1
South Dakota/
SOUTH DAKOTA
(The sound of a HELICOPTER. Lights up. Four crates sit at the four corners of the empty stage,
facing different directions. An M16 rifle sits on the floor behind the down-left crate. CURLY,
dressed in Khaki army fatigues, runs on, desperate and breathless, stumbles. Turns to audience
center stage and falls to knees, arms outstretched, and lowers head. GHOST GIRL, BUD, JUD,
AND PRISCILA enter from all entrances. GHOST GIRL shoots CURLY to life. JUDD,
PRISCILLA, and CURLY stand upstage, facing offstage. BUD moves to center stage. Native
American flute music is playing. Music fades.)
Bud
(Looking out over the fields, singing something from Rogers and Hammerstein)
South Dakota, by God, (sighs), look at that. Stand out there and tell me God lives in some damn
church. Ya see the way the light hits all that purple switch grass out past the corn there? By
God, look at that. Me and my brother Earl found all kinds of things buried out there. Found an
old shoe once, found a bible wrapped in a wool blanket, they got it in a glass case at the town
library. Eighteen hundred and somethin’. I can’t remember anything any more. People came
through here crossing the plains. Killed off the buffalos, killed off the Sioux. Bison bones.
Arrowheads. All this land is blood as far as you can see. Blood. It’s just soaked in is all. Scratch
it and it’ll bleed. That big tree out there? People always called it the “Hangman’s Tree.” Hung a
pair of drifters come out here to the Black Hills during the gold strike of 1876. Hung ‘em for
stealing an army mule. Said they was only borrowing it – give it back as soon as they had a grub
stake. By God, they got a grub stake for the worms alright. (1970’s rock and roll instrumental
musical underscoring begins here and continues until notated). Story is, they hung a young
Sioux Indian girl from Wounded Knee Creek – Calvary soldiers tracked her down after the
massacre – a ghost dancer—tied her hands, strung her up. Some say she’s out here still – her
spirit wanders the winds – dancing in the corn …
BUD and GHOST GIRL exit. JUDD, PRISCILLA and CURLY turn, JUDD exits. CURLY moves
to crate and sits. PRISCILLA plays air guitar.)
Curly
(sitting on crate, peddling as if riding a bicycle)
Down and down and down, down, down again and evermore down I go . . . going . . . I am Curly.
I was six. Off I went on my new red Schwinn Stingray; no training wheels, defiant, my brand new,
secondhand red Schwinn Stingray, handed to me by a relative I hardly knew. I didn’t know
exactly how to slow down my new bike so I stuck my foot in between the spokes of my front tire.
My foot came right out of my sneaker and I hit the center bar of my new secondhand red Schwinn
Stingray, with the banana seat and the ape hanger handle bars, with my six year-old testicles,
legs swinging out, slam landing on the top of my bike, sliding with the right peddle sticking into my
ribs. At that time, my front teeth were thankfully in the possession of the tooth fairy, but my nose
was fair game and was taken into custody by my ape hanger handlebars. My hand sort of flew
out in front of me. I knew I was going to hit. I could see myself falling, like I was falling off to
something. (falls off crate)
Pricilla
(playing air guitar to music and speaking to the audience)
By the time it hit me what happened, all I could hear was the sound of my own voice, whispering.
Funny really. And I could see the sky, the sky all blue. My Daddy loved that car. That’s what my
Uncle Bud told me. I guess that made the whole thing even more tragic. My Daddy loved to
drive and I loved sitting in the back seat of that car. I had the whole back seat to myself. Miles of
2
South Dakota/
vinyl and chrome trim. I remember the back end swinging around, hearing bumps and feeling the
same. I could see myself falling, like I was falling off to something.
