bound goods
by Susan Murray

 

 

The company:
Caroline - 14 years old. Prim, idealistic. Daughter of a doctor.
Mary - 16 years old. Cynical, worldly. Daughter of a merchant.
Shelley - 11 years old. Quiet, weary. Daughter of a farmer.
Richard - 45 years old. Handsome, glossy. A pragmatist.
Bernard - 27 years old. Friendly, earnest. Follows orders. Strong.
The Boat Inspector - 30s innocent, in appearance.

 

(In the hull of a rusted steel boat the girls sit on the floor in silence. Caroline looks from Mary then to Shelly a few times, but both are looking away from her.

Mary uses a bit of wood to gouge dirt out of cracks in the floor. Shelly sits in a ball rocking and humming softly. These actions form a rhythm. From time to time it stops, at these moments Caroline opens her mouth to speak, but then the gouging and humming start again before she can say anything. At last, Caroline pounds the boat once with her fist. Shelly and Mary look up.)

CAROLINE: So.

(Pause. Mary and Shelly resume their rhythm. Caroline stands. Again, she pounds the hull with her fist. Again, Mary and Shelly look up.)

 

CAROLINE: So, tell me ... why did your parents sell you?

(Pause. Mary looks at Shelly who shakes her head "no.")

MARY: They needed money. Why else! All my brothers were useless and the fields were dying.
CAROLINE: How about you, peanut?
SHELLY: Shelly.
CAROLINE: Shelly.
SHELLY: Well, my father’d never have had enough to marry me off.

(Caroline sits. Pause)

MARY: (To Shelly)
I can see why.
(Caroline hits Mary.)
Oof! I can see why, you know with the dry spell and all.
SHELLY: Well, I know I'm funny looking.
MARY: Then they'd find you a funny looking husband.
SHELLY: Lucky me.
CAROLINE: I hear the guy who comes with the food!
SHELLY: I can't hear anything.
CAROLINE: It's been way too long.
SHELLY: I can't hear anything!
MARY: You complain too much, little peanut.
SHELLY: My name's Shelley!
MARY: Oh. Right. Well, you complain too much, little Shelley...peanut.
SHELLY: Oh, you can go to hell!
MARY: Big words . . .
little peanut.
SHELLY: I'm not a peanut!
MARY: Peaaaaaanut! Peanut peanut peanut peanut!

(Mary tackles Shelley and pins her. Mary laughs.)

SHELLY: Let me go! Let me go you ugly!

(Mary keeps shelly pinned laughing, Shelly squeals and screams.)

CAROLINE: Stop it. Shit! It's bad enough without you guys fighting.
MARY: It's fun.
CAROLINE: It's too loud.
MARY: You're no fun.
CAROLINE: I'm practical. I act my age. Let's just sit and be reasonable.

(Pause. They sit looking at each other very still.)

MARY: I'm so bored I could chew off my leg!
SHELLY: I'm so hungry I-
MARY: Hey! I hear him again!
SHELLY: Hear what? I can't hear anything!
MARY: He's coming!
CAROLINE: I'm so hungry!
SHELLY: I can't hear anything!
MARY: I hear something!
SHELLY: I can't!
MARY: Listen.
SHELLY: I am!
MARY: You're deaf.
SHELLY: Am not.
MARY: Are too.
SHELLY: Na-Ah.
MARY: Uh-hu
SHELLY: No way.
MARY: Okay . . .
SHELLY: I'm not.
MARY: You are.
SHELLY: Shut up.
MARY: (As if deaf.)
WHAT!
SHELLY: I'm fine.
MARY: (Whispers)
You're deaf.
SHELLY: What?
MARY: (Laughs.)
YOUR DEAF!

(Shelly screams and hits Mary as hard as she can. Mary laughs.)

CAROLINE: (Stands, waves hands in air)
Shhhhhh!

(Pause.)

MARY: What?
CAROLINE: Just stay still or be quiet. You keep getting her all worked up can't you just shut up for awhile?
MARY: What for? We're not going anywhere so can't we have some fun?
CAROLINE: (To Shelly.)
Are you having fun?

(Shelly shakes her head "no" Mary sits.)

MARY: All right I'll shut up.
(Pause)
It's clear that no one likes me.
(Pause)
No one wants to have a good time or laugh.
(Pause)
So we sit here like old anthills.
(Pause)
The boats not even moving!
(Pause)
But, now I'll just be quiet.
(Longish pause. Mary turns to Caroline)
You think you're so special don't you?
CAROLINE: No, no, no I don't.
MARY: You do. I can tell.
CAROLINE: No. But, no, I don't...
MARY: Then why do you give orders?

