STARMAN

A monologue

By

Dale Andersen
27702 Crown Valley Pkwy
Suite 117, D-4
Ladera Ranch, CA 92694
562-508-5820
andersen.dale@gmail.com
©2005

Synopsis

A powerful man, who in life was a prominent

politician, gaybasher and war hero, is dead. His gay
son, long estranged, has come home to pay his respects
and heal. Based on a true story.

Character Breakdown

DAVID………………………………early 40’s

Technical Requirements

A coffin, subdued lighting

 STARMAN 2

(A viewing room at a funeral home. An open

coffin, subdued lighting. Enter DAVID, age
44. He approaches coffin with trepidation.
He comes to at ease by degrees. Finally………)

DAVID:
Well. Well well. Just look at you. All decked out in
your astronaut’s garb. Dressed to kill, aren’t you? Was
this how you planned it? To do your exit as a starman?
It does become you, you know. Really, it does. So tell
me, are you braced for tomorrow? Have you dialed in your
humble mode? You know they’ll be sending you out as only
the Air Force can. Full military honors. A flyover with
the missing wingman. And they’ll retell how one time you
flew so high, you tweaked the chinwhiskers of Zeus himself.
And they’ll retell how you throttled that demon out at mach
seven. Yes yes, I know it’s all true, but remember, the
order of the day is humility. They’ll want to see your aw
shucks side. Not funny? Sorry. I’m trying to be clever.
Guess I’m not very good at clever.

So. Here we are. Finally. And I guess I should be happy.

But I’m not. And I guess I should feel a sense of release.
But I don’t. I take no pleasure in seeing you this way. I
feel no joy in witnessing your departure from this level of
existence. It consumes a part of me that we never were
able to come to terms. We should have been able to move
past the differences. We should have been able to live and
let live. This I know. There’s no winning and there’s no
losing in concerns of family blood. It matters not a whit
who fired the first shot. No one remembers anyway. But
once the knives are out, once there’s the smell the blood
in the air, it’s father against son, son against father,
the old king against his heir, and hard words all around.

You’re damn right I blame you. You know how the media
loves a good fight. And you know how easy it is to
manipulate them. And you know how to craft a tight sound
bite. What was you told them? “We love Davey. But we
don’t love what he’s become.” Why am I still Davey? I’m
forty-four. And who is this we person?

I had a dream. I was four. I mean, in the dream I was

four. I must have been sixteen or seventeen when I was
having the dream. I’m not exactly sure. After all, this
is from nearly thirty years ago. We’re in a single-engine
Beech. Just you and I. We take off from Hammer Field in
 STARMAN 3

Fresno and we’re somewhere out over the Coast Range. The
engine starts kicking in and out. The smell of burning
oil. You shout, “I’m taking her down, Davey.” We break
through the cloud cover. There was black smoke in the
cockpit. You point to a stream below. “If I don’t make
it, follow the flow of the stream. You hear me, Davey?
Follow the stream.” I’m crying, “Okay, Dad. I promise.”
“Just leave me, Davey. If it’s my time, nothing you can
do. If it’s not, they’ll send a search party.” You’re
laughing. I hear you muttering as you work the controls,
“Okay Pete, let’s see what you got.”

I hated that dream. I buried it deep. My psychiatrist

said I repressed it. Well, of course I did. It needed
repressing. Deserved repressing. I don’t need to be
reminded that my being close to you entails my being
scorched in the heat of your sun. For, in the end, aren’t
we all in orbit around you? Except for those who find a
way to break free of your gravity.

Another dream. We’re in a car. You and I. And you’re

driving me to prison. It wasn’t clear why I was going to
prison. But there I was, sitting next to you on the
passenger side. Neither of us speaking. The road running
across a flat featureless landscape. We stop at a railroad
track to let a train pass. Then we drive on into the night.
My psychiatrist wondered if, while the car was stopped, had
I tried to run away, would you have tried to stop me. I
told him no. I said you would have let me go. I lied.

Another lie. Joseph and I living our lives together

invisibly. Just out of your reach. Just under your radar.
Hoping someday you’ll change. Or, if not change, then die
quietly, letting things sort themselves out naturally.

I never wanted to be a poster boy. I never wanted to

fight you. But, regardless of what you kept saying, that
Defense of Marriage Act you promoted reaches beyond the
grave. And that is wrong. It is one thing for the old to
dictate to the young. It is quite another for the dead to
dictate to the living. And that’s what you intended. When
that thing became law, you had your house set in order, so
that you could leave and nothing would change. Like a
pharoah in a pyramid.
 STARMAN 4

So in the end, we fired our guns. No direct hits. But I

did some nice stitching on your fuselage and you, on mine.
You said of me, “I love Davey, but we continue to disagree.
And because this is a private issue, I do not wish to
respond further.” Every pause, every tilt of the head,
every clearing of the throat. All too perfect. All too
practiced. There was nothing private in your demeanor. It
was public. It was political. And you intended it so.
The Lambda people called me every day. Make a statement,
they said. Make a statement, David. They called me David.
Someone finally called me David. I said of you, “His is a
blind, uncaring, uninformed, knee-jerk reaction to a
subject about which he knows nothing and wants to know
nothing.” You deserved that. Because you used me.

Finally, in my mind, I went back to the crash site. The

smashed single-engine Beech. I saw dried blood on the
pilot’s seat. The pilot-side door was kicked open. And
ten feet away, I saw an old weathered glove on the ground.
The glove fit a man’s hand. And inside the cockpit, I saw
parts of a little boy’s skeleton. Some of the bones were
missing. Rats and coyotes, no doubt. It told me what I
already suspected. Davey died in that crash. And there
hasn’t been a Davey for a long, long time.

But there’s a David. And he’s alive. And he’s doing okay.

Farewell, starman. Godspeed.

(Salutes. Blackout)

End of Play