Grounded

George Brant

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781783195381
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Winner of a Scotsman Fringe First Award 2013. Shortlisted for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award 2013 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 2013. Seamlessly blending the personal and the political, Grounded tells the story of a hot-rod F16 fighter pilot whose unexpected pregnancy ends her career in the sky. Repurposed to flying remote-controlled drones in the Middle East from an air-conditioned trailer near Vegas, the Pilot struggles through surreal twelve-hour shifts far from the battlefield, hunting terrorists by day and being a wife and mother by night. A tour de force play for one actress, Grounded flies from the heights of lyricism to the shallows of workaday existence, targeting our assumptions about war, family, and the power of storytelling. Grounded was the winner of the 2012 Smith Prize.

Lights rise on THE PILOT, a woman dressed in an Air Force flight suit.

THE PILOT:

I never wanted to take it off

Staring at myself in the mirror

Myself in this

I had earned this

This was me now

This was who I was now who I’d become through sweat and brains and guts

This is me

It’s more than a suit

It’s the speed

It’s the G-Force pressing you back as you tear the sky

It’s the ride

My Tiger

My gal who cradles me lifts me up

It’s more

It’s the respect

It’s the danger

It’s

It’s more

It’s

You are the blue

You are alone in the vastness and you are the blue

Astronauts

They have eternity

But I have color

I have blue

I’m in the blue for a reason

I have missiles to launch

I have Sidewinders

I have Mavericks

I rain them down on the minarets and concrete below me

The structures that break up the sand

I break them back down

Return them to desert

To particles

Sand

At least I think I do

I’m long gone by the time the boom happens

Tiger and I are on to another piece of sky

Boom

Boom goes Saddam’s dipshit army and then I’m home on leave

Wyoming

Leave is fine but it’s slow

Slow and the blue is there everywhere but far away

Far

So I go to a bar

Pilot bar

I drink with my boys and we tell stories about flying

We try to make it into words

You can get close

But you never can

A guy comes up to me

A guy always comes up

No not always

It takes balls

Hard to casually sidle up to a bunch of drunk Air Force on leave

Maneuver yourself through all the boys to get to me

That takes some offensive flying of its own

But the guy makes it through

Gets up from a card game and runs the gauntlet to get to me He’s kinda cute

I tell him straight off who I am what I am

I’ve learned not to wait

Once they find out

They tend to run away

Most guys don’t like what I do

Feel they’re less of a guy around me

I take the guy spot and they don’t know where they belong

But not this one

This one’s eyes light up

This one thinks it’s cool

This one kisses me in the parking lot like I’m the rock star I am

He’s not afraid to kiss me

Eric

He’s Eric

I take him home

We fuck

First time’s okay

Then he asks me to put my suit on

He says please

I tell him just once

Just telling him is enough

He’s hard as a Sidewinder

It’s a good three days

A very good three days

He tells me he can feel the sky in me

I tell him he’s crazy

But something shifts

Something’s breached

I’m back downrange

First time I’m sad leave is over

Shit

For Eric who works in a hardware store the family store

Shit

Like some 50’s movie

I’ve got my little woman at home know who I’m fighting for

All that true corn

True cheese

Lucky I got shit to distract me

I got tracer fire

I got RPGs

And I’ve got the blue

It’s good to be back in the blue

Alone in the blue

Back at base I got webcams

I got Eric with a little delay

He misses me

I miss him too

I gain weight

Does love make you heavy?

I feel the harness tight against my waist

Try to watch the burgers in the caf

Hold the burgers

It’s not the burgers

I’m up in the blue and I almost hurl in my mask

Make it down just in time to puke on the tarmac

Tell the boys I drank too much last night

Do a test

Pink

I’m pink

Pink...