CHICKY
The summer I turned fifteen I did something that people who knew me then would never have believed. It happened at the river. He’d brought a bunch of us swimming ’cause we were haying all day, and hot. Us girls were swimming in our shorts and white T-shirts so our bras would show through. The boys swam through our legs grabbing our crotches saying it was an accident, they was “stuck” or “drowning, honest to fucking God.” He sat on the beach smoking, watching me like he had all summer. It was the first time I felt that feeling in my nipples.
CHICKY motions LISSA into the photo, which KRISTA resents.
He said he needed to see Clarence so he’d drop me off last. Then he asked and I said, “Yes, okay,” and he took me back to the river. He brought me down to the water and he said he didn’t have any right, he was a married man with kids even. He said I was so beautiful, and he wasn’t trying to start anything up with me because that kind of man disgusted him, but he needed me to know that he loved me. And just saying it helped him so much and if he could once in a while tell me that, he’d be okay – never happy now, but okay. Then he stood up and he was walking up the bank. I knew how to stop him. I took off my T-shirt, my bra still damp from the river and
I said, “Reg!”
I did that, shy little me did that, I pulled him to me.
KRISTA
Bride and groom, best man and matron… I meant maid of honour.
LISSA
Yeah! Keving! Say cheese. Cheese.
KRISTA
Kevin.
KEVIN
Shhh, shh.
LISSA
He’s my boyfriend. Keving is.
JAMIE
Way to go, Kev.
CHICKY
Don’t be sick.
KEVIN
I saw her at the church is all.
KRISTA
We’ll never get to the church if we don’t get these pictures done.
JAMIE, KRISTA, CHICKY and KEVIN begin to pose.
LISSA
Krista and Jamie can have sex now. Mom says.
Mom says married means having sex. Hens and roosters don’t get married. Not dogs. Mr. Bull don’t marry the cow – that’s silly.
Sex is loud. I can hear the bull when I have to stay put in the house ’cause he’s doing his business. I can’t go out to the barn, he might think I’m a little cow with a red bum come to visit. No, don’t say that, that’s a dirty girl. Mom stays put in the house too. She talks (loudly) like this. “Lissa get the Electrolux and do the front room.” She talks like that ’cause sex is loud. Sex is loud.
KRISTA
What did she say?
CHICKY
Lissa, what are you thinking about?
LISSA
Nothing.
JAMIE
Sounds like she’s thinking about something, eh, Kev?
KRISTA
Jamie!
Bride and groom – only, Lissa.
KEVIN
Jame, you should bring the eagle in, put it on your shoulder.
JAMIE
Can’t. I let him go.
CHICKY
He can’t fly.
JAMIE
I took the bunch of them up to the clear cut this afternoon and let them all go. The cages are empty.
KRISTA
They die anyway.
JAMIE
We’re all dying, baby.
KRISTA
Oh that’s a nice thing to say on our wedding day.
Like a jinx or something.
JAMIE
When it’s my time, put me out in the woods.
If there’s any left around here.
KRISTA
Jamie we’re going to be late.
They begin to pose.
CLARENCE
I caught a wild fox once
Kept it at the fox farm for years.
It never tamed one bit.
The fox-farm foxes
They was like pets.
Take them to a show
Let them out of their cage
They’d follow behind you
To the show room just like a dog
Jump up on the show table and lay down quiet?
You couldn’t expect any animal to be that quiet.
My ones loved to be brushed out
Silver foxes I had.
But that wild vixen one
She never changed.
Until the day she died
Every time I went in the shed to feed her
She’d take a lunge at me.
JAMIE and KRISTA are done.
KRISTA
Maid of honour?
CHICKY
Aren’t we done yet?
KRISTA
I paid for the package with the maid of honour and the bride photo.
They pose awkwardly in silence.
JAMIE
Clarence has this story he tells about his tame fox-farm foxes and this wild vixen he live-trapped and how she used to fight him. He says, “And every time I fed her she’d lunge at me.” He’s proud of that story like it’s explaining something. Like it’s supposed to mean something. Anyway, that wild vixen was lunging to get to the door, to get to that crack of light opened up behind him.
Jesus, some poet should write a poem about those foxes and Clarence’s perforated bowel.
The pictures are over.
KRISTA
Okay, now we’re done.
Oh my God, we’ve got to get to the church.
JAMIE
Any beer at that church, Kevin?
KEVIN
Grape juice.
JAMIE
Better have one for the road.
KEVIN
Better have.
KRISTA
You two are supposed to be at the church now!
CHICKY
I’m going with the guys.
KRISTA
No. The maid of honour rides to the church with the bride.
(teary now) That’s part of the maid of honour’s job. It ruins
everything if she doesn’t.
