Huff & Stitch Read online

  Dedicated to Tantoo and Riel and Nicole.

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Huff

  Production History

  Characters

  Play

  Stitch

  Production History

  Characters

  Play

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  I never thought I’d see the day that my work was published. I never thought it would be produced. I had planned to burn my plays. You know, to punish a sick world by depriving it of my beautiful work. (My agent assures me the money is the same.)

  I started writing Stitch when I was twenty-two. I was living in a roach-infested basement. There was no natural light—I wrote under fluorescence. I shared the apartment with a prostitute who paid me ten dollars a trick to rent the bedroom. I’d be writing late at night or early in the morning, get a knock at the door, and have to walk around outside for fifteen minutes and write in a notebook. Imagine following a mascaraed stranger into a dank basement and seeing cheerful little me making myself scarce, skittering out like one of the roaches: “Have a nice time.”

  Then I’d come back and write until I had to go to work for a special event company. I carried furniture by day, barely ate, just smoked.

  The central image in Stitch came from a dream my mom had. The form was influenced by VideoCabaret, Linda Griffiths’s Baby Finger, and Daniel Brooks and Daniel MacIvor’s Monster. I was reading a lot of Hubert Selby Jr., Chuck Palahniuk, and Irvine Welsh. Leanna Brodie introduced me to a few dramaturges. I started working with her husband, Jovanni Sy. He’s a very generous collaborator and he’s become a good friend.

  I was just beginning to write me. What scared me and what turned me on. I was writing what embarrassed me. I tried the first person and I heard my voice.

  Then there was huff.

  I’ve been touring this show for a few years now. Along the way I did this interview with a French journalist who asked if in writing huff I had any “denunciations.” Not a word you hear every day, but the ESL-style question is a pretty succinct one. The answer is yes. I don’t have anything to say. I don’t know how the world is supposed to work. I don’t have any ideas. Give me the floor for an hour and I’ll shit in a beer bottle. I had denunciations. We have disparaging rates of youth suicide. Sexual abuse is a dark part of our national history. First Nation’s people are still fighting to reclaim parts of our culture that were stolen in genocide. huff is a punk show. It’s a fuck you to a society that would put our little brothers and sisters’ backs against the wall. I wanted to throw a brick.

  I was singing in a punk band. I was inspired by Jackass the TV show—hurt myself to make my friends laugh. I was obsessed with telling stories about outsiders, people who do weird stuff to make a connection. I thought our most taboo subculture was First Nations’ kids abusing solvents, at high risk of suicide. I wrote a short story.

  I carried the story for four years and made a few attempts at writing a play. I didn’t have much success until Patti Shaughnessy booked it for the Ode’min Giizis festival in Peterborough.

  That gave me a year to write and create a new solo play. I got some money through the Theatre Creators’ Reserve. Native Earth programmed it in the Weesageechak festival. Jovanni was going to dramaturge again but I wasn’t ever ready to show him anything. Opening night was approaching and we didn’t have time to get into our old rhythms of notes and drafts. Most of the dramaturgy happened in rehearsals at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre by Karin Randoja. That being said, I owe a debt to the creativity of Mason Wales, David Geary, Elizabeth Kantor, and especially Karin, whose directorial vision was the basis for the two proceeding productions and tours.

  When I perform the show I think about the kids in the story: little shit disturbers with fierce imaginations. I want to do a play that they would love. That’s why there’s so much cussing. That’s why I splash the audience with tomatoes. That’s why I don’t care what people think about it.

  Huff

  Production History

  Huff was first produced by Cardinal/Kantor Productions on June 21 and 22 at the Gordon Best Theatre, Peterborough, as part of the Ode’min Giizis Festival. It featured the following cast and creative team:

  Director: Karin Randoja

  Designer and Stage Manager: Elizabeth Kantor

  Performer: Cliff Cardinal

  Technician: Em Glasspool

  The play was remounted by Native Earth Performing Arts in 2015 and later toured throughout Canada in 2016.

  Characters

  Wind

  wind enters. He has a plastic bag over his head. It’s duct-taped around his throat to create an airtight seal.

  wind: Turn off your fucking cellphone.

  Put the remote down.

  This is an interruption of your regularly scheduled program.

  Don’t worry though.

  Your normal show will be on again soon.

  This isn’t life and death.

  Not for you.

  Where I am is in my apartment not trying to take a plastic bag off my head.

  It’s duct-taped to my throat.

  And my hands are handcuffed behind my back.

  The key to my handcuffs is stashed in the top cupboard where I can’t get at it.

  Anoxia is the word for when your brain is deprived of oxygen.

  Anoxia will kill you somewhere between four and six minutes.

  You’ll pass out after three.

  I’ve been in this bag for two.

