The Mercutio Problem Read online

  “Silence!” he screamed. “You offer nothing.” He shook with rage. His scanty white beard shook also. “Nothing. All I want is to save my beloved daughter and see that my other two daughters, who betrayed me, suffer even more painful deaths than they did in the play. Get out of my sight, or I might kill you.”

  Beth spun away from his time.

  She landed in Lady Macbeth’s garden, which now seemed pleasant compared with Lear’s landscape. The raven croaked, perhaps in greeting.

  Lady Macbeth smiled at Beth. “You are traveling much,” she said. “Well done.”

  “Well done?” Beth raised her eyebrows. “Are you kidding? Lear’s totally against us.”

  “I know. And that ensures that his daughters Regan and Goneril will be with us. I shall ask them.”

  “Aren’t they villains?” Beth stared at her. “They betrayed their father. Would you trust them?”

  “Within limits. Why not? They know that if Richard’s side wins, their father will slowly torture them to death.”

  “Oh.” Maybe if you were Lady Macbeth, it made sense to work with Regan and Goneril, but Beth wasn’t happy about it. How did she know she was on the right side?

  Chapter 4

  THE FIRST PLAY REHEARSAL was a welcome relief from Beth’s travels. As she entered the drama classroom, she heard rude noises.

  “You’re Sir Toby Belch, not Sir Toby Fart,” Arnie complained, holding his nose.

  Beth giggled.

  “Don’t be such a wuss, Sir Andrew,” Kevin said. “But that’s what you’re supposed to be. Type casting.”

  If Beth hadn’t known they had been friends since first grade, she would have thought they didn’t like each other. Boys were so weird, she thought for the ten thousandth time.

  Lupe shook her fist at them. “If I have to be close to you, you’d better keep your stinks to yourself.” She turned to the teacher, who had just entered the room. “Do I say the buttery bar line inviting Sir Andrew to touch my breasts?”

  “Certainly not.” Ms. Capulet frowned. “This is a high school production. Haven’t you read my revised script?”

  “How could she?” Kevin asked. “The wench is illiterate.”

  “What do you mean?” Lupe pretended to box his ears. “I write the letter to Malvolio.”

  “I can’t believe that some of you haven’t memorized the script yet.” Frank shook his head. “That’s so lame.”

  “Please don’t use language that could insult persons with disabilities,” the teacher said. “It’s early to be angry that not everyone knows his or her lines. Stand in the front of the classroom and read the script.”

  They moved to the front of the classroom, near the theater curtains.

  The poster of Shakespeare looked down on them. Beth wished the playwright really were there. No, that he would be there after they had learned their parts.

  Beth felt at home. This play was going to be so much fun.

  In an early scene, she met Duke Orsino and had to show, just a little bit, that she was falling in love with him. Though as Viola she was pretending to be the young man Cesario, she had to look at Orsino as if he were an unattainable but desirable man.

  “O then unfold the passion of my love,” Arnie said. He was in character as Orsino talking about his love for Olivia and how he hoped that Cesario would woo her for him, but he smiled too warmly at Beth. He was such a nice guy, but she didn’t want to date him and hoped he wouldn’t ask.

  AFTER REHEARSAL, BETH STAYED alone in the classroom and decided to try time traveling. Life couldn’t be all fun and rehearsals. She felt warm air and landed on a Mediterranean coast. Othello sat on a rock overlooking the waves lapping on the shore.

  She approached him and inclined her head.

  The general frowned at her. “I never should have listened to you,” Othello said. “What a fool I was.”

  Beth’s head jerked up. “What do you mean?”

  “I am on King Richard’s side now.”

  She gasped. “On the same side as Iago? How could you be?”

  Othello sighed. “King Lear told me that Richard stands for changing the endings of the plays. He wants to save Cordelia’s life.” He shook his fist at the waves. “Can you imagine that I would do any less to change the ending of my play? To save my sweet Desdemona? To keep myself from slaughtering my innocent wife? There never was anyone who repented as much as I do.”

  “Oh.” Beth hadn’t thought of that. “But . . . .”

