One Side
Cast:
Kerri
Nels
Setting: Blank stage or a living room.
Kerri: .... at least 75% of them.
Nels: (react)
K: Remember I went to school with a ton of guys like that.
N: (react)
K: Just violent types.
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K: I'm not saying all of them, just like around three-quarters...
N: (react)
K: They had these fantasies, and
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K: they didn't have great college potential, or
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K: any real vocational plans, and
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K: they were crude, they treated women, like the high school girls, horribly,
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K: called us "cunts", "bitches", "whores", "sluts", or
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K: tried to grab us when we had to squeeze by them in the hall, or at our lockers.
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K: I understand what you're saying, but...
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K: No! I never said that! I mean, yes, I'm generalizing here...
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K: No, not a lot, just enough to make my case a little more clearly...
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K: Nels, I'm not going to explain each and every one of them; I'm speaking about them as a group...
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K: Yes.
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K: Yes.
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K: Of course.
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K: Oh, c'mon! That's not what I'm saying at all!
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K: I have to talk about them as a group, because I'm trying to make a larger point.
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K: No, they... they're a good sample...
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K: Yes, I know they aren't officially random, but
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K: No, my point still stands.
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K: My point... is that most of these guys harbored very violent inner lives.
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K: Fantasizing about death, killing, guns.
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K: So? So... the army recruiter comes along... chucks these guys on the shoulder, a gateway violent action...
N: (react)
K: Like a gateway drug, sure.
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K: No, it's not ridiculous.
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K: On the butt?
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K: Yeah, I've seen that in football games.
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K: No... well... I don't know... sure, yeah, whatever, Nels, that might very well be gateway homosexuality.
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K: Good one! (laughter) Anyway, these recruiters, they promise these boys the world... and they always know which boys to hit up...
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K: No, not in that way...
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K: Fine, since you seem to be obsessed by it, maybe the whole thing is gateway homosexuality, but that's not my point, and you know it.
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K: Whatever, you have these promises made and the boys just suck it right up...
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K: Alright, yes, bad word choice, but they do, you know, they sell them these dreams, but these dreams are different - these dreams are about violence and guns, beautiful, long, hard guns that they get to shoot... shoot to kill.
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K: Yes, I know it's a dim view, but it's true. I've seen it happen, about thirty guys from my senior year, some of them already in, some waiting to start after graduation... almost all of them poor, not very good students, many of them rough, aggressive bullying personalities...
N: (react)
K: I knew these guys, Nels; I went to school with many of them from kindergarten on. Hell, I even dated a couple of them.
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K: Both were mistakes; stupid junior high crushes, big tough guys to hold me, right?
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K: They wanted to do it! They talked it up! And they bragged about the guns, the killing they might get to do.
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K: No, not all of them; I've said that.
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K: 75% or so. They wanted to be associated with a gang; that's what it came down to. They needed to feel needed. It wasn't about patriotism, which they all said, even though most of them couldn't spell it.
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K: Yeah, I'm nasty; I don't care. I saw this. It was about, you know, being able to hold that gun, to pretend they were important, to feel that official sanctioning of bully power.
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K: No.
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K: Not the slightest.
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K: Forget it.
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K: Because I know how important it is. I know how important it is to have a strong defense. My dad is a General, you know that.
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K: He knows the score, that's all. I've heard him talking to the other brass.
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K: Many, many times. I've asked him about these kids. You know what he says?
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K: No, he calls them the first line.
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K: I understand how important a first line is.
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K: He says the country needs military leaders and many, many more "bodies".
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K: Yes, that's what he called them.
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K: Just "bodies", these guys, my classmates, are there to shoot at least two of them for every one of us. That the simplest accounting.
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K: The accounting... not of expenses, but the expendable.
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K: Well, then they'd have to kill three or four before they died; the simple fact is that this is how the government views these guys.
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K: I never saw you jumping to serve, and your kids have had every privilege.
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K: Still you never served. You would have been officer class, no real danger of losing your life, yet you didn't do it.
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K: But why?
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K: That's a nice political spin, but the real reason is that you had other dreams, other opportunities. You've fulfilled them.
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K: Most of them, sure. But, now there's a war on, and your three boys are out there fulfilling their dreams which never once included the military.
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K: Yes, but they get to because you have money, they get to work on dreams that are supported by the fact that these guys are killing for them. Suported by the most rudimentary accounting possible.
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K: So you use them when you want to, but you would never really support them.
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K: No, I'm telling you the truth. You do what you want with it, Nels. You're the Senator.
N: (react)
(lights out)
(end)
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