by James Reston
KINGSLEY: How you fixed for cash?
REPORTER: I have some, (HE takes some rumpled, pale bills of different colors out of his shirt) Here.
KINGSLEY: I wasn’t asking you to give it to me.
REPORTER: I owe it to you.
KINGSLEY: No you don’t.
REPORTER: A hundred thousand dollars.
KINGSLEY: Just forget about it.
REPORTER: Am I supposed to work for you now? I can probably do some kind of work. I can’t report the news.
KINGSLEY: We’re square. We’ll get our value for the hundred grand. You’re a four-part feature. Maybe six if we can stretch it. We might try some kind of angle with a girl guerrilla. That’s a thought, (HE picks up the phone) Get me Dave Feltzer again. (To the REPORTER) No, all we ask of you is don’t give information to the rival press. We want a clean exclusive. We’ll be signing your name to the story, by the way. Don’t be surprised.
REPORTER: Why should I be surprised?
KINGSLEY: Well, when you read it.
REPORTER: I won’t read it.
KINGSLEY: Okay. Want to catch the movie if you can. We’re trying to interest Redford. (Into the phone) Yeah, hold on, Dave. (To the REPORTER) I think that’s all then.
REPORTER: That’s all? (Pause, KINGSLEY just sits with the phone in his hand) Okay. Goodbye, Bob. (HE turns and leaves)
KINGSLEY (Into the phone): Yeah Dave. Got a little brainstorm for the sequence in the punji pit. He’s down there, right, he’s got this bamboo sticking through his feet, and he looks up and sees an AK-47 clutched in little tapered fingers and the fingernails are painted red. . . .
Blackout. Tape: tinny Asian-Western rock-and-roll as in Act I, Scene 4 [STRIP]; this time a ballad—say, “Ruby Tuesday.”
Slide: PROPOSAL
Lights up on LI’s room at the Coral Bar. A bed, a doorway made of hanging beads, a screen. LI is behind the screen, dressing. The REPORTER is lying on the bed. THEY have just had sex. The REPORTER lies quietly a while before HE speaks.
REPORTER Li?
LI: Yes?
REPORTER It’s good here. It’s so good with you.
LI (Professionally): It’s good with you too.
REPORTER When I look in your eyes, your eyes look back. I love that. That’s so important to me.
LI: I love that too.
REPORTER I love to be with you.
LI: I love to be with you too.
REPORTER Do you love me, Li? You don’t, I know.
LI: I love you. Love you best of all my men.
REPORTER: Do you know what? When I come here I pretend we short-time just because we both just want to. I pretend you wouldn’t take my money only Mai Wah makes you take it.
LI: Mai Wah makes me or I no take money.
REPORTER: Would you short-time me for love?
LI: Yes.
REPORTER: Are you sure you would?
LI: Yes.
REPORTER: Are you absolutely sure?
LI: Yes.
REPORTER: Li, I don’t have any money.
LI (Emerging from behind the screen): What you say?
REPORTER: I’m broke. No money.
LI: No. You joke with Li.
REPORTER: I had to see you and I didn’t want to spoil it by telling you till after.
LI: I have to pay myself now. Mai Wah writes it down, who comes here, how much time. Now you no pay I have to pay myself.
REPORTER: I didn’t know that.
LI: Now you know.
REPORTER: I paid a lot of times, Li. Maybe it’s fair that you pay once.
LI: Get out of here.
REPORTER: Li—
LI: Next time I see money first, like you G.I. I thought you nice. You trick me. You get out of here.
REPORTER: Li, marry me.
LI: What you say?
REPORTER: I say I want us to get married.
LI: Now you really joke. You bad man.
REPORTER: I’m not joking, Li. I mean it.
LI: Yes? You marry me?
REPORTER: That’s right.
LI: You take me to America?
REPORTER: America? No.
LI: Marry me, not take me to America? You leave me here?
REPORTER: I stay with you, Li. I’m not going to America.
LI: You lie. Sometime you go.
REPORTER: I’m never going to go. I’m going to stay here.
