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Dear Diary,
Call me Sioux, Sioux West. I’m writing to you diary, because I suspect you can save me.
I’m fifteen and live in Porterville, California which Wikipedia calls the land of cow pies, meth junkies and bitter old people.
Porterville’s big claim to fame is that Grapes of Wrath was filmed here. We don’t have much culture unless you count agri-culture.
I’m your basic white girl who wears plaid shirts, Ugg knock-offs, and drinks Starbucks
My parents spell my name S-U-E but last year I read about Sitting Bull and changed the spelling to S-I-O-U-X in solidarity with
oppressed people’s everywhere.
My two goals [hold up two fingers] in life are to…
One [hold up one finger] to lose my virginity by Thanksgiving and two [hold up two fingers], be a modern dance choreographer. I
really want to choreograph Moby Dick! Which my bestie, Maddy Fleakeg says is a genius-level idea.
Losing my virginity is turning out to be hard because my boyfriend, Nick, wears a purity ring his Jehovah Witness mom gave him just
before they took her away to the loonie bin.
In two months, all Nick and I have done is make out in Porterville High’s halls.
Then Mom announces…
MOM: I’m going to Rome for a week. I’m going to get the Pope’s blessing in St. Peter’s Square!
SUE to MOM: You have to take me! Can’t you just see me circling the Trevi fountain on a Vespa wearing sunglasses like Audrey
Hepburn in Roman Holiday?
MOM: No. You’re staying put. Someone has to hold down the fort.
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NARRATOR: I’m shocked and horrified. But okay. Whatever.
Monday after school, Nick walks me home all the way to Villa Street telling about his plan to save the Central Valley from big agribusiness and fracking. Tuesday we make it to Morton Street. He talks about the 8% snowpack drought in the Sierras that has to supply
30 percent of the water in California. Wednesday’s we cross underneath the Hiway 65 overpass he tells me how the solar-powered
vertical growing silos will reuse a metric ton of gray-water. Thursday we make-out passionately against the standing drain pipe on
Road 221…only one avenue away from my house!
Friday morning my Dad who teaches Math at Porterville High says
DAD: Lucky and I are going hunting after school. You’d like that now wouldn’t you.
LUCKY: Ruff ruff ruff.
SIOUX: At school I tell Nick…
SIOUX: We’ll have the house to ourselves.
NICK: What about your sister?
SIOUX: Harlee? She’s always on her computer. We’ll be virtually alone.
NARRATOR: We walk down our dirt driveway. It’s just after Halloween and rows of yellow corn stalks flank each side. My heart
thumps as I bring Nick into Mom’s redecorated living room with its white silk pillows, white carpet and Virgin Mary statue collection.
I sit Nick down on Mom’s white couch.
SIOUX: You must be starving. I’ll make us something.
NARRATOR: No one’s shopped since Mom left. In the cupboard are stale Chicken Bisket crackers. I slice Velveeta. There’s a half a
bottle of rose left over from Fourth of July I pour into two jam jars and refill the wine bottle with water and red food coloring. I bring
the platter to Nick
SIOUX: Wine?
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NICK: No, my body’s a temple.
NARRATOR: [Looks frustrated] I chug both glasses and lie [woozily] down on the couch. Nick undoes my flannel shirt and lifts my
bra-let. [looks down] Even after all the hormones from making out, I’m still two peas on a breadboard. Nick doesn’t seem to care. He
licks one pea.
SIOUX: Oh [laughs hysterically] that’s so cold
NARRATOR: It doesn’t stop Nick who hunkers down on the other one. His 5 o’clock shadow rubs me like a Brillo pad.
SIOUX [looks at door] Dad!!!!
DAD: What’s going on here? I’ll kill you! Sic ‘em Lucky!
NARRATOR: Nick struggles to get his jeans and throws his sneakers at Lucky. I run in my room.
LUCKY: Growl Ruff Ruff.
NARRATOR: Nick screams! Dad calls Mom in Rome spoiling her first vacation, ever.
The next morning Dad makes me and Harlee go with him to pick Mom up at the Bakersfield airport. When Mom gets in the minivan
she rises up like Dracula, her skin white from jet-lag and blood-shot eyes.
MOM: You are to forget that boy. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?
SIOUX: What are you giving me a brain-ectomy?
NARRATOR: Harlee sitting next to me types by yellow letters across her computer screen. Shut up shut up shut up.
Dad says
DAD: You are grounded until you’re married.
SIOUX sulks in back seat watching the scenery go by.
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NARRATOR: Monday morning, Mom drops me off. I scan the hallways for my Great White Male. Nick doesn’t show up after
History to walk me to Latin. I trudge across the archery field to PE. Will he be outside waiting after gym class? If he’s not, does this
mean we’re broke up? Or was that deal sealed when Lucky bit his butt?
