Where the Blood Mixes. Kevin Loring
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Enter young native woman wearing a simple white dress.
The sound of wind blowing across hollow pipes.
A song, a soft and distant lullaby.
Underwater light pours down, diffused by the river’s surface. Projected onto the woman is a pictograph, revealed in the shimmering light. She radiates a ghostly aura.
CHRISTINE
I was born in the heart.
I was born in the deepest part.
In the middle of it all, I was born.
In the place where the rhythm beats,
Deep inside my mother,
Where the rivers meet,
My father dreamt me there.
Where blood mixes with blood and the sturgeon waits,
And the wind sings the songs of the dead.
The lights come up and CHRISTINE is gone. FLOYD is in the bar.
The wind blows. The salmon swim away. GEORGE and the bar are blown into the space by the wind. The wind fades away. A guitar plays.
GEORGE
(cleaning the table) Hey, Floyd!
FLOYD
Huh?
GEORGE
Go home if you want to sleep.
You were moaning.
FLOYD
Oh?
GEORGE
Uh-huh.
FLOYD
I was dreaming …
A pull-tab machine is illuminated up-centre. Its blue and red lights make it sparkle like a giant fishing lure. FLOYD goes over to the pull-tab dispenser, buys a handful of pull-tabs, returns to his table and proceeds to pull them open.
FLOYD
Hey, were you singing?
GEORGE
Well, since my baby left me,
Du-duh!
I found a new place to dwell!
Du-duh!
The only hole I’d never leave
The Lytton Hotel
Da-doop-ee-doobie
Da-doop-ee-doobie-Du duh!!!
Beat.
FLOYD
Jeezus Christ.
GEORGE
Any luck there?
FLOYD
No. (pulls one open)
Nope. No luck here. (another)
Nothing.
Three beavers would be nice, eh. Five hundred bucks.
FLOYD pulls open his last pull-tab.
Hey—three fish. I got three fish.
GEORGE
Two bucks.
FLOYD hands over his pull-tab to GEORGE.
FLOYD
Three fish—two bucks, then.
GEORGE
You can put it towards your tab.
Beat.
FLOYD
Oh … Okay.
How much is my tab?
GEORGE
About three beavers …
MOOCH enters.
FLOYD
I don’t remember it being that much.
MOOCH
Hey there, partner.
GEORGE
I added it up.
MOOCH
How’s it going?
FLOYD
When?
GEORGE
Just now, I added it up.
FLOYD
Sneaky bugger adds up my tab while I’m not looking.
MOOCH sits and stares at FLOYD.
FLOYD notices that MOOCH looks beat-up.
FLOYD
What the hell happened to your face?
MOOCH
I forgot to put the toilet seat down.
GEORGE
What?
MOOCH
June’s miserable, worse than usual, I can’t do nothing right.
FLOYD
You never could.
MOOCH
Anyways, I forgot to put the toilet seat down and … well … she went pee in the middle of the night …
FLOYD
So.
MOOCH
I guess she fell in.
GEORGE
What?
MOOCH
Yeah. She fell right in the bowl. Her cheeks touched water and everything.
Anyways, she falls in the toilet and she just loses it.
She’s screaming and hollering, kicking the walls.
FLOYD
No shit.
MOOCH
When I woke up she was right on top of me.
Woke me up and lumped me out!
Damn near knocked my tooth out too.
GEORGE
Holy shit, Mooch.
FLOYD
Did you hit her back?
MOOCH
I wouldn’t do that.
GEORGE
You couldn’t do that. June’s twice the man you are. You’re lucky to be alive.
MOOCH
Ahhhhh … she’s just a little crabby is all.
FLOYD
Seems like she’s always a little crabby these days.
GEORGE
Ever since she quit …
MOOCH
Naaaaw, that’s not it … It used to be you had to watch your ass when she got her moon time, eh, but once that was done, she’d be just like an angel.
GEORGE
(snickers)