MARLOWE. Oh? Not that I’m surprised.
MR BURKE. A rising young man of the pugilistic arts. You been fighting much?
MARLOWE watches as ELIZABETH finds a coin on the floor and puts it in her little box under her chair.
SCOTT. Oh not so much.
MR BURKE. Well that’s a pity. You should.
SCOTT. Well, I wasn’t really able to.
MR BURKE. You injured?
SCOTT. No, I…
MR BURKE. ’Cause a talent like that shouldn’t go to waste. No talent should.
MARLOWE (helping himself to coffee). Well you know, a man can lose his nerve.
MR BURKE. That can happen, too. You travel round so much, you lose your bearings, you lose the hunger.
MARLOWE. You lose the hunger, Mr Scott?
SCOTT. No I…
MARLOWE. You get hurt?
SCOTT. No.
MARLOWE. It’s alright to run away.
MR BURKE. Well I don’t mean to pry. I admire you, sir.
SCOTT. No it’s alright, I can tell you. I was incarcerated up in the Stillwater penitentiary for three years.
MR BURKE. Oh, well that’s…
SCOTT. A felon, name of Crawford, claimed he saw me running from a robbery there April 15th 1929, however his testimony was withdrawn in January this year before a court who declared my conviction to be unsound.
MR BURKE. Well congratulations.
SCOTT. Thank you.
MARLOWE. Well Halleluiah.
ELIZABETH. Well, Halleluiah.
MRS BURKE. What an ordeal.
The music on the wireless segues into a 1930s arrangement of ‘Dear Landlord’.
SCOTT. Yes, ma’am. For a man who never smoked, to be stuck inside with men who just burned cigarettes all night. That was maybe the worst part somehow. And the shame of course. For my family.
MRS BURKE. It’s terrible.
MR BURKE. You must be itching to get back in the game. You get compensation?
SCOTT. No, sir. I been living under a bridge up in St Paul. A newspaper gentleman named Mose McCabe forwarded me a little money, recommended I talk to a man down here named Mr Murphy might invest in a comeback. But now I hear he’s down in Chicago so I’ll make my way down there.
MR BURKE. Sir, I admire your initiative and your tenacity and goddamn if there isn’t a tear in my eye. And I don’t know who this Mr Murphy is but I would like to offer you, right here and right now, my services as a manager – or a partner or…
MRS BURKE. Francis…
MR BURKE. Well why not? It’s a business. And if there’s one thing I know – it’s business.
ELIAS emits a long, high-pitched sigh.
MRS BURKE. Yes, you know it too well.
She means this as a sort of joke, but he takes it hard, humiliated before the company.
MR BURKE. What’s that supposed to mean?
MRS BURKE. Well let’s just say it’s an acquaintanceship that has not treated you and business equally.
MR BURKE (laughing but really appealing for reason). Woman, a man walks in here and I decide to discuss an opportunity – you cannot wait two moments before you deride me!
MRS BURKE. You can’t manage your own son or provide for your wife and you want tell a stranger you’ll manage his affairs – with what? From where? Working out of a closet in a two-bit flophouse?!
ELIAS starts blowing on a harmonica. His parents shout over the din.
MR BURKE. An operation like this? That’s the beauty of it!
MRS BURKE. Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder.
MR BURKE. It is beautiful! It is beautiful! Jesus Christ! Elias! Not at table!
MR BURKE grabs the harmonica roughly.
The band take over from the wireless. Their underscore echoes ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’, ‘Dear Landlord’, snatches of ‘I Want You’…
DR WALKER addresses us.
DR WALKER. Marianne had a lonely upbringing.
To say it wasn’t fashionable in Minnesota to bring up a black child in a white family in those days would be an understatement. In 1920, when Marianne was just five years old, three black men named Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson, and Elias Clayton were lynched by a mob who broke into the jail, right here in Duluth. Hanged ’em down on the corner of 1st Street for a crime they hadn’t committed. No one was ever even prosecuted for it.
Nick didn’t want to be seen holding a little black girl’s hand going down to school, so Elizabeth taught her everything she knew right here in the house.
Nick didn’t like it one bit when Marianne started going around other parts of the town. Looking for music, for life. But what could he do?