CHICKY
All right. (Jesus.)
LISSA
Here comes the bride, big fat and wide.
Here comes the groom, sweeping up the room.
KRISTA
Kevin, take Lissa with you!
Okay, Chicky help me check my makeup and then we can go.
They go to the bedroom.
Jamie goes to the coffee table—a small well-polished oval—and rubs his hand over it.
JAMIE
That’s one frigging nice table, Kev. That’s the same wood?
KEVIN
The log we pulled out from below the swimming hole. Told you,
didn’t I?
JAMIE
Something that waterlogged had this inside of it.
KEVIN
It’s the river what makes it beautiful, Jamie-boy. Brings out the grain of it.
JAMIE
Fucking A, Fucking A plus.
KEVIN
I got a plan for tonight.
JAMIE raises his beer.
JAMIE
To the plan.
KEVIN
I’ll catch Mr. Merv on his own tonight.
JAMIE
You don’t have to do it for us, does he, Clarence?
CLARENCE
Do what?
JAMIE
Get Merv for digging up Travis’s grave. If he did it, eh Clarence?
CLARENCE
I never told nobody to go after nobody.
KEVIN
I never said you did.
I’m taking care of it, I told you, Jamie.
I got a plan.
JAMIE
Okay, Kev, you handle it.
Then it will be done.
KEVIN
Lissa, come on.
KEVIN and LISSA leave. JAMIE starts after but stops.
JAMIE
Got any fatherly advice for me, Father?
CLARENCE
I told you what I think.
JAMIE
Maybe you can tell me what a great son I’ve been, and how you loved being a father to me. No? Oh, wrong son. I know it was you who dug up his grave.
CLARENCE
What liar told you that?
JAMIE
I saw you at the river hiding something, remember?
CLARENCE
What I did, never hurt nobody.
CHICKY comes out of the bedroom.
JAMIE
I’m sure Travis would love to know you was digging up his bones, sending them off to some swindlers in Scotland to end up in some garbage dump.
CLARENCE
They do not. They do not. You forget, I bred foxes all my life, I know what science can be done. They’ll get Trav’s DNA and put in healthy eggs and he’ll be born again.
KRISTA comes out.
JAMIE
No he won’t. The funny thing is, if Travis was alive he’d be cursing you out and maybe marrying someone you like even less than Krista.
Are we going to the church or not, Krista?
JAMIE and KRISTA leave as CLARENCE shouts at them.
CLARENCE
You don’t know that, you don’t know that. Trav was never ordinary, not one day of his life. I can help bring him back. I can make all of it right this time. Get him to the doctor before that bastard tumour starts, ’cause it will be inside his brain waiting, but this time I’ll know, this time I’ll be ready. Chicky, this time I’ll be able to save him, right?
CHICKY
I’m never doing anything for you ever again.
CHICKY leaves.
Lights down.
Scene 14
Late Saturday evening. CHICKY arrives by the river in her bridesmaid dress. She looks around, then sits on the ground. She wipes slow tears from her face. There is the distant sound of police sirens racing through the village. There is some movement in the bushes.
KEVIN
Chicky?
CHICKY
Kevin? I didn’t see your car.
KEVIN
CHICKY
What are you doing, taking a leak or hiding?
The sound of second police car, the sirens much closer, tearing up the road.
KEVIN
She did it!
CHICKY
Kev, get out here.
He comes out.
KEVIN
She called the cops on me.
CHICKY
What’s going on?
KEVIN
Merv’s wife called the cops.
CHICKY
Why would she do that?
KEVIN
It was his fault, right? Merv. He knew I was after him. He’s been
lugging his kids with him everywheres ’cause he’d heard I was after him.
CHICKY
Didn’t Jamie tell you it was Clarence who dug up Trav’s grave?
Clarence and his sick cloning idea.
KEVIN
That don’t matter anyway.
I was hurting that bastard for what he done to me.
CHICKY
Oh, Kev, what did you do?
KEVIN
I saw him leave the firehall, and that bitch wife of his wasn’t with him so I knew I had my chance to get him. I chased him up the road to Reggie’s. Merv was flying too. He went off. Hit that big dead elm in the sod field.
CHICKY
Is he all right?
KEVIN
Yeah. He had a kid with him, Chicky, the boy.
Merv must have made him stay in the car while he was at the dance.
I saw him, Chicky, before I rammed the car I saw him looking at me out the back window.
CHICKY
Was the boy hurt?
KEVIN
No, he’s okay.
CHICKY
You’re sure?
KEVIN
Yes – yes. But everywhere I look I see him dead. He’s dead when my eyes are open, he’s bleeding and dead when my eyes are closed.
CHICKY
No wonder she called the cops.
