A comic retelling of the story of Romeo and Juliet using a transcript that Dawn purportedly found in a public library. Witnesses to their final days include an unlucky cat burglar, the inventor of the tampon, a polysexual page, a lecherous prince, a transsexual nurse, a hair fetishist, a necrophilic nun etc. It turns out that Romeo and Juliet died virgins as a result of being even more star-crossed as lovers than Shakespeare admitted.

Romeo and Juliet: The Real Tragedy, Act 1
By: Dawn DeWinter
Act 1…. The ageing virgins meet

(Much thanks to Rita Spencer and Chelsea Solis for their advice.)

Normally I avoid public libraries. They tend to contain two types of books I generally avoid: fiction, which I have to be wary of reading lest it affect my own inimitable style and grammar; and non-fiction, which I’ve learned to regard as poorly written fiction.

However, I do have my own small collection of books, which I keep on the top shelf of my big closet, the one with a crystal mirror with sapphire trim. (OK, that’s what I’d like to have on the closet door, but I’ve had to settle for carnival glass.)

As can be seen from these titles, I prefer the old classics: John Cleland’s Fanny Hill, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and Terry Southern’s Candy. I had another book, but I had to leave it behind at a public restroom at the Port Authority Bus Terminal because of police intolerance. After all, we were consenting adults, and my gender transformation (before their very eyes) didn’t seem to bother the other two ladies, for they came from suburban New Jersey and were delighted that they’d have a “New York” story to relate to the girls at duplicate bridge. I do wish I could remember the name of the book, for I know that the lord won’t mind if I were to acquire it again.

Finding the pages of my collection increasingly yellowed and difficult to unstick, I went looking for another literary gem for my collection: My Secret Life by Anonymous. I’ve often enjoyed his work before, going back to the days when I used to find paperbacks left behind in my favorite theaters near Times Square, now gone but not forgotten.

And so, after deciding that I was spending too much time on-line reading about the sex life of trashy Hollywood starlets (whom I secretly long to be), I decided that I needed to give my entire body, my brain included, a lively workout by finding a first edition of My Secret Life. Being short of funds, I knew there was no point in looking for one at Borders or Brentano’s. Instead, I looked for this classic in a public library in midtown Manhattan.

The library’s name and location must remain confidential until it has improved its defenses against surreptitious entry. While there, I chanced upon a faded parchment in the locked cage for the X-rated books. (I can do anything with a hairpin but make my hair stay in place!) Written in some foreign gobbledygook, I would have cast it aside had it not had a translation attached. I chose to peruse it, as I hoped that I had found a literary classic, one which understands sexual mechanics in the way that Popular Mechanics understands automobiles.

After exhaustive study, I concluded that there was nothing naughty in the manuscript, as least in translation. It didn’t belong in the X-rated section; it had simply been misfiled. The manuscript rated no better than an M rating for mature.

Generally, I pay little heed to such family-friendly fare, but this document intrigued me because it purported to be an official transcript of the inquest into the tragic deaths of the world’s most famous lovers — Romeus and Juliet. The name Romeus will probably surprise, even confuse, many readers who know Shakespeare’s play about a romantic duo by the name of Romeo and Juliet. What gives? Am I mistaken about the boy’s name or was Bill Shakespeare, the pride of Stratford-on-Avon, England?

Fair warning — I am now about to become pedantic. I can’t help it. Every so often the baleful influence of my seventh-grade English teacher Miss Grimsby bursts out. She was a stickler for detail: If I brought a note from home to excuse an absence on account of sickness, she insisted it include the Latin name for my alleged ailment (and this was in the days before every home contained a Latin-English dictionary for easy reference, never mind an on-line translator).

And so, I’m going to use the next few paragraphs, as Miss Grimsby tiresomely would, to relate everything I know about Bill Shakespeare and his play about two teenagers whom he dubbed “star-crossed lovers”. For those who can’t abide such cant, I advise you to skip ahead to The Transcript. (Its title is in bold print). It may enlighten and amuse where I could not.

And now for those who yearn to understand the true historical import of The Transcript (and for those with lots of time weighing on their hands — for example, the unemployed, government workers, and students at the beginning of a school term), I will now prove to the satisfaction of my own satisfaction that Shakespeare missed the entire point of the story of Romeo and Juliet. He couldn’t even get the name of his male lead correct.