 

CAROLINE: I'm just trying to keep the peace
MARY: (Standing, walking about.)
Well, I'm just trying NOT to go nuts! Where the hell are we? Do either of you two even know? My family took an advance of $500 to see me put on this boat. And now we're headed to . . .where? To Gabon? Someplace else? We'll work... but doing what? Will I send money home? How? How will I know it even gets there? Will I see my hometown again? My pet goat! Or will my little knobby-knees be eaten since the drought goes on too long and I send no monies home? We don't know anything! And there's no way to find out!
SHELLY: I have a pet goat too. I miss my house and my yard. (cries.) Oh, I wanna go home!
MARY: Aw, and now, peanut is homesick!

(Mary turns around. To hide that she is crying from Shelly.)

SHELLY: And I'm not a peanut!
MARY: (Low.)
And I'm not homesick.

(Pause.)

CAROLINE: Mary, You know that's not how it is.
MARY: Heh.
BERNARD:(Entering with a vat of food under one arm.)
Here it is. Get your cups.
MARY: Oh good!
SHELLY: I can't find mine.
MARY: Then you won't get any.

(Shelley searches and finds her cup. They hold out their cups and the Bernard fills them.)

BERNARD: You all need to be quieter or the captain will come down and beat you.

(He exits. Long pause. )

CAROLINE: (Very softly.)
We need to be quiet... I told you. See?
MARY: I'm not afraid of the captain.
SHELLY: I hardly got any.
CAROLINE: Just eat.

(They eat until the food is gone. Mary is the last to stop. Caroline and Shelly stare at her as she finishes the last of her food.)

MARY: (Loudly.)
What!
SHELLY: Shhh.
CAROLINE: Because of your fighting we'll all be beaten.
SHELLY: I didn't start it.
MARY: (Laughs)
You two are a riot! Can't you see he just wants to keep us scared? That's the game, keep us quiet and scared. Well I'm not scared of anything! Especially these city-boys in fancy suits. They think that they are using me. They think they'll take commission for me in Gabon, but I have other plans. I'm using them, you see. I know the way this place works.
CAROLINE: Do you?
MARY: We won't be beaten?
CAROLINE: They beat me yesterday for stealing food.
MARY: Well, that's different.
CAROLINE: I can't raise my arm, my shoulder is-
MARY: Will you quit trying to be such a little princess? You think I've never been hit? You don't see me moaning about it.
CAROLINE: My arm is-
MARY: Quit it.
CAROLINE: No one ever treated me like that before. My father hit me once, but it was for breaking the radio. (Laughs) I had no business in his study. He was so mad. I was ten then and he put me over his knee and hit me across the rump! But when I started crying, not so much because it hurt, but because I'd never seen him so angry he almost started crying too! I said I'd never touch his things again, and he then said . . .. That it was okay. I was so happy. I knew it always would be okay. I thought it always would be okay. Things change. Well, then he made his face hard and told me to go to my room. (Laughs) I learned my lesson! (Pause.) But here they hit you for anything. And they don't care what you learn.
SHELLY: I wanna go home.
CAROLINE: Shhh. everyone wants to go home. But we can't.
(Pause. Caroline holds Shelly.)
We can't go home, we cant' and, well that's bad, but, don't you know, the place we're going is better than home?

SHELLY: Is it?
CAROLINE: Oh yes. We'll go to live in a rich country, there'll be lots of food and you'll get a new family that loves you. Tell her, Mary.

(Pause. Caroline and Mary look at each other)

MARY: (Catching on.)
That's right when you get to Gabon you'll be sent to a family and they'll have work for you-- but they will feed you and if you are wily you may marry a rich man and then life will be good.

(Caroline and Mary toast with their food bowls.)

SHELLY: That would be nice. But, there's no chance of that: I'm too little and funny looking.
CAROLINE: You'll grow. Things aren't so bad! As soon as we get off this ship a whole new life will begin for us.
MARY: A new life! Yes-- but you have to know how the place works.
CAROLINE: If you work hard and stay out of trouble you can't go wrong.
MARY: You have to keep your sprit up and not let them get to you.
CAROLINE: We'll, do fine. Well all become sisters. Well work for a kind old family on a little farm.
MARY: We'll work in a town house in the capital for a politician -and we'll have our own rooms in the attic.
CAROLINE: We'll have a little plot of our own and keep a few fruit trees.
MARY: We'll sneak out at night and go to clubs and dance halls.
CAROLINE: We'll be happy.
MARY: Yes we will.

(Pause they look at Shelly.)

SHELLY: That's sounds so nice.

(Pause.)

MARY: Well, but what?
SHELLY: It sounds nice, but it's not what I heard.
CAROLINE: What did you hear?
SHELLY: I can't.
CAROLINE: No what?
MARY: What?