Maddy comes over rubbing the tattoos on her cocoa forearms. Maddy is madly in love with Julio.
MADDY: Your Dad told us all about Nick and Lucky in Geometry.
SIOUX groans and puts head in hands.
Tyra comes over when she hears that. Tyra’s says her future career is Dictator of a Small Country or Musical Theater Director.
TYRA: So what have you got. Show us. Do it.
MADDY: Be kind Tyra, Lucky’s had his teeth on Nick’s tightie whities.
TYRA: Oh screw-all, Tyra. Don’t make me straighten you out like a piece of wire. You’re screwed trying to be with screwed-up Julio
who you will never screw because he’s gay.
MADDY: Tyra, Sioux needs our help.
TYRA: Okay, Sioux, you’re worse than screwed. You’re double-screwed.
SIOUX: And why am I screwed, Tyra?
TYRA: Because next year you'll get the expected seventh period work study at MacDonald’s hoping it leads to a job as a manager
after high school. For a couple of years, your life will be about getting laid, paid, and loaded. You'll end up pregnant, married to some
asshole, maybe a “Nick”, maybe somebody worse. You’ll live in a little Porterville box house and spend the rest of your life washing
out some asshole’s underwear.
MADDY: Sioux, what Tyra’s saying is your Moby Dick dance is genius.
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SIOUX: I don’t think I want to be an artist. If it means every emotional bone in my body shattered. Then no. I don’t.
TYRA: Well that’s what being an artist is. You have to be like Prometheus and steal fire for mere mortals and get your liver stripped
every single day. Stop whining. Show us what you’ve got.
SIOUX: I don’t have anything. I don’t even know what modern dance is.
MADDY: Modern dance can be anything you want it to be. Like Martha Graham [does MG] or modern ballet, like Balanchine [does
Agon] Or Hip hop [Do Dana moves.]
Just do your thing.
SIOUX: Okay I’m going to do the Moby Dick story. Wow. This is total genius. Look at me!
Ishmael, the main dude, signs onto the whaling ship the Pequod for a three year voyage. After a year and a half, on the high sea, with
no chance for escape, Ahab, the captain, goes all psycho-drama. He does a classic bait and switch. He tells the crew The real nature of
our mission isn't whaling.
AHAB: [walk with peg leg] I seek revenge against Moby Dick who chewed my leg off!
SIOUX: Ahab nails a gold dubloon to the ship's mast.
AHAB: This dubloon makes a millionaire out of the first crew member who sights the whale with a crooked brow.
NARRATOR: And then Ahab throws a kegger. Ishmael is the first crew member to see Moby Dick.
ISHMAEL: Thar she blows!
NARRATOR: The Pequod chases Moby for three days and three night. Then Moby gets fed up, turns the tables and rams the Pequod
with her head and swims around and around creating a whirlpool that sucks the Pequod and the whole crew down to the bottom of the
ocean…all except Ishmael who bobs up clinging to the wreckage. He’s picked up by another whaling ship, and writes the novel Moby
Dick.
MADDY: Oh Sioux, that’s awesome sauce!
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TYRA: I don’t get it. That’s not dance. Do you get it?
Afterwards in the showers…
MADDY: Do you want me to come over and give you a Tarot reading? Tell your future?
SIOUX: Sure. I’m grounded and can't have visitors, but knock on my window. I’ll sneak you in.
NARRATOR: Maddy gives me a gi-normous hug. At least I still have one friend left on this spinning mudball.
SCENE 3
NARRATOR: Outside in the cold gray November air Nick leans against the Girl's Gym wall, hunched in his pea coat. Inside my heart
explodes, but outside, to cover my hideous embarrassment, I’m chill.
SIOUX: Hi.
NARRATOR: I keep my eyes on the ground. When your Dad’s hunting dog’s had his chompers on your boyfriend's underoos, it’s
hard to look him in the eyes.
NICK: Our love isn't wrong. It's natural and pure. How come your parents can't see that?
SIOUX: Because they’ve never known true love, Nick. Their marriage is a fly-blown corpse. We need to feel sorry for them instead of
judging them by our high standards.
NARRATOR: Nick walks with a limp across the crabgrass archery field to the Nick’s locker.
NICK: In the emergency room I had to lie and say Lucky's up-to-date on his rabies shots.
SIOUX: Oh he is! Yes. Absolutely. Dad's very careful to see Lucky gets his shots. Mos def.
NICK: This is so wrong! Damn it, I need you, Sioux. I need to be with you every minute of every day. We can’t go on like this.
SIOUX: And we were doing so well, too.
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NARRATOR: Nick's face darkens.
NICK: Are you ever going to stand up to your parents for our love?
