAMIE

Like what?

KRISTA

Like I already said.

JAMIE comes down.

You've got to pick up the washing machine, too.

JAMIE

Don't know why you're buying their shit.

KRISTA

Dolores is getting her mother's.

JAMIE

Dolores is getting her mother's.

KRISTA

You're in a pissy mood.

JAMIE

I'm ovulating.

KRISTA

A new one would cost us seven hundred dollars.

JAMIE

Wash at your mother's.

KRISTA

I'm not doing that, I told you.

JAMIE

I got no place to store a washer.

KRISTA

Take it to the trailer!

JAMIE

Can't.

KRISTA

You didn't get the key from Danny yet?

JAMIE

Nope.

KRISTA

He was supposed to move out two weeks ago. He knows we're

getting married this week. You told him he had to move out. Why ain't he moved out?

JAMIE

I'll take it home for now.

KRISTA

Does Danny think he is going to live with us?

I'm calling him and telling him he's got to be out tomorrow.

JAMIE

I told him he could have the trailer until October.

KRISTA

Yeah, right.

JAMIE

That's twenty-five hundred in cash.

KRISTA

No way. Jamie, where are we supposed to live? Not with your father.

JAMIE

He knows to leave us alone.

KRISTA

He hates my guts. He don't speak to me.

JAMIE

We need the money, okay? Every time I turn around you need money for invitations, to rent the hall, to rent white fucking tuxedos to go with the fucking bought bridesmaid off-the-shoulder cocktail-length fucking dress. Then there's the turkey sit-down meal and four hundred and fifty for the fucking DJ?

KRISTA

I don't want to live with Clarence.

JAMIE

Krista, the trailer is worth more to us rented. We rent to Danny for

a few months, we've got enough to get somewhere.

KRISTA

I told you I don't want a honeymoon. It don't matter to me.

JAMIE

I told Danny he has it.

Fuck. You love me or you don't.

KRISTA

I'm marrying you aren't I?

KRISTA kisses him playfully until he responds a little.

Weddings cost money.

JAMIE

We'll have enough by Christmas.

KRISTA

Christmas? Jamie!

JAMIE

I promise. I do I do I do.

He starts to crow like a rooster. He does a sort of endearing rooster dance. KRISTA laughs. He kisses her hungrily.

KRISTA

No. Jamie, we have to go to town.

JAMIE

I can't wait.

KRISTA

Not here.

JAMIE

Why not?

KRISTA

Robby might come back, or anybody.

JAMIE

So, never stopped us before.

KRISTA

Wellllll… I've been thinking.

The wedding is Saturday.

Maybe we shouldn't, you know, make love until our wedding night.

JAMIE

Funny.

KRISTA

To make it more special.

JAMIE

Krista hon-ey!

KRISTA

Please.

JAMIE

Okay, starting Friday night.

KRISTA

I'm spotting.

JAMIE

Christ.

KRISTA

He said we have to go off the pill after we're married.

JAMIE

This wedding is really starting to suck the big one.

KRISTA

Don't say that.

JAMIE

It's not like not doing it is gonna turn you into a virgin.

KRISTA

Okay, let's do it, so we can get to town.

JAMIE

What about the…
(spotting)

KRISTA

It don't hurt or nothing, just spotting a bit.

JAMIE

Baby, I wouldn't last seven days! You make me wait that long, and

the minute you say I do, I'll be on you. The minister will be saying, “I said kiss the bride, not screw her.”

KRISTA

I hate it when you call it that.

JAMIE

Sorrrry. I said to kiss her not make love to her. Make love to her. Make lovvveee to her.

JAMIE kisses her grandly until she is laughing.

Oh, baby, you know what I like.

KRISTA

Soon as we're married I'm divorcing you.

JAMIE pulls her down on the sand.

KRISTA takes the hunting knife off his belt and holds it to her mouth. Her tongue touches the tip.

JAMIE

Why do you like that? Doing it with the knife?

She lays the knife carefully beside them. She begins to kiss him.

KRISTA

It makes it more fun.

It makes it fun-er.

They kiss.

Lights down.

 

Scene 3

CLARENCE sits in his chair with his ear to the phone.

CLARENCE

Betty? You didn't let me finish. I'm saying they got places now, not like when Trav died, there are places now. I'm just saying don't

cremate him, because then you got no cells, no DNA.

CHICKY comes in.

(pause)
Yeah, Ronnie, I was explaining it to Betty. I'm not trying to kill her with nonsense. I'm trying to be a good neighbour, to give her scientific information…. It's been on “Oprah,” it's been on “Larry King Live,” Jesus I'm giving ya hope…

The phone has obviously been disconnected.

CHICKY

You've got to stop calling Betty.