When Nick was ten years old he was asked to mind his little sister for the day. She was six. Her name was Leonora. This was up in Rocheleau – lotta mining up there. Nick had arranged with his friends to fight another gang of boys up in the woods. He took Leonora with him – she fell down a taconite hole. Fell forty feet. The boys could hear her down there – calling out for Nick. But by the time help came… (Opens his hands.) Nick was sent down here to live with his granddaddy. It was one of those stories you hear about people, you think about it every time you look in their face.
It’s pouring rain. MARIANNE is on the front porch smoking. GENE comes out to her.
GENE. Hey.
MARIANNE. Hey.
GENE. Whatcha doin?
MARIANNE. Watchin’ the birds.
GENE. What birds?
MARIANNE. The mama and the baby.
GENE. There ain’t no babies in November.
MARIANNE. She’s got one.
GENE. Maybe it never grew.
MARIANNE. Maybe. You wanna see a movie?
GENE. What’s on?
MARIANNE. You see It Happened One Night?
GENE. Who’s in it?
MARIANNE. Clark Gable. It’s goofy. This guy is helping this girl run away from getting married.
He smiles mischievously at her.
GENE. You’d go and see it again?
MARIANNE. Sure if you wanna… I got nothin’ to wear.
GENE. You can wear my sweater.
MARIANNE (unimpressed). Right…
GENE. Who’s lookin’ at you?
MARIANNE looks at him.
You ever gonna tell me?
MARIANNE. What.
He looks at her belly.
Don’t ask me, Gene, alright?
They go quiet as NICK approaches.
NICK. Hey! Gene! The hell happened to your face?
GENE. Someone thought I had their lottery ticket.
NICK. Did ya?
GENE. I wish!
NICK gives GENE a letter.
What’s this?
NICK. Read it.
GENE. What is it?
NICK. Appointment for an interview.
GENE. Interview for what?
NICK. Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad. Right here.
GENE. Yeah, what is it? Punching tickets?
NICK. What do you care? You know what other guys’d do just to get in the door? Just to sweep the damn platform? I ain’t gonna tell you the favors I had to pull. Had to sweet-talk an old girlfriend.
GENE. I don’t wanna hear that!
NICK. You kids don’t think I was young once? You think I was born like this? Like an old man! You have no idea, my friend.
GENE. Yeah, well that’s got nothin’ to do with me.
NICK. No, huh? And I got nothin’ to do with you?
GENE. Mostly you don’t.
NICK (offended). I don’t have nothing to do with you?
GENE. Why the sudden interest?
NICK. I can’t take an interest in you?
GENE. Sure, I guess.
NICK. Well there you go.
GENE. What you up to?
NICK. I’m not up to anything.
GENE. I don’t get it.
NICK. I want for you to make money.
GENE. Alright.
NICK. You get it?
&n
bsp; GENE. Kinda.
NICK. You do this for me, okay? You do it for me, you do it for your mother, you do your best. (Pause.) What?
GENE. Nothing.
NICK. Hm?
GENE. Nothing.
NICK. You go to that interview.
A girl in her twenties, KATE, approaches the porch, she holds an umbrella against the teeming rain. GENE is lost for words for a moment.
KATE. Morning, Mr Laine.
NICK. Morning, Kate. How’s your mother?
KATE. Well, thank you.
NICK. And your father?
KATE. He’s well too.
NICK. Well that’s…
NICK and MARIANNE go.
GENE. Kate…
KATE. I hope it’s alright – calling by like this.
GENE. No! Hey… Come in.
KATE. I can’t stay.
GENE. Hey, that’s alright. You want some breakfast?
KATE. No, thank you, I’m fine.
GENE. Cup of coffee?
KATE. I can’t. I have a ticket for the nine o’clock Greyhound – to Boston.
GENE (steps into the rain, holding a newspaper over his head). You going to Boston?
KATE. I got a job. Teaching. For a family. It’s kind of a governess.
GENE. Great.
KATE. Three girls.
GENE. Wow. That’s terrif…
KATE. Jed Simons has asked me to marry him, Gene. I’ve said yes.
Short pause.
GENE. Wo… Wow that’s… That’s great.
KATE. I wanted to tell you myself. You know how these things…
GENE. I know. That’s… That can be really… thank you.
KATE. Are you okay?
GENE. I’m great. I’m… why wouldn’t I…?
KATE. What happened to your face?