Curly
(Rolls back onto crate and starts peddling again)
I was really in the jam now, heading for a big brody. My head snapped. My jaw snapped. I hear
my dad going, “Steady, steady, slow down, keep your feet up, Curly boy.” My brand new
secondhand red Schwinn Stingray came to a final halt, dead at the bottom of the McFarland’s
driveway. My dad running over to me, blood everywhere, tasting like metal and warm. My dad
warned me never to cry if I took a big brody in the middle of the street. He picked me up in his
arms, calling for my mother while simultaneously shushing me telling me I did good. My dad,
Wendell, called Bud by most everyone, was lousy under pressure and generally indecisive. My
mother, Evelyn, arrived holding a dishtowel, yelling at my dad and yelling at me. With all the
blood everywhere and me clutching my tiny testies, my mother decided to do a field inspection of
my now public private parts right there at the bottom of McFarland’s driveway. My anger
articulated only through wails of true blubbering, giant mucus bubbles gassed like bellows from
my nose, now swollen, my eyes closed tight like a prizefighter. In the haze of reprimantion and
shushing testicular examinations, I crawled to my red bike. It’s broken. I hate you, Daddy, I hate
you. . . I hate you. (Sits on crate and cleans rifle)
Priscilla
(To audience while dancing with air guitar)
We hit a stop sign, sideways then a no parking sign, my face pressed up against the side door
windows. I was suspended in the air for a second, then floated ever so, up. I noticed the plastic
overhead light, circled with chrome, my cheek tearing across it. Spinning, I flipped up and over,
landing on my left side. What saved me in this horrible crash was luck. Dumb luck. All I lost was
an eye, and, of course, my mommy and daddy. (Spins our still “playing”)
Curly
(To audience, standing, holding rifle)
Down and down and down again, things between Evelyn and Bud were always strained when
they got divorced. (Bud crosses stage holding a lantern and carrying a long handed shovel.) Bud
quit his job in Chicago and moved to the family farm in Faith, South Dakota, where we spent our
summer vacations with Bud’s sister, Dot and my younger cousin, Priscilla. My Aunt Dot could
only endure short visits with Bud on the farm. His melancholy, she claimed, was absolutely,
“Elizabethan”. (Returns to crate, continues cleaning rifle)
Priscilla
(To audience, turns downstage, crosses to crate opposite Curly)
After that, I was taken away to L.A. to live with my Aunt Dot. She raised me and loved me and
taught me independence. I was four. Aunt Dot was a freelance set decorator for network
television. Her friends were florid, colorful, talkative people, given to bursting “hellos” and
passionate “goodbyes”. We lived in a bungalow in West LA. On weekends, she would
entertain.. Her taste in women was extreme. They were always pale with black hair, rode
motorcycles or drove old pickup trucks. When her lovers would leave her, she would drink pink
champagne and play Texas swing records. She made me eye patches that matched my play
clothes. She never denied me the childhood my mommy and daddy did, but often left me alone
3
South Dakota/
for hours. I filled my time and mind with stories of a girl spy with one eye who knew how to fix
cars and surf. She taught me independence, and loved me. Being the weird tall girl with one eye
and no parents had its advantages. People expected me to be strange. I was.
Curly
Down and down again, ever so slowly, the events ticked, ticked, ticked away. My parents
stretched their lives to the limit. Bud moved west. Mom remarried. Stretched even more, I left
Mom for Dad, moving to South Dakota in my junior year of high school. (Crosses to center
stage. PRISCILLA joins him, their backs to each other. CURLY takes off his overshirt.) South
Dakota, in the middle of God’s own nowhere, was the only place I ever wanted to be. That
summer my Dad’s sister, Aunt Dot, died leaving us to care for my cousin, Priscilla. I had just
turned 17. Dad’s brother, Earle and his wife had died in a car accident in California years before.
Aunt Dot had adopted their only daughter, so Priscilla had no other family but us. When she
came, Dad became her new father and I became her brother. Priscilla was 15 with all legs and a
sneer she borrowed from Elvis. She wore a patch over her left eye. Down and down it went.
(Turns upstage, dances)
Priscilla
(To audience)
Down and down and down again the events played on. My uncle, Bud, my dead daddy’s brother
lived on this family farm in South Dakota, haunted by family portraits of pioneers (GHOST GIRL
enters, shoots arrow, leaves) who populated the grassy plains and spirits who danced the
cornfield in the moonlight. Aunt Dot died one day, because that’s how it works out. Uncle Bud,
along with my cousin Curly, drove west to bring me back to South Dakota. Aunt Dot was buried
in California, next to her brother, my Daddy, and of course, my Mommy. I hate them all for taking
the easy way out. That summer I turned 15, I had already lost two mothers.
Curly
(To audience)
While we headed back East, Priscilla, Bud and me, it dawned on me; the streak of bad luck that
fate was serving our family. I tried to remember what fate was. I wished at that moment I had
grown up going to church. (Picks up crate and moves it center stage. Crate becomes a record
player. Priscilla crosses to crate and pantomimes taking a record out of the cover.) As kids,
Priscilla and I were inseparable. She would stay on the farm for 2 months. The night she would
come, we would always stay up late, playing the old records of our grandfather, telling stories of
our lives away from the farm and the people we knew. I only pictured her knowing me. I was
jealous of her school friends she talked of.
