Second-Time-Around

by Lynn Veach Sadler

Former college president Dr. Lynn Veach Sadler has published widely in academics and creative writing. Editor, poet, fiction/creative nonfiction writer, and playwright, she has published four chapbooks; has two more and a full-length collection in press; and won The Pittsburgh Quarterly’s Hay Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Hemley Award, and Asphodel’s Poetry Contest and tied for first place in Kalliope’s Elkind Contest. One story appears in Del Sol’s Best of 2004 Butler Prize Anthology; another, about Patrick Swayze, won the 2006 Abroad Writers Contest/Fellowship (France). A novel will soon join her novella and short-story collection, and she was named 2007 Writer of the Year by California’s elizaPress. She won the 2009 overall award (poetry and fiction) of the San Diego City College National Writer’s Contest and City Works Journal. A play on Frost was a Pinter Review Prize for Drama Silver Medalist, and she won the 2008 Pearson Award at Wayne State for Second-Time-Around, a play on the Iraq wars. She has traveled around the world five times, writing all the way, and now works full-time as a creative writer and an editor.

published October 2009

Scene ii. The Second Time (Operation Iraqi Freedom)

(NESSIE, wearing a party hat, carrying a sign under one arm, and holding a birthday horn, sinks defeatedly into a chair. VAN, hands on hips, stands looking at her harshly, then grabs the horn and blows into it, and dances about holding up the sign. It says “Happy Birthday, Mindy!”)

VAN

(Tosses away the birthday trappings.) You never learn, do you? Your sister can take Little Mindy to Chuck E. Cheese’s, handle the birthday party. You knew the notice could come any time. You expect the Army to do call-ups at your kid’s convenience? Your convenience? Get a life! Get an Army life!

NESSIE

Let me repeat another of your famous refrains. “What do babies know? Now if it were a teenager, say, or a middle schooler even...” Well, she’s going on thirteen now. She knows. She knows war, what it does to her family.

VAN

So does her older brother, Nessie. That’s why he’s into his dad, not into you. I’ve tried, believe me. I sang him something else from “Ballads of The Green Berets,” not my personal favorite, not (singing)—

Back at home a young wife waits,
Her Green Beret has met his fate
He has died for those oppressed,
Leaving her this last request.

Put silver wings on my son’s chest,
Make him one of America’s best,
He’ll be a man they’ll test one day,
Have him win The Green Beret.

No, Nessie, I sang your Believes-He’s-All-Grown-Up Jim something totally apropos, as it were, Barry Sadler’s “Salute to the Nurses.” (Singing.)

A soldier, his hands
too burned to write,
A nurse takes down his words
through the lonely night.

He was having none of it, even if Barry Sadler was a sergeant like his dad. But you don’t like anything but opera, classical pops at most. Pure escapism. No macho schlock for you, no sentimental slop for you, not a hoofbeat of Country Western. No wonder—

NESSIE

(Quietly.) Actually, Barry Sadler stuff is from his grandfather’s war, not his dad’s, not Ben’s. Vietnam.

VAN

Right you are, Nessie, but have things changed all that much? Really? Jim’s grandfather and father—your Ben—were both born at Womack Army Hospital, Fort Bragg, I remind you. Generation unto generation. Ben’s still gung-ho. Still conservative, too. It stands to reason your husband and son would rather have you (sings, adapting a line from the chorus of “Ballad of the Green Berets”) “Back at home [our Nessie] waits.” Your mother, whole family would agree. Your home-fire wars are great enough. You couldn’t do it today, Baby Girl. You an officer wanting to marry an enlisted man. No way. It’s still a thorn, isn’t it? For both of you. All the jokes. Does he have to salute before he can bed you, Nessie? Somebody needs to protect the world, sure, but not you, Sweet Nessie, not you.

NESSIE

(Places her hands against her ears to shut out Van.) Stop it! Cool it! I’m in. I’ve been in. I just have to hang on a bit longer to retire. (Shakes herself and pulls into calm.) Jim and Mindy watch re-reruns of China Beach. Put them macho nurses in your Abrams tank before they roll right over you!

VAN

I feel for you, Sweet Nessie. I do, but you’re not in Operation Desert-Storm any longer, Dorothy-Nessie. You’re in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Your wars runneth over like your milk of yesteryear.