LI: No. America is good. Here no good. You marry me and take me to America.
REPORTER: If I wanted to go to America, I wouldn’t want to marry you.
LI: Li just good enough for Am-bo Land. You have round-eye wife, go back to her. I know.
REPORTER: You’re wrong, Li. I am never going back.
LI: You say then why you want to marry me.
REPORTER: You make me feel at home here and this country is my home. I want to sleep with you, wake up with you. I want to look at you and see you looking back.
LI: Where you live now?
REPORTER: Well, really nowhere just this minute. See, I haven’t got a job right now—
LI: You go now.
REPORTER: Wait, Li—
LI: You come back, you show me money first. You owe me for three short-times because you stay so long.
REPORTER: Li, listen—
LI: No. You go away. Not be here when I come back.
LI goes out through the beaded curtain. Blackout. Tape: a distant foghorn.
Slide: WORK
Dim lights up on the REPORTER. It is dusk. HE is waiting for someone. OFFICER X appears. HE wears a stateside class-A army overcoat with the bronze oak leaves of a major on the lapels.
REPORTER: Officer X? Then you are an officer. I didn’t know if that might be a code name.
X: What’s with the gook suit?
REPORTER: It’s just my clothes.
X: They’ve gotta go. Hawaiian shirts and shiny Harlem slacks is best for couriers. You have to blend in. Give me the card that Kingsley gave you. (The REPORTER hands him the red-white-and-blue card from Act I, Scene 6 [IM- PRINTMENT]) You know the number?
REPORTER: No.
X (Hands back the card): Learn it. (The REPORTER starts to put the card back in his pocket) Learn it now. (The REPORTER reads the card, trying to memorize the number. The effort of concentration is hard for him. OFFICER X takes the card back) What’s the number?
REPORTER (With difficulty): 7 . . . 38 . . . 472 . . . 4.
X: Again.
REPORTER: 738 . . . 47 . . . 24.
X (Pockets the card): Remember it. Don’t write it down. Here. (HE hands the REPORTER a packet wrapped in paper, tied with string)
REPORTER: What is it?
X: Don’t ask what, ask where.
REPORTER: Where?
X: Lin Cho District. Tan Hoi Street. Number 72.
REPORTER: Number 72 Tan Hoi Street.
X: Better put it under your shirt. But get an overcoat with inside pockets.
REPORTER (Hiding the package as directed): I can speak some Ambonese.
X: When we need that, we have interpreters. Be back here with the money in two hours. (The REPORTER starts out) Hold on. Do you have a weapon?
REPORTER: —Yes.
X: Let’s see it. (The REPORTER doesn’t move. X takes out a handgun) Here.
REPORTER: That’s okay.
X: You’ll pay me back in trade. Here, take it.
REPORTER: I don’t need it.
X: Hell you don’t.
REPORTER: I don’t.
X: You’ve got to have it.
REPORTER: I don’t want it.
X: I’ll just ask you one more time. You gonna take the pistol? (The REPORTER looks at it but doesn’t answer) Give me back the package.
REPORTER: I can get it where it’s going.
X: Give it.
REPORTER: Number 72 Tan Hoi—
X: Nobody carries goods for me unless they’re able to protect them.
REPORTER: I’ll protect them.
X: If you won’t use the
gun, don’t think I won’t.
X points the pistol at the REPORTER. The REPORTER gives him the packet.
REPORTER: I can speak some Ambonese.
X: You told me. What’s my number?
REPORTER: 7 . . . 7 . . . 38 . . . 738 . . . (His face goes blank)
X: Good. Don’t remember it again.
X leaves the way HE came. Blackout. Tape: babies crying.
Slide: ORPHANAGE
The crying of the babies continues into the scene. Lights come up on an AMBONESE NUN tending children who are imagined to be in a long row of cribs between her and the audience. The REPORTER comes in left.
REPORTER: Excuse me, Sister.
NUN: Yes?
REPORTER: The Mother Superior told me to come up here.
NUN: Yes?