Priscilla
(To audience)
Curly was all I had in this world. He was too young to get why and so was I. I kept a diary made
of fake white leather. It had two keys. I wore one around my neck and had sent the other to
Curley when he lived in Chicago with his mom. He told me he lost it, but years later I found him
reading my diary, the summer he went to boot camp.
Curly
I knew she was considered an oddball. Her eye patch made people nervous. We would run and
laugh and run again. There was granddad’s tractor and feeding Bud’s chickens and telling
secrets. (Reaches to touch her as if she was in front of him downstage.) One night we made a
4
South Dakota/
fire and she lifted her eye patch ‘cause she knew I wanted to see. “Touch it”, she said. I did.
(CURLY turns upstage. Music gets loud for an eight count, then softens.)
Priscilla
(Moves to crate and sits)
The farm was a kind of paradise to me. You can see every star ever made. Curly and I found a
book on constellations and would lay out in the yard wrapped in sheets so the mosquitoes
wouldn’t eat us. We would fall asleep in each others arms like people in the movies. We’d hunt
salamanders. We would sit on the wide front porch and Uncle Bud would read Hardy Boy
mysteries to us while we played Crazy Eights or drew pictures or wrote notes to each other.
Curley
(Turns downstage, runs to crate, as if speaking to Priscilla)
Let’s go to the tree after dinner.
Priscilla
(As if speaking to Curley, stands and moves away form the crate, dancing)
Let’s grab some cigs first.
Curly
(To audience, sits on crate)
We held hands. She told me how she dreams about her mother. Under firelight, she told me
stories how the native Indians danced in the corn. I ran my fingers across her cheek and brushed
back the hair that covered her eye patch. Her skin . . . her skin, its touch. To touch her skin was
all I thought about all summer long. To touch her skin all summer was all I could ever hope for.
Priscilla
(To audience)
The days were long and hot. Our time together went quickly by. Each summer brought on
changes in our bodies. We would lie in the grass and look at each other, trying to read each
other’s thoughts. Our bodies spoke to each other in unexpected motions and sweats. Wild ideas
called to me. Curly answered each call with one of his own. We no longer bunked together.
Curly
(To Audience)
The summer I was fourteen we no longer slept in the same room. Aunt Dot, still alive, had
declared that girls need room for their things. Maybe she sensed what was buried in my heart.
(Cosses to upstage left crate, sits.)
Priscilla
(To Audience)
When I showered or was undressing for bed, I could feel Curley’s eyes watching me. The old
farmhouse would quiet to a soft groan. Down and down, down and down again. (BUD enters with
lantern and a mall shovel, kneels at up-stage right crate, digs at something, exits.) Uncle Bud, a
secretive man, always started projects he didn’t finish. Often he would sit in the room he and my
daddy shared as kids, just whispering to himself. He would go out late at night into the cornfields
with his shovel and lantern. This gave me and Curley the creeps, but we hardly spoke of it.
Curly
(Crosses to down-right crate, sits)
5
South Dakota/
The next few summers, things were different. Bud rented out the farmland to some local farmers
and I went to work for this local farmer who had a son named Judd, who was to become my rival.
(Judd, angry, runs across stage, stops, looks right and left, runs off) Judd was not a likeable boy.
He was sulky, angry, and prone to cruelty, especially to anything he could squish; plant, animal,
or bug.
JUDD re-enters, watches PRISCILLA and copies her dance)
Priscilla
(To audience)
Eventually I got a job in town at the feed and grain store. I would see Judd, a local boy, who
would wait outside the store for me to talk to. Sometimes, he would wander in to buy a soft drink
from the Coke machine. When Curly went missing in Afghanistan, (Curly spins and faces
upstage) Judd wrote me a letter, explaining how our lives were intertwined like vines.
(Music gets louder. Crates are moved to form a “tree”. CURLY gathers shirt and gun and exits.
JUDD exits)
Priscilla (cont.)
Two summers before Aunt Dot died, we flew to South Dakota. I’d never been on a plane before.
Outside the window the country lay quilted together, green and brown. (CURLY enters.) Below,
the Pacific Ocean became the Rockies, then the Plains, then the Missouri River, to Pierre, South
Dakota. I was 12. (Turns upstage.)