GENE. Oh this! No, I… damn branch on that sycamore tree sprung back and hit me while was, tryna… chop it down.
KATE (looking at his face, concerned). Did you clean it?
GENE. I gotta clean it. I’ll do it.
KATE. If I had time I’d…
GENE. No, no, I know, I’ll do it. I know. So, Boston!
KATE. Yeah.
GENE. That’s great.
KATE. Yeah it’s… You know Jed is gonna be working out there.
GENE. Yeah, I heard something… That’s…
KATE. Gene, I’m sorry about what I said to you…
GENE. When?
KATE. You know…
GENE. Oh, hey, no. Don’t. I deserved it.
KATE. I do admire you, Gene. I always have. I can feel there’s so many great things you could do. I guess I got angry and I…
GENE. Kate, I was drunk. I was drunk and I… You know what? When we’re old and we’re like fifty years old and we look back at this whole thing, you know what? I bet we’re just gonna laugh our damn heads off about the whole thing. I’m even laughing right now. It’s funny!
KATE. I better go, Gene.
GENE. You better go, Kate. And you know what?
KATE. Yeah?
Pause.
GENE. Nothin’.
KATE starts to go, she turns back.
KATE. I wanted to give you back this, Gene. I nearly forgot. It’s your mother’s St Christopher medal.
GENE. Keep it!
KATE. No I couldn’t.
GENE. Really.
KATE. It’s your mother’s.
GENE. No keep it. Really. She won’t care!
KATE. I couldn’t.
GENE (losing his temper). I said keep it! I said keep it!
He shoves it roughly in her hand.
I don’t want it. You understand me? I don’t want it!
KATE, confused, holds on to it and moves away. Bare chords for ‘I Want You’ begin under the following.
(Regaining composure.) I’ll see you, Kate. You take care.
KATE. Okay.
GENE (calls to her). I have an interview.
KATE (turning). Oh?
GENE. Yeah, Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad.
KATE. Oh that’s wonderful.
GENE. Yeah. They say I should making three thousand dollars by this time next year.
KATE. Really?
GENE. Sure.
KATE doesn’t really believe him, but smiles and starts to go.
You wanna see the letter?
KATE. No that’s fine.
GENE. You tell Jed!
KATE. I will.
She turns away. GENE watches her. As music starts and they sing, they could dance and even kiss. We see what their souls are doing despite everything that’s just been said. The whole company can sing parts too.
I Want You
The guilty undertaker sighs
The lonesome organ grinder cries
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn
But it’s not that way
I wasn’t born to lose you
I want you, I want you
I want you so bad
Honey, I want you
The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep, they wait for you
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin’ from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you
I want you, I want you
I want you so bad
Honey, I want you
How all my fathers, they’ve gone down
True love they’ve been without it
But all their daughters put me down
’Cause I don’t think about it
Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid
She knows that I’m not afraid to look at her
She is good to me
And there’s nothing she doesn’t see
She knows where I’d like to be
But it doesn’t matter
I want you, I want you
I want you so bad
Honey, I want you
MARLOWE comes into the dining room looking for something to write with. ELIZABETH is there wearing sunglasses.
ELIZABETH. So you’re God’s representative on Earth, huh?
MARLOWE. Oh no… I’m a mere servant of the servant. Can I serve you?
ELIZABETH. You can’t scratch this itch, Padre. I been a long time on the prairie.
MARLOWE. Well you let me know. What you keep all down in here, under your seat there?
ELIZABETH. It’s an escape hatch.
MARLOWE. I see.
ELIZABETH. Day’s gonna come we all gotta blow.
MARLOWE. Well maybe you’ll show me the way out.
ELIZABETH. Everybody gotta go a different door, Monsignor.
MARLOWE. Well maybe that’s so.
ELIZABETH. You get a wash this morning?
MARLOWE. Well of course.
ELIZABETH. You might need to go another rinse. It don’t smell so sweet down here in the downwind.
MARLOWE. Well perhaps I need to find a laundry.
ELIZABETH. Yeah, well you find a good one. I don’t need no louses. I seen one walking down the parting in my hair when I was fixing myself one day. There he was just strolling along the white-line parting like it was a nice country lane, as peaceful and serene… I knew it then, Lord Jesus, I knew it then. I wasn’t coming back. (Beat.) I can see a louse. I can see ’em.
Girl from the North Country Page 4