An excerpt of Kenneth Robbins' screenplay
ATOMIC FIELD was written with the support of a Japan Foundation Artists Fellowship

                                                                               
                                                                                 ACT I

HOWARD LONG, a man in his late fifties is rummaging through the sideboard. He is dressed in his pajamas. He pulls boxes from the shelving and sits on the floor, tossing item after item in the garbage can beside him. After a moment, DELORES LONG, his wife of 55, appears behind him, also dressed for bed. She watches what he is doing without commenting on it. His cleaning of the sideboard becomes frantic for a moment, then subsides. He sits staring at something in his hands. On the screen appears the image of a young Japanese woman with an American serviceman standing behind her with what appears to be a destroyed landscape beyond them. He discards the photo which he holds and the image disappears. 


DELORES. What are you doing? Do you know what time it is?
HOWARD. Go back to bed.
DELORES. Can I help?
HOWARD. Yes, by going back to bed.
DELORES. If you'll just tell me what it is you're---
HOWARD. Just a little culling. Spring cleaning you could call it. Junk. 
DELORES. At two in the morning?
HOWARD. All this God blessed junk. What're we holding onto this stuff for anyway, Del? Christ's sake, it's . . . 
DELORES. It's who we are.
HOWARD. Were. Not anymore. (The garbage can is overflowing.) You want to empty this? Put it in a grocery bag, haul it to the dump.
DELORES. I'll take care of it. You go back to bed.
HOWARD. (Rising from the floor, stiff and tired.) Finish this tomorrow. Put it in a grocery bag. Sooner the better. 
DELORES. Yes, dear. (He goes to the bedroom, door closes. Delores takes the garbage can and empties it into a sack. She considers what she is doing, then takes the sack to the porch area and hides it behind the sofa. We hear the sound of the creek outside the porch and tree frogs croaking. She stands, silently listening as lights change and WINSTON LONG approaches the hibakusha station, turns on the lectern light. Behind him on the screen is a slide of the atomic cloud as seen over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.) 
WINSTON. (Reading from a document.) At the time of the bombing, I heard someone shout, "A parachute is coming down." I looked for the parachute, but could not find it. Putting it out of mind, I turned back when there was an intense flash like the magnesium light used for photographing. I crouched. That was when I was knocked down by an immense force. I could feel the extreme heat. I moved my hand, but there was no feeling in it. I tried to move my feet, but I couldn't tell whether they were still connected to my body or not. I was numb from my knees down to my feet and from my elbows to my shoulders. It was pitch black and was stifling. I took a deep breath and sucked mud and sand into my mouth. The side of my body was on fire. I tried putting it out, but it wouldn't go out so easily. (Slide of a man with burn scars.) Here are the scars, these are my burns. I could see people running in the dark, some on fire, some just rolling around on the ground. It became lighter, and the light appeared to be in many different colors, red and yellow, purple and white. My face swelled. My lips and cheeks were popped up and my eyes--I had to force my eyes open with my fingers in order to see. Then after some time it started to rain heavily like a sudden storm. The drops were huge and black. That was what was known as black rain. (He turns the hibakusha light out and the slide fades. As lights change, Winston enters the Long home carrying a small overnight bag. Calling.) Hello? (Wait.) Anybody home? (No answer. He carries his bag into the bedroom. In a moment, we hear the flush of a toilet. He returns.) Yo! Mom? (No answer. In the kitchen he takes a cookie from the cookie jar. He munches it as he goes to the screened-in porch and stands looking across the creek toward the golf course. The phone rings. He doesn't know if he should answer it or not. On the fifth ring, he answers it.) Long's. . . Hello? . . Oh, hi, Lou. . . No. Here all by my lonesome. You know where they've gone?. . . Really?. . . Well, they knew I was coming today, didn't they?. . . If I'd known that, I could have started later. . . Well, you know, time is money, wherever you spend it, the car, in bed, you name it. . . Okay, okay. . . Sure, I'll be here. I didn't drive six hours just to turn around and head back home. . . Whenever. . . Sure. I'll call. . . Soon as they get back, I'll call, Sis, promise. Bye. (He replaces the receiver and eats another cookie. He opens the fridge and takes out a Diet Coke. He rummages through the shelves and finds a hunk of cheese. He slices cheese and places it between two cookies and eats, takes a bottle of Jim Beam from his bag and spikes his can of Diet Coke and drinks. From off we hear a car drive up. The doors slam. He quickly returns the liquor to his bag. We hear two people approaching from outside. Entering are Howard and Delores. Howard scrapes his feet as he enters. Delores shoves past him and is headed for the bedroom when she sees Winston.) 