  Actually about one minute and fifty-seven seconds.

  wind breathes. The plastic bag crumples around his face.

  Now.

  Definitely.

  It’s been five minutes.

  My breath feels warm inside the mask.

  Like a baby’s . . .

  This is a suicide attempt.

  I say “attempt” but it’s looking pretty good.

  I should know.

  I’ve done this before.

  wind hears a gentle whisper through the plastic bag: “Breathe.” He looks around but can’t find where the voice is coming from.

  When you hear something like that it doesn’t mean anything.

  You probably made it up.

  Maybe a hallucination brought on by your brain screaming out for oxygen.

  I’m ninety per cent sure that’s what you are.

  “Hi, imaginary friends!”

  He hears the whisper again: “Breathe.”

  Next time you hear it the voice is familiar.

  Like a TV show that’s gone off the air.

  A third time: “Breathe.” He shrugs at the plastic bag with his shoulders but can’t remove his death mask. He falls to the floor trying to get the bag off.

  I think about yelling at myself.

  About cursing my own stupidity.

  But I don’t want to give myself the satisfaction.

  Anyway, that’s how I got here.

  Really, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for all of this.

  (to an audience member) Hey, can you get this off me?

  Seriously.

  This isn’t a metaphor.

  If you don’t help me I’ll suffocate right here.

  wind enters the audience. He bows to an audience member who removes the mask and duct tape and handcuffs. (If the audience member says anything aside from “yes,” wind goes to someone else.) wind takes the handcuffs back.

  I’ll take those.

  wi
nd thrusts the plastic bag back into the audience member’s hands.

  And this.

  Hold onto this for me.

  And don’t give it back no matter what I say.

  Okay?

  I need you.

  Thanks.

  He goes back to the stage. He gives thanks.

  Hiye hiye.

  He turns back to the audience.

  Trickster.

  See, for my people, “Trickster” is a real thing.

  Ask anyone’s kohkum.

  If you listen, you can hear the lessons.

  And through the generations we’ve heard the lessons so many times, we came up with a word for it: Trickster.

  That one drink too many before the drive home: Trickster.

  That questionable piece of ass you tapped au naturel: Trickster.

  That the very story that brought you into the darkness is the only one that can lead you back to the light: Trickster.

  When you’ve got a plastic bag on your head, what you’re doing is rebreathing the same breath until it chokes you.

  The breath I’m breathing is a story that began a long time ago . . . in the eighties.

  One day a young warrior on the hunt met a beautiful girl.

  He’d known her since she was a child but looked on her with new eyes.

  At a time when all the young warriors were meeting their future wives, Tracey was the most beautiful girl Michael had ever seen.

  She had the kind of beauty that tribes went to war for.

  A beauty that pulled the air from an Indian’s lungs.

  With great respect and trepidation Michael approached and requested permission to begin courting:

  mike: Tracey, why are you so stuck up?

  tracey: Why you gotta be like that?

  Is it so hard to just be happy?

  wind: (to audience) The girl had many suitors but accepted the young warrior’s request because . . .

  But accepted the young warrior’s request because . . . because Trickster.

  Before long the warrior had acquired enough firewood for the winter and a lodge big enough for them both.

  When he was ready he brought her there and asked her to marry him.

  With joy in her heart the beautiful girl went to her mother to tell of the young warrior’s proposal.

  tracey: Mama, I’m pregnant.

  kohkum: Ah shit.

  Here we go.

  It’s because you don’t listen.

  Now here you are in a way . . . knocked up . . . up the stick.

  And I’ll tell you something about that man of yours for free: Way he treats you?

  He’s either dumb, stupid, or just ain’t got no good sense.

  tracey: But, Mama, I love him.

  kohkum: Ah shit.

  It’s because you don’t listen.

  wind: (to audience) So the young warrior and the beautiful girl were wed; and they were happy . . .

  No one knows how the young warrior drew Trickster’s attention.

  Maybe one of those little curses you think you walk away from.

  Ever said “I love you” and weren’t sure you meant it?

  Ever stolen something and gotten away with it?

  Ever walked the streets at night and had nowhere to go?

  Trickster is waiting for you there.

  I don’t have the antidote.

  I don’t know how it stops and I don’t know how things change.

  But there is one thing we know attracts Trickster: fear.

  And for all the strong, powerful ways the young warrior was, he was also afraid.

  Soon Trickster preyed on him in his dreams.

  The young warrior turned cruel.

  He beat the girl, took away her hope.

  He became less a warrior and more a demon.

  The girl was trapped and turned to the bottle.

  When her first son Charles was born the midwife could smell the alcohol on the baby.

  The girl’s mother, the baby’s kohkum, came to the young couple with medicine and in ceremony showed the two the way out of the darkness.

  kohkum sings.

