Even the Dirt Bleeds Down Here

Carolyn Nur Wistrand

Act Two, Scene Three, cypress tree above Nellie’s shack, Wacamaw Swamp, approaching midnight, July 24, 1904

(Chester crawls up the tree and sits amongst the witches. He takes out a pinch of fresh chew and pops it into the side of his mouth. Witches begin to nibble on his legs)

CHESTER

(Hitting his leg)

Jesus! What kind of swamp shit living out here?

(Swamp Witch crawls underneath Chester, the other two turn him on his back, the sounds of mocassins and rattlers are heard.)

SWAMP WITCH

This boy got some reptile blood in him.

CHESTER

(Looking around)

What the hell is biting at me?

SWAMP WITCH

He almost see me.

CHESTER

(Hysterical)

What is you?

MOLLY MEANS

(Swirling her arms into the air.)

The lust without love…the light without soul…desire that binds earth to humans.

SWAMP WITCHES

Humans that can’t pass on.

SWAMP WITCHES

That got no love for the spirit God.

MOLLY MEANS

Where you think the soul go, boy? The soul that fold up like a rock when the light pour on it?

CHESTER

Is this hell?

MOLLY MEANS

There’s only flesh and the spirit world.

CHESTER

I been saved!

MOLLY MEANS

Hell, they saved Molly Means forty-seven times. The only thing ever stuck was the passion in her body.

(Turning her attention to Jack and Dessie)

CHESTER

Is you her...Molly Means?

MOLLY MEANS

I’m the head,

SWAMP WITCHES

and we the tail.

(Swamp Witches encircle Molly Means to become one hideous energy of lust.)

CHESTER

Somebody help me!

(Swamp Witches and Molly Means ride the wave of Dessie and Jack’s passion, oblivious to Chester.)

MOLLY MEANS

(Bursting out in agony)

No! Spirit God put a soul in the egg!

(The Swamp Witches break apart from Molly Means. Chester races down the tree.)

SWAMP WITCH

What to do, Molly Queen?

MOLLY MEANS

Putting the curse on that soul! Child she carry have nine childrens. Take eight of them up to you Jesus! They ain’t gonna do no walking down here! All of them stillborn except the last.

SWAMP WITCH

That the one you gonna curse?

MOLLY MEANS

Seventy years from tonight! That cursed blood be sitting here!

SWAMP WITCH

I know that’s right!

MOLLY MEANS

You river pirate haunts hunting poke from the marsh. Listen up!

(Molly Means raises her hands. Sounds of gnawing. Swamp spiders swarm around the Cypress.)

SWAMP WITCHES

Come over here by the Cypress, boys!

(Shadowy fog rises from the marsh as murdered haunts.)

MOLLY MEANS

I’m fixing to play some numbers!

SWAMP WITCHES

Heah now!

(The fog swirls around Molly Means and the Swamp Witches who respond to the pirate haunts in seductive form.)

MOLLY MEANS

I’m going down to brace the game a life!

SWAMP WITCHES

Take it or leave it or shove it along!

MOLLY MEANS

You haunts ain’t seen a game like this since Goliath play pistol stud with the bluenoses in ‘88.

SWAMP WITCHES

Walk up his arm, Molly Queen!

MOLLY MEANS

I’m gonna cheat the Gullah out of nine months of his life!

SWAMP WITCHES

Putting shut-eye on the morning sky.

MOLLY MEANS

(Jealous venom/)

That man forty-two years old! He gonna bring love down here?

SWAMP WITCHES

No!

MOLLY MEANS

Didn’t that boy hold a royal flush when he need to?

SWAMP WITCHES

Talk to me.

MOLLY MEANS

They burning each other up!

SWAMP WITCHES

Love do that?

MOLLY MEANS

Meeting on the other side of human flesh!

SWAMP WITCHES

Ain’t nothing there but the spirit.

MOLLY MEANS

That’s what I’m talking about you dumb ass witches! She making that boy forget his power. She seeing him naked in the mystery place.

SWAMP WITCHES

She doing all that?

MOLLY MEANS

They riding the mystic right now! You river pirate haunts with me?

(The fog surrounds her as she cast the swamp spell.)

Alligator swampland hear me tell,
I’m going around Nellie to cast a spell.
Nine months gonna pass this very night.
Eat ‘em up, Take ‘em out,
Just get ‘em out of my sight.
Keep the moon from turning onto her back.
Only the black in midnight I wanna see down here.
It ain’t dice or bones you need to mystify,
but the game of cards, and you all know why.
Dead Man’s Hand be the trickster’s fate,
so shake your asses ladies,
turn the gas jets down,
let’s show a two bit crib whore,
how we treat a gal from out of town.

(Molly Means slides down the Cypress as gut bucket blues comes up. The Swamp Witches position themselves for a song.)

SWAMP WITCH (Lead Singer)

The whore lay on the red bed
Burning up the shack,
Gullah had gone for whiskey
from Goliath’s still out back,
When in walked Molly Means
the Conjure Queen.

SWAMP WITCHES (Chorus)

She was the Conjure Queen.
The lavender reptile lady
Cruelest bitch you ever seen.

SWAMP WITCH (Lead)

They fit like eggs and bacon,
Meringue and lemon pie.
He ate the peach on Sunday
‘til all the juice went dry.
Then in walk Molly Means

SWAMP WITCHES (Chorus)

The lavender reptile lady
Cruelest bitch you ever seen.

SWAMP WITCH (Lead)

The hound he hunt the possum
by the old Persimmon tree
The sport he hunt the hooker
on the night she give it free.
Take it down....

(The Swamp Witches now sashay down into the shack, slowing their song down.)

SWAMP WITCHES (All)

Gambling Gullah trickster
Big hips Dessie coon
your night a spirit loving
find you dead real soon.
Here come Molly Means
the Conjure Queen
You ain’t no kind of match
when the lavender reptile lady
come crawling down your back.

(Silence. Swamp sounds come up through the silence.)

Lights fade on Cypress tree.