The Ice-Breaker

Dr. Lawrence Blanchard, Geologist/Climatologist, has been out of the game for years and now lives the life of a hermit in the American Southwest. Sonia, a student, who had studied in Antarctica, tracks Lawrence down, and has now shown up at his home. Her research has led her to a radical idea, and she needs Dr. Blanchard to look at her findings.

SCENE 3
Thursday at six. Just before sunset. Both LAWRENCE and his home have been straightened up a bit. The rusty bell clangs. LAWRENCE opens the door to let SONIA in.

LAWRENCE
(Before she can speak)
What were you doing in Wright Valley?

SONIA
What?

LAWRENCE
When you found-- found the journal.

SONIA
Oh.

LAWRENCE
You said it in-- inspired you to study geology. So you weren't a geologist when you
found it. And, if you weren't a geologist, what-- what the hell were you doing in Antarctica ?

SONIA
I was seventeen. Does it matter?

LAWRENCE
Curious. That's all.

SONIA
You read what I wrote, didn't you? All that adolescent, self-absorbed, life-sucks garbage.

LAWRENCE
I didn't read it. No.

SONIA
Good.

Beat.

LAWRENCE
I got white-- um, your favorite. The wine...
He shows her the bottle.

SONIA
White zin? Hey! Thanks.

He pours a glass for her.

What are you drinking?

LAWRENCE
Um, a meritage from a-- an illogically wonderful winery in-- in Lubbock, Texas. The white zin is all yours. Unless you'd like to try the red...

SONIA
I'm good with this, thanks. Okay if I chip a chunk from the freezer?

LAWRENCE
Please-- calve the glacier.

(SONIA exits to the kitchen.)

Enhance the sweet explosiveness of your white zin.

(It sounds like she's mining granite.)

So, what were you doing in Antarctica?

SONIA (Off)
I was a bad girl and they sent me to a penal colony there.

LAWRENCE
I see.

SONIA (Off)
No, really, it was. Have you looked at my thesis?

LAWRENCE
How bad a girl were you?

She returns with a continent of ice in her glass.

SONIA
You think it's unpublishable, crap, too. Don't you?

LAWRENCE
We'll get to that.

SONIA
I knew it.

Distant thunder.

LAWRENCE
Tell me about-- about Antarctica.

SONIA
Can we talk about my thesis first?

( LAWRENCE just sips his wine.)

Okay...Well, I was really a pretty good kid - honor roll, varsity lacrosse, Spanish club, marching band - big overachiever. They thought I was hyperactive, of course, and put me on drugs. It took ten years before they figured out I'm not hyperactive, I just think fast. Anyway, my parents split up...

SONIA
...which I didn't see coming at all. And then I made some bad friends. This is so boringly classic, are you sure you want to hear?

LAWRENCE
Yes.

SONIA
All right, she said, unbelievingly, continuing nonetheless. I hung out with these so-called friends, and did stupid, destructive things, and that's when I got arrested for setting fires.

LAWRENCE
What-- what did you burn?

SONIA
A Dairy Queen. In lieu of jail - and a record - the judge told my mom I could either go to a boot camp or to Outward Bound - they did a thing in Antarctica - and since Mom always threatened to send me to the end of the world if I didn't shape up...

LAWRENCE
Ah.

SONIA
It was supposed to break my rebellious, nihilistic spirit.

LAWRENCE
Did it?

SONIA
I loved it - camping with no parents and a bunch of cute bad boys? It was great! Everybody was on ritalin. We did TRUST and TEAMWORK and RESPONSIBILITY exercises all day. Then we waited until the counselors were asleep and we all had sex.

LAWRENCE
That's a-- that's a good way to keep warm.

SONIA
To this day, I'm the only girl from my school who's had sex in Antarctica.

LAWRENCE
Do they give you a badge for that?

SONIA
I got something better: when we camped two nights near the Labyrinth at Wright Valley, I found your journal. Can we talk about my thesis now? I've had nothing to do all week but eat Mexican food and think about you reading it and what you were thinking about it, and now I'm bloated and anxious...Well?

Thunder.

LAWRENCE
Well, it's very--

SONIA
Yes?

LAWRENCE
Long.

SONIA
I know, I know. I overwrite.

(She waits.)

And?

LAWRENCE
Well-typed.

SONIA
Okay...

LAWRENCE
I'm not ready to-- to...um...More wine?

SONIA
I'm good, thanks.

(Beat)

Don't you think it picks up where your work left off? Atmospheric CO2 levels going back--

LAWRENCE
(Overlapping)
My-- my work...my work was politicized and subverted to the point where it became unrecognizable even to me. Stay-- stay away from it. You're bright, you don't need it. It will only taint what you do.

SONIA
(Overlapping)
No, it's solid. But you stopped too soon.

LAWRENCE
Others have gone far-- far beyond what I was--

SONIA
(Overlapping)
No, I think they've gone down parallel paths, but you were on to something distinct. You were about to declare the onset of a rapid climate change event... Weren't you?

LAWRENCE
No.

SONIA
Yes! And your projections are being borne out--

LAWRENCE
(Overlapping)
I didn't make projections.

SONIA
(Overlapping)
But you knew where warming was headed.

LAWRENCE
(Overlapping)
I-- I was an explainer, not a forecaster. Geology looks back. Unlike climatology.

SONIA
But the disciplines overlap. You must have--

LAWRENCE
It's pure versus applied science. We're on one of two teams: the explainers – the ones who look at something and say, Hmm, why is it like that? What's its composition? How-- how does it work? They're the ones who look back in time, analyze, take things apart to see how they were put together. They develop-- um, laws and theories.

SONIA
Pure science. Newton, Milankovitch, Einstein...

LAWRENCE
That's my team. The explainers.

SONIA
And the other team?

LAWRENCE
The forecasters.

SONIA
Applied science.

LAWRENCE
Yes, the future-looking ones, they-- they take the laws and the-- the theories, and put them together. They re-combine. They transform. They take us to where we haven't been before. They're the alchemists, the inventors. The chefs. The artists.

SONIA
You think artists are scientists?

LAWRENCE
Well, that's the old Two Cultures debate: art and science--

SONIA
Yes.

LAWRENCE
And that's a conversation best conducted when the bottles are empty and the hour is late.

SONIA
All right. So, you're an explainer.

LAWRENCE
Well, I was. One of the guys with all the answers.

Beat.

SONIA
What's wrong with knowing what's going to happen?

LAWRENCE
We don't know.

SONIA
I like knowing what's coming.

Thunder, closer.