  The girl quit drinking and the young warrior promised never to be so cruel again.

  Six years passed and they had another son.

  And then another.

  But Trickster is patient.

  Soon the young warrior chased every hot girl on the rez totally unchecked.

  Soon the girl turned back to the bottle.

  Soon the young couple was back in the darkness where they began.

  When the young warrior abandoned the beautiful girl and her three children to the winter Trickster was ready.

  mike: Sons, I love you.

  Always remember that.

  I got some bad news.

  Your mom is dead.

  That means she’s gone and she’s never coming back.

  wind: But, Dad, she’s coming back.

  She just went to the store or out some place.

  mike: She took herself away from us.

  Went into the woods with a rope.

  Tied it around her neck.

  Stopped breathing.

  We’re here.

  Together.

  Warriors, sons.

  When I was a kid nobody ever stood up and cheered for me.

  But that’s not the way it’s gonna be for you.

  There’s gonna be some changes.

  Real changes.

  I’m not gonna be drinkin so much anymore.

  After this.

  He drinks.

  Your kohkum’s gonna be helpin out more.

  And your auntie Donna’s gonna be movin in.

  kohkum: No, Mike.

  Auntie Donna’s no auntie.

  Can’t you let my daughter rest before you go moving your other woman in?

  mike: Kohkum, you’re very confused.

  kohkum: You drove my daughter to kill herself.

  You did.

  This is your fault.

  mike: Old woman, if you hadn’t lost your daughter today I’d—

  wind: (to audience) And somewhere in all of this me and my brothers were to find our way.

  At the radio station.

  trickster: Thank you for listening to Shit Creek Radio, your voice for when you’re up Shit Creek and you don’t have a paddle.

  The weather has been cold and weird recently.

  Cold as in fifty below.

  Weird as in there have been reports of strange whisperings in the wind.

  Voices echo faintly in the darkness.

  It’s some real X-Files stuff goin on in Shit Creek.

  Of course most have been quick to dismiss the reports as the ravings of madmen and elders in early onset dementia; but don’t discredit the reports.

  For wise men listen to fools, not the other way around.

  Is that Pink Floyd or the Bible?

  wind: (to huff) Get the bag ready.

  Last time the hose started flowing and you got gas all over yourself.

  huff: Is she coming?

  wind: Not yet.

  I’ll give you the signal.

  huff: What’s the signal?

  wind: Don’t worry.

  You’ll know it.

  wind smacks huff upside the head.

  huff: Ow!

  wind: Come on, let’s go, that was the signal.

  huff: Hey, wait up!

  wind: Hurry up, don’t look back!

  huff: You didn’t have to hit me.

  wind: Yes I did.

  Teacher would have fucked you up if she caught you siphoning gas from her car.

  Man this thing is he
avy.

  You’re really good at siphoning gas.

  Siphoning gas must be your sacred gift from Creator.

  huff: No, siphoning gas isn’t my sacred gift from Creator.

  wind: Yeah, what’s your sacred gift from Creator?

  huff: You know that feeling you get when you laugh?

  You know how inside it feels real good and everything?

  I can give that to someone.

  Just by blowing.

  Like this.

  huff blows; wind feels laughter but doesn’t laugh.

  wind: Whoa, how’d you do that?

  huff: What’s your sacred gift from Creator?

  wind: I don’t think I have one.

  huff: Yeah.

  Everyone has a sacred gift from Creator.

  We just have to find yours.

  wind: Maybe it’s . . . shoplifting.

  Yeah, shoplifting is my sacred gift from Creator.

  huff: Awesome!

  wind: (to audience) Hey!

  Whoa!

  Imaginary friends!

  This is our favourite place.

  Only we know about it so we get to make the rules.

  The abandoned motel by the highway.

  You gotta crawl in through a hole in the roof and you gotta swear on a stack of Bibles you won’t tell anyone what happens here.

  Swear . . . no, like, swear.

  Think of your favourite swear word and on the count of three we’re all gonna swear em.

  Ready?

  One . . . two . . . I’m serious, you guys . . . three: cocksucking motherfucker!

  Now that everyone’s sworn in I can show you the rest.

  This is the cockpit where we effortlessly glide our vessel through time and space.

  This is the kitchen; but it’s magical too.

  Say, you want some . . . delicious lasagna?

  All you have to do is put animal foreskins in the top, press the buttons on the control panel, and bam!

  Out it comes.

  Unfortunately we don’t have any animal foreskins right now.

  Oh, and check it out: it’s Charles’s porn collection.

  huff: What we should do, is we should hide some of it, and watch him freak out.

  wind: Yeah!

  Great idea!

  wind hides charles’s porn in the magic oven.

  Shhhh!