Semper Fi

Set­ting: there is a table. It is nicely set for a fam­ily gath­er­ing. The table cloth is blue and the plates are a tan­nish brown. Humphrey is drink­ing wine, Tom will later drink wine. The rest are drink­ing water except for Betty who is drink­ing milk. There are eight places set, one for a child and seven for adults. Every­one is sit­ting except for Deb­o­rah, Irene, and Tom. There is a door stage left.

Char­ac­ters:

• Mother — Irene
• Father — Francis
• Son –Tom
• Daugh­ter – Gloria
• Uncle – Jim
• Aunt – Deborah
• Grandpa – Humphrey
• Grandma — Betty

• Fran­cis: (he bends down to help Irene) Calm down, let me clean this up.
• Irene: no, no dear I want to do this. Every­thing has to be per­fect when he gets here.
• Fran­cis: I’m sure he won’t mind
• Irene: yes he will. And even if he doesn’t, I will. It’s the first time he has been home in two years. The least we could do is make every­thing perfect.
• Fran­cis: that’s exactly it. He hasn’t been home in a long time. Tom will just be glad to be home and be with his fam­ily. He won’t care if there is a lit­tle water on the floor or if the chicken is a lit­tle overdone.
• Irene: (stands up quickly) oh no, my chicken (runs off stage right)

(Fran­cis sits back in his chair and has a sip of water. Deb­o­rah walks on stage right with mashed pota­toes as Irene hur­ries by.)

• Deb­o­rah: (jok­ingly) what did you say to her now, Francis?
• Fran­cis: (he sighs, clearly not under­stand­ing it was a joke) oh noth­ing. She’s just wor­ried that tom won’t love her if he comes back to a bad meal.
• Deb­o­rah: I would know it. We’ve been in that kitchen all day. I swear we have been mak­ing food like its thanksgiving!
• Humphrey: (he is very mel­low and care free) back in my day the women cooked this long every day. A good hearty meal every night.
• Betty: Oh be quiet Humphrey. You love cook­ing. You are in that kitchen as much as I am. (The two laugh. Deb­o­rah slyly and minutely glares at Jim.)
• Glo­ria: (she is around 7 years old) mommy! I’m get­ting hun­gry! When do we get to eat?

(Irene races on and gives Glo­ria some peas)

• Irene: here you go dear. This should take the edge off. I’m sorry but we can’t eat until you big brother gets here.
• Glo­ria: (groans) peas suck! (She throws one and it hits Humphrey)
• Irene: (very calmly) don’t play with your food Glo­ria. (Humphrey promptly picks up the pea off the ground and eats it. Irene has already gone off to the kitchen again.)
• Jim: (he wants to act like the hard­ened marine. He has a tat­too on his right arm) dad, why the hell did you just eat that?
• Humphrey: waste not, want not, Jim
• Jim: but you didn’t ask for the peas, they were on Gloria’s plate.
• Fran­cis: you mean you didn’t see him eying them as Irene brought in the plate?

(The door­bell rings)

• Fran­cis: I’ll get it

(As he stands up Irene race by, plac­ing the chicken in the cen­ter of the table and hur­ry­ing over to the door. Every­one is aston­ished by the finesse of this maneuver.)

• Tom: Mom! It’s great to see you (he gives her a big hug. He is wear­ing his Class A uniform.)
• Irene: it’s great to see you too sweetie.
• Tom: oh wow, the whole fam­ily and such a great look­ing meal. Mom you didn’t have to go to all of this trou­ble just for me.
• Irene: oh but I did
• Humphrey: hurry up and sit down. I’m dying of hunger over here.
• Tom: sure you are grandpa. (He goes around the table and gives every­one a hug except for Jim, whom he gives a firm hand­shake. Tom takes his seat and Irene come shuf­fling back in with a bowl of salad. She sits.)
• Humphrey: let us pray (they all bow their heads and hold hands in a cir­cle) dear lord let us thank you for this food and for this drink you have given us tonight. Let us thank you for another marine returned home safely.
• All: dear lord, Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed and may there be a goodly share on every table every­where. Amen
• Fran­cis: dig in

(They pass food around the table. Every­one tak­ing some.)

• Tom: grandpa, how has the farm been doing?
• Humphrey: you know it’s been doing well, but I have had to hire some more farm hands, I just can’t do as much as I used to. Plus, we’ve been able to buy quite a few more cows. I sure do miss hav­ing you come out dur­ing the sum­mer to work on the farm with us.
• Tom. Maybe I’ll be able to come out this sum­mer. I love being out there. Jim, I heard you were able to open up another body shop.
• Jim: I tell you what; the econ­omy must be turn­ing around. We are get­ting more and more cus­tomers. Whether it’s a lux­ury upgrade or a yearly tune up, the peo­ple are pour­ing in. seems like every­one wants to keep their cars run­ning so they don’t have to buy a new one.
• Tom: what is it now, four garages?
• Jim: 5 actually
• Tom: wow that’s really great. So has the green elec­tron­ics busi­ness finally taken off, dad?
• Fran­cis: at first we had to lay off a few peo­ple, but Cal­i­for­ni­ans all wanna save the earth. Plus we have started work­ing with your uncle to develop in car green GPSs, DVD play­ers and stereo systems.
• Jim: every­one wants to feel like they are doing good while doing nothing.

