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Harvest Gold was a one act play starring Jack Tobin and Alex Collins, written/directed by Nick Stolle. Performed solely at the reception of the STAGEY exhibit, Watkins College of Art, Nashville, TN.
Harvest Gold
Nick Stolle
DADDY: (Struggling with unopened pack of cigarettes.) Godammit, I’m mad as hell. I can’t get this cellophane. Get that off there for me. (Slides cigarettes over to BOY.) Work it. Work it. That’s it, peel it. Push it real good.
BOY: (Opens cigarettes without difficulty.) Do you know why you trouble so over your cigarette package, Daddy? It is because you have the arthritis coursing throughout your fingers.
DADDY: Think I don’t know that? I know that. I know all about that. Can’t open a pack of cigarettes, can’t tie my own shoes, can’t hardly wipe my own bottom. Also, dumbshit, arthritis don’t course. It’s just there. Ain’t got no cartilage. It’s like I ain’t got no brake pads. Gimme them Basics.
BOY: (Hands cigarettes back to DADDY.) You need new brake pads, Daddy? If so, you need to go see old Ron Tonkin down at Ron Tonkin Chevrolet. (Sings jingle, in 1920s megaphone crooner fashion) Ol’ Ron Tonkin’s a wonderful guy, with a heart as pure as gold.
DADDY: I was makin’ a gaw’blessed simile, you literal minded horse’s ass. And quit sayin’ shit you heard off the t.v.
BOY: A simile is a metaphor using ‘like’ or ‘as.’
DADDY: I know that. You think I don’t know that? I know all about some similes. Employ ‘em all the time. You think ’cause your old man can’t play the fiddle no more due to the osteoarthritis he needs your tutelage in matters of the language arts? Well, he don’t.
BOY: Oh, but Daddy. You could never play the fiddle all that well to begin with. Your fiddling was off key and reluctant. I deplored your fiddling. Oh, the darkest thoughts would cross me as you subjected mother and I to your fiddling. (Crosses to nearby “fiddling platform”, stands upon it.) With eyes as deep and sincere as the Native Americans one sees on television, you would mount your fiddling platform-
DADDY: I’m well aware of the depth and sincerity in my eyes as I mounted the fiddling platform to begin fiddling! What the hell you know about it anyway? You ain’t got no more than a fifth grade education.
BOY: (Back to table.) You made me quit school to work on the family farm, Daddy.
DADDY: We ain’t got no farm. Ain’t never had no farm. Look out that window yonder. You see a farm? You see ninnies and burrows and haystacks an’ shit? No, you don’t. Because this ain’t no farm., it’s a gaw’blessed two room apartment in Decatur, Illinois.
BOY: I know we have no farm. That was my foremost concern when you told me I was to forego my education to work on the family farm.
DADDY: Did it ever once cross your mind that maybe your fiddlin’ Daddy’s deployment of the word ‘farm’ was metaphorical in nature? That maybe he were speakin’ in allusions? I say, the farm weren’t never a farm! It were always a symbol for something else! Dear god, boy, ain’t you comfortable in your language? (Drops into despondency, head in hands.)
BOY: (Back upon fiddling platform, addressing audience) Man, I was done with that shit. Talk of farms and fiddling and what-all. Done. With that shit. Done with it. I pushed my chair to the floor with a clatter. (Pushes chair into nearby arrangement of pots, pans, cymbals, etc.) A somberly dressed boy of nine beckoned me from the window. (Small boy in funereal clothing just offstage beckons.)
I don’t give no shit about that kid. Ain’t gonna come when he beckons. Beckoning waived. (Motions to child that he has no time. Child exits.)
(To DADDY, who is engaged in the act of bandaging his head with a length of ACE bandage) Daddy, I am tired. Of your this and your this and your that and of your coveralls and your talk of the farm we never had and your soft whimpering.
DADDY: (who has, in fact, began whimpering softly) Aw, shit kid. Lookit m’face. It’s all busted up.
BOY: (to audience) Truly, his face was busted up. All busted up. It hadn’t been like this earlier, but now it was cracked and discolored and swollen and moist and dripping and it smelled of salted meats.
(to DADDY) How can I help you, Daddy? What can I do to make you feel better about this busted face you now wear?
DADDY: Get from that drawer yonder my nice felt pens. See ‘em? Get that blue one there. Take off that there cap. Come on over here, son. Stand over me. Poise yourself for dictation. I want you to take some dictation on this bandage of mine. This bandage what holds my busted ass face together. I need you to write something on it for me. Are you poised, son?
BOY: (Has selected pen from drawer, is theatrically poised and ready to write on bandage.) I am poised for dictation, Daddy. What shall I write upon this bandage?
(BOY doesn’t actually mark on bandage, instead addresses audience from fiddling platform once more.) He then spoke and I then wrote. There, on the bandage holding my Daddy’s broken head together, with his nice blue felt pen. This is what I wrote:
GOTTA BE REAL CAREFUL ALL THE TIME. GOTTA BE REAL CAREFUL. BECAUSE WHEN YOU’RE DRIVING YOUR CAR YOU CAN FUCK UP SO BAD. SO MUCH METAL AND GLASS AND FIRE HURTLING THROUGH THE LANDSCAPE AT SPEEDS CAPABLE OF DESTROYING YOUR FACE. YOU CAN SMACK INTO A PICKUP TRUCK WHICH HAS RUN A STOP SIGN AND YOUR FACE WILL SMACK THE DASHBOARD AND THE PAIN WILL BE SO GREAT, SO GREAT THE PAIN! YOUR JAW WILL FRACTURE AND YOUR TEETH WILL DISLODGE AND FRAGMENTS OF YOUR SHATTERED JAW COULD EASILY PIERCE YOUR GUMS AND DAMAGE NEARBY NERVE ENDINGS AND BLOOD VESSELS. GOTTA BE REAL CAREFUL WHEN YOU’RE DRIVING YOUR CAR.
