About Rude Mechanicals

by Syd McGinley
31 pages / 6900 words
Ebook zipped file contains - html, lit, Adobe and Sony optimized pdf, prc, epub

June is not a good month for Dr. Fell – he's facing his own thirtieth birthday and the seventh anniversary of Rob’s death. On a rare vacation from his duties, he takes a road trip on his Harley. The last thing he expects is a summer solstice surprise in the woods when he meets the worst Bottom ever. Can his own Midsummer’s Night Dream help him find some peace?

Rude Mechanicals first appeared in the Summer Solstice Taste Test. It can also be found in The Complete Dr. Fell Volume One: Lost paperback.

Sample

Hearing a stilted rendition of the rude mechanicals’ scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is like fingernails on a chalkboard. While I prefer Shakespeare’s tragedies, I do have a soft spot for the troupe of rude mechanicals. They remind me of untrained but willing boys doing their best to please and messing up everything. Alas, these kids are misinterpreting the scene. They have the wrong words stressed and clearly don’t understand what they are saying at all. Even grad school didn’t destroy Shakespeare for me. My dissertation was on Spenser, but Marlowe and Shakespeare are my true loves. I’d been warned to be careful about over-studying my true passion, and it was good advice. I can bang out an article on Spenser if I have to, but I still have Shakespeare by my bedside. I’ve even resurrected my dream of a boy earning the right to recite my favorite sonnet as he agrees to be mine.

I bite my knuckle at the wooden delivery of the boy playing Quince. And then I understand the “worst bottom ever” comment -- the boy playing Bottom is awful. I give in when Snug misses his cue and I roar out his line: “Have you the lion’s part written?”

There’s consternation around the fire, and I consider just lying back down behind my bike, but I get up and stamp over.

“When are you performing this?” The boys babble, and I point at the one holding the script. “You, when are you performing?”

“The twenty-fourth,” he mutters.

I roll my eyes. How obvious. A bloody Midsummer’s Night performance. And that’s only four days away.

“You’re screwed,” I say, and turn away. “So go away and let me get some sleep.”

“Hey! That’s not fair!”

“Nothing to do with me, kid.” I continue walking.

I hear one of them running after me. “Hey, you know the play! Help us.”

I pause and let him catch up. I will help, but only if they actually want my help. “Why should I, and how do you know I can help?”

It’s the kid with the script. He scowls. “Because we need you to. I can’t get this right. I’m the assistant director and I’m tasked with having the scenes with the rude mechanicals in good shape. And you knew that line right off. Obviously, you know the play.”

“Knowing the play and directing are very different.”

“Don’t I know it,” says the boy ruefully. “I hate doing this. I just wanted to have some fun during summer school, and it’s a fucking nightmare.” He shudders. “I hate it. I hate actors and I hate bloody Shakespeare and I hate performing.” There’s some real distress under his petulant tone.

“You have a part, too? Which one?”

“Bottom,” he says, and looks away. “I suck.”

I can’t argue with that based on what I overheard, but he’s quite despondent enough, so I just ask, “What are you doing out here?”

He actually blushes. “It was a stupid idea. I thought…” He twists the manuscript in his hands. “Oh, forget it. It was a dumb idea.”

“If you don’t want help-- ”

“I thought meeting in the woods to rehearse like the rude mechanicals did in the play would help.” He bites his lip. “But it’s all getting silly. I hate having to play the damn donkey.”

I grin. Poor kid. It is a good idea, but not for this amateur bunch. Actors are not the easiest bunch to control, and if he’s assistant director as well as Bottom, he has a lot to manage. I imagine twink making a topping from below joke, and smother a chuckle.

“They call me the Ass. Director,” says the kid sadly, “and they laugh because I can’t get my own lines right.”

“How did you get the part?”

He shrugs. “There’s only just enough of us to fill the cast, and usually I’m kinda clowny, so they thought I’d be good. And my -- um -- my best friend is the director, so they thought we’d work well together as a team. But -- ”

He actually looks tearful.

I take a gamble. “Did working on the production split your relationship up?”

He gasps, and whispers, “Yes.”

“Out to them?” I jerk my head at the group of boys bickering around the fire.

He laughs. He looks a lot better with a smile on his face. “Yes, we’re all gay. It was our plan to avoid going home for the summer. We all signed up for summer school and talked the school into giving us an independent study for putting on a benefit performance.”

“The whole cast, or just the rude mechanicals?”

“Just about all of us. We told the school it would be period authentic with an all-male cast.” He grins. “Actually, the guys playing Titania and Puck are straight, but they’re Carl’s cousins, and wanted to stay away from the farm for summer.”

“Carl?”

“The one playing Quince.”

“Are any of you actors?”

“Jim is. My-- ” He stumbles. “ My ex. He’s playing Oberon. And so is Seth -- he’s Demetrius. They’re in the theater program.”

Fuck. Just having the conversation seems to have been taken as consent to help, and we’ve walked back to the fire as we talked. Since I’m awake and have lost my privacy, I may as well help. The boys stop their chattering and stare at me. They must be desperate. Based on my knowing one line, they’re willing to hand over their part of the production.

I decide to introduce myself. “Dr. John Fell, Renaissance specialist.”