by Bruce Barber
get out of there... all that smoke. Thank God the audience was small...”
“I had them in the palm of my hand.”
“You almost got us killed, you crazy old fool,” Keyes said.
“I had to finish the scene, didn’t I?”
“You did not have to finish the scene! No one could hear you, anyway... people screaming, bells ringing, sirens...”
“But we were so close to the end.” O’Reilly paused, then his chest swelled as he prepared to soliloquize,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe...
Keyes slowly lowered his head to the table top and rested it on his folded arms.
...Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their med’cinable gum...
“Ha! I love ‘med’cinable gum.’ I couldn’t stop until we got to ‘med’cinable gum.”’
Keyes peeked up at him. “And you didn’t stop even then.”
“I had to finish,” O’Reilly insisted in a voice he might have used if charging the guns at Balaklava. He gestured broadly, magnificently.
...took by th’ throat the circumcized dog
And smote him, thus.
The last word rumbled volcanically through the pub.
“You almost got us killed,” Keyes repeated.
“Almost, but not quite. We’re here, aren’t we? What are you complaining about?”
“I know, I know... I shouldn’t grumble.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” O’Reilly said. “It was a memorable tour.”
“It certainly was that,” Keyes agreed at last. “In any event, we started with good material.” He raised his glass. “To Shakespeare.”
“To Shakespeare,” O’Reilly solemnly intoned.
Keyes smiled. This toasting game they had often played before, but usually late at night and never when they were sober.
“Are we drunk?” Keyes asked.
“We are inspired,” O’Reilly said, his voice heading toward the upper ranges of his register. “To art!”
“And to justice!”
O’Reilly lowered his glass. “What’s justice got to do with anything?”
“Exactly!” Keyes said, knocking back his drink.
O’Reilly signalled Bruno. “Give me a cup of sack, rogue! And bring one for my whoreson friend!”
“Oh, God,” the bartender said to Julia. “They’ll start singing in a minute.”
They did start singing, and they continued to sing –when they weren’t arguing – for the rest of the afternoon, and most of the evening.
No one in Stratford seemed to mind.
(5:6) Stratford, the train station
FIRST WOMAN
Do you have our tickets, love?
SECOND WOMAN
Yes, right here... this is so exciting! I’ve never been to Venice!
FIRST WOMAN
Oh, it will enchant you. I met the most interesting man there, a centaur almost... half horse.
SECOND WOMAN
Really! Sometimes you say the most awful things...
FIRST WOMAN
I say truthful things.
THIRD WOMAN
Excuse me... I have to make a connection to Montreal. Do you know if the train will be on time?
SECOND WOMAN
I doubt it; it almost never is!
THIRD WOMAN
Oh. Well, thanks.
SECOND WOMAN
Do we know her?
FIRST WOMAN
I don’t believe so.
SECOND WOMAN
She looked familiar...
FIRST WOMAN
Darling, everyone around here looks familiar after a while... But listen, let me tell you about Venice...
THE END