(Pause.)

SHELLY: (Softly.)
I heard that you work and work and work, until you can't stand any more and then they send you to a brothel (Pause. whispers) to work in a bed.
MARY: That's not true!
CAROLINE: Where did you hear that?
MARY: It's not true. I heard that if you can just learn to read you'll make a good wife. That's what I heard.
CAROLINE: I heard that to become a wife you had to be perfect obedient follow orders and never complain,
MARY: You have to do that too. That's why you need to stop whining, little Shelley-peanut.
SHELLY: How am I going to read I've never even seen a book!
CAROLINE: Never really, you sure?
SHELLY: Never.
MARY: I can read!
CAROLINE: No, you can't
MARY: Can too! Watch.
See this sign...
(Indicating a sign that reads "FLAMABLE" with a picture of a fire.)
... it says . . . Don't set fires.
SHELLY: Even I knew that.
MARY: But, I got it from the letters! No really! Here, see: F L A something L E that's English for "don't set fires" ... or something…
CAROLINE: Or something!
MARY: No really!
CAROLINE: Well, alright, can you teach us?
MARY: I well… Well, I don't know that much really.
CAROLINE: You see?
SHELLY: Anything will help.
CAROLINE: It can't hurt I guess.
MARY: Okay. Let see. There are letters right?
SHELLY: Right.
CAROLINE: Right.
MARY: Like, um, this one is called C.
CAROLINE: C.
SHELLY: C.
MARY: And this is M.
CAROLINE: M.
SHELLY: M.
MARY: And this one is . . um . . um.. I can't remember! Screw it! I don't know what I'm talking about!
SHELLY: We'll never learn!
CAROLINE: Yes we will. Come on, Shelley, what's this?
SHELLY: I don't know. It's c.
CAROLINE: And this?
SHELLY: It's M.
CAROLINE: Well, we come a long way.

(The ship lurches.)

MARY: I'll never get used to that.
CAROLINE: I hate the ocean.
SHELLY: I wanna go home!
CAROLINE: I hear something!
MARY: What? What?
CAROLINE: It's a radio!
SHELLY: Where?
CAROLINE: Press your ear against the hull.
RADIO: (The girls talk over the radio.)
"...50 or more children missing on a ship that set off for the port of Gabon in January. The ship has been circling the Ivory Coast looking for a port that will allow it to dock. There is an international effort to find the missing children. And now for a little music. Michael Jackson’s Billy jean!"
CAROLINE: Goddamit it's in French!
SHELLY: I know some French.
MARY: What dose it say?
SHELLY: It says that there are 100s of Children drowning in the sea and I think it says there are people lost everywhere and… um it says that everyone will be beaten.
MARY: That's nonsense. Your French is terrible.
CAROLINE: You're sure to get a husband knowing French, Shelley.
SHELLY: Oh, now it says they'll play music?
CAROLINE: Who?
MARY: Michael Jackson!
SHELLY: Music!

(They lie very still to listen to the music.)

SHELLY: When I was little-
MARY: When?
SHELLY: Shut up. When I was younger my mom bought a radio. That was when we had a bit of money, but then the drought came again and we ran out of batteries. We'd sit in the sand and sing along with every song even if we didn't know the words. Do you think they'll have radios in Gabon?
CAROLINE: Of course it's a rich country!
SHELLY: How do you know?
CAROLINE: Know what?
SHELLY: That it's rich?
CAROLINE: My mother told me.
SHELLY: My mother came running in to town on the road one dusty day. That's what they say.
CAROLINE: What are you talking about?
SHELLY: She was 16 and pregnant. She came running home.
CAROLINE: Did the baby live?
SHELLY: (Smiles. points to herself)
Yes.
CAROLINE: Why was she running?
SHELLY: She was running from Gabon. Running home keeping the sun on her right shoulder in the morning and left in the evening.
CAROLINE: What was in Gabon?
SHELLY: I don't know. She never told me really. It's a rich country--- they say-
MARY: Guys, I've been thinking.
CAROLINE: What?
MARY: Don't you think we should be there by now?
CAROLINE: I don't know.
MARY: In a jeep Gabon is only five days from Benin.
SHELLY: How long have wee been on this boat?
CAROLINE: When they took us out to wash us, that was three days ago I saw the moon, it was half gone, it was full when we left home.
MARY: We were three days in the truck.
CAROLINE: Almost two weeks I think.
MARY: We should be there by now! Why is this boat so slow!
SHELLY: Maybe we're lost.
CAROLINE: They would tells us.
SHELLY: No, they wouldn't
MARY: They never tell us anything.
CAROLINE: What are you doing?
SHELLY: I want to see if I can see land.
MARY: What for? You never see anything.
SHELLY: I just want to try
MARY: It's pointless.
CAROLINE: Let her look.
SHELLY: We must be lost.
CAROLINE: What's that?
MARY: What?
CAROLINE: Foot steps.