CLARENCE

I been wondering if there was going to be any dinner around here.

CHICKY

You heard me.

CLARENCE

They should have flown him straight to Florida.

CHICKY

For Chrissakes Clarence. The woman's lost a child. She's beside

herself.

You should know that.

CLARENCE

I do know. I do know.

I'm telling her they got
equipment
down there.

CHICKY

He's dead. He died at the scene.

CLARENCE

They put them in liquid oxygen. Twenty-five years from now they'll have a cure for it.

CHICKY

There is no cure for a ten-year-old, without a helmet, flying off the back of a dirt bike onto the highway. Don't call Betty again.

CLARENCE sulks. But he has news that he can't hold back on.

CLARENCE

I got something in the mail today.

I got something to show you, Chicky.

CHICKY

I thought you wanted your dinner.

CLARENCE

Look, I got it right here.

Here.

CLARENCE opens a large brown envelope and takes out a pencil drawing of a young man of about nineteen.

CHICKY

Who's that supposed to be?

CLARENCE

It's an artist rendition.

Read the back.

CHICKY

(reading)
“Extend Your Memory is proud to present you with this portrait of your son…”

CLARENCE

Travis,
yes
!

Jesus, didn't you recognize our little Trav?

CHICKY stares at the drawing.

It's what he'd look like today. I sent that school picture of Trav before he got sick to this artist in the States, and that fellow took it and drew him nine years older.

CHICKY gives the drawing back to CLARENCE.

He looks good don't he?

CHICKY

How much?

CLARENCE

Don't matter.

CHICKY

We still owe on the headstone. What did Jamie say?

CLARENCE

I'm telling Jamie I'm paying for it out of my disability.

CHICKY

Yeah, you pay for that, then we pay for your smokes.

CLARENCE

Where you been half the day anyway?

CHICKY

At the river with Jamie.

CLARENCE

Ain't he working?

JAMIE comes in. CLARENCE quickly tucks the picture out of sight.

CHICKY

Apparently no.

Thought you were taking Krista to town?

JAMIE

I am. I had to check on Sky. He's off his food.

CLARENCE

A bird can't survive after hittin' a power line. Not even a big bird like him.

JAMIE

Vet said he could. He had been eating good.

The burn is healing up.

CLARENCE

Eagles that can't fly lose their will to live.

JAMIE

Like a man that can't work, right, Clarence?

CHICKY

Speaking of work, are you working nights this week?

JAMIE

Depends. Might be laid off.

CHICKY

I haven't heard that Earl is laying off men.

JAMIE

I don't work chainsaw.

CHICKY

(hopeful)
You're quitting?

CLARENCE

He's being laid off, didn't you hear him? People don't listen. Oprah had a man on there who said mothers talk to their kids five minutes a day. That's a God-awful thing. Don't know their kids from their own assholes.

JAMIE

From a man who hasn't used his asshole in ten years.

CHICKY

Don't start on him.

JAMIE

Five minutes is about four minutes and thirty seconds longer than we ever talked, Dad.

CLARENCE

Used to talk before you know who came along.

JAMIE

Get real.

CLARENCE

You used to watch the games with me.

JAMIE

That ain't talking, Dad. Okay, Chicky, time us.

CLARENCE

I got nothing to say.

JAMIE

Ask me about my job.

CLARENCE

You just said.

JAMIE

Ask me how my job makes me feel. Does it make me feel important or
(leans hard here)
fulfilled, or does it make me feel like a pile of steaming yellow s-h-i-t.

CLARENCE

I ain't talking to you when you're in a mood.

CLARENCE turns up the TV volume.

JAMIE winds up like he is going to kick the screen in, then stops and taps the off button with his boot toe.

JAMIE

Time please.

CHICKY

Fuzzy. Fifteen seconds, okay?

JAMIE

Oprah, be proud of us.

JAMIE turns the TV on. He heads out the door.

CLARENCE

You going to town?

JAMIE leaves.

He going to town?

CHICKY

He told you he was.

CLARENCE

Tell him I need him to pick me up something.

CHICKY

Jamie won't go to the liquor store for you now. You'll have to get your drinks over to the firehall.

CLARENCE takes the drawing out again.

CLARENCE

Remember how quick Trav learnt to ride a bike?

“Dad,” he says to me. “Dad what are those wheels on to it?” “'Ems the training wheels Trav,” I says to him. “Take them off, Dad, they're fucking stupid.” Not a day over three years old, and riding a two-wheeler.

He looks good now don't he?

CHICKY

Jesus.

I don't know why you did that, Clarence, sent away for that artist rendition.

It's like you don't want that hurt to ever stop.

I want it to stop so bad.

She goes into the bedroom, slamming the door.

Lights out.