(Glo­ria flicks another pea)

• Irene: (she is sterner this time) don’t throw food; we are try­ing to have a decent con­ver­sa­tion. (Irene is obvi­ously stressed that her daugh­ter is mis­be­hav­ing, Betty notices.)
• Betty: Dear this chicken is fab­u­lous! You must give me the recipe.
• Irene: (her atten­tion is diverted) actu­ally, Betty, it’s in my cook­book. The one that I sent you over the summer.
• Tom: I didn’t know you were work­ing on another cook­book mom. I thought you were done with being a pro­fes­sional chef after Glo­ria was born.
• Irene: I did too, but Glo­ria isn’t so much of a hand­ful now that she has started going to school. I had so much free time I fig­ured, why not?
• Deb­o­rah: it’s doing rather well, too. It seems like all of Jeff’s friends’ moth­ers own a copy.
• Tom: that reminds me, where is Jeff? I’m sur­prised you couldn’t drag him along.
• Deb­o­rah: he’s actu­ally in France right now. He’s tak­ing a semes­ter abroad. I hadn’t even known that you could do that in high school. But he is and we are very proud of him.
• Fran­cis: enough about us, son. Tell us about what it was like overseas.
• Tom: it was fine, really hot though.
• Fran­cis: there must be more to talk about than that.
• Tom: not really. I was only a com­puter guy. I stayed in a tent all day and stared at com­puter screens.
• Humphrey: I couldn’t help but notice the large amount of medals on your uni­form. That seems like a lot for doing nothing.
• Tom: I was able to find some hid­den encamp­ments and car bombers. I saved a lot of boys’ lives.
• Jim: you don’t get a pur­ple heart for being behind a com­puter. They don’t hand out Con­gres­sional Medals of Honor or Sil­ver Stars to every­one. You’re a dec­o­rated Marine.
• Tom: I had to go into the field a few times.
• Irene: you said you weren’t going to do any fight­ing. You said no killing. Why did you lie to me?
• Tom: I didn’t lie to you, mom. I didn’t do any fight­ing. I just went out and did a lit­tle recon. It was noth­ing major, noth­ing worth talk­ing about.
• Jim: bull­shit. You’re insult­ing my intel­li­gence by lying to us like this.
• Humphrey: leave him be, Jim. Maybe he had a rough time overseas.
• Jim: (ignor­ing his father) you’re in the com­pany of other Marines, feel free to speak freely.
• Tom: shut up, Jim. You don’t know what the fuck you are talk­ing about. What war did you fight? What fuck­ing war? The clos­est thing you got to shoot­ing a man was tar­get prac­tice at the base. I don’t think you can even call your­self a marine.
• Jim: what, you think sem­per fi doesn’t apply to me you piece of shit.
• Tom: how much time have you spent in com­bat? How many men have you killed? Zero. You know I joined the marines because of you and grandpa. Do you remem­ber what you said to me Jim, do you remem­ber? You said, “It puts hair on your chest, makes you a man. Every young man should have to serve his coun­try.” So I did, I served my coun­try. I got shipped out to Iraq and do you know how dif­fi­cult it was to sur­vive over there? Kill or be killed. Do you know how many men I killed? Cause I sure as hell don’t. All I remem­ber is the eight men on my team who died and the twelve year old kid I had to shoot so that the other three wouldn’t die too. Twelve years old. Do you know how fucked up that is? Do you know what it’s like to kill a man? To kill a child?

(Glo­ria throws another pea)

• Irene: (she is cry­ing) DON’T THROW YOUR FOOD! (She stands up and runs from the room crying)
• Fran­cis: what is wrong with you two? (He picks up Glo­ria and exits after Irene, stage right)
• Deb­o­rah: (she makes eye con­tact with betty.) why don’t we start the dishes. (They exit each tak­ing one dish of food.)
• Humphrey: (he stands) do you know how I met Betty? I went through D-Day and the next day I got shot. I went to a hos­pi­tal and she was one of the nurses there. She was one of my nurses there. I healed, good and new, and I went back into the field. I saw her three more times in this fash­ion. I don’t care if one of you didn’t fight, and I don’t care if one of you fought too much, because I have done both. I have been injured many times and noth­ing hurts me more than watch­ing my son and my grand­son fight. I can­not stand it. Not only are you two fam­ily by blood but you are broth­ers by the Marine Corps. (He exits)
• Jim: sem­per fuck­ing fi (he exits through the door stage left.)

(Black­out)

• Photo Used with Per­mis­sion