Issue 3 • Fall 2002 • Featured Writer • Drama
Nicola Harwood
IV
A Land Bridge
RCMP enters and circles the stage -- searching. Lily, from her roost spies him immediately and watches him until he gets close. Lily is drinking a coke.
LILY
Boo!
RCMP jumps.
RCMP
Jesus Christ. Lily. You scared me!
LILY
You scare me all the time.
RCMP
What do you want?
LILY
What do you want?
RCMP
I'm looking.
LILY
For what?
RCMP
Something.
LILY
Alex Jack?
RCMP
No. Not Alex Jack.
LILY
Why not?
RCMP
There are reports of items going missing. Theft. Scientific equipment. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you? Scientific equipment. And chewing gum.
LILY
A gun?!
RCMP
Gum. Dentyne.
LILY
Oh. Well. Dentyne.
RCMP
We're talking government property, Lily. Very high level. Government. Property.
LILY
Dentyne Gum. That sounds very high level, McIntyre. Very, very high level.
RCMP
Look -- I've got work to do --
LILY
Alex Jack ain't gonna rest till we find his body.
RCMP
Alex Jack's down in Vancouver, passed out on Hastings Street and you know it.
LILY
He never made it that far.
Martha enters upon RCMP and Lily.
MARTHA
Oh. Officer. How good of you to come.
RCMP
Ma'am.
LILY
Any skeletons?
MARTHA
Skeletons?
LILY
Human remains?
RCMP
Lily --
MARTHA
Well -- this is just a test pit --
LILY
What you lookin' for anyway?
MARTHA
Well...traditionally this area was a fish camp...
LILY
Fish bones?
RCMP
You don't have to answer her.
MARTHA
We are looking to determine the types of activities that took place here.
LILY
It was a fish camp.
MARTHA
And the period of use.
LILY
Always been a fish camp.
RCMP
Lily!
MARTHA
Well we recognize that fact...
LILY
Yeah, we had some fish here, alright. Camped here every year for twelve thousand years. Once in a while someone dropped a' arrowhead into the fire.
MARTHA
I suppose that could be seen as the common cycle of events.
LILY
Then the smallpox came. Then the ranchers come in with their cattle and wipe out all the wild potato. Railroad causes a slide in the river -- blocks the salmon run. Welfare comes in, people stop working. Drunk guys start coming on the reservation. Girls go missin'. Men go missin'. All sorts of people go missing. So what about it? Find anything?
MARTHA
Those are not the issues we are studying.
LILY
Well, maybe they should be. Beat. Stew?
MARTHA
Stew?
LILY
Indian stew.
She lowers a bowl. Martha takes it. Lily finishes her coke and throws the can in the excavation pit.
LILY
It's the real thing.
Lily exits.
RCMP
Sorry about that. She's...she's a character. One of the local. Characters.
MARTHA
That's alright. We should be. In the future perhaps. Involving local. Native peoples. It just slows things down a little. Stew?
They gaze into each other's eyes. Music swells.
RCMP
For me?
MARTHA
Yes, you.
They burst into song.
RCMP
Wouldn't it be nice?
Wouldn't it be nice?
Wouldn't it be nice if this were a story --
MARTHA
-- about a lonely, middle-aged, middle-class, white woman --
TOGETHER
-- falling in love --
RCMP
-- with a lonely, middle-aged, middle-class, white man?
TOGETHER
Wouldn't it be nice?
RCMP
Out here on the outpost at the edge of the world.
The winters are bad and the locals are worse.
I haven't been laid in three years this June.
Could it be us? Could it be you?
MARTHA
Scientists, hippies, mad men, and schemers.
I fell for foolish and brilliant young dreamers.
All I want now is a regular guy with regular sex
And a regular paycheck.
TOGETHER
Wouldn't it be nice?
Wouldn't it be nice?
Wouldn't it be nice if this was a story --
MARTHA
-- about a lonely, middle-aged, middle-class, white woman --
TOGETHER
-- falling in love --
RCMP
-- with a lonely, middle-aged, middle-class, white man?
TOGETHER
Wouldn't it be nice?
RCMP
And when I'm finished doing my duty
To my home and Native land --
Lily interrupts.
LILY
Your Native what?!
RCMP
True North, Strong and Free!
I'll retire to Victoria and buy a little bungalow
With just a little lawn to mow
A little lawn for you and me.
MARTHA
I'll retire on a fellowship
Get a research grant from the government
I'll trim my nails and cut my hair
I might even get a permanent.
I'll do my duty. I'll cook and clean for you.
RCMP
I'll do my duty. I'll mow and weed for you.
MARTHA
I'll do my duty.
RCMP
I'll do my duty.
TOGETHER
Wouldn't it be nice?
Wouldn't it be nice?
Wouldn't it be nice if this was a story --
MARTHA
-- about a lonely, middle-aged, middle-class, white woman --
TOGETHER
-- falling in love --
RCMP
-- with a lonely, middle-aged, middle-class, white man?
TOGETHER
Wouldn't it be nice?
Martha throws herself into RCMP's arms. Frances enters. She's still a little high from last night. MARTHA and RCMP break apart.
