Attacking Ellen

Reaction to Daniel Alarcon (go read Lost City Radio. it is utterly fantastic. he also said i had a charmingly spelled name. awww).
Prompt: . Daniel said that his book “touches on national trauma...all this stuff that literature has been avoiding”. Write a story about something you think literature has been avoiding, or something that was not always acceptable to write about, but that has a high level of social and/or political significance.

-so this is my attempt at being 'edgy' and hopefully i don't end up like the freedom fries guy that pam went out with on that episode of the office.

Attacking Ellen

(Lights up on DIANE and STEVE, ELLEN’s parents. They are sitting on a couch, looking upset. ELLEN enters)

ELLEN
Mom! Dad! I’m here! I thought Spring Break was… (She sees her parents). Oh god, what happened? Did Poppy die? What’s wrong?

(They blankly stare at her, she sits)

What?

(Long Pause)
DIANE
We know what you did.

ELLEN
Did? What did I do? What’s going on?

STEVE
Don’t play dumb with us, Ellen. We know.

ELLEN
Apparently I don’t know. What are you talking about?

DIANE
I think you do. We got a letter from Ben today.

ELLEN
Ben? I haven’t talked to him in like two… oh god. Oh no.

DIANE
I guess you do know.

ELLEN
Mom, Dad, I…

STEVE
How could you do that Ellen? How? I thought we brought you up better than that.

ELLEN
Dad, I…

DIANE
My daughter is a slut!

ELLEN
Mom! I am not a… slut. God.
We had been going out for over a year…
I thought I loved him.

DIANE
I don’t care. We taught you better than that!

ELLEN
You didn’t teach me anything! You relied on the school system to teach me. Hah.

DIANE
I guess they didn’t do very well.

ELLEN
They did perfectly well. I knew what I was doing. (Pause) On all counts.

STEVE
You’re making this worse for us Ellen. How could you do that?

ELLEN
I didn’t have a choice, Dad!

STEVE
You always have a choice! How could you do that to us? Take that away from us?

ELLEN
From YOU? How about what it would have taken away from me? I can’t believe you are thinking about yourself in this.
It was my decision, Dad. Mine.
I had to think of myself.

STEVE
Maybe you shouldn’t have been so selfish. Thought of the big picture.

ELLEN
I was thinking of the ‘big picture’! I was thinking of my future. I was only 20. I couldn’t even imagine—

DIANE
Don’t you even say it! You… you… killer!

ELLEN
Mom! I would think you would understand a little bit more! What if it had happened to you?

DIANE
It wouldn’t have happened to me. I wasn’t a slut.

ELLEN
You know, this is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t understand and that you would freak out just like you are.

STEVE
You guessed right. You… defied us. We are your parents you are supposed to listen to us.

ELLEN
I know, you’ve been telling me that my whole life. But if I had told you, I knew what you were going to say, and that would have been asking me to ruin my life. I couldn’t…

DIANE
There are other ways of… dealing with things like this.

ELLEN
No! No there is not! You aren’t listening to what I’m saying. It would have ruined me. I couldn’t have gone to school like that! All of the classes I would have missed… no. Not at all.

STEVE
There are other ways. And you should have asked us before going ahead with anything.

ELLEN
How is it your decision? How is my body your property? It’s bad enough the government is poking their dirty little fingers into this, but I would think that as parents you would care more for my well being before anything else.

DIANE
We are thinking of your well-being —

ELLEN
No, you aren’t! You are so narrow-minded Mom. You want me to believe and do as you say. And I can’t do that. I’m going upstairs, if that’s all right with both of you.

STEVE
We aren’t done here young lady.

ELLEN
Can we please be done, for now at least? You two are exhausting me…

STEVE
This is nothing compared to parenthood.

ELLEN
Well I wouldn’t know that would I?

DIANE
No, you wouldn’t. Go to your room.

(ELLEN exits. DIANE and STEVE remain on the couch and look at each other)

STEVE
Honey, don’t cry…

DIANE
Did we fail? Are we bad parents Steve? What went wrong?

(Lights slowly fade to black)
1 April 2007