NARRATOR: My eyes dart to the Science building windows leaking heat into the globally warming environment.
SIOUX: Give me time. I need to get them in a good mood…
NARRATOR: …which lately is, like, never. I'm a coward and a terrible girlfriend. I need to be a better girlfriend. Tyra says I need to
be a better artist. Actually, I need to be a totally different person. People say ‘just be yourself’ but you do and they hate you.
NICK: Sioux, do you love me?
SIOUX: I think so but you wouldn't want me to say I love you without being absolutely sure, would you?
NARRATOR: He turns his back. Oh crap. It looks like he does.
SIOUX: Nick, I'm almost positive, fairly certain I love you but give me time. It's all so new, it's only been, what, two months?
NICK: I knew I wanted to be with you the rest of my life the first moment I saw you.
NARRATOR: Wow. I don’t even know what I want for lunch.
NARRATOR: Nick pumps the handle of his locker, brings out architectural plans and unrolls them.
NICK: [unrolling plans and points] Here’s our rammed-earth house and our bedroom. We'll grow wheat on the roof that will cool our
house in the summer. If we increase the soil structure by planting wheat and rye, we can increase yields by 99%.
We can live totally off the grid and not be serfs to the multi-national corporations.
NARRATOR: No, just regular serfs. If we’re off the grid can I still be a modern dancer?
NARRATOR: Nick takes my hand, holds it to his heart.
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NICK: Will you marry me, Sioux?
NARRATOR: Lavender Davis walks by.
LAVENDER: Hi, Nicky. Can you help me out?
NARRATOR: Lavender Davis is one of those normal, do-gooder types, serious types. Always helping out the Porterville High
Student Council.
LAVENDER: Nicky, I’m getting a count of which clubs will be entering a float in the Veteran's Day Parade.
NARRATOR: Flecks of spittle form at my mouth.
SIOUX: War is the biggest polluter. Students for a Clean Environment is boycotting, right Nick?
NICK: Actually, we’re making a protest float.
SIOUX: But, Nick, the Veteran's Day parade is so right-wingy.
LAVENDAR: Oh thanks for letting me know, Nicky. Then I have you down for one float?
NARRATOR: Lavender scribbles on her notepad, twiddles her fingers, “bye”. Nick’s purity class ring glints in the November light. A
new sensation, something hard and lumpish, pushes in my chest. Is this true love? Or jealousy? Or does jealousy means I’m in true
love?
NARRATOR: Nick takes his class ring off his finger and takes my hand. My heart pounds blood in my ears.
NICK: Together Sioux we can save the world from climate change. If you want we can make love right away, and if you get pregnant,
it’ll be great. We'll be married soon anyway. We’ll have lots of home-birthed, home-schooled children.
SIOUX: [to audience] Married? Pregnant? Children?
NARRATOR: Nick puts his ring on my finger. The ring! The ring! I'm wearing Nick's ring!!!!!
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SIOUX [to audience kind of echoing Nick] If we’re engaged, my parents will have to let me see Nick.
NICK: So, it's yes?
NARRATOR: [said with intense emotional feeling.] My heart falls off a ledge. How can I possibly refuse? Nick is the sexiest,
smartest boy in this school. I won’t find better man or mate in a lifetime of looking. And I do love him. Is it our fault we found each
other when we’re so young? And besides, engagements can last for years, right?
SIOUX: [said slowly and unemotionally] Yeah. Sure. Whatever.
NARRATOR: Nick beams as he walks me to the gym. My knees barely make the journey. Like my own personal tiny wheel of
fortune, I spin the ring around my finger.
SCENE 4
NARRATOR: Dear Diary,
Imprisoned in my room, I feel like a lab rat in a deprivation experiment. I miss Nick! I scratch at my cage. Was it a just two months
ago I didn't need a boyfriend to make it through the day? What's happened?
I'm a red-blooded American girl with a healthy heap of hormones, that’s what. What horrible fate threw Nick and I together at a time
when my parents can interfere?
Making the unbearable more unbearable, my parents do nothing but fight. Mom screams at Dad just before she breezes in.
Note to self: Put a lock on door.
NARRATOR: Mom examines her red, raw hands. In teeth-grinding detail, she describes how she buys the groceries, carts them home,
puts them away, cooks all the meals, washes the dishes and pots, does the laundry, washes floors, and generally digs out the place
when things get out of control
MOM: And nobody in this house ever lifts a hand to help me.
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NARRATOR: Mom looks straight at me. Oh. My. God.
MOM: I'm expected to do every one of these jobs with no one to say thank you. Just try getting someone to lift a finger around here.
Harlee says every time I get the urge to do housework I should ask myself, do I really need to? If not then ask myself what feelings I'm
covering up by cleaning.