Curly
(To audience)
Down and down. I was 13. Aunt Dot and Priscilla finally arrived. Bud and I drove to Rapid City
to pick them up. We took Judd (JUDD enters) along, mainly because he had set up cmp outside
our house like a lost coyote. He was a hick and he smelled like one. It always hit me how much
there was to smell on that farm, how big the sky was. It also hit me how much I loved it out here.
We did all kinds of things that summer. We visited Mount Rushmore, we’d ride our bicycles to
Sioux reservation and fish the small streams outside cherry creek. One night we camped out at
the Hangman’s tree. We carried sleeping bags and flashlights and an old Sony Walkman and
crackers. Bud said we couldn’t build a fire because he said we might burn down the field.
(JUDD, CURLY, PRISCILLA pantomime rolling out sleeping bags.)
Judd
(To audience)
Priscilla promised she’d tell us a ghost story. (sets up sleeping bag.)
Curly
(To audience)
Priscilla told us this story about a ghost girl who danced in the corn and sang songs at midnight.
The first time she told me and Judd, we didn’t believe her. (music fades out)
Judd
(To audience)
6
South Dakota/
I didn’t really care what she had to say . . .I just liked the sound of her voice.
Priscilla
(Underscored by Native American flute music, she slowly walks across stage while telling)
This is the story I told them at Hangman’s Tree. I woke up all sweaty. I was having a heat
dream. I could see my mom and dad, in the front seat of our car. I was in the backseat. Tires
started flying off this old truck driving in front of us, then another, then another flying through the
air. My daddy had to swerve to get away from the tires. My mother was yelling at him. He spun
the wheel the other way. I had my little stuffed bunny, Floppy. I had ‘em holding right. The car
started to flip. I was looking out the window like I was in a spinning clothes dryer. I woke up.
The farm house was dead quiet. I heard this crying sound. I was full awake. I climbed out of bed
and walked down the hall. I could hear Uncle Bud snoring away. I stood at the top of the stairs. I
followed the crying sounds. I was thinkin’ maybe Aunt Dot was upset or somethin’, so I walked to
her door out past the kitchen. I could still hear the crying, but it was coming from outside.
(GHOST GIRL enters) As the house slept, I opened the screen door and walked down off the
front porch. The cool air played on my summer night gown. The crying voice called to me. I
moved across the lawn to the cornfield. Guided by this voice I moved on. I was heading toward
the Hangman Tree. “You’re awake, Priscilla,” I told myself. I could feel my bare feet on the dirt.
My hand moved the cornstalks from my face. (CURLY and JUDD rise and walk backwards
toward tree, sit) At Hangman’s Tree, there was a girl, singing. She floated past me and started
to dance. She spoke to me. She told me the story. The story of how she died. (Music fades.)
JUDD, CULRY, and PRISCILLA sit on crate,under ghost girl as she stands on “tree”)
Ghost Girl
(To audience)
Big Foot and our people were gathered at Wounded Knee Creek. We danced Hawiwacipi, ghost
dance, chanting and avenging our ancestors long gone. Four days we danced, hoping it would
drive the Washitu away, the soldiers. They watched us, holding their weapons in their hands
while we danced. On our last day, they fired, we had no weapons but the Washitu shot in every
direction, killing every living creature in their way. Children ran as fast as their feet could go,
running and pushing the others that they once cared for, looking for a placed to go. . . falling. . .
Talutah. Blood everywhere. I ran all the way to the tree, but they caught up. A soldier pulled my
arms back while another soldier puller rope around my neck. I couldn’t breathe. The world was
red and I was spinning. High and higher. I could see the darkness. I could hear laughter. Higher
and higher. It was silent, there was no laughter. Mother came to bring me to the new land, but I
could not go.
(GHOST GIRL begins singing in Sioux. AS she taps characters on the head with her Shaman
stick, characters begin singing as well, forming a line downstage. AS GHOST GIRL passes
them, characters begin dancing and fall to ground, asleep. GHOST GIRL exits.)
Judd
(To audience)
After Priscilla told us that story, I couldn’t sleep a wink. (Original rock music underscore begins.) I
stayed up all night eatin’ cheese crackers. I occurred to me under these stars that I was just a
dumb farm kid from South Dakota, who didn’t know much about this world. I thought I was a
ghost move out of the corner of my eye. I shined my flashlight into the brush.
Priscilla
7
South Dakota/
(To Judd from across the stage, not looking at him. Curly sleeps downstage, opposite Judd)
She’s not coming tonight, Judd. Go to sleep.
