1.1
Falstaff, hoodless, gathers senior pages three quarters removed from postmodern squirehood: apprenticeship, union dues, parental woes, truck payments, beer tabs & dive pubs & splinters eat their futures like famished gluttons chewing new recipes.
Encircled, he blathers-on long-winded, demonstrating chattermark removal from 4×4 timbers. Band saw blades buzz, decapitating planks, & sawdust’s sweet-scented smells fill pheromone- less air, buddied by burps, farts, & all the teenaged stenches (including Axe cologne).
Our remedial group awaits Corporal Nim’s hammer how-to instruction, a class within a class in a school within a school. Seeking praise from Mistress Page,[1] I freestyle a sonnet, rhyming couplet and all. Falstaff’s eyes fall upon me, dueling.
(In this am I Fenton.)
“Jackanape knave,” raves he, “yer dagger-like words pierce mine ears! Eat yer tongue and die.” “Suck my cock,” quoth I, failing English (Math, Science, Phys. Ed, Art, etc., etc., ad nauseam). My fanciless phrase trips claymores in his eyes: phosphorous reds.
Sandpaper swaths escape paunchy finger gaps, leaflike-seesaw falling to concrete earth, sawdust scattering upon impact. Senior pages move aside hastily—turning O to C—sneering knowingly, jeering bruise-lipped taunts, biting broken thumbs at repeat-freshman: pure schadenfreude.
“Put ‘im in a body bag,” one senior erroneously quotes,[2] slapping palm-skin with future KIAs. Falstaff wormholes spacetime, traversing classrooms in blubbered bounds, stoccadoes fubsy, sweat-filmed fingers at my FUBU sweatshirt, yanks me hard, sawward.
Tumbling headlong toward band saw tables, my kneecap strikes hex bolts, tearing jeans, shredding flesh, bruising, black and blue: I still have the scar, fuckface. New England winters spared my skull, though; my sweatshirted arms took the brunt of the tabled beating.
Dragged by hood and collar, double-beat by mirthless laughter, I swat blubberless air: rabbit paw punches. A shoe lost along the way spins toe-over-heel toward the hall. My sock-footed kicking futile, I grip the door frame in vain, yanked harder through. Exeunt.
1.2
Enter Master Pistol, Dean of Humanities, and James (in medias res)
“Forsooth,” quoth he, “doth ye hollowed gourd knoweth not our Falstaff be a brother armed?”
“Nay,” quoth I, “doth I don the Vietcong costume before thee, Master Dean?”
“Peace, I prithee,” quoth he, “ye know not his hotly-sprighted essence.”
“Art thou a flogged cur guised as a maned lion, sir?”
“What sayest thou, boy?”
“I sayest that thou art made of scarecrow stuffing pecked clean by pigeons. I sayest that thou art a painting of a man galleried among other works of fine art. I sayest that fear of this man is a pox I am inoculated against, sir, and knighted in war though Falstaff may be, he is a brute unworthy of licensure! Retire his saw!”
“Fie! I’d sooner retire your books.”
(Aside: “Thou defend him with phlegmatic poise!) I bleed, sir!”
“Art thou not wrong for what thee hath said?”
“Master Dean, thou may fuel thy sea-coal fires til devil sweat rains tempests upon yeh. Hand me thine pickaxe; I shall mine Newcastle myself, and run the bellows, too, if need be.”
(Tapping transcripts) “Thou hath failed English, lad—”
“I sayest that thou may burn my blasted Victim Card; I was wrong but not that wrong.”
“Well, he hath said only punks care for cupids,[3] or some such nonsense. Didst thou break learned silence reciting silly love poems?”
“T’were hardly silly, sir; I was beaten for it.”
“Fie! The hurt cannot be much, eh?”
“Not much is far worse than not at all.”
“Wilt thou revenge?”[4]
“Aye,” says I.
“With wit, or steel?”[5]
“Neither.”
(Aside: “Methinks I’ll clap him now;) Art thou a fan of Paul and Art?”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Gee, it’s great to be home; home is where I want to be?”[6]
“Pardon my cheeks, Master Dean; I am vicariously sheepish from all of thine bleating.”
“Fie, fie! You are homeward-bound, boy—for five consecutive days—to cool thine fire-hot heels.”
“My heel is cool, sir; my left shoe is missing. Dost thou mean ‘jets,’ anyway?”“Nurse!” quoth Dean, ignoring me, pointing doorward, “attend to this drummed wretch. Bring gauze and ice. And gather his shoe!”
Exit James.
*****
[1] Nan, not Meg.
[2] “Get him a body bag” is the actual line from the classic 1984 film, Karate Kid.
[3] MWW 2.2.127
[4] MWW 1.3.87
[5] MWW 1.13.88
[6] Master Dean confuses Simon and Garfunkel’s 1970 song Keep Your Customer Satisfied with their 1966 song Homeward Bound.
Photo by Sébastien Mouilleau on Unsplash
James Paraskevas
James is a former Bostonian who has been kidnapped by his nefarious wife, force-fed nutritional meals thrice daily, and lovingly coerced to live among the shire-folk in the land of Southern New Hampshire. He teaches English at the local high school when he's not petting his cat, eyeballing dusty books, or professing undying love to the aforementioned wife.
