THE SET-UP
Seth is a young Marine serving during wartime. Nicholas is his civilian longtime companion who waits back home. In addition to the strain on their relationship caused by distance and absence, they must hide their love for one another behind code words and secret identities because of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring gays and lesbians from serving openly in the United States military.
Seth’s mother Anne assists them by providing the cover of a woman’s handwriting for Nicholas’ daily letters, but Nicholas and Seth’s resolve is starting to weaken.
Jonas, another young gay Marine in Seth’s unit just coming to terms with his identity, forms an intense bond with Seth overseas.
Tyson, a former Army soldier who got fed up with “don’t ask, don’t tell” and didn’t reenlist, now works alongside Nicholas, providing temptation as well as a reality check.
The scene prior to this between Tyson and Nicholas is also posted here on the site under the title
Crossword
“I’m not martyring myself. I’m not dying, for crying out loud. It’s just sex.”
NICHOLAS and TYSON walk out of the dark together, beers in hand, laughing.
TYSON
So, all this talk of loving the dog. I’m sorry, it’s too much. They’re going to start to wonder.
NICHOLAS
Hey, a guy can love his dog.
TYSON
Yeah, but there’s such a thing as being too close to your pet.
NICHOLAS
I think the military still prefers bestiality to hot man-on-man action.
TYSON
I’m just saying you should both talk up the stripper Nikki thing a little more in the letters.
NICHOLAS
She is not a stripper.
TYSON
The dog just makes him seem way too sensitive, that’s all I’m saying.
NICHOLAS
I’m glad you came by.
TYSON
Well, if you’re not going to come out to the party, occasionally the party has to come to you.
NICHOLAS
You’re a one man party, huh?
TYSON
I can be.
NICHOLAS
Tyson.
TYSON
What?
NICHOLAS
Tyson.
TYSON
What?
NICHOLAS
Stop it.
TYSON
I’m not doing anything — yet.
NICHOLAS
Take the beer. Go.
TYSON
You don’t want me to.
NICHOLAS
Don’t tell me what I want.
TYSON
Nick, it’s not right.
NICHOLAS
And you try something like this in my home? Our home? The home he and I — ?
TYSON
I don’t see him here.
NICHOLAS
He’s in the desert. Where there are bombs and bullets and land-mines and the one thing he’s counting on is that I write to him, as often as I can, and also manage to keep my pants zipped. That’s not a lot to ask.
TYSON
It’s a hell of a lot to ask.
NICHOLAS
Not compared to what he’s doing.
TYSON
Stop comparing yourself. It’s two completely different worlds.
NICHOLAS
It’s the same world. It’s all one big interconnected mess. We just delude ourselves most of the time into thinking that it’s not. He’s my reminder.
TYSON
Don’t you want — ?
NICHOLAS
What? To be held? Sure. But I want to be held by him.
TYSON
You’re going to be waiting a long time.
NICHOLAS
Then I’ll wait.
TYSON
Martyring yourself isn’t helping anyone.
NICHOLAS
I’m not martyring myself. I’m not dying, for crying out loud. It’s just sex.
TYSON
Well, if it’s just sex —
NICHOLAS
Tyson, I get it. I know it’d be easy, and it might even be fun. And you’d probably never tell him, unless you were pissed off at me some day. But I couldn’t live with myself. I’m barely holding on as it is.
TYSON
I’ve noticed.
NICHOLAS
It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, the pictures, the frozen poses, are all that seems real to me any more.
TYSON
You know, computers and phones have built-in cameras now. And there’s this thing called the internet –
NICHOLAS
Right. And the second anyone catches the two of us, looking at each other across thousands of miles of ocean and sky and sand, they’ll know. He’ll look at me, and I’ll look at him, and they’ll know. We’re pushing it with the letters as it is.
TYSON
So any kind of connection you guys have —
NICHOLAS
Just keeps getting fuzzier.
I can remember the way he moves,…
…what he feels like, when I touch him,…
…the way his body collides and twines with mine.
But I can’t see it, in my head, anymore. The memory doesn’t have a moving picture.
He’s slipping away, the thought of him, and it scares me. Letting myself be weak with a stranger would just make it worse.
TYSON
So be weak with a friend.
NICHOLAS
Because you’re my friend, I’m gonna pretend we didn’t need to have this conversation. That you understand. You get a free pass on this. Once.
TYSON
All this nobility’s making my teeth hurt.
NICHOLAS
Go. home. Tyson. I’ll see you tomorrow at the library, hangover and all.
(photo: (left to right, foreground) Bennett Smith as Tyson and Tim Schmidt as Nicholas; left to right, background center) Nick James Parker as Seth and Alex Carlson as Jonas in the 2008 production of “Leave” by AfterDark Theatre Company at University of Minnesota-Morris, and the Bryant-Lake Bowl in Minneapolis; photography by Alex Clark)
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