  He rose from his rock. “But me no buts. Nothing matters but undoing what I have done.”

  “The consequences for other plays . . . .”

  “No! I will not listen! I know what I must do.” He turned and stalked away.

  Beth shuddered. Too many characters longed to change the endings of their plays. Why didn’t Shakespeare write more happy endings?

  That gave her a thought.

  Why not ask characters from the comedies for help? She wasn’t sure they would be able to defeat the warriors, but it was worth a try. They at least wouldn’t want to change their plays’ endings.

  She attempted to think comic thoughts. The scent of pines filled the air around her. She found herself walking through a forest. She heard splashing water and found her way to a stream where water rushed over mossy rocks. A man sat weeping by the bank.

  “Are you Jaques?” she asked.

  “A deer died today,” he replied, weeping over it as he had in the play.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Visiting As You Like It delighted her. Then remembering she was Mercutio, she added, “Venison is but a poor substitute for venery.”

  Jaques shook his head. “Your humor does not move me, Mercutio. But I could weep for you, a poor creature who cannot live to experience all the seven ages of man.”

  Beth gulped at the thought of Mercutio’s short life, and of dying for him, but forced herself to smile. She picked up a small stone and skimmed it across the stream. “Why should I want to become so old that I must crawl? Or to let lines spread over my handsome face? And to be so old that I could no longer do as I wished with women would be misery indeed.”

  Jaques shook his head. “Perhaps it is just as well that your wit exceeds your wits. There is more than one fool in the forest.”

  “You are clever indeed, friend Jaques,” Beth told him. “Surely too clever to want to change the endings of plays.” She tried to balance on a mossy rock and almost slipped. Bad move. Mercutio was nimble. “Richard III is gathering a band of characters to try to force changes in the endings of our author’s plays. But other characters oppose him. Will you join our band?”

  Jaques shook his head. “The endings will be as they will be, but if you think I am a man of action, you mistake me. You must look elsewhere. If the endings are overthrown, I will weep over it, but that is all.” Tears for the deer still dripped down his cheeks.

  Beth realized that she shouldn’t have expected more of him. “You are a poor fool, after all. Come looking for me if you change your mind.”

  She walked further into the woods. Sunlight streamed through the trees, but the path was narrow and she wasn’t used to hiking alone. What if someone or something dangerous burst out at her? Touching her sword, she wished she knew how to wield it better. But if she must be alone in the woods, even the Forest of Arden, she was glad that she appeared to be a man.

  “Ho!” A man who was clearly no man appeared from behind a tree. “Who are you, stranger?”

  “I am Mercutio, O Ganymede,” she said, using the name the lady Rosalind had chosen for herself when she pretended to be a man.

  “Mercutio!” Rosalind smiled. “I am glad to meet a man who is not foolish enough to write his lover’s name on trees, as Orlando does, but sorry to meet a man who is too foolish to fall in love.”

  “You mistake me, good Ganymede, for I h
ave fallen many times but never broken a limb, nor even sprained one in the fall.” Beth laughed inwardly because not even Rosalind could detect that she was a girl hidden in Mercutio’s body.

  Rosalind shook her head. “You have not loved, and pity the woman who ever loves you.”

  “Nay, pity all those who have not, for I catch women when they fall,” Beth said. She wondered whether she was a fool to care so much about Mercutio.

  “I am so glad not to be a woman,” Rosalind said.

  “What a pity. I thought you were the fairest and cleverest of them all.” Beth bowed to her. “Dearest, woman or not, I have come on a mission. Richard III is gathering together a band of characters to try to force a change in the endings of Shakespeare’s plays. I hope you will join me in ardently opposing him.”

  Rosalind’s smile evaporated. “Richard III? A villain worse than my uncle who exiled my father and me, far worse. Some characters might want to change the end of their tragedies, but who could want to change the happy endings of comedies?”

  “If he can change the endings of tragedies, he can change the endings of comedies as well. No one is safe,” Beth warned.

  “But why should you not join Richard?” Rosalind asked. “Your own end was sad.”