His primary source for the play was The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562, which was itself a translation of the original Italian story. While some might suppose that Shakespeare changed the male character’s name for rhyming purposes, it is far more likely, given Bill’s hasty, sloppy, unloving approach to his lost labors that he couldn’t read the note cards that he had created from Brooke’s text. After all, there are lots of words that lyrically and romantically rhyme with “Romeus” — rhombus, nimbus, omnibus and detritus, just for starters.

Bill Shakespeare was far from being a careful scholar. He made countless mistakes. For example, he couldn’t settle upon a single nom de plume. Sometimes he wrote as Francis Bacon, other times as Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley, or Edward de Vere. You’d think if he was going to use an alias that he’d stick with one. But that’s our boy Bill. He never could keep his personal story straight. As a result, people are confused to this day as to which persona — Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe? — was the gay monk and which, the Earl of Oxford, the film noir detective.

Bill was a notoriously bad speller, even getting his own name wrong. But what was an “e” more or less to a literary genius? The British king Cunobelinus he misspelled as Cymbeline, the king’s daughter Innogen, as Imogen. It’s said by scholars in a position to know best that Bill named his child Hamnet after his play Hamlet, which was based in turn on the legend of Amleth. Hamnet-Hamlet-Amleth — Shakespeare couldn’t be bothered to keep the name consistent.

Bill wasn’t, to put it mildly, a details kind of guy. Thus he called Othello a “Moor” when the brother was in fact called a “Moro” in Shakespeare’s source. Sure, both words have the same letters, but “god” and “dog” aren’t exactly the same, are they? (If they were, I’d have a hell of a time getting into Hades, when my time is up.)

It is also well known that Bill couldn’t even publish his own work without serious bungling. The early quartos and folios (that is, publications) of his plays often differed markedly in length (Hamlet, for example, by 160 lines). One imagines that his audiences never knew which version they were about to see. (In one, the famous soliloquy starts off with “to bet or not to bet” as Hamlet speculates on whether he should make book on an early death for the uncle he’s thinking of killing.)

Why did the Elizabethans put up with such sloppiness from Bill? Well, it’s because they weren’t Victorians. Theirs was a different era, one in which audiences were so rowdy and boisterous that they probably didn’t even hear the lines. They were too busy throwing oranges at each other in the mosh pit or wolf-whistling at the boys playing the female roles on stage. (In other words, it was a bit like Provincetown today.)

While every Shakespearean play is full of mistakes, there is only one that truly merits the name “A Comedy of Errors”. It is Romeo and Juliet. When one compares the true story of the star-crossed lovers, as found in the official transcript of the inquest into their deaths by the Ninth Circuit Court of Assizes for the Region of Veneto, with Bill’s version, it becomes tragically apparent that Shakespeare must have had a serious drinking or drug abuse problem at the time that he was researching and writing his play about the Verona teenagers.

Indeed, when later asked when he’d written the play, Bill couldn’t get any more precise than sometime between 1591 and 1595. Only a gonzo journalist like Hunter S. Thompson or an acid freak like Timothy Leary ever lost track of that much time. Obviously, that wasn’t tobacco that Bill was smoking!

It’s significant that Shakespeare has long been known as “the Bard”. Why significant? Well, consider the fact that the word seems to have entered the English language by way of Scotland and the Scots regarded “bards” as idle layabouts — comparable to potheads or opium smokers today. Accordingly, a Scots ordinance of circa 1500 ordered that “All vagabonds, fools, bards … and such idle people shall be [branded] on the cheek.” Wow! It’s no wonder that Shakespeare never dared sun himself at a beach resort in the Scottish Highlands.

Sadly one must conclude that the Bard’s faculties had become so diminished in the early 1590s by drug abuse that he did not realize that the true story of Romeus and Juliet was far more tragical than the fable that he concocted. Yes, as you will discover from reading the official transcript from the inquest, befuddled Billy badly botched the ballad of Romeo and Juliet.

Fortunately, Bill went into de-tox (the place and year are as yet unknown) and his subsequent tragedies — Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens and Troilus and Cressida — were, as a result, much better researched and compiled, and thus far more popular down through the ages than the tragically flawed Romeo and Juliet.

To understand the lost opportunity that the true story of Romeus and Juliet offered to Shakespeare and to the world of literature, this essay presents the transcript, edited to fit this screen, of the inquest into their deaths. I have slightly modified the transcript that I found to make its language more comprehensible to North Americans. If the story attracts enough readers to warrant extra effort on my part, I will later attach a glossary for British readers. That strikes me as a fair thing to do, given that Bill is generally supposed to have been an Englishman (though his skills at story-telling and poetry point rather to Irish origins.)