DELORES. Winston? I thought that was your car out there--
HOWARD. Who else you know drives with South Carolina license plates? 
WINSTON. Mom. Dad. (She hugs him.)
DELORES. It's been so long, sweetheart--
HOWARD. So, look what the cat drug in.        
WINSTON. Lou just called--
DELORES. How long've you been home? Oh, you're looking so good. 
HOWARD. Let him breathe, Del.
WINSTON. How've you been, Dad?
HOWARD. Ask me later. Right now--I gotta go pee. (He goes to bedroom.) 
DELORES. Can I help you with your things?
WINSTON. Traveling light, Mom. You're looking--okay. How you doing? 
DELORES. Oh, I'm just fine, I guess. Let me look at you, son. Oh, my, children are clocks, ain't they. 
WINSTON. Beg pardon?
DELORES. Gray hair. You've got more gray hair than me. Just look at you. 
WINSTON. Thanks for pointing that out. Just what I needed.
DELORES. Marisa Louise called?
WINSTON. Said you'd told her it'd be late this afternoon before you made it back. And I'm to give her a ring soon as you walk through the front door, that she's dying to know. 
DELORES. Well, they got us in and out of that place quick as you please. You've lost weight. Can I get you something to eat? 
WINSTON. No, not now, not hungry. What place? The hospital?
DELORES. Would you look at me? I need to have this nose powdered. 
WINSTON. You've been crying, Mom? What--
DELORES. Oh, it's nothing. We hit a bunny rabbit on the way home, and you know how those things upset me. Go set down, I won't be a minute. Oh, Winston, I'm so glad you're home. 
WINSTON. Home's where you live, Mother. I don't live here, so this to me isn't home. Home is. . . (She has gone into the bedroom. Winston finishes his Coke and crams another cookie into his mouth as Howard returns. He has on slippers and a bathrobe.) 
Hey, Pop, you're looking good. 
HOWARD. Sheeee. (He sits in his chair and lights a cigarette.)
WINSTON. (Referring to the smoke.) Cancer ward.
HOWARD. You want to be helpful, you could turn on the television for me. (Pause.) Then, maybe not. (Winston turns on the TV, then returns to the kitchen bar where he waves the smoke from his face.) Hand me the remote? (Winston gives him the remote. Howard surfs through channels.) Eighteen stations and nothing worth watching. You have cable over there in what you call it? 
WINSTON. Greenwood. It's not that tough a name to remember, Pop. 
HOWARD. Greenwood. Sap in the wood. That what you got over there in what you call it? a bunch of saps? (Still surfing.) Wasteland. Nothing but a big city landfill. 
WINSTON. It's four in the afternoon. What do you expect?
HOWARD. For twenty a month? I expect paradise. (Delores comes from bedroom.) 
DELORES. It's been too long, Winston, sweetheart. You've got to come around more often. 
WINSTON. Come when I can. You know that.
DELORES. How're classes?
HOWARD. Look at this, Del. Nothing but garbage. Can you believe we pay twenty dollars a month for this garbage? (Delores turns the volume down.) I can't hear!
DELORES. If it's garbage, what's to hear?
HOWARD. Tell Winston he's got to stop drinking so much. He's getting a pot. (She leaves him and goes to kitchen.)
WINSTON. So, what's the prognosis?
DELORES. You must answer my question first, hon.
WINSTON. What did you ask?
DELORES. Are you finished with classes?
WINSTON. No. Spring break. 
DELORES. And that's how long? Two weeks?
WINSTON. Don't I wish. Five days. Plus weekends. Just long enough to get used to a bit of free time and then it's back to the treadmill. 
DELORES. It can't be that bad.
WINSTON. I'd like to see you teach three sections of world civ and come away sane. 
DELORES. You said Marisa Louise called?
