A One Act Play
REHABILITATION
By G. L. Horton
copyright © 2006,
2007 Geralyn
Horton
A rehabilitation center. RON and LORENE,
in their early 20s, are in an unlocated “outside”.
When they finish their brief “outside” conversation,
they cross to center stage as DEENA rolls her wheelchair center
to meet them. There may be optional chairs or other hospital-type
furniture, but this play can be performed with no set.
RON: The more I think about this, the less I think it's a good
idea. Why don't I come with you next time, after you sound out
Deena about--
LORENE: I can't sound out Deena! What would I say? You've never
explained.
RON: I don’t know how! Even if I could, why would Deena
listen? I'm the last person--
LORENE: She's been my friend since 3rd grade. Long before I
met you. We all got along fine, once, before you got all patriotic--
RON: Deena put up with me cause I was your boyfriend. That's
all. We said Hi and Bye and pretended we weren't--
LORENE: Weren't what?
RON: I don't know. Different. I mean, face it. All we had in
common--
LORENE: Was me. Right. So for my sake, can you do this? 15,
20 minutes in the same room. Can you at least try? (RON
nods.)
(LORENE calls) Deena?
(As DEENA answers, there is a light change
and the characters move into the main playing area, RON hanging
back.)
DEENA: Is that you, Weenie? Come on in.
LORENE: DeeDee! (comic salute) Looking good, Sergeant-girl.
DEENA: Truth?
LORENE: Well, maybe a little...
DEENA: Gray around the edges?
LORENE: Bad day?
DEENA: No, I'm doing great. The therapist was just here, put
me through my paces. I probably look like she's been beating
on me, but once the Oxy kicks in-
LORENE: You remember I said I'd bring Ron? You said OK--
DEENA: I said OK? Was I on Oxy?
RON: I told Lorene this wasn't a good idea...
DEENA: It's OK. It is. I get Brownie points. The more visitors
show up, the better they treat me. I'm a little short this week:
Good thing you came.
LORENE: We've been friends, like, forever.
DEENA: Ninth grade I met Ron. We had Coach Backster for algebra.
RON: Right. And weren't you in the Chess Club?
DEENA: About a week. Turns out I'm not a Strategic Thinker.
RON: Me neither. But I lasted till Halloween.
DEENA: Maybe you just didn't like Peter Prescott?
RON: You're right. I didn't.
LORENE: Who did?
RON: Plenty of kids-- before he was arrested. How do you think
a jerk like Prescott got to be class president? He was popular.
DEENA: Or he hacked the election.
RON: Not smart enough.
DEENA: So? Coach Backster'd hack it for him.
LORENE: Too bad coach couldn't hack the SAT.
RON: Peter'd have gone to West Point. Then flunked out, of course.
DEENA: Didn't you want to go there, once?
RON: For about a year. Before I changed my mind.
LORENE: Ron's a senior at State. When you enroll next semester,
he can show you around.
DEENA: I don't think I'll be there next semester--
LORENE: Sure you will. You said yourself: you're doing great!
DEENA: The campus isn’t accessible. It’s supposed
to be. But my Mom checked it out. Blocked ramps, broken elevators....
RON: How can they get away with that?
DEENA: Think you could help?
RON: Me?
DEENA: Circulate petitions. Hold a rally.
RON: I don't think I've got the--
DEENA: Never mind. You'll be long gone before I get there.
LORENE: Don't say that! You're going! If not next semester--
RON: Take it easy, Lorene. It's Deena's decision.
DEENA: Is it? OK. I decide to graduate Yale. I don't want to
study there-- just give me the degree. (RON
laughs, LORENE looks distressed. RON stops laughing, abashed.)
DEENA: People! If a cripple makes a lame joke, you're supposed
to laugh! You're supposed to make jokes yourselves, and get ME
laughing. That's an order, civilians! Jeeze, you'd think civilians
could at least be civil.
LORENE: Right. Laughter's the best medicine.