[For the sake of convention, I have changed the original name of Romeus to Romeo wherever it appears in the transcript]

Court Herald: Oyez, Oyez, this Court of Inquiry for the Ninth Circuit Court of Assizes for the Region of Veneto, presided by Escalus, Prince of Verona, is now in session for the purpose of absolving the Principality of any responsibility for the piteous suicide of star-crossed lovers Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. All rise while Our Noble, Infallible Prince enters and takes his throne.

Prince Escalus: Please be seated. The court calls to the stand Lord Capulet, father of dead Juliet … Is it not true, Capulet, that the origin of this tragedy may be found in the street brawling of your gang, the Sharks, with Lord Montague’s Jets?

Lord Capulet: If it pleases you, exalted Prince, I believe that the tragedy has its origins in your decree that if anyone from our two gangs disturbed the peace again that he would forfeit his life. I mean you certainly upped the stakes, didn’t you?

Prince Escalus: My decree was reasonable, given your mutual rebelliousness. You were fortunate that I didn’t torture you both for the previous three street disturbances. Do you think it wise to use your testimony to inculpate me, your Prince and liege lord?

[As the Exalted One grasped the hilt of his sword, Lord Capulet understood the folly of blaming a lawful decree for the deaths of the two teenagers.]

Prince Escalus: I see by the way that you hang your head in shame and fear that you understand that it was not the decree, but Romeo’s inability to heed it that set the tragedy in motion. I didn’t ask him to kill Tybalt, now did I? Summon Benvolio, Lord Montague’s nephew, to take the stand. [Which was done]. Now tell me, Benvolio, did Romeo take part in the original fray?

Benvolio: No, an hour before dawn I came across him in a sycamore grove on the city’s west side. When I walked towards him, he ran into the bushes. I was surprised at his action, since the area is a notorious lesbian cruising area because of its proximity to the dikes. Lord Montague subsequently told me that Romeo frequently lurked in these woods before dawn. Understandably, Lord Montague, unable to induce Romeo to explain his nocturnal prowls, bade me to discover their cause.

Prince Escalus: And did you?

Benvolio: Yes, Romeo told me he had fallen out of love. I then asked him in sadness to tell me who had made him so lovelorn. Given Romeo’s fey mannerisms and secrecy, I feared he might name Tybalt or Mercutio, bless their souls.

Prince Escalus: Was either fair youth involved with Romeo?

Benvolio: I immediately realized the error of my suspicions when Romeo told me that he had fallen hard for a girl — yes, a girl — with Diana’s wit who was “in strong proof of chastity well armed,” and had never been harmed — that’s the word he used -- by Cupid’s “childish bow.”

Prince Escalus: Is this Juliet we’re discussing? [Benvolio nodded yes.] But this is extraordinary, for she was thirteen and still a virgin? Did that not make Romeo highly suspicious? Did he not know that Verona has but two virgins older more elderly than Juliet, and both of them males?

Benvolio: No, my liege, Romeo seemed to think it quite natural that a thirteen-year-old girl should refuse to listen to “loving terms” and consider a flattering lustful look as coming from “assailing eyes.”

Prince Escalus: Extraordinary, simply extraordinary.

Benvolio: Yes, such words of praise for an old maid did cause me to wonder whether Romeo himself was that most unique of Veronese — a fifteen-year-old virgin. A shocking thought briefly assailed my mind: That Romeo might have been collecting mushrooms and not cherries on his midnight strolls through the thicket known as Satyricon Bush.

Naturally, I asked him to confirm that his beloved had actually “sworn that she will live chaste.” And yes, the girl, whom we now know to be Juliet, had “forsworn to love” and pledged therefore to die childless, her beauty cut “off from posterity.” At this point, I suspected that Romeo had need of spectacles, since his beloved must be as ugly as a Neapolitan Mastiff for her to make such a self-denying vow.

Prince Escalus: Did you advise Romeo to forget to think of the girl?

Benvolio: Indeed, my liege, I bade him to examine other beauties. I even reminded him that Veronese males could, if freeborn Italians, ease their sexual tension before marriage with anything that moved. But he failed to grasp my meaning, despite the presence of a nearby ass, which did bray loudly in loneliness.

[Another murmur went through the courtroom, to be silenced anew by the saxophone’s blare.]