WINSTON. She invited me to come over there.
DELORES. Are you?
WINSTON. I might, sometime this week. So, what do the doctors say? 
DELORES. Oh, Winston, I just don't know. . .
WINSTON. (After a pause.) How long did they give him? 
DELORES. Half a year. . . maybe. (Sound of a car arriving outside.) 
WINSTON. Be goddamned.
HOWARD. I heard that. Wash that kid's mouth out with Tide, Della! 
DELORES. Ears like a hawk.     
MARISA LOUISE. (Rushing in through the front door. She is a woman of thirty-one and is breathless as she enters.) You're back.
DELORES. Of course, we are, hon.
HOWARD. Close the door! You're letting in flies.
WINSTON. Hi, sis. 
MARISA LOUISE. You were supposed to call me. Why didn't you call me? Winston? 
WINSTON. Good to see you, too.
DELORES. I meant to, Hon--
HOWARD. Will somebody please shut the dad-blasted door! (Marisa Louise slams it shut.) 
MARISA LOUISE. Nobody ever thinks of me around here.
HOWARD. Oh, good golly. . .
MARISA LOUISE. I have been setting up there in that God-awful house of mine, waiting and waiting for the phone to ring, and it never did, and then you pass the house on the highway doing about ninety and don't even wave or anything. And if that's not enough, you don't even have the courtesy to give me a call!
DELORES. Now, don't get all worked up, sweetie--
HOWARD. Did so damn it give you a call. As we passed your house, I hung my head out the window and hollered, Hey, Marisa Louise? They give me no more than half a year! Wasn't that something to lift your head and sing about? 
MARISA LOUISE. What?
WINSTON. Sit down, Lou, you're making me dizzy.
MARISA LOUISE. What'd he say?
DELORES. He said he has six months at most. That's all.
​MARISA LOUISE. (Suddenly sobbing.) Oh, Daddy! (She throws herself on him, hugging and kissing.) 
WINSTON. I've been in a car six hours. I need a walk.
DELORES. In a minute, hon. Now, Marisa Lou, you're getting your Daddy's robe all wet. 
HOWARD. Get her off me, damn it.
MARISA LOUISE. What'm I gonna do, Daddy? Lord Jesus, what'm I gonna do?! 
DELORES. Sweetheart--
WINSTON. Be back in an hour.
DELORES. You go out that door, I swear-- I need help here, son. (Marisa Louise is wailing incoherently.)
HOWARD. Get her off me, I can't breathe! (He shoves Marisa Louise off.) Let me breathe, damn it. 
MARISA LOUISE. (A bit calmer.) Oh, Daddy. (She is rummaging through her purse for a tissue which Howard gives her.)     
HOWARD. Jesus H. Christ, Della, if the cancer don't do me in, these children will. (Lights change as Delores enters the hibakusha station and turns on the lectern light. Behind her on the screen is a slide of a destroyed street car.) 
DELORES. (Reading from manuscript.) When we were near Hatchobori and since I had been holding my son in my arms, the young woman in front of me said, "I will be getting off here. Please take this seat." We were just changing places when there was a strange smell and sound. It suddenly became dark and before I knew it, I had jumped outside. I held my son firmly and looked down on him. We had been by the window and I think fragments of glass had pierced his head. His face was a mess as blood flowed from his head. He looked at me and smiled. His smile remained glued in my memory. He did not comprehend what had happened, so he looked at me and smiled at my face which was all bloody. I had plenty of milk which he drank all throughout that day. I think my child sucked the poison right out of my body, and soon after that he died. Yes, I think that he died for me. (Lights out in the hibakusha station as they rise in the Long home. It is evening of that same day. Marisa Louise and Winston sit on the back screened-in porch. He has been drinking a bit too much from the bottle hidden in his back pack. He offers the bottle to Marisa Louise.) 
WINSTON. Now or never, Lou. Your chance for a little joy this evening. 
MARISA LOUISE. You know they don't allow booze in the house.
WINSTON. Hurry. She'll be back out here and then we'll both be tee-totalers. 
MARISA LOUISE. I'll pass.
WINSTON. Fine. Means more for me. (He drinks. From off comes a bellow of rage.) 