DEENA: When I've rested some, we'll show Ron my attempt to use
this leg thing. You'll laugh, OK? (to RON) Lorene does this cheerleader
thing, cracks me up every time.
LORENE: You deserve cheers. You're a hero.
RON: Heroine?
DEENA: Sure. You passing it out? (silence) That's another joke.
What's the matter with you two? You're dropping the ball.
LORENE: You can make jokes, but you're a hero. Her medal’s
for "gallantry beyond the call of duty".
RON: Yeah. I read about that in the paper.
DEENA: Don't believe everything you read. Or what you see on
TV.
RON: You mean like the Swift Boat guys with Kerry? It's not
the truth?
LORENE: Ron!
RON: Hey! I didn’t say it-- Deena did. Not me! I don't--
DEENA: You know what? I’m not a politician. I don’t
give a damn what Ron or anybody thinks-- Except the soldier standing
next to me.
RON: I didn’t mean --. I-- I think probably Deena is a
hero. She's got the kind of character that--. But in point of
fact, I don't know. Anything. How could I? Not only wasn't I
there, I haven't talked to anybody. Who was. Not since--
DEENA: "Bwuak-buk-buk-buk-buk"?
LORENE: Chickenhawk.
RON: You can call me a chicken. You've earned it. But I'm not
a hawk. That was-
LORENE: The day before you were supposed to go down and sign
up.
DEENA: It’s his call, Lorene. If a person has doubts,
stay out. No soldier wants to be in a situation depending on
somebody who has doubts.
RON: One day I was all go get 'em, and the next morning I woke
up and -- and it made no sense. I guess I’d had some kind
of post 9/11 panic, and I-- I got over it.
LORENE: How can you get over it? 9/11 changed everything.
RON: It changed me, for sure. But I was--
LORENE: You went from being the only freshman who wore a Gore
button--
RON: Besides you.
LORENE: Besides me. But you gave it to me, and I only wore it
when I was out with you.
RON: Coach Backster tore mine off me-- did you know that?
LORENE: When?
RON: In the cafeteria. He said the school rule is No Politics.
Bullshit! He and half the faculty went around with those little
Republican flag pins.
DEENA: Some people think that’s patriotism.
LORENE: After 9/11, you did too!
RON: Not the flag pin--
LORENE: You were the loudest, most argumentative, red white
and bluest Muslim hating--
RON: It wasn't hate! It was pure blind pants pissing fear!
DEENA: "Bwuak-buk-buk-buk buk"!
LORENE: I didn't understand how you could change like that.
While you were Rambo, I had to stop hanging out with you--
RON: I was too far out of my mind to notice. Like a rabid --
DEENA: Rabbit?
RON: Sure. Chicken, rabbit, whatever. A little animal that runs
around in a frenzy...
LORENE: So now you're changed back. But I still don't understand.
Not that you owe me an explanation. I’m not the one of
the kids who got all fired up by your speeches and signed up
for the war--
DEENA: I didn't join because of Ron! I thought of it as a job,
I needed money for college, so I thought: I can do that. I’m
good with machines, and pretty brave-- for a girl. I made my
own choice. And I'd make it again.
LORENE: But why should you go, and Ron not?
DEENA: It's nothing to do with Ron!
RON: I supported the war because TV scared me shitless. Every
day a new threat. Weapons of Mass Destruction; "proof" that
the UN can't be trusted; "proof" that liberals wanted
to hide under the bed, while the Arabs were smuggling nukes
in a suitcase. I tuned out all evidence to the contrary, because--
? Because why? Actually, I haven't a clue. I just tuned it
out.
LORENE: That wasn't like the Ron I knew.
RON: And loved?
LORENE: It was incredibly painful. You were Mr. Fair and Balanced.
On the debate team? The one in charge of outlining the other
side.
RON: There was no other side. There was just bullshit, and nobody
asking who fed the media the crap that they fed us.
DEENA: Never trust what you see on TV. Anything you think you
know about Iraq--?!