Prince Escalus: I shall “ass” thee no more questions, Benvolio. I recall to the stand the Lord Capulet. Would you please relate your conversation, dear Capulet, on the very day of my edict with my kinsman Paris in which he did ask you to respond to his suit to marry your daughter Juliet?

Lord Capulet: Apparently, Count Paris hoped that his promise of wedding suits for my entire clan would induce me to loose my paternal strings, but I reminded him that Juliet was “yet a stranger in the world” and would not be “ripe to be a bride” until two more summers had passed. He retorted that, “Younger than she are happy mothers made.” I then replied that young girls too “early made” into women did often suffer and die, and that, as Juliet was my sole surviving child, I wanted him to woo her; and if he did win her heart, he had my consent to their betrothal.

To that end, I invited him as a guest to a soiree, where he might meet fair Juliet and the other ripening flowers of Verona. Alas, I then foolishly bade my servant Brutus to invite the rest of the guests, whose names I wrote down on paper of linen fair. [Weeping], I bid thee, my liege Prince, not to ask me what happened next.

[His Most Compassionate Excellency then called the servant Brutus to take the stand.]

Brutus: As I cannot read, I hadn’t a clue who old Capulet wanted me to invite to the party until I met two handsome young gents on Church Street. Who were they? I now know they were Romeo and Benvolio. Romeo did me the favor of reading the invite list out loud for me to master. In that way, I suppose he learnt of the party.

But my lords, forgive me — I had no idea that he was a Montague or, given the way he looked and moved, that he even liked girls. That’s why I invited him to a cup of wine on me at The Black Cat Julius Tavern in the Marais district. Methinks you know its back room well, my Prince, for no more than a low stonewall separates it from your palace.

Prince Escalus: Enough idle blather. You are dismissed with prejudice. Indeed, for your thoughtless role in this affair I banish you to my distant fiefdom on the isle of Mykonos. Maybe there you will finally master your Greek. Benvolio, it appears you must return to the stand. Now tell me, dear youth, how Romeo did react to news of the Capulet party.

Benvolio: I am afraid that it was I who suggested that he attend the Capulet party. The reason being that the fair Rosaline, whom Romeo claimed earlier to love, would be dining there, along with all the admired beauties of Verona. By comparison, the new girl would look, I said to him, more crow than swan. Romeo replied that the all-seeing sun had never seen a beauty fairer than his new love since first the world begun …

Prince Escalus: Did Romeo often talk that way? I mean it’s rather affected, don’t you think?

Benvolio: Why yes, my Lord Prince, Romeo had a gay spirit that oft affected me. I persuaded him to crash the party by telling him that his newly beloved only looked good with no other girls around her. That left him no choice, alas, but to check out her competition. I have not further to add.

Prince Escalus: Will the Lady Capulet now take the stand. I ask you now to relate the conversation you had with your daughter Juliet and her Nurse on the day of the party thrown for Paris. But first, so that we may have it for the records, what is the name of Juliet’s former Nurse?

Lady Capulet: Name? I know it not. We’ve just called her Nurse as long as Juliet has been suckling on her teats — that is, for almost fourteen years. I thought to stop the practice more than a year ago, but Nurse, saying that Juliet gained wisdom at her teat, swore on her own maidenhead that Juliet would be ready to suck on a man when the time came.

I had to take Nurse’s word for she knew Juliet far better than I did. You see, Milord, I was much younger than Juliet when I first gave birth, and given my tender years, I was too shy to behold the nakedness of any of my babies. After my first two children died in infancy from wearing too many swaddling clothes, I hired Nurse to take care of Juliet. She alone ever saw my dear child undressed, even when Juliet’s body was washed for burial.

Prince Escalus: Well, the name of the Nurse can wait. Pray tell us about the conversation with Juliet about my kinsman Paris.

Lady Capulet: I asked Juliet how stood her disposition to be married. She replied that she was not dreaming of such an honor. I then advised her that here in Verona ladies of esteem, younger than her, had already been made mothers; indeed, I gave birth to Juliet when I was younger than she now is.

Prince Escalus: At age twenty-five you are surprisingly well-preserved.