  Beth sighed. “Alas, I did join him. I hoped that I would become a warrior and die a noble death in war. I died indeed, but not nobly. Richard slew me as he does all those who support him after they have served his purpose. I do repent that I believed him.” She struck her forehead in a gesture of repentance. “My own purpose now is to oppose all his deeds. My death in Romeo and Juliet was tragic, but my death when I served Richard was ignominious.” Beth hoped that Mercutio would repent if she could bring him back to life, but she couldn’t be certain that he would.

  “It is good that you now see more clearly,” Rosalind said, patting Beth’s hand. “Of course I will try to help you, and I will ask all my play’s other characters to help you also. But I do not know how to fight, and I don’t know what I can do.”

  “We may need your cleverness, lovely Rosalind, and the wrestling skill of your Orlando. He has killed a lion, so perhaps he can kill a boar.” Beth thought of Richard’s boar standard and shuddered.

  “No need to call me ‘lovely Rosalind,’ ” Rosalind reproached Beth. “Those of us who dwell in the Forest of Arden will do all we can to help our native playwright.”

  Wondering whether she would ever have a chance to play Rosalind’s part when she returned to being Beth Owens, Beth bowed to Rosalind and went her way.

  Beth passed a clearing where red squirrels chased each other. She enjoyed seeing their pointed ears, so different from those of the squirrels at home. She walked further down the woodland path and came to a meadow. There she encountered two women, both blowsy as to hair and dress and bosomy as to body.

  “Who are you, noble sir?” asked one. “I love you at first sight.”

  “No, I saw him first,” said the other, elbowing the first woman and pushing herself forward.

  Oh no. Phebe, who had thrown herself at Rosalind while Rosalind was posing as a man, and Audrey, a woman of somewhat easy virtue. Beth decided she had better not say she was Mercutio.

  “Away from me, lovely ladies! Do not tempt me!” she cried. “Fear me, for I suffer from a dreadful pox that would mar your looks forever if I so much as touched you.”

  The two women backed up so fast they almost tripped.

  “What a pity that such a handsome face should cover such a deadly sickness!” Phebe exclaimed. “I cannot love you, though I do.”

  “No more can I,” Audrey said, turning away.

  “Find sounder lovers than I am,” Beth told them. She suspected that Mercutio would be angry at her for so maligning him. If only she could bring him back to life, let him be angry!

  Beth rushed away. She could feel some part of Mercutio’s brain stripping Audrey and Phebe naked and liking the size of Audrey’s breasts. No, I don’t want to be that part of Mercutio, she thought. She tried to think of a joke instead, but all she could devise was a jest that Mercutio would tell about Audrey’s breasts.

  Darn you, Mercutio, she chided him. Are you worth all the trouble I’m taking to save you? She was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have hurried away from the women. She could enact Mercutio only so far. She wondered whether his quick temper and urge to fight would spring up in her when she least expected it. But she had enough of Beth in her to moderate the Mercutio part. She cared about being a good actor, but she didn’t want quite that much of her character’s perspective.

  Had Mercutio mentally stripped her clothes off? Did the boys she knew do that? She tried not to worry about it. The thought made her too miserable.

  It was time to leave the Forest of Arden. She took a last look at the running brook and saw several books floating down it, miraculously dry. She remembered Rosalind’s father’s line that it was good to be exiled to the forest because there are books in the flowing brooks and sermons in stones. She saw that one book was the script of Twelfth Night. She hoped she wouldn’t have to get drunk to join those characters.

  She wanted to meet Viola, but instead she found herself in a dark hall, lit only by tapers, where several men sat at a table holding large tankards. The smells of ale, wine, and whiskey permeated the room so much they almost stunned her. But she supposed that Mercutio wouldn’t mind them.

  She addressed the heaviest man there. Drink dripped from his beard.

  “Hail, Sir Toby! I am Mercutio, cousin to the Prince of Verona. I salute your service to the god Bacchus!” She flourished a bow.