Judd
(To audience)
Priscilla had cast a spell on me. I turned to look at her.
Priscilla
(To Judd)
Sweet dreams, Judd>
Judd
(To audience)
Nobody had ever said that to me before or since. . .
(PRISCILLA removes top crate and carries it down left, sits and puts on boots. CURLY rises and
plays air guitar)
Curly
(To audience)
We’d had this fight about something stupid. And Priscilla got very weird and quiet and just took
off.
CURLY and PRISCILLA speak to each other but play our to the audience
Priscilla
I got up from the table. I was so mad at Curly. He gets on these jags about people he doesn’t
even know, people he thinks he knows. He said something about Judd being madly in love with
me. “Just shut up Curly, ok? You got it right as always”.
Curly
Hey all I know is he likes you, ok? What’s wrong with me saying that? He does.
Priscilla
(To Curly)
So alright. He does. Let’s end it.
Curly
(To Priscilla)
End what? You are the one who went all bizarro. And he’s the one who is talking like you all are
engaged, ok? It’s ended. (CURLY walks upstage.)
Priscilla
(To audience)
8
South Dakota/
So I got up, grabbed my diary on the front porch and headed out towards the corn. (PRISCILLA
carries crate to downstage right position, exits, CURLY follows)
Judd
(enters, stacks crates)
Me and Curly had been loading a truck formy daddy, and Curly had been bragging all day ‘bout
heading to college. We’d been exchanging words all week. Then he made some smart remark
about me being dumb and stupid. And then I said something ‘bout Priscilla that made his ears
turn all pink. So I stood on that dirt road round supper time bound and determined to walk up
that front porch and punch Curly square in the nose. Was too scared to get closer, but I did. I
could see the house real good. Had this telescopic sight off an ‘ol Marlin .22 bird gun. Had to
close one eye to see through it. Made me think of Priscilla. (PRISCILLA runs across stage, turns
center and crosses to down left crate.) And wham! She comes flyin’ out the screen door like
magic or something. (CURLY runs on from opposite side, stops center stage and exits.) Runs
off the porch. Then goes Curley, but he stops, turns, goes back in. So I take off, runnin’ through
the corn thinkin’ she’s headin’ to that big tree out there. But I’m dead wrong. There’s a section of
wild wheat, separates the two fields with a trail, leads down to this dried out crick bed and there
she is. Sun is still full out so I move so I keep her good eye in the sun. When you hunt game
bird, you gotta go in low and slow, all injun, you’ll spook ‘em. Gotta be still, very still . . . very still.
(This scene is enacted on opposite ends of the stage, but acted as though characters are in
physical contact. The character’s backs are to each other, but play the scene as if they were
facing each other. PRISCILLA sits and starts singing a folksong. Stops and addresses
audience.)
Priscilla
Curly got me so mad. I could just burst. . . I worked my way down the crick bed to this stream
where we go sometimes, even Uncle Bud, on real hot days. I was feeling sorry for myself, I
guess. I started singing this old song Aunt Dot would sing to me. I loved this spot. I had my
diary. That Curly made me so mad. I stopped. I thought I heard something. I see birds lighting
off the trees. I hear crunching sounds to my left and, wham, he’s on me.
Judd
I’m on her fast. I had her. “Why don’t you sing me an old song? Huh?” Laughing, I grab her
wrist.
Priscilla
“Holy Shit, Judd.” I kick him. “Don’t come up on me like that.” I drop my diary. He’s laughing. I
yell, “Get your gross old man hands off my book, they’re disgusting. They’ll never touch me.”
Judd
“Oh, yeah!”, I’m screaming. “These very ones that touch myself only cause I can’t touch you.”
(PRISCILLA and JUDD walk backwards towards each other.)
Priscilla
We stopped and stared at each other. . .
Judd
. . .circled each other like hunting dogs. . .
9
South Dakota/
Priscilla
keeping a perimeter.
Judd
We knew right then and there . . .
Priscilla
. . . both of us . .
Judd
. . . born to a world of scorn . . .
Priscilla
. . . we had learned to survive . . .
Judd
. . . and yield to no one.
Priscilla
I tried kicking him, but he snatched my diary from my hands.
Judd
I grab the book. I go to cut off the lock with my old Barlow knife.
Priscilla
“You want to see it? Read it, Judd.” I take the key from around my neck. “Read it, Judd. I want
you to read it. You can read, I imagine. That trailer park reform school must have been good for
something. Read it, Judd.”