Last-Minute Juliet

By Tunnels Magee

When the girl playing Juliet in a student production of 'Romeo & Juliet' takes ill on opening night, a male crew member who knows everyone's lines is pressed into service to fill her shoes (and dress). When everyone starts treating him nicer as a girl, he wonders if this is what he wanted all along.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tunnels Magee
• Release date: Dec 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370622092

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Last-Minute Juliet

By Tunnels Magee

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©2016 Tunnels Magee

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OK, we’ve all pranced around the house in our sister’s underwear when we had the house to ourselves; that goes without saying. But this was much bigger than that. From such modest beginnings I found myself on a slippery slope and now I was a boy in a girls’ room looking in the mirror. And Juliet was looking back at me. Yes that Juliet. I was wearing a dress from the 16th century, my face was made up, my hair was done up, and I was actually kind of hot. Going back and forth behind me were teen girls in various stages of dress, which they probably wouldn’t be if they knew I was a boy. So far I had fooled the cast, and in ten minutes I’d have to fool the whole audience. This wasn’t how I planned my day. When I woke up that morning I was planning on doing manly things. I was going to deliver the newspapers on my route, then maybe play some street hockey.

How did things go so terribly off the rails?

It’s a funny story actually.

Even before this, I had been leading a double life in the summer of ’76. Mornings were spent delivering newspapers. Afternoons were spent at the local community center for a teen theater workshop.

The paperboy life and the theater life were two totally different things. The sun would be rising and us paperboys would meet in a garage in our neighborhood to pick up our papers. If the truck was late, we’d have to hang out and wait for it. We were all boys, and it was rough. Lots of body checks, rough housing and tough talk. If I complained they’d say I was gay or worse. There was fighting and cursing and smoking. My mom thought it would be good for me to have a job to make extra money, but she had no idea what kind of dick heads I worked with. I really didn’t enjoy the constant pressure to be a tough guy, I just wanted to get my papers and go.

One day I had accidentally bumped into Frankie, the branch douche bag. I said sorry but he pushed me back real hard. Watch it, bitch!

I said I was sorry, I said.

He repeated me in an exaggerated whiny voice, I said I was sorry.

I tried to walk away but he pushed me again. Where you going, Turdy?

I should point out my name is Terry, but he called me Turdy to piss me off. And it worked because I pivoted and pushed him back, and soon a small circle of boys was crowding around us.

Just when I thought I was about to get pummeled, a car pulled up, scattering the boys. The branch manager got out of the car. He was middle-aged, had a comb-over and had the unenviable job of keeping testosterone-driven adolescents focused on delivering newspapers.

Knock it off, he said, getting between us. Just deliver your papers and stop torturing one another.

My best friend Brian was a paperboy too. He approached when the dust settled. You were good back there, he said as we both got on our bikes.

I hate this constant tough-guy act, I complained.

He’s a dick, he said to console me.

In the theater group, we all get along, there’s no competition to be the biggest dick, I said.

Yeah, he said, I wouldn’t go mentioning to the other paperboys about your theater group.

And he was right; I had commemorative T-shirts for every play I had been in or worked on, yet I couldn’t wear them to pick up the papers. If the decal on your T-shirt wasn’t suitably manly (trucks, baseball players), you were deemed queer.

Before splitting paths to our respective routes, he asked if I’d be by for dinner at his house.

Your sister’s taking me to play practice, I reminded him.

Since Brian and I were best friends this was a common thing. He’d often have dinner at my house and on days I had theater I usually had dinner at his house. Afterward we’d watch TV in his bedroom while waiting for his sister Kara to take me to theater.

Row homes in Philly are pretty tightly packed. I had 60 papers to deliver every morning but it wasn’t a lot of ground to cover. I’d lock my bike up to a pole and divide the papers. I would leave 30 with my bike, then I’d go up and down the street delivering the other half. Then I’d put the other 30 in my bag and deliver them on the next block. A little old lady named Mrs. Johnson always met me at her door and chatted with me. She tipped me best and not-so-coincidentally she got the best service.

On a sunny day it wasn’t a bad job. The only downside was the jerks at the distribution point.

When I got home, I took my bike into the basement and went upstairs to see my mom packing her lunch for work. She was in her 30s, and I thought very pretty, but what did I know, I was her son. We were about the same height but