There Won't Be War

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

I ain’t no bachelor, miss. Got a wife an* two kiddies back ’ome, least I fink I do, if the Zeppelins ’aven’t got ’em yet.

JANE:

That isn’t what I asked you, is it?

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

Oh, you mean why, like. Why I’m here, you mean. I s’pose it’s the syme as all these other blokes, I expect. Coz we’re dead?

JANE:

Because you had that real big date, right. That’s the All New, Everybody Plays Dating Game, you see? And now, all you studs, please tell us where you met your date.

She gestures to them, and one by one they respond:

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

Wipers it was, miss.

BACHELOR NUMBER TWO:

(He wears a GI uniform from World War Two. He is missing an arm.)

They told us we were supposed to take this mountain. I think they said it was named Monte Cassino.

BACHELOR NUMBER THREE:

(He wears a Union infantry uniform from the Civil War. He is black and resembles Eddie Murphy.)

Near Petersburg, ma’am. Dey blowed up de mine an’ we went in, an’ den dey started shootin’ down at us.

BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR:

(He wears a Red Army uniform, though it is in rags. He is skeletally thin.)

Lake Ladoga, the siege of Leningrad. I fell through the ice and froze.

BACHELOR NUMBER FIVE:

(He is Oriental, small, wearing what looks like black pajamas. They are completely burned away on one side, and his flesh is blistered.)

I was carrying rocket grenades down the Trail when the napalm came.

BACHELOR NUMBER SIX:

(He wears the fur-collared flying suit of a U. S. Navy pilot, vintage of 1954. He is also badly burned.)

I was shot down north of the Yalu. I landed all right, but the plane was burning and when I tried to get out they shot at me.

BACHELOR NUMBER SEVEN:

(He wears the uniform of one of Napoleon’s hussars. He is seated with Bachelor Number Eight at a common desk.)

I too froze in Russia. It was on the way back from Moscow, very cold, and we had no food.

BACHELOR NUMBER EIGHT:

(In Wehrmacht uniform. He is blind.) And I also froze, kind lady. It was more than one hundred thirty years later, but it was in almost the same spot as the Frenchie.

JANE:

Thanks, guys. (To audience.)

We could Ve had lots more—hey, we could’ve had millions, all the way from Thermopylae to Grenada, only you know what it is when you have to stay under budget. And, listen, not just soldiers. Women, children, old people—remember Hiroshima? Or the time they wiped out the Catharists in France? “Kill them all,” the Catholic general told his troops, “God will know which are His own.” And I’m not even talking about, like, say, the Mongols, or that all-time goldy oldy, the Second Punic War.

(She scratches her crotch reminiscently,)

Then there were all the other little things that went along with the war for the civilians. You know what I mean?

You have to use your imagination a little bit here, folks—remember I told you about the budget? So we couldn’t bring you all the starved children and all like that, and I have to play all the civilian women myself. So there was this soldier; he came into the cellar where I was hiding and there I was. He got me right behind the ear with the butt of his rifle and he was already opening his pants ....

Jane turns away and walks toward the wings, lost in thought,

BACHELOR NUMBER EIGHT:

(Indignantly,) That must have been an Ivan. We German soldiers do not rape.

BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR:

No, you just bayonet babies.

BACHELOR NUMBER EIGHT:

A damnable lie! I personally bayonetted no babies.

The youngest I killed had no less than fifteen years, absolutely, I am almost sure.

Jane isn‘t listening. She has begun strutting across the stage, top hat, tails and cane on her shoulder; she is doing aerobic exercises, and is paying no attention to the eight “bachelors.“

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

Miss? Beggin’ yer pardon, miss? We’ve got a kind of an argle-bargle here.

JANE:

(She stops at the wing RIGHT, and looks at them, irritated.)