(The door opens. It is Richard.)

RICHARD: You'll do.

SHELLY: Me?
RICHARD: Come on.
SHELLY: Why?
RICHARD: Come on. Come with me.
SHELLY: Can I ask you a question?

(Pause.)

SHELLY: Are we lost?

(Richard slaps Shelley.)

SHELLY: I want to go home!

(Richard slaps Shelley.)

RICHARD: Come.

(They leave. Mary and Caroline remain motionless; they listen till the footsteps fade.)

MARY: Where are they taking her?
CAROLINE: I don't know.
MARY: Why did they take her?
CAROLINE: It didn't seem to matter much who he took. He said, "you'll do."
MARY: I hope she's not in trouble.
CAROLINE: She'll be fine. Maybe they just want to put her in the records.
MARY: They did that already.
CAROLINE: I don't know. (pause.) She'll be back soon. It can't be anything bad, I just know it.

(Pause.)

 

CAROLINE: What are you doing?
MARY: I'm braiding my hair.
CAROLINE: Why?
MARY: When we get to Gabon families will come to chose among us and I want too look my best. You should do something with your hair.
CAROLINE: What's the use?
MARY: It matters. Do you want to work in the sun all day or in a house?
CAROLINE: I don't know.
MARY: Come on-- give it a try, you'll feel better.
CAROLINE: I don't know how to braid my hair.
MARY: How did you get so old not knowing a thing like that?
CAROLINE: My mother always braided my hair.
MARY: Here, I'll help you. Look this bit of wood makes a nice part-
CAROLINE: Ouch!
MARY: Tender head!
CAROLINE: Don't pull!
MARY: Okay, okay. You know you never told us why your parents sold you.
CAROLINE: They didn't.
MARY: Then why are you here?
CAROLINE: My father was a doctor and-
MARY: Well, aren't you the little princess
CAROLINE: It’s not my fault that he was a doctor.
MARY: That must have been nice.
CAROLINE: What?
MARY: Having money, a nice family.
CAROLINE: It didn't last.
MARY: What happened? (pause) Come on! What?

(pause)

CAROLINE: I was only a baby but I remember solders coming to our house. They said "Get out, go to the next village you can't live here anymore." My father, he was brave, he tried to explain, but he didn't have the papers and his accent was to strong, they knew we were the wrong kind. So, we were sent out on to the dusty roads-- walking and always jeeps and trucks going by full of hard faced young men. I learned to wait to eat. I was never hungry before they told us to go, but from then on we were always in the dust. And it was hot; we had only one umbrella to shade the five of us. My father my mother and my two older brothers. I remember watching them, so slender and strong walking ahead of us in the road, black ghosts in the sun set. Then one day I watched them fall, and then my mother fell holding me close, and my father fell too. I stayed in my mother's arms until they grew cold. Till the sun set and I was very cold. Then I started walking because I did not know what else I could do.
MARY: Who killed them?
CAROLINE: I don't know. I never saw them. I never knew why. Before I knew it I was working for a man who kept a horde of young girls like me. We picked pebbles out of his stupid barren field and no matter how many we picked out there were always more and nothing would grow. And then they came by asking for young ladies to go to Gabon and I was picked from the lot and brought to this boat. I'd give up all my teeth to be back with my father and mother at the clean little house where he saw sick people. It smelled like rubbing alcohol. When they rubbed us down for this voyage I got so homesick I cried.
MARY: I remember that.
CAROLINE: I know, -- I said it was the fumes. I meand--- maybe it was! I can't remember his face. Maybe those days were only a dream.
MARY: They weren't a dream. You'll get back to a place like that. You’ll may marry a doctor. You can make up for all these terrible things. And I'll marry a general and he'll find the people who killed your family and have them put up against a wall and have them shot.
CAROLINE: Ha! But, the boys who did it have families too. Whip them instead, and then send them home in shame. But, don't shoot them. I would be so happy if not another shot was ever fired ever ever again.
MARY: You're too gentile. I'd have them shot. I'd have them shot even though they didn't harm my family. Hell. I'd like to see my family shot for sending me here!
CAROLINE: But, they didn't have the money to keep you--
MARY: I'd have them shot anyway! There are days, when I think everyone should be shot. Me with the rest of us. What good do people do in the world if they live to be like we are?
CAROLINE: Some good, someplace. I only hope.

(The door opens. Richard pushes Shelly in. She is bruised and her clothes are tattered.)

bound goods - part 2