Lady Capulet: Thank you, my liege, for your kind remarks to a lady with skin as sun-wrinkled as mine. After chiding Juliet for becoming an Old Maid, I told her that “valiant Paris” sought her “for his love”. Nurse piped up that Paris was a “man of wax,” which I took to be a compliment to his delightfully sallow complexion. To Juliet I said that she would behold him at that night’s feast. Try to see the beauty in his face, I advised, so that you may have the opportunity to share his gold. In short, I encouraged her to be a young romantic. Juliet promised to try to like to love Paris. I thought that a promising start.

Prince Escalus: Promising indeed, Lady Capulet. I am yet amazed that a woman who was within a year of becoming a grandmother still has half her teeth. In beauty you are truly blessed. That must be your consolation at this doleful time. I now call the Second Servant of the Capulet household to the stand. Knave, what be your Christian name?

Second Servant: ‘Tis Second, for second child of my mother I was. She stopped at eleven. As I am too lowly-born to have a surname, Second Servant I am and will always be. I understand that the Court wants me to report on what I heard Romeo and Tybalt say at Lord Capulet’s shindig.

[The Prince waved assent.]

First I saw Romeo, disguised in a mask but unable to disguise his falsetto voice. He was babbling — something about torches burning bright, jewels in Ethiopia’s ear, and a snowy dove trooping with crows. I thought him feverish until I saw that he was drooling over Lady Juliet. He said that he’d never seen “true beauty till this night.” I guess Romeo wanted his girlfriends to be mature and slightly tough with age; me, I like my meat to be tenderer.

Prince Escalus: Silence! Second Servant, I shall not have you defame Juliet, who was yet in her prime. Tell us, knave, what Tybalt, Lady Capulet’s nephew, said when he espied masked Romeo, a Montague, lurking like a thief in the Capulet home.

Second Servant: Lord Tybalt said that he could tell by the voice — I guess because it was so high-pitched — that he had come across a masked Montague. He asked me to fetch his rapier so that he might honor his Capulet kin by striking the intruder dead. I then went in search of Lord Tybalt’s sword.

[Second Servant was dismissed so that Lord Capulet could report on the ensuing conversation with irate Tybalt.]

Lord Capulet: Tybalt raged to me that a Montague, our foe, had come in order to make scorn of our party. I then recognized young Romeo. I advised Tybalt to let Romeo alone, for all of Verona regarded him as a virtuous and well-mannered youth. I ordered Tybalt to be patient, taking no note of Romeo during the party. After all, I didn’t want a duel to make a mutiny, an uproar, amongst our guests. He obeyed grudgingly. To learn what Romeo and Juliet said as they danced together, it will be necessary to interrogate that busybody Nurse.

Prince Escalus: I thank you for your testimony, Lord Capulet. I now call the woman known as Nurse to the stand. What be your Christian name, madam, surely it is not Nurse?

Nurse: It is the only name I know. My creator gave me none other.

Prince Escalus: It figures. Nurse, tell us what you overheard when Romeo did Juliet first meet.

Nurse: After saying that he’d profaned her holy shrine of a hand by touching it, Romeo begged to kiss the lips of my mistress Juliet. She told him that he kissed “by the book”. Taking that as a putdown, I intervened to rescue my good lady by saying that her mother craved a word with her.

After fair Juliet left, Romeo quizzed me about her mother and learnt from me that she was Lady Capulet, chatelaine of the house. Romeo became quite frightened and headed with his friends towards the red Exit torch. As they were departing, my mistress Juliet asked me to identify the man who had flirted with her. She said if he were married, she’d like to die.

I had to tell her that it was Romeo — and though he was definitely single, he was, alas, the only son of her family’s great enemy, Lord Montague. She wasn’t too happy, I tell you, to learn that, as she then lamented that her only love sprang from her only hate. I took that to mean that she’d henceforth stay far away from Romeo.

Prince Escalus: When he had already dared to enter her home? That would be difficult to do. Nurse, you are dismissed for now. I now call to the stand the cat burglar known as The Phantom. Yes, prop the Iron Maiden up against the wall. The Phantom no longer has need of a chair. But do open the Maiden’s door sufficiently to permit him to hear, to speak and to breathe.

Scurrilous knave, I order you to testify truthfully about what you overheard while you were waiting in the Capulet garden with your helmet, harness with belaying rope, axe, spring-loaded cams, karabiners, nuts, and quickdraws for climbing to the upper floors of the Capulet mansion after the family did fall asleep. Be warned: You will be water-boarded for any answer I do not like. Herald, hastily do something about the blood oozing from the Iron Maiden, for I did not purchase the stain-resistant carpet from the Sieur du Pont.

