Monologue
Home Front — Ronnie
Greg Owens
Ronnie: So you were in the shit, huh? (LUCY doesn’t react.) Cool. D’you see a lot of action? (No reaction) I mean before you … (Pause) I’m thinking about enlisting myself. If I don’t get a baseball scholarship. I’d wanna be on the front lines. Get in the real shit, y’know? (No reaction) Can’t you talk? (No reaction) I don’t know if you can even understand a word I’m saying. (No reaction) My dad was a fighter pilot in Vietnam. Flew over two hundred missions. He bombed the crap outta those Commie gooks. They gave him a medal too. I’d show it to ya, but I don’t know for sure where he keeps it. (Pause) Dad always says that going to war is the most intense experience he thinks a human being can have. It pushes you to all your limits. Body, mind, and soul. Is that how you felt? (No reaction) I’m intense. I don’t think war’s anything I couldn’t handle. I thrive on pressure. And I’m at my best under challenging conditions. That’s why I didn’t mind giving up my room to you. Sleeping on the couch is nothing. I spent a month at a wilderness camp in Idaho one time, y’know? (No reaction) Well, actually it wasn’t a camp. It was more of a … program. One of those places they send you when you get in trouble so you can learn discipline and teamwork and self-control and all that shit. (Beat) I had to go there after I kicked the shit out of this kid at school. He didn’t really do anything to me. So it was kinda wrong. I just did it really for fun. He was a total fag. So he sorta had it coming. I guess I shouldn’t have done it though. That kind of thing looks bad on your record when you’re applying for college. (No reaction) At this camp they taught us how to dig latrines and set signal fires and make snares to catch rabbits and hunt berries and roots and shit. We learned a lot of cool shit. It was pretty tough. We also had to do a lot of hiking. With forty pounds of gear on our backs. (Beat) I think I could handle war. Don’t you?