REPORTER: I’m going to adopt a child.
NUN (Scanning his garments; gently): Adopt a child?
REPORTER Yes.
NUN: Have you been interviewed?
REPORTER Not yet. I have to get a bit more settled first. But the Mother Superior said I could come upstairs and if I chose a child she would keep it for me.
NUN: Ah. How old a child would you want?
REPORTER He should probably not be very young. And tough. He should be tough. I don’t have lots of money.
NUN: You said “he.”
REPORTER A girl would be all right. A girl would be nice.
NUN: It must be a girl. The Government has a law that only girls may be adopted. The boys are wards of the State. When they are older, they will go into the army.
REPORTER Well, a girl is fine.
NUN (Starting down the line with him, moving left): This girl is healthy.
REPORTER Hello. You’re very pretty. You have cheek bones like a grownup, like your mommy must have had. Look. If I pull back my skin as tight as I can, I still don’t have skin as tight as you. (HE pulls his skin back toward his temples. One effect is that this gives him slanted eyes) Why won’t you look at me?
NUN: She is looking at you.
REPORTER She doesn’t trust me. (To the child) I won’t hurt you. I just want to have a child of your country. Will you be my child? (To the NUN) She doesn’t like me. Do you see that child down the line there? (pointing right) That one’s looking at me. Let’s go talk to that child.
NUN: That section is boys. This way. (SHE leads him to the next crib to the left)
REPORTER She’s asleep but, look, her little fists are clenched. She wouldn’t like me. I don’t want to wake her up.
NUN: Here is another.
REPORTER (To the third child): Do you like me? I’ll take care of you. I understand that you need food, and I’ll try and be a friend to you. (To the NUN) She doesn’t even hear my voice.
NUN: Here.
REPORTER These aren’t children! These are ancient people, shrunken down! Look at their eyes! They’ve looked at everything! They’ll never look at me!
NUN: You’re upsetting the children.
REPORTER (Pointing toward the boys’ section): That child sees me. He’s been looking at me since I came in the room. I want that child.
NUN: I’ve told you that you cannot have a boy—Wait. Which child?
REPORTER The one who’s standing up and looking at me.
NUN: The child in green?
REPORTER: Yes.
NUN: You can have the child in green. The Government will not object to that. The boy is blind.
REPORTER: Blind?
NUN: Yes.
REPORTER He isn’t blind. He’s looking at me.
NUN: He can’t see you.
REPORTER Yes he can.
NUN: He can’t.
REPORTER That child’s the only one who sees me. How can he be blind?
NUN: He can’t see.
REPORTER He’s looking at me! Can’t you see? He’s looking at me!
NUN: You’d better go now. Come back when you have made an application and have been approved. The boy will be here.
REPORTER He’s blind.
NUN: Yes.
REPORTER I’m going to go now. (HE doesn’t move)
NUN: Yes, please go now.
REPORTER He’s blind. (HE starts out the way HE came)
NUN: God be with you.
Blackout.
Slide: HOME
A street in the City. It is dead of night. The REPORTER is walking along the street. HE is nearly stumbling from exhaustion. When the lights come up, it is as if—from the REPORTER’s point of view—they came up on the audience. HE looks at the audience quizzically.
REPORTER Hello. You look familiar. I believe I used to talk to you. Are you my readers? I’m doing very well. Last night I found a refrigerator carton that would shelter a whole family with their pigs and chickens. Next to it a trash pile I can live off for a week. If I can find my way back. I kind of get lost on these streets sometimes. (Pause) Sometimes I can stand like this and drift in all directions through the City, soaking up the sounds. . . . (Sitting down on the pavement) There’s a firefight out there beyond the border of the City. Tracers from a helicopter gunship, see, they’re streaming down like water from a hose. Green tracers coming up to meet them now, they climb up towards the ship and then they drop and their green fire goes out. They fall and hit some tree somewhere. The lumber industry is almost dead in Am-bo Land. A fact I read. The trees are all so full of metal that the lumber mills just break their sawblades. (The lights take on bodiless whiteness) Magnesium flares. They’re floating down on little parachutes. I floated down like that once. Everything is turning silver and the shadows are growing and growing. The street looks like the surface of the moon. And listen.