FRANCES
Whoa.
MARTHA
Oh my goodness. Ten AM and I've gotten almost nothing done.
RCMP
Ten o'clock? Wow. That's late.
MARTHA (to Frances)
If you're looking for your --
FRANCES
Is she here?
MARTHA (simultaneously)
Your --
FRANCES (simultaneously)
Your --
MARTHA
-- mother?
FRANCES
No.
Martha scrutinizes Frances.
RCMP
Boy, is it ever getting late. Gotta get running along. You call anytime. Anytime. Don't hesitate. Okie dokie. Back to work!
RCMP leaves.
FRANCES
What's he doin' here?
MARTHA
We were discussing the dig.
Frances picks up an artifact.
FRANCES
What's this?
MARTHA
A blade. An obsidian blade.
FRANCES
A knife?
Martha nods. Frances picks up a stone.
FRANCES
And this?
MARTHA
That stone was used for weighting a net. You see the indents...the people carved out notches to secure the ties...and this -- a grinding stone. How it fits --
She hands it to Frances.
MARTHA
-- in the palm of your hand.
FRANCES
How come you know all this stuff?
MARTHA
I studied it in university.
FRANCES
Studied us?
MARTHA
Trade routes -- tracking the origins of the artifacts. The materials. This -- (she handles the obsidian blade) -- likely came from --
FRANCES
-- the volcano.
MARTHA
Brought east along the Grease Trail and south down to the coast.
FRANCES
Me and my dad one time -- walked the Grease Trail, you know. All the way to the coast.
MARTHA
Handed from one group of people to another...
FRANCES
Well -- we didn't walk the whole way. We kinda drove along and then we'd walk and check it out. The old places.
MARTHA
Coast, Salish, Interior, Cree...
Frances handles the blade.
FRANCES
That's the sweet spot where the stone broke away perfect -- in a perfect straight line -- prob'ly was a young guy, eh? Hunting -- (she runs the blade down her cheek, then mimes drawing a bow) A big buck -- ten point antlers!
Frances mimes releasing the bow.
MARTHA
A happy ending?
Frances handles the blade.
FRANCES
Maybe.
Pause.
FRANCES
Where is she?
MARTHA
I don't know.
Frances abruptly turns to leave.
MARTHA
Where were you last night?
FRANCES
There was a dance.
MARTHA
All night?
FRANCES
We were lookin' at the stars.
Beat.
MARTHA
I don't know where she is. She took off. Tell her I need her. There's work to finish -- tell her I need her here.
Frances exits.
Alice hiking a steep and circuitous path. A horsefly joins her.
ALICE
Men! I love men. Good conversation. Stimulating intellectual debate. The alchemy of competition. Slaps at the horsefly. But what, after all is the common denominator? Besides hydrogen. And why? Why me? Why them? Why us? Why here? Why now?
Slaps at the horsefly with disgust.
ALICE (continued)
Goddamn horseflies.
It's not that I am without Christian feeling. But once here. Surrounded by the nobility of nature, free of the turgid entanglements of humanity, no longer confounded by social orthodoxies that one becomes truly free. It is here. Captive of this vast wilderness. Where lichen grows upon stone and from that wild ginger takes root to spread across the forest floor offering a bridge for the lowly snail, who much like myself carries his house upon his back -- and whom, upon completing his long, slow journey is promptly fetched up upon the paw of the great black bear as it tears indiscriminately through the remainder of a rotting cedar. Why indeed.
If one were to gaze deeply into this "no man's land" or perhaps as I've been told -- to the religions of the east, if one were able to -- for the briefest moment -- entertain paradox: one might be inclined to ask not "why" but rather: Why not?
She slaps at the horsefly and gets it. Mashes it into the earth with her boot. Satisfied.
ALICE (continued)
Indeed. Why not?
Alice exits.
Hanna. On a ridge above the village. Frances appears behind Hanna. Frances has a half bottle of wine.
HANNA
I always wondered what it would be like. To be Indian.
FRANCES
Take a look.
HANNA
I mean -- you know. Before.
Pause.
HANNA
Back home there's this voodoo store -- a witch store. Yoruba Botanica. Where the Caribbean people go. To make spells and stuff. You can buy snake skins and special oils for scaring people away. Or spells for finding a job.
FRANCES
Whaddya wanna find a job for?
HANNA
I went there one time to see if they could make a spell for bringing people back. They sold me some black powder and told me to shake it out my window every night at midnight for two weeks then cut a lock of my hair and hide it under my front step.
FRANCES
Who were you tryin' to get back?
HANNA
My father.
FRANCES
Did it work?
HANNA
No.
FRANCES
Where'd he go?
HANNA
Crazy.
FRANCES
Oh.
Beat.
HANNA
One time I went to visit him, he took me by the shoulders and looked into my face and said, "You are God's eye" I thought , "Wow." Then we go in the crafts room and everywhere are all these crazy people making god's eyes -- you know those things made with wool.
FRANCES
God's eye.
HANNA
What about you?
FRANCES
What about me?
HANNA
What are you?
FRANCES
Indian!
HANNA
And what else?