RON: The story kept changing! The same talking head would say
with a straight face that WMDs had been found, and the next day
that there weren't any; but it didn't matter. Fighting terror
--how the hell do you do that? You can't bomb or shoot it--
DEENA: If it shoots at you, you can sure as hell shoot back.
RON: Iraqis weren't shooting at us! Not before we went in there!
LORENE: Now you give us the debating points! Even I knew we
were only getting one side. The base is the biggest employer
around here. They're our neighbors.
RON: It was the photos that caught up with me. Naked prisoners
with dogs. Babies sliced to hamburger. Americans don't do those
things!
DEENA: Americans aren’t supposed to. But if you put troops
with fears and doubts in a bad situation, shit happens.
RON: Well, the alarm went off, and I knew I'd been a chump.
Terrified out of my mind by twenty guys with box cutters? A bunch
of lying so-called "journalists" put their fingers
on the panic buttons in my brain.
DEENA: It’s a terrible thing to be afraid. Especially
if everyone sees it. But even if you’re the only one who
knows.... Cowards in combat will walk into a bullet, or open
fire on a bunch of innocent civilians, just to deny they're afraid.
LORENE: I wanted to tell you not to enlist, Deena. But Ron kept
at me, lining up facts and reasons--
DEENA: Forget about it! Why won’t you believe me when
I tell you the why isn’t important? What matters now is
the facts on the ground.
LORENE: What's happened to you--
DEENA: I'm not the person I was, Weenie. Your old friend DeeDee?
The girl you could talk into things? Talk out of going to war?
She's over. I've done what I've done, and I know what I know.
LORENE: But you're out, now.
DEENA: No, sir. I'm down, but I'm not out. I'm going back.
LORENE: How can you? You're--
RON: Not everyone who serves is in combat, Lorene. There are
desk jobs.
DEENA: I don't want a goddam desk job! I want to be where I
belong, with my unit. I just hope to God they'll let me.
LORENE: But you said the guys think women don't belong. Women
were raped, you said.
DEENA: Not by my guys! I'm not saying there wasn't pressure,
sometimes. And some times I felt like screwing my brains out,
myself. But we knew better-- you got to be strong. Sex-- or worse,
love? Don't even think about it, if you want to do the job.
RON: Like at Abu Ghraib.
DEENA: You see? Here, people look at me and they think of those
sick pictures and they wonder. Like Ron says: you can't know.
You weren't there. Sure, I killed people...
RON: Women and children?
LORENE: I don't believe it.
DEENA: I didn't! Never. But I know people who did. And I know
why. They’re cowards! Which you'll never understand, not
if you're the smartest person on earth and you study for a hundred
years. You only learn what you’re made of the hard way.
RON: What are you made of?
DEENA: Ice, maybe. Whatever. Something that keeps me calm when
other people are scared, and tells me what I need to do to take
care of them, and do it with honor.
LORENE: That’s why you want to go back to there?
DEENA: Not much use for my peculiar skill set around here. That's
where I belong.
LORENE: But you can’t belong in Iraq. It's not ours! Even
if we bomb the place into oblivion, and pave it for a parking
lot, Americans won't belong there!
RON: Face it! For every insurgent you kill, we make enemies--
and there are billions of them. Enemies all over the world!
DEENA: Save your breath, Ron. I need mine to work on walking.
Are you going to help me get up and go for a little stroll, or
do I have to call the nurse to throw you out of here?
LORENE: Deena, we've lost in Iraq. It's all over but the getting
out. People will go on dying, but... (RON
hands DEENA her crutches)
DEENA: You know they've offered me a job as recruiter? Can you
imagine? As if I'd talk some poor sap into doing what me and
my guys do. Come on, Lorene. I want to hear you cheer. Get me
going now, girl!
LORENE: Yay, Deena! (jumps and shakes imaginary
pompoms) Give
me a W!
RON & DEENA: W!
LORENE: Give me an A!
RON & DEENA: A!
LORENE: Give me an-- !
(We never find out whether the next letter
is the “L” of
WALK or the “R” of WAR. Loud Military music swells
and the lights fade as DEENA rises)
THE END
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