[Note from the Court Scribe: The testimony of the Phantom, being somewhat muffled, may not have been precisely as transcribed here. For the sake of concision this transcript also omits the coughs, the gasps, and choking sounds made by the witness before he lost consciousness.]

The Phantom: Your lordships, I swear I will tear to tell the holy truth, but would it be possible first to remove the thumb screws? No, well, it was, as I recall, Romeo who spoke first. He was hiding behind the next tree over, like most teens so obsessed with himself that he didn’t notice a bad dude — that’s me — lurking less than nine feet away.

I heard him say something about a light breaking through a yonder window. Said window was to the west of us, but he said, presumably for poetic effect, that “It is east, and Juliet is the sun.” After some nonsense about the moon envying the sun, he finally realized that his lady, his love, was flaunting her middle-aged bodice on the balcony.

Boy, did she ever look hot, considering that she was getting on in years! Romeo next wished he was a glove upon her hand so that he might touch her cheek. I have to admit that I was wishing I was a thong so that I could touch both cheeks.

[Let it be noted that the court was recessed for three hours at this point so that the Phantom might be stretched on the rack as punishment for talking dirty. Waterboarding, though contemplated, was rejected inasmuch as the Phantom, dying of thirst, might welcome it.]

The Phantom: I beg forgiveness for having spoken luridly about the fair Juliet. Should I resume? Yes. Thank God. Juliet, not seeing the lad Romeo and me in the garden, asked wherefore Romeo art? I didn’t quite understand that, but her meaning was clear enough when she called on Romeo to deny his father and refuse his name.

While I thought that wasn’t much to ask — you know, to ask Romeo to lose a wimpy name — Juliet said that if he swears her love, that she’d no longer be a Capulet. Since that family is as rich as Croesus, that was promising a lot. She next said it was but his name that was her enemy, and a name wasn’t all that important — it was not, she said, as important as a body part. I knew what she meant, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

[The Court was now adjourned for two hours while the Pearl of Anguish was put into the lewd mouth of the witness, its four leaves slowly opened by the torturer’s screw until he promised to speak, as best he could without teeth, less luridly of maid Juliet.]

The Phantom: As I was saying, the Lady Juliet claimed that names weren’t all that important to her, although I daresay that if mine were Montague, Capulet or de Medici, I would not be perishing, bleeding from a hundred cuts, in an Iron Maiden today. Prithee, Herald, do not shake the Maiden. I shall bite my tongue.

What we call a rose, Juliet said, would smell as sweet if it were called stinkweed. I thought to differ but kept my counsel, daring not to give my illicit presence away. Anyway, Juliet said that Romeo would still smell sweet if he were called Rodney or Ronald. That’s of course the way life is — the rich smell of frankincense, Chanel Number One, and myrrh, while we poor must smear ourselves with parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

[Once again the court was adjourned while the witness was slowly cooked in a cauldron of boiling water until he recognized the folly of speaking poorly of the rich, God’s favorite humans. He was then returned to the Iron Maiden, his skin an eye-pleasing lobster red. The Court alchemist subsequently observed that the flow of blood from the Iron Maiden seems to have been slowed by the Torture of Boiling. Praise be to God! — our scientific knowledge does advance in mysterious ways! The witness was advised that further misbehavior might lead to the ultimate punishment of having naked women writhe suggestively about on his body while mocking his religion and chastity.]

The Phantom: I confess my sins and pledge to sin no more. In the garden, Romeo spoke next: He said “I take thee at thy word” and asked to be new baptized under the name of Love. That were a good pickup line, weren’t it? I couldn’t help but say “Ahhhh.” Well, Juliet overheard him, as he surely intended, and she asked what man, hiding in the shadows, had stumbled upon her counsel. After all, she thought herself to be alone in a secluded, walled garden.

Calling her a saint, which I considered a mistake since saints generally don’t put out on the first date, Romeo said that his name was “hateful” to himself because it was “an enemy” of Juliet’s kin. As most of you know, Romeo had a high-pitched voice, which she recognized even though she had never heard more than a hundred words from his tongue’s utterance. So she asked if he weren’t Romeo and a Montague.

She wondered how he managed to scale the high orchard walls and why he tempted death, inevitable if her kinsmen judged him a Peeping Tom. Romeo replied that “love’s light wings” carried him over the wall, but I, suddenly realizing that I had left my ladder behind, knew it for a lie …

Prince Escalus: Hold it right there, villain. Are you admitting that it was your ladder that gave Romeo access to the Capulet grounds, thus setting in motion the tragedy?

