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The White Bulldog

The White Bulldog is a one-act play inspired by the life of Maurice Garin (1871-1957), the winner of the first Tour de France in 1903 who was then was stripped of his victory in the second Tour in 1904 because, amongst myriad stories of cheating, he and eight others were believed to have ridden in or been pulled by cars, and used the railways.

The following excerpt — a dramatization of the apocryphal tale that Maurice was traded in France by his father to a chimney sweep for a wheel of cheese — was performed as part of the collaborative performance Cook County Clare in the sixteenth-century castle tower at the Ballyvaughan College of Art in Ireland on August 10th, 2007.

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CHIMNEY SWEEP (C) stands next to a bucket. 

FATHER (F) sits next to his son.

C          

Hey.  Hey you.  Brother.

F         

Leave us alone.

C          

But... we are in a pile of dust.

(pause)

F          

What?

C          

This part of the earth hasn't settled yet — the constant moving of the ground won't let it. 

(pause) 

How can you breath in this?

F          

Oh, I stopped breathing four years ago.

C          

Well, I can't... and I inhale creosote all day long.  You know, I cough it up in the mornings and feed it to all these birds. 

(pause)

What is it like where you are?

F          

I have my shoes and they don't move unless I make them.  I drag my son around and the sun is always on my back. (pointing behind himself)  See?  It'll be in your eyes if you confront me.

C         

I don't have any sun.  It's perfectly dark around me; too much earth in the air and I always carry this bucket around to find somebody who will give me what I want for it.

F          

You've always had that bucket.  You were born with it.

C          

But I refill it once it goes rotten.  I have to refill it or else the smell changes.  Not to mention the dirty air gets in it, clogging it up.

F   

Please don't talk to us.  I'm an old man.  I'm too old to be your brother, and besides, you look nothing like me.

C         

I look nothing like anyone.  I try to make more like me but they all die before they suckle at their first teat.  I've got too much sut in my blood.  My poor semen's been clogged up.  And there's no way to clean it out.  So there I am cleaning out the chimneys of great big families, piles of children around the fires, but not in my house.

F          

My cow, she's got too old she doesn't have a drop left inside of her.  I tug and tug for hours, until her tits bleed, but I can't stand to taste another drop of blood.  I'm full of blood, and it's all full of dust and I've cracked every one of my teeth on the grit she spurts out.

C          

This place gets bloodier by the day, now matter how hard I tug and tear my veins apart.

F          

Shut up to me!  I am too old to be your brother, and no one has a brother anyway, not here, where the earth won't settle.

Silence.

C           

Your son looks hungry.  He can smell my bucket.  When your son grows up, he will be called the white bulldog.

F          

I wont live to see that.  I'm too old to be his father.  I've lost the heart to feed him.  Just look at him!  You can tell he will ride bicycles.

C         

And we'll keep inventing new uses for chains.

F          

I like the old uses just fine.

Silence.

C           

Do you want me to clean your chimney?

F          

I can't afford to pay you.

C        

Do you want my friendship?

F          

I can't afford it.

C         

Do you want me to let you live?

F          

I can't afford to live.

C        

Do you want my bucket?

F        

I already owe you for letting me sit here and smell it.  I haven't smelled it for years.

C        

It weighs as much as your son's body.

F        

I'm too old to have a son, and he's too young to have a body.  Last night he woke up screaming and rafters fell into his body and concrete rolled around inside his head and my wife, she cursed the night I impregnated her, and when the earth stopped sliding I grabbed his tiny head and reattached it to his tiny body.

(pause) 

He moves a little strangely today.  His mother doesn't recognize him and wants him dead or gone.  He has no real body anymore.

C        

His cries are deafening.

F        

I don't hear him anymore.  I am too old to hear him.  I can only hear that bucket.

Silence.  An interloper enters, he is carrying a bundle of children.  His is attracted by the smell of the bucket, but C threatens him, and he leaves.

F        

When they rebuild these palisades and rewrite the schoolbooks, they will have forgotten me.  I didn't make the trouble, and I did nothing to fix it.  I produced this child and he wont be good for anything except riding bicycles.

C         

I'm sure you have done something unforgettable...

F        

No, not a thing.  And I intend to keep it that way.  You can't allow me to die of hunger or else I will be recorded as a tragedy, and tragedy is the seat of memory.

C        

I hope you live a thousand years, you bucket of shit.  I hope your son wins the Tour de France.

F        

Please, just give me the bucket.  I've never smelled anything so good.  I want to take it home and eat it all by myself in the dark with my hands.  I want to vomit it up and eat it over and over again.  You have to let me have it.  If you let me have it...  I'll even forgive you.

C        

Forgive me?  Will you forgive my black semen?  My useless spunk? 

(pause)

I have no children in my pants.  I have nothing to ask but that you give me your child, who looks more like me than you.  I'll put him in the chimneys tomorrow so he can scrub those tiny corners my hands dont reach.  I'll name him The White Bulldog and cover him in black dust.  He will have a terrible, tragic life, and he will be remembered for it, because of me.

F        

Is that all?  That's all you want?  Why would I protest?  He's nothing to me as I am nothing to anyone.  The trade is fair, at least if judged by weight.

They trade.

F        

Done. I'd only be too glad to never see you or him ever again.  When he's old enough, tell him I traded him for a bucket of cheese, and then never mention me again.

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