Rehab

                (A rehab center.  ELLEN is sitting, LOIS is not.)

ELLEN:  Four months.

LOIS:  This is such bullshit.  This is just…wow.  This is bullshit.

ELLEN:  Four months down the drain.

LOIS:  Do you have any idea how long I’ve been sick?  Do you?  Years.  YEARS—of my life.  And I finally let them talk me into going somewhere and dealing with it, and now the world’s going to end, so it doesn’t even matter.  I should have just kept doing what I was doing.

ELLEN:  What were you doing?

LOIS:  Are you kidding?

ELLEN:  No, I don’t actually know why you’re here.

LOIS:  We’ve been in meetings together.  You’ve heard me—

ELLEN:  I zone out.  I zone out a lot.  Plus, all you people look the same to me.

LOIS:  What do you mean ‘you people?’  What people?

ELLEN:  You know, junkies.  You all look the same.

LOIS:  What the hell are you?

ELLEN:  I drank.  It’s different.

LOIS:  According to who?

ELLEN:  Look, I’m not saying I’m better than you.  I’m just saying you’re a junkie and I’m an alcoholic, and they’re two different things.  One is much more attractive than the other, but that's just a fact.

LOIS:  Well if you know I’m a junkie—

ELLEN:  I don’t know specifics.  I assumed heroin, because you’re so pretty, but I don’t really know exactly why you’re here.  All you do is bitch.  I can’t see that you’re getting any happier by being here.

LOIS:  Are you happier?

ELLEN:  Of course I’m not happier!  I want a drink and I can’t have one!  And now a comet is going to hit me in the face and I’m going to die AND STILL NOBODY WILL GIVE ME A DAMN DRINK!  So no, I’m not happy.  Not at all.

LOIS:  Were you happy before you—

ELLEN:  I was…hopeful.  Ha.  There goes that.

LOIS:  It works if you work it.

ELLEN:  Unless the Earth explodes.  Then you just gave up months of your life for absolutely no reason.

LOIS:  So you could die sober at least.

ELLEN:  WHO THE HELL WANTS TO DIE SOBER?

LOIS:  Look, don’t let all the work you did just—I mean, if you’re thinking of leaving—

ELLEN:  Leaving?  …We can leave?

LOIS:  Yeah, they—I mean, nobody’s keeping us here.  They want to give us the opportunity to see our families, settle things, and—

ELLEN:  --I’m going to a bar.

LOIS:  Ellen—

ELLEN:  I’m going to the bar-riest, bar that ever barred a bar.  I’m going to get SO. DRUNK.

LOIS:  Hey, listen, I get it.  I want to just—say ‘To hell with it’ and go get high, but I can’t.  Okay?  I mean, I don’t want to—

ELLEN:  Want to what?  Take ten steps back?  Newsflash.  By Monday—this planet—is going to resemble The Land Before Time.  The entire world is taking ten steps back.  Why shouldn’t we?

LOIS:  Because of the twenty percent chance that the comet’s not going to hit.  They talked about it on the news.

ELLEN:  Twenty percent?  That’s nothing.  That’s like—if you threw a quarter up in the air a million times, you’d catch it, like, six times.

LOIS:  That’s really bad math actually.

ELLEN:  I mean—it’s not true.  It’s not.  We’re going to get hit.

LOIS:  But if we don’t, and we blow our sobriety—

ELLEN:  Then we start over.

LOIS:  Okay, pretend a comet isn’t potentially going to hit us.  Now think about where you are right now.  I mean, in the process—in your life—in the program.  Now—think about…starting over.

                (A moment.)

ELLEN:  Great.  Thanks for putting it to me that way.  Now I want to kill myself.

LOIS:  Really?

ELLEN:  Relax!  It’s a figure of speech!  It’s not like my second day here when I really did want to kill myself.  We’re better now.  Figures of speech now go back to being figures of speech.

LOIS:  We’re never really better—

ELLEN:  Well, now we’re not.  Now we’re just pissed off.  Or at least one of us is.

LOIS:  Are you leaving?

ELLEN:  What?

LOIS:  Are you leaving?  Are you going to leave?

ELLEN:  Yes!  Of course I am!  If I’m going to die, or if there’s even a chance I’m going to die, I’m sure as hell not going to die here.  Tomorrow is the last day of the rest of our lives, remember?

LOIS:  Okay, well…okay.

ELLEN:  Don’t tell me you’re staying here.

LOIS:  I mean, I didn’t want to, but—I called my boyfriend to pick me up.

ELLEN:  And?

LOIS:  Another girl answered the phone.

ELLEN:  Oh.

LOIS:  Yeah.

ELLEN:  Did you—okay.  Uh.  All right.

LOIS:  But I mean, I could get a taxi somewhere.

ELLEN:  Right.  You should!

LOIS:  I just don’t know…Uh, I don’t know where I would go.

ELLEN:  Do you have—

LOIS:  Nobody.  Nobody that still wants to talk to me anyway.  I sort of…burned all my bridges.  Keith was the last…and now he’s…You know, I thought I had more time to figure all this out.  Or, I thought, when my head was a little more…I just thought that when I was more, uh, you know, back on my feet, that I would be able to deal with all this, but now…

                (A moment.)

ELLEN:  I’m really sorry.

LOIS:  It’s like I said, I should have just kept doing what I was doing.  Could have died and everything would be the same way it is now.  No big deal, right?

ELLEN:  You know that book 'To Kill a Mockingbird?'

LOIS:  Everybody knows that book.

ELLEN:  Yeah, well, I don't read much, but I read that when I was kid because we went to the beach one day and I found it--I mean, I actually found a copy of it just sitting in the sand, not really dirty or anything, just sitting there.  Someone must have left it.  So I read the book, and I got to the part when the woman who's dying has to get off opium before she dies because she doesn't want to be, you know, beholden to nothing or nobody--that's what I think it says.  And even though I was a kid, that really meant something to me, like, I knew that was important, I just didn't know how.  And when I came here, I kept thinking about it.  About that idea.  Dying beholden to nobody.

LOIS:  And nothing.

ELLEN:  It's like--I used to feel so good when I was drinking.  Or when I knew I was going to be drinking.  Once I actually started drinking I...But the thought of it made me happy.  But it never made me feel free.  Here, at least--and now--I feel free.  Do you feel that way?

LOIS:  I do.  But I also feel scared.  I used because it made me feel fearless.  I miss that.

ELLEN:  Maybe you were never really fearless.  Maybe you were just blind.  It's not really the same thing.

LOIS:  It's bad when you realize how vulnerable you really are.

ELLEN:  You know what else it said in that book?

LOIS:  What?

ELLEN:  That sometimes bravery is fighting even when you know you're going to lose.  That you fight anyway.

LOIS:  I really should go back and read that book.

ELLEN:  Yeah, it's really good.  And all that stuff is even before the trial and--

LOIS:  Ellen?

ELLEN:  Yeah?

LOIS:  Let's go for a walk.

ELLEN:  Down to the beach?

LOIS:  No, just...a walk.  Maybe into town.

ELLEN:  Are you sure you're--

LOIS:  I want to see how far we get before we have to turn back.

     (A moment.)

ELLEN:  Sure.  That's a good--Yeah.  Let's do it.

LOIS:  You scared?

ELLEN:  Shitless, and you?

LOIS:  Paralyzed with fear.

ELLEN:  Wow.  We really have come a long way.

    (They take a deep breath, and walk out the door.)