A Plague on Both Your Houses

I've always remembered playing scenes from Shakespeare in the sixth grade. It was highly excerpted stuff, sort of a "Shakey's Greatest Hits" kind of endeavor. "To be or not to be," "Something stinks in the state of Denmark," and so forth. We did scenes from Romeo and Juliet, though there was no one cast as Juliet. Of the whole play, our excerpts were almost exclusively battle scenes. I played Romeo, a role I have enjoyed recounting ever since. My main man Mercutio and dastardly Tybalt used to practice with the wooden swords on my driveway since I lived close to school. Mom made us take breaks for brownies. Tybalt was played by N_____ Patel, who was also in my boy scout troop. Typecasting? I don't know. But I do remember very clearly the shriek of mortal terror that left Mercutio's lips when he was slain - an anguished, shrill wail that sounded more as though someone suffering from terrible constipation had been punched in the gut. An awful, bizarre scream. Very fake and weirdly unsettling.

I've enjoyed the story so much since I share some traits in common with R-Diddy, as he's known in certain circles. Like Romeo, I'm driven more by emotion than the intellect. I'm not only a passionate lover, but a lover of love, of getting swept up in feelings of affinity. (Remember, the play ain't called Romeo and Rosaline, even though that's whom we find him doting over at curtain up.) I've also made one or two really bad calls in the heat of the moment.

There's one catch. I was telling this story to my family the other day and they pointed out a discrepancy: I didn't play Romeo. I must have liked the story better that way and remembered it [the story] better than the event itself. So mine was not the woe over Mercutio and the triumph over Tybalt. But if not Romeo, then who was I? Not Tybalt, who was played by N_____ as I said. I was Mercutio, who dies offstage. Mine was the terrible scream.

So believe the story you prefer. Because I will forget all this and probably go on remembering myself as the world's greatest romantic, and not as an odd sixth-grader in tights.