[The wretch known as The Phantom tapped a feeble yes with his shackled feet, thereby causing the Iron Maiden to tip over, giving fright to Benvolio and the ladies in attendance. As punishment for this affront to the dignity of the Court and for violating Verona’s ordinance against leaving a ladder exposed and unlocked where it might be used recklessly by heedless youth, The Phantom was placed in a gibbet (a large metal basket) hung from a pole above the city dump, there to be exposed to inclement weather and voracious vermin for six days. He was the first witness when the inquest resumed.]

The Phantom: If it pleases your Most Merciful Excellency, I wish to thank You, and God, and the Commune of Verona for providing me with prostheses to replace the feet I lost while receiving just chastisement in the gibbet. By protecting me from the bottommost spikes of the Iron Maiden, they have renewed hope that I shall still be respiring as my testimony is expiring.

[His Excellency Prince Escalus smiled beneficently, and with a gracious gesture bade the lowly criminal known as The Phantom to resume telling what transpired in the Capulet orchard.]

The Phantom: If the court pleases, I shall not reveal the actual terms of endearment exchanged by Romeo and Juliet as I lingered in the garden. I do not want to shock the women here present nor bore the adolescent males with what they might consider “the mushy part” or my tale. It suffices to say that Romeo and Juliet agreed that they had fallen in love at first sight. All I will say is that it’s not a good idea to swear true love on the moon, it being as inconstant as the tides.

Prince Escalus: Worm, who was it that first proposed they exchange vows of fidelity?

The Phantom: Why, Romeo it was, though Juliet claimed that she had given hers to him before he did request it. Juliet, resorting to cliché, said her love for Romeo was as deep as the sea. Until then, I had thought her too poetical for such a middling metaphor. Oops, possibly I’ve said too much.

[The court was adjourned for several hours so that the vile creature known as The Phantom could be seated naked on top of the Cradle of Judas, so that its pyramidal apex did enter his man pussy. As he slid ever farther down the pyramid, he did become stretched enough to make it impossible for him ever again to pleasure a Clydesdale stallion, Cretan bull or Korean male, at which point he agreed never again to criticize the poetic allusions of his social superiors.]

The Phantom: My humble apologies to his Excellency the Prince and this Court solemnly assembled for being such a pain in the ass. I am not used to speaking or being seen in public. To resume my tale of woe — at least to me — Juliet told Romeo that if his love was honourable, his purpose marriage (rather than a roll in the hay) that he should send word on the morrow as to when and where she should meet him for the wedding rite.

An elopement in other words. Is that right proper for a noble couple? Juliet promised to follow Romeo “throughout the world.” They agreed, milord, for her to send someone at the hour of nine to be advised of his plans for their wedding. Juliet then, worried that daylight might expose Romeo’s position to her kinsmen — or was it his youthful acne to her? — bade Romeo goodbye until the morrow by saying that parting was for her a sweet sorrow. I thought that well said. It even rhymed. After Juliet went inside, Romeo said he was heading off to his “ghostly father’s cell” — shades of Hamlet! — his help to crave. I know nothing more, Your Benevolent Excellency.

Prince Escalus: Loathsome wretch, you are dismissed from further testimony. Guards, return him to the dungeons, where his many puncture wounds shall be rubbed with salt and pepper so that he may yet survive. Let it be known that as reward for his cooperation in these proceedings, that the pernicious worm known as The Phantom shall not be broken on the wheel, though death be the prescribed punishment for attempted burglary.

Remembering the mercy shown by our Lord Jesus Christ to Dismas, the penitent thief on the second cross at Cavalry, I decree that The Phantom’s punishment shall be limited to the loss of one arm for possession of burglary tools, the loss of another for leaving the ladder unlocked, as well as his tongue for commenting on Lady Juliet’s poetical skills after promising never again to judge his social betters.

Be sure to remind the villainous Phantom that blinding is the punishment for begging by the limbless within the city walls. However, I am confident that he has learnt the errors of his way and shall return to bricklaying, the trade for which he apprenticed. As I am totally exhausted by the arduous process of extracting testimony from the insect known as The Phantom, this inquest into the deaths of Romeo and Juliet is adjourned until the morrow.

End of Act 1 — Be sure to come back after the intermission to download Act 2, “Not another tranny!”