  “What? Mercutio, join us! Maria, serve him the best of our wine. I know Eye-talians like wine. But don’t serve him too much from your buttery bar, my girl.”

  Maria let her blouse slip further down than it already was.

  Beth winked at her and hoped that would be a sufficient response.

  “Mercutio.” A thin, pock-marked man frowned. “I hope you are not a suitor to Lady Olivia.”

  “Far be it from me to try to compete with one as handsome and articulate as you, Sir Andrew,” Beth said, nodding to him. “I greatly dislike losing, and so I shall hold back from trying, however fair the lady may be.”

  Sir Toby belched. “Don’t be too hasty. An Eye-talian noble might be a very suitable match for my niece. A prince’s cousin might outrank that Duke Orsino. Drink up, Mercutio!”

  Beth smelled the wine that Maria had served her. “French wine! I do not wish to be discourteous, but my palate is sensitive. I drink only wine from Italian grapes, my good host. I have a flask of it, and I pray that you drink from it first.” She pulled out her wine flask and poured drinks for Sir Toby and Sir Andrew.

  “Damned good manners,” Sir Toby said, tasting it. “And good wine, too.”

  “When that I was and a little tiny boy, with hey, ho, the wind and the rain,” sang Feste, who was by far the best-looking man in the room, and the youngest.

  “Ah, Feste, how glad I am to meet you,” Beth clasped his hand. “But you should have lived in Verona, where we do not have so much wind and rain. I cannot hope to match you, either in song or in an exchange of wits.”

  “Or, it seems, in drinking,” Feste said, being the only one of the company sober enough to see that Beth had drunk nothing.

  “Wine is the drink of love,” Beth said, “but I fear that wooing is not my errand tonight. Richard III is gathering together a band of characters to try to force changes in the ends of all Shakespeare’s plays, and I am trying to form a band of characters to oppose him. Surely you do not want the end of your play changed.”

  “Who can change the wind and the rain?” Feste asked.

  “Change the end?” Sir Toby shouted. “And have Malvolio triumph? The stout, true men from this play will join you. We are great heroes with our swords.”

  “Indeed,” said Maria.


  “I have no doubt,” Beth said. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, no, we can’t change your precious ending,” Malvolio sneered. He sauntered into the hall as if he owned it. He wore his lemon-colored stockings. “Destroying me was so amusing.”

  Malvolio spat in the direction of the other men. He turned to Beth. “Your cause is doomed if you depend on these rum-soaked blowhards. You may be sure I will join Richard. I do not care whether he will destroy me. At least he won’t break my heart in doing so, because I won’t love him.”

  Malvolio strode out.

  Beth couldn’t find it in her heart to blame him.

  “The rain it raineth every day,” Feste sang.

  “It rains every day wherever that nasty steward takes himself,” Maria said.

  “Do not invest him with the power of causing rain,” Beth told her. “For gloom is a corrosion that seeps into men’s souls, and women’s too. I hope that Queen Mab sends Malvolio gentle dreams, for you drove him to despair.”

  “You would have mocked him, too, Mercutio,” Sir Toby said. “He was a perfect target.”

  “Mocked him, yes, a thousand times, but I would not have cast him into a dark pit,” Beth replied.

  “So you would change Shakespeare’s words after all, pretty Veronese?” Maria asked.

  “I would not dare.” Beth shivered. “The attempt cost me my life.”

  The sound of rain pounding on the roof of the hall made her shiver still more. “Stop singing that damp song,” she said to Feste. “You could cause a flood.”

  “Rain does not drown so much as drink does,” Feste argued. “Rain soaks the body, but drink soaks the spirit. Get King Richard drunk,” he said. “That’s the solution. Then he will turn into a fool, and if he is a fool, and a fool from Shakespeare, he will be a wiser man.”

  Beth smiled. “Your wit shows me why I seek help from fools. Perhaps you should offer yourself to that detestable monarch as a fool. Perhaps your rain would impede him and your wit would make him sounder.”

  Feste snorted. “I am not such a fool as that. A fool who jests with him would be a dead fool. The fools in this play may bore me, but the boar would stab me.”