The EVENT’s voice, on tape, has come softly on: elusive Asian music from the opening titles of the play. The REPORTER shuts his eyes. As the sounds continue, HE falls into a position almost too awkward to be sleep; a position that suggests a drunken stupor or a state of shock. The EVENT makes more sounds, blending them together almost soothingly: a helicopter passing overhead; distant mortar and automatic weapons fire; more Asian music, very lulling. From far along the street is heard the creaking sound of dolly wheels. The PHOTOGRAPHER comes on, now legless, propelling himself on a platform.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Hey, is that a body, man? God damn, a Yankee dressed up like a gook. Yeah, that’s a picture. Hold it. Smile, Charlie.
The PHOTOGRAPHER takes a flash photo. Simultaneously with the flash, the stage goes black and the picture appears on the screen. It is the head and shoulders of a body in the same position as the REPORTER’s, and dressed identically. The face is that of the EVENT. The picture holds for several seconds, then clicks off.
Slide: HOW I GOT THAT STORY
END OF PLAY
MEDAL OF HONOR RAG
Tom Cole
About Tom Cole
Born in 1933 in Paterson, New Jersey, Tom Cole took his undergraduate degree at Harvard, and, after studying Russian in army language school, returned to Harvard for a graduate degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures. The author of award-winning short stories and a novel, An End to Chivalry, Cole became a playwright with Medal of Honor Rag. His next play, Fighting Bob, was commissioned by Milwaukee Repertory Theater and produced Off Broadway in 1981. Cole’s translations/adaptations of Gogol’s Dead Souls and Ostrovsky’s The Forest were also first staged by Milwaukee Rep. Since 1970 Cole has enjoyed an active association with film directors Irvin Kershner, Martin Rosen and Joyce Chopra, with whom he has worked on a long series of films both dramatic and documentary. Current projects include a screenplay of a Joyce Carol Oates story, “Where Are You Going?,” and both film and stage adaptations of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. Cole has been the recipient of the Atlantic “First” Award, the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the CINE Golden Eagle and a playwriting fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Production History
Medal of Honor Rag was first presented by the Theatre Company of Boston in April
1975, under the direction of David Wheeler and Jan Egleson. The first New York production, directed by David Chambers, opened at the Theatre de Lys the following March. In April 1982 Medal of Honor Bag was telecast on PBS’s American Playhouse, in a production directed by Lloyd Richards.
Playwright’s Note
The characters in this play are fictional, but the events reported are all drawn from experiences and testimony of the period.
The words of Lyndon B. Johnson are excerpted from remarks made at a Congressional Medal of Honor award ceremony at the White House on November 19, 1968. A tape of the address is housed at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.
Characters
DOCTOR, a white man in his early 40s, informal, hardworking, even overworked—the youngish doctor with simultaneous commitments to hospital, private patients, writing, family, research, teaching, public health, public issues, committees, special projects. White shirt and bow tie, soft jacket, somewhat weary. He is of European background,, but came to this country as a child. Possessor of a dry wit, which he is not averse to using for therapeutic purposes.
DALE JACKSON (D.J.), a black man two weeks before his 24th birthday, erect and even stiff in bearing, intelligent, handsome, restrained. An effect of power and great potential being held in for hidden reasons. Like the doctor, given to his own slants of humor as a way of dealing with people and, apparently, of holding them off.
HOSPITAL GUARD, a sergeant in uniform and on duty. White. An MP, on transitional assignment.
Time
April 23, 1971.
Place
Valley Forge Army Hospital, Pennsylvania.
The Play
Medal Of Honor Rag
An office, but not the doctor’s own office. No signs of personal adaptation—looks more like an institutional space used by many different people, which is what it is. Bather small. A desk, a folding metal chair for the patient, a more comfortable chair for the doctor. Wastebasket. Ash tray.