FRANCES
Nothin' else!
Hanna smiles at Frances.
HANNA
You're not part snake or wolf or something?
FRANCES
No!
HANNA
You look like it.
FRANCES
Like what?!
HANNA
Like you could be part raven.
FRANCES
I'm not part anything!
HANNA
Drunk?
FRANCES
Fuck you.
Beat.
HANNA
I didn't mean it like that.
Silence.
FRANCES
My father killed a bear one time. He cut the heart in four pieces and he made me eat one piece. He told me I would be strong. Not afraid and filled with wildness. My mother blamed him for doing it -- that he made me into a boy when I was supposed to be a girl. That the bear inside made me crazy like him.
HANNA
And did it?
FRANCES
What do you think?
HANNA
I think there's different kinds of crazy.
FRANCES
You know when you people first come here to this place it was the Indians showed the white man around, eh? Like a tour guide. Anyway, I was thinkin', seein' as you're new here and everything. I'd be your tour guide. Show you around. All the sacred places.
HANNA
Sacred places?
FRANCES
Thing is. We're gonna have to borrow a car.
HANNA
You can't drive.
FRANCES
I can drive. How do you think I got to be a tour guide?
HANNA
You're fourteen.
FRANCES
They teach us young out here.
HANNA
Where are you gonna get a car?
FRANCES
There's cars.
HANNA
I dunno.
FRANCES
Real cheap prices right now.
HANNA
How much?
FRANCES
Couple of them blue beads.
Frances reaches out and touches the beads around Hanna's neck. Touches her face. Beat. Pause.
FRANCES
Come on.
Hanna and Frances exit.
Lily.
LILY
The night Alex Jack disappeared I was drunk on tomato juice and rye. Reena Salis thought that sounded like a pretty good combination. It tasted like shit but she'd already poured the whole bottle of rye into a big bowl full of tomato juice so we had to drink it anyway. Reena's husband Peter Salis decided to go to town and him and Alex always done everything together. So they went. With Johnny Salis too. Peter's brother. It was Stampede weekend. Peter and Alex and Johnny thought they'd go in and watch some of the rodeo -- I was out behind Reena's house when I heard Peter's truck pull outa the driveway spittin' gravel. I was gonna go with them! But they left me behind. Pukin' up rye and tomato juice into the bushes. I didn't even say goodbye to him that night. I guess they made camp up above town in the bush and then Peter and Johnny went down into town to get some booze -- that's what they said. But Alex Jack was passed out on the ground. So they left him. And that's the last anyone ever saw him. They thought maybe he woke up didn't know where he was and he walked off into the bush somewhere. That's what the police said -- he's lost in the bush.
Alex used to be a real fine cowboy. He had his own cattle. Started drinkin'. He lost his cattle, one by one. Then his horse. Frances was always following him around tryin' to get him to go places with her. The old places. Dip netting, hunting. But he wasn't interested. Nobody was interested in nothing anymore.
You try and have protection. But it's like a bow and arrow. Shootin' at the sky. Tryin' to bring down the whole goddamn sky.
Martha cleaning artifacts.
MARTHA
You try and give a child what they need. An education. Exposure to new ideas. Protection.
The last time we went to visit her father he became so agitated that I had to leave the room. But he lets her stay in there with him. Together.
After the hospital then I'm at home with all these... mementos. A marble turtle from Guatemala. A hammered silver vase from Peru. The brown suit. Pressed and ready. It's the artifacts of the higher mind. The containers. The mirrors. Everywhere I look. I see him staring back at me. His accusing brown eyes. His uncomprehending stare.
Alice forging a raging river -- as she speaks she hikes up her skirts, places her backpack upon her head, holds it there along with her paddle and shotgun and begins the crossing.
ALICE
Canadian Women's Press Club. Beat. Women's suffrage. Beat. Cycling. Basketball. Football. Scandal. Beat. A Royal Commission Investigation into the Departmental Examinations in Art. I was charged with permitting my students to use a straight edge ruler to draw a free hand straight line. Needless to say I lost my position as the first woman principal in the province. And three years suspension of my teaching license.
And then -- after all the commotion. The hearing. The suspension. After I lost everything, my dear friend Delia turns to me and says, "Why in heaven's name do you think you alone are above the law."
"Why, indeed! Because Delia, some of us were never meant to draw straight lines!"
Alice slips.
ALICE
Aaaaah!
She falls and is washed away.
Martha cleaning artifacts. Hanna runs in and grabs her coat.
HANNA
Frances is taking me to see sacred places.
MARTHA
We have data to record.
HANNA
Sacred Indian places.
MARTHA
It's late. You can go tomorrow.
HANNA
Mom, please.
MARTHA
Hanna. It's past nine. It's getting dark.
HANNA
Just for an hour, maybe. Like an hour.
MARTHA
No.
We hear a loud revving of a car engine starting. Martha spins.
MARTHA
What the hell is she doing in my car?
Hanna looks at her mother and bolts toward the car and Frances. We hear them pull away, spitting gravel.
MARTHA
Hanna! HANNA!
Next Page: Everywhere. Dust.
All Pages: See the entire play on one page
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