The Emerald Light in the Air Read Online Free Page B

see, above me, faeries’ legs dangling from platforms in trees, pair after pair of young legs.
    â€œGood dope,” I whispered to Billy.
    Then Danielle gave the signal, and Greg Lippincott walked onstage and exclaimed, “Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace; four happy days bring in another moon.” Who can listen to that kind of stuff? A moment later came the cue for the young lovers to stumble out and stand before their elders. There was not much ground to stand on, only slippery grass beside the hole, where Martin was sunk in black water to his chin. The crooked duck regarded Martin with crazed eyes. “Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my child, my daughter Hermia,” growled Egeus, as faculty, alumni, and a few undergraduates and parents wept tears for Harrison Mackay. Understandably, I felt the need to get a laugh. “The course of true love never did run smooth,” I proclaimed morosely, and at that instant the duck began flapping its maimed wings, and Martin waved his cane wildly, and a gust of wind blew in like a sneeze from God, shaking the trees and blowing hats off heads in the audience. I looked for Carol among the mourners. Where was she? Did she truly love me enough to have a child with me?
    â€œIt’s going pretty well, don’t you think?” I asked Billy when we came offstage at the middle of act one. We listened respectfully as Helena rattled off her famous speech about being sexually unattractive; and then Bottom and his men took over, rushing out and tackling one another and flubbing their lines—but it didn’t matter what they did, because these characters are probably the most indestructible comic team in all of English literature, and, sure enough, when Bottom crunched Lion in the windpipe with his weight belt the audience let out its first decent belly laugh of the night. Billy and I hid behind the backstage trees and waited to run out, lie down to sleep on the cold ground, get drugged by Puck, wake up with our hard-ons, and begin chasing each other and/or Mary Victoria Frost and/or Sheila Tannenbaum through the haunted woods. Billy whispered, “Can I talk to you, Reg?”
    â€œCall me Lysander during the show.”
    â€œI didn’t want you to think, after the other day, you know, that I don’t love my father.”
    He seemed maudlin, not at all like a happy comedian eager to chew the scenery. “I didn’t think that. I’m sure you love your father very much,” I assured him.
    Saying this made me sad. Billy told me, “My father is not a bad man, no matter what people say.”
    Night was falling; the air had grown cold. Puck on his stomach crawled up the bank of his pond, then splashed back down into the water. Faeries on platforms jumped up and down noisily. Mary and Sheila, one tree over from me and Billy, adjusted costumes and each other’s hair. Up Puck came again, covered in mud. His glasses had slipped from his head, and now his sightless eyes stared wildly; he could not have realized how afraid he looked. “I’ll put a girdle. Round about. Earth —” he sputtered as, suddenly, the duck attacked. Martin howled and grasped at the mud and the grass, reaching for a handhold on dry land. It was too late. The duck blasted off the pond and came down hard in a spray of foam on Martin’s pudgy, naked back. Webbed feet slapped the boy’s white skin as the duck gave the coup de grâce with a thrust of her bill into Martin’s neck.
    â€œThanks for talking, Lysander,” Billy exclaimed. He bolted from behind our oak tree. Sheila Tannenbaum leaped out of hiding and ran after him. “I love thee not, therefore pursue me not,” the boy yelled at the girl.
    What is more exciting than kinetic, technical theater, the impeccable orchestrations of pratfall farce? I say this in consideration of the fact that audience members were leaving their seats and