MARISA LOUISE. Hear that? No peace in the house since they found the tumor. He's been a baby and a bull all at the same time. I can't stand to come around this place anymore. 
WINSTON. Mom needs you. (They sit in an awkward silence. She takes a pad and chunk of charcoal from her purse and draws.) It's been awhile. 
MARISA LOUISE. What has?
WINSTON. You and me had a chance to sit around like this, talk.
MARISA LOUISE. We're talking?
WINSTON. Don't you want to?
MARISA LOUISE. Got nothing to say. 
WINSTON. Can I see? (She gives him her pad. He turns it first one way, then another.) What is it? 
MARISA LOUISE. My brain. The side that doesn't work so well.
WINSTON. Interesting. Can I have a sheet of your paper?
MARISA LOUISE. What for?
WINSTON. Some doodling. (She gives him a sheet.) A bit too thick, but we'll see. (He begins folding the paper origami style.) 
MARISA LOUISE. What're you doing?
WINSTON. Folding a crane. I have this special friend back home. She taught me to fold paper cranes. 
MARISA LOUISE. A crane like for lifting things?          
WINSTON. No. A crane. Like the bird. My friend, she's Japanese. She claims there's an ancient legend in Japan where she lives that if a person who is ill folds a thousand paper cranes, he or she will get well. Have you ever heard that? 
MARISA LOUISE. No. I wish it was true.
WINSTON. What makes you think it's not?
MARISA LOUISE. For one, we don't live in Japan. What's your friend's name? 
WINSTON. Nora. Noriko but I call her Nora.          
MARISA LOUISE. What does she call you?
WINSTON. Macho man.
MARISA LOUISE. No, really. What's her pet name for somebody like you? 
WINSTON. Pooh.
MARISA LOUISE. (Big derisive laugh.) Love her already!
WINSTON. First, she called me Winnie and when I objected, she called me Pooh. Sort of stuck. You know how those things are. It took me a while to figure out the folding. But it's easy once you get the hang of it. 
MARISA LOUISE. Is she pretty?
WINSTON. I think so. Long black hair. Marvelous smile. Eyes that glow in the dark. . .          
MARISA LOUISE. Can I meet her sometime?
WINSTON. I don't know. Maybe. (He finishes.) There you are. A less than perfect paper crane. It helps if you use origami paper. 
MARISA LOUISE. Let me try. (She folds a paper crane twice as fast as Winston.) 
WINSTON. Hey. You're pretty good.
MARISA LOUISE. You're right. The paper's too thick. I've never known anyone from another country. Must be interesting. 
WINSTON. We have our quota of foreign exchange students. Most come from Malaysia. One or two from Europe. Then there's Nora. 
MARISA LOUISE. Any truth to this Japanese myth?
WINSTON. Just might be. Who knows? (Admiring her.) I'm impressed. 
MARISA LOUISE. If it's true this legend. Do you think if I folded a thousand of these for Daddy, he'd get well? 
WINSTON. He might not get well, but he wouldn't get worse. (Hearing his mother coming, he slips the bottle into his bag.) 


Interested in producing this play? Amateurs and professionals should send Inquiries concerning production rights to [email protected]

Kenneth Robbins, author of seven published novels, forty-one published plays, two collections of poetry, and numerous essays, stories, poems  and memoirs, is a former Fulbright appointee to Macedonia, a Malone Fellow to Saudi Arabia, a lecturer in Israel, the alum of the Year, College of Education at Georgia Southern University, a juror for the Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre in Egypt, and an Artists Fellow through the Japan foundation.  His novels have received the Toni Morrison Prize for Fiction and the Associated Writing Programs Novel Award.  His dramas have been produced throughout the US, Canada, Great Britain, Denmark, Ireland, and Japan while receiving the Festival of Southern Theatre New Play Award, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Program Award, and the Charles Getchell New Play Award offered through the Southeastern Theatre Conference. His plays have been produced at the Dallas Theater Center, Nashville Academy Theatre, Second Stage (Chicago), the Barter Theatre, and others.  He has participated in development projects at the Project Arts Center, Dublin, the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, and New Dramatists in New York City.  He is the recipient of two Kennedy Center Golden Medallions for service.

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