You’ll be charged…
KEVIN
I know. Merv’s got people in there, too, a cousin and some friends in the county. They’ll kill me.
CHICKY
Kev.
ROBBY arrives abruptly. He looks sullen.
Hey, Robby. Pretty late for you isn’t it?
ROBBY
No. Bye, Chicky, bye.
CHICKY
Are you okay?
ROBBY
Goodbye, Chicky, bye! You leave, okay.
KEVIN
She ain’t leaving so why are you saying goo—
All hell breaks lose. ROBBY comes flying down to the beach, bearing down on KEVIN.
ROBBY emits loud, angry grunts.
ROBBY knocks KEVIN over, sits on him and puts his hands around KEVIN’s neck.
CHICKY
Robby.
Let go of Kevin!
Christ, Robby, you’re hurting him.
ROBBY continues to hold KEVIN down.
You’re killing him! Let him go.
ROBBY
Nooooo! Nooooo!
CHICKY
Let go of him, now.
Now!
CHICKY takes the hunting knife out of her dainty evening clutch bag.
If you don’t let go of him right now, Robby. Robby.
I’m going to cut my hand.
Let go.
I’ll cut my hand to the bone.
Look.
ROBBY takes his hands away. KEVIN is coughing, holding onto his neck.
Get off him, Robby.
What’s wrong with you?
ROBBY
Make him sorry.
CHICKY
Sorry for what?
Kevin?
KEVIN
Nothing. I didn’t do nothing to him. He’s frigging crazy.
ROBBY
“Keving kissed me.”
KEVIN
Oh, shit.
ROBBY moves in to attack again.
What – Kev what?
KEVIN
One time, on the hand, I kissed her.
CHICKY
Lissa!?
KEVIN
It was a game. She was playing, making the hurts go away.
CHICKY
You hurt her.
KEVIN
No. Chicky. No. She was kissing me better, my bruises.
ROBBY
“Keving my boyfriend.”
“Keving my boyfriend.”
Lissa said. “Sex is loud.”
KEVIN
No way. Chicky, I swear.
CHICKY
She’s fourteen.
She is fourteen.
KEVIN
No. Robby? No! I kissed her one time on the hand, that’s it!
ROBBY hands CHICKY the porcupine.
ROBBY
He give her this present for a kiss.
CHICKY
Jesus.
KEVIN
No. I mean, yes, I gave it to her. But she k
issed me and I told her you don’t kiss a guy if he gives you something.
CHICKY
Did Lissa say he he… had sex with her, Robby?
KEVIN
Oh come on. No!
ROBBY
Lissa said, “Keving kissed me.”
KEVIN
Nothing, nothing happened.
ROBBY
(clearly angry) He kissed Lissa.
CHICKY
He shouldn’t have done that, Robby. God, Kevin.
KEVIN
I’m sorry. Okay, Jesus, I’m sorry.
CHICKY
You did the right thing, Robby. Any guy comes near Lissa, you make him sorry. But don’t kill him, because Lissa and Mom need you at home. Right?
ROBBY
Right.
CHICKY
But you can beat him up. You’ve got my permission to beat the shit out of him.
Okay, Robby?
ROBBY
Okay, Chicky.
CHICKY
You go home, tell Dolores that Kevin kissed her, but that’s all.
You tell Mom that he will never ever ever do that again.
You tell him, Kevin.
KEVIN.
Chicky, I’m not gonna…
CHICKY
Tell Robby.
KEVIN
I won’t ever kiss Lissa.
CHICKY
You okay?
ROBBY
You okay?
CHICKY
I’m okay. You go home, Mom will be worried about you out so late.
ROBBY
Bye, Chicky.
ROBBY walks with dignity past KEVIN.
CHICKY
Don’t talk to me.
KEVIN
They fucked me up, Chicky.
At the camp.
They fucked me up.
CHICKY
We’re all fucked up, Kevin. Every last one of us. What happened to you happened. None of it gives you the right to mess with Lissa.
KEVIN
I knew kissing her was messed up.
CHICKY
’Cause she’s slow, Kev? Kissing any girl that young is messed up, it screws her up for life. Look at me, I’m twenty-five years old and I got not one person in my life who gives a shit about me ’cause of what
I did with Reg— (no, that fuck!) – (slowly) I got no one who cares about me now because of the way Reg looked at me when I was fourteen.
KEVIN
I care about you. I do. I do, a lot.
CHICKY
Listen, Kevin. Mom named me Donald-a for a reason. I figured that much out. Which Donald is it? I asked her. She wouldn’t ever say, only one time—something she hinted—maybe hinted.
Your father was on my list of possible Donalds.
KEVIN
No way.
CHICKY
Before he died, if I was at the store or somewhere he was and your mother wasn’t, he’d speak to me every time.