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By Root 874 0

terminology) that I had reached second base with Ellen Harrison, a girl I hadn’t known he liked and in whom I’d had very little interest to begin with and, oddly, exactly zero interest after my hands had touched her breasts, all desire vanishing like October snow on a Minneapolis sidewalk. The battle was joined again in the woods behind school, our wet hair picking up leaves and moss as we rolled in the dirt and smacked at each other’s faces with pinioned arms, like boxing T. rexes.

This scene of two friends fighting without understanding the cause gives me some respect for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it is a pity we had no fairies to clean up the mess we made of our friendship in that disenchanted forest. The green, hazy enmity from that day floated on and on and never quite dissipated. Later, in a new twisting away from reality, I convinced myself that it was my father’s fault that my friendship with Doug ended. If my father had not been a criminal, Doug’s honorable, dull father would not have been forced to prosecute him, and I would not have been forced to choose (as I later interpreted the situation, forgetting Ellen Harrison’s role entirely) between friendship and family. I chose family! I told myself. Like a fiery Capulet! And in spite of my own self-interest! I wasn’t invited to Doug and Ellen’s 1988 wedding.

11

ACT II OPENS WITH one of those ostensibly “funny” scenes, in which characters speak in something more like the normal manner of Shakespeare’s time, not iambic pentameter. They are often lower-class characters and are supposed to be both comic and wise, or at least that’s how they’re treated now. In the case of The Tragedy of Arthur, it’s the servant in charge of King Arthur’s hunting dogs, reminiscing about what a fun kid Arthur used to be. He discusses with his apprentice boy whether Arthur will be a warlike king or will bring peace to Britain. Does it prove anything that they refer to a dog named Socrates and that my father supposedly had a Scottie named Socrates when he was a boy? I don’t honestly know that this is definitive. There must be some statistical likelihood we could calculate: What are the chances that my father could have a dog as a child and then grow up to discover the only copy of a play that referred to a dog of the same name? One in a … Or he lied about having a dog named Socrates. Or he lied about finding a play by William Shakespeare. I’m trotting ahead of myself.

Arthur then leads his troops in the siege of York, beating the allied Pict-Saxon-Scot army, forcing them to retreat to Lincoln, where they have secret reinforcements lying in wait. Arthur, thinking he has won the war, decides to stay in York for some vague purpose, telling Gloucester to lead the army to Lincoln in his place, disguised as the king. Arthur promises to arrive before any battle. A chorus of common soldiers leads us to Lincoln, with another dreary scene of earthy “humor,” boring me enough to convince me that the whole play is authentic. Lincoln turns out to be a large battle. Arthur is late arriving from York, so Gloucester leads the fight dressed as Arthur and wins a tremendous victory, killing Hebrides, the heir to the Scottish throne. Arthur arrives in time to take all the credit and review the prisoners, including the Saxon chief as well as Mordred and his brother. Feeling generous, even proud of his generosity, and trying to be unlike his father, he frees most of the prisoners on promises of good behavior, keeping Mordred’s brother as a hostage. Arthur’s most militaristic noble, the Earl of Cumbria, is disgusted by the show of mercy.

Arthur’s childhood friend Constantine, the Earl of Cornwall, arrives to offer reinforcements and to share Arthur’s vision for a unified, peaceful Britain, a world totally unlike the dark years of his father’s reign. Before Arthur can achieve that goal, however, the paroled Saxons break the truce and attack yet again. Arthur is enraged by his own leniency and charges off to yet another battle. Mordred’s father dies, making him King of Pictland, and he maneuvers to become