8. An mountain
Bones and Martha run from the destruction and the barking dogs. After many adventures they come to the edge of a cliff. It is cold and the rocks fall a long way. There is snow there are condors vultures and mountain lions. Bones lights a small campfire.
MARTHA: You’ve given up being who you are for me.
BONES: I’m a little bit of junk that got washed up to shore on the beaches of Martha Waits.
MARTHA: But you know who I am.
BONES: Everyone knows who you am. Those dogs know it – they’re trying to tell us in dog songs who is Martha Waits.
MARTHA: Everyone here knows something about me but it’s all broken down and jumbled.
BONES: Careful! Get down!
The How I Lost My Virginity Chorus swoops low over the stage, losing a thousand little virginities on each pass.
MARTHA: What the fuck is that?
BONES: It’s the How I Lost My Virginity Chorus. Keep down, I’ll look after it.
MARTHA: You don’t have to, I’m not afraid of it.
Bones javelins the Chorus out of the sky. The Chorus falls to earth with a wet squawk and the slap of bloody feathers.
MARTHA: To be not afraid to be caught to be held to be understood…
BONES: I understand you.
MARTHA: I don’t know if I want to be understood, although I want to understand…
BONES: I don’t want to understand. This clarity comes coldly to me but you are Martha Waits – bus stop Martha – dying of love sickness Martha – new kind of suicide Martha – cleaning Jesus’ blood with your hair Martha Waits.
MARTHA: I’m Martha stopped at Remedios Circle on the way home to play with the kids and watch the old men play chess in the streetlights because I didn’t want to go home and sleep next to – watched the kids play naked in the streetlight and watched one poor kid get up and talk about God.
BONES: Pretty in the makeup mirror but never in real life Martha – desperate and dateless Martha going home with an arsehole watching a street kid out the window of the taxi
MARTHA: Watch his arms move when he speaks and his bare feet in the street and his lips
BONES: Martha candlelit dinner and fucked by her husband behind his glasses holds her hands over her head and fucks like a pilot light going out
MARTHA: Martha step out at night walks away from her husband past the cafes and kareoke bars and fountains and theatres to where this one voice whispers over and over that it’s God’s turn and my nipples like violin strings humming and throbbing
BONES: And then down at the bottom of a very deep hole two little animals start to wriggle.
Bones plucks the How I Lost My Virginity Chorus and puts it in the fire.
BONES: Bones is such a little animal. You shouldn’t be afraid of me.
MARTHA: I’m not.
BONES: What are you looking at me like that for?
MARTHA: Martha waits at the bus stop every morning, her mouth full of leaves and her head full of routines and though she looks around her for other ways to live she cannot seem to pull her train on to a different track. Martha waits and the confusion the wanting to escape to satisfy her body her mind scratches simmers pulls at the bars of the bus stop until her cunt is hot and wet her heart is loud and slippery and she reaches down to the animal below her on the ladder and deep down at the bottom of a very deep hole she takes him into her and she is transformed…
Martha pushes Bones into the fire. Flames lick up on around him and then both of them as she climbs on top of him.
MARTHA: Or no not jesus Martha he’s just a kid leave him alone but why is his dick so hard if he’s just a kid Martha he’s not emotionally prepared but he wants to, he just needs someone to show him what to do come on touch my breasts touch me please come on, touch me
Bones lies in the fire slowly fucking Martha. He starts to cry very softly.
MARTHA: Shh it’s okay, it’s gonna be all right, Martha you shouldn’t put things in your twat that you find on the street but he wants to, he wants to, he wants to be Prince Bones for me Little Martha and Prince Bones. He wants me. Say you want me. Say you want me.
Bones is burning shaking melting sobbing in the fire.
BONES: …I want you…
MARTHA: Yes you do because I’m Martha Waits, I’m dirty wretched stinky Martha Waits from the bottom of the pond where all the slime lives and everyone hates me but they wanna fuck me they wanna fuck me I want to make them I want them to want to fuck me I want to hurt them I want to let them hurt me
Both hands inside Bones’ mouth, Martha pulling his teeth free and scattering them in the snow.
MARTHA: I’m in control I’m in control and they do what I want and they say sorry to me they say sorry Martha and I want to be in control, I’m in control of you aren’t I? Nod your head. Come on nod your head!
Martha grabs Bones’ head and nods it for him, smashing his brains out in the fire.
MARTHA: MARTHA WAITS IS IN CONTROL! MARTHA WAITS IS IN CONTROL! MARTHA WAITS IS IN CONTROL!
BONES: Shantih shantih shantih… which is the peace which passeth without understanding…
BAM! Martha wakes up in bed next to her husband Thrushby.
THRUSHBY: Martha. Are you all right, dear?
MARTHA: Oh. Yes. Sorry, I was dreaming.
THRUSHBY: I know. You were talking in your sleep.
MARTHA: Sorry.
THRUSHBY: That’s all right. It seemed like a sexy dream.
MARTHA: …
THRUSHBY: You were sort of panting and your lovebox is all wet.
MARTHA: Oh.
THRUSHBY: Were you dreaming about getting some action?
MARTHA: I guess.
THRUSHBY: Well dream no longer, darling baby, because I’m here to turn dream into reality! Do you want me to bonk you, sweetheart?
MARTHA: Okay.
THRUSHBY: Well, only if you want to, Martha dear, I’m offering to do you a favour. Do you want me to fuck you or not?
MARTHA: Okay.
THRUSHBY: Righto, then. Open your legs up, darling.
Sad music into a melancholy black-out. Your call Hadley but I recommend Gravenhurst “The Diver” just because it has the lines:
It’s getting darker
But I’m still swimming
It hits me again
It’s getting deeper
Pale blue salt water deepens
It hits me again…
Epilogue - A rainy street