NARRATOR SIOUX: Damn you, Harlee.
MOM: Thanksgiving's coming and, of course, Fred expects me to pluck Trisha, the turkey, like it's nothing. You have to dip that bird
in a large washtub of hot water so the feathers don't fly around the room. Turkeys have over five thousand feathers, you know.
NARRATOR: I started sobbing when Mom gets to the 5000 feathers. Mom needs perspective.
SIOUX: But really, Mom, in the grand scheme of things, don’t you think housework is …well… trivial?
MOM: Trivial!?!?!? Did you say trivial?!? Housework is a lot of things but trivial it ain't!!! Housework takes up so much energy you
can't possibly do or think about anything else!!!!!! It's paid zilch and Fred doesn't even consider it work!!! It's only trivial to folks who
don't do any!!!!
NARRATOR: Surprisingly, Mom's face look alive, radiant even.
MOM: I'm thirty-seven and all these years I haven't lived!
NARRATOR: Mom wants to live life? After she gets up and leaves, I sneak into Harlee’s room to Skype Maddy who comes over in a
jiff. When she scratches on my window, I open it to let her climb in.
Poor Maddy! Maddy was a big strapping girl when she came from Berkeley with her parents at the beginning of the school year. In
the last few weeks due to love sickness over Julio, she’s whittled down to her tattooed skin and bones.
MADDY: I’ll squeeze into a size nine if it kills me.
NARRATOR: And it looks like it will. She’s feverish, hyper and as her body shrinks, her eyes bulge so large and glassy they look like
snow globes. Every morning before school she’s been attending Reverand Pilkey’s Bible study to help Julio pray away the gay.
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MADDY: This is the last reading Tarot card reading, ever. Tomorrow I'm getting baptized in the Lord. I’ll be born again.
SIOUX: What’s wrong with Tarot cards?
MADDY: Reverand Pilkey says Tarot cards are Satanic."
SIOUX: Reverand Pilkey says ScooBeDoo is Santanic. Enough about Pilkey. Tell me about Nick.
NARRATOR: Maddy lays out the cards.
SIOUX: He's a bright orb in an otherwise dim universe.
SIOUX: That sounds good. Are you sure?
NARRATOR: Maddy bursts into tears. I hand her Kleenex and a piece of paper that she uses to trace all her tattooes that remind her of
former boyfriends. I hand her a blank composition book. We tape her drawings on to make a front cover.
SIOUX: You can write a diary. Writing’s saving me.
NARRATOR: When she sneaks out the window to leave, she says…
MADDY: You keep the book, Sioux. I’m praying to Jesus to save me from now on.
NARRATOR: The rest of the night I skim Moby Dick. It’s got nothing but bad omens. Bad omen this. Bad omen that. Bad omens for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And the really sad thing is, you can see them coming a mile off. Ishmael and his best friend Queequeg
sign onto a whaling ship called the Pequod. Only, anyone with half a brain can see the Pequod’s got bad juju. And if that wasn’t clear
enough, an Elijah guy gets in their grill and warns them.
So my question is, how come Ishmael and Queequeg do something different? There's plenty of time to find a regular whaling ship,
one that’s not doomed. But noooooo. Ishamel and Queequeg stick with the ship that’s doomed. It’s this kind of stupidity that makes no
sense, whatsoever. Pages and pages of it. Halfway through the book and they finally get ready to sail. But then there's another bad
omen before they even make it out of the harbor!
Dudes, lower a dinghy and row back to shore.
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Do they?
No.
Harlee comes in and chews me out.
HARLEE: My security camera captured you Skyping. Get your own computer.
SIOUX: I’m not a geek.
HARLEE: I’m not a geek either. I’m a nerd.
SIOUX: I don’t see a diff.
HARLEE: Geeks are circus performers that bite the heads off of chickens. I’m a nerd which is drunk spelled backwards with a silent
“K”.
SIOUX: Not much diff.
HARLEE: The diff is, Dickweed, I’ll be making twenty million selling my security camera software to a San Francisco startup while
you’ll be on foodstamps trying to choreograph Moby Dick. If you pay me I’ll make you a 3D SGI front and rear projectored whaling
ship.
SIOUX: I don’t have money.
HARLEE: Ha ha. Of course you don’t.
NARRATOR: Harlee laughing her head off all the way back to her room.
SIOUX: Harlee’s right about one thing. I need a whaling ship. Where can I get a ship? [looks around room and sees the chair.
Inspects it, lays it down. Sits in it and rows. Gets up.]
That’s not a ship. It’s a rowboat. [inspects it again. Turns it around and looks up to the crows nest. Climbs up. Run hands along the
edge. Rock back and forth on the ocean see far out to sea. Sight a seagull.] Look! A seagull. This is a ship!
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