Tales of the Common People:

"Rumble & Shakespeare"

By David D. Amaya

Part 1

This is my first TCP story and my first Challenge response. But unlike other TCPs this is a LONG one. I hope the story is worth the size.

Sheldon Burnham's Unique Power Challenge:

Sheldon says he's tired of the telepath of the week and the telekinetic of the week. His challenge is to write a mutant whose powers are anything but those two, the more unique the better!

Disclaimer: One character.(Non X) Two places, and the overall concept belong to Marvel. Two stupid look-a-likes resemble characters belonging to Mike Judge. The rest is mine.

Thanks Go out to my Beta Readers: Raven Adams and "Kielle" Newcomb. Thank you guys for all your help!

I thought he was dead...

It wasn't bad enough he had crossed the wrath of Frank "Dice" Markinson, but the only one who had the nerve to stand up for him was mad at him too!

I keep thinking they'd draw straws or flip freshman to decide who'd kill him, but I NEVER figured it would have ended like THAT, even all these months later.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm rambling again, I guess you don't know what I'm talking about. My name is Jerry Tubbs, and the aforementioned dead man is my best friend in the world, Shakes, short for "Shakespeare."

Now I know what you're thinking, 'Anyone nicknamed after a dead playwright has to be a short, skinny, wimp of a 14-year-old, with a name like Poindexter.'

Well, if you thought that...

You'd be right.

Not only is he almost 7 inches shorter than anyone else in school, he doesn't weigh 100 pounds fully clothed, soaking wet, and holding an shot put.

And this from his BEST FRIEND!

For I am nothing if not critical -
Othello, Scene II, Act I, Line 119

The only weight-lifting Poindexter Goldstine does is lugging that monstrous book around, "The Complete Unabridged Illustrated Works Of William Shakespeare." I mean, that book weighed almost as much as he does! But every morning you could see him at the bus stop, his nose about thirteen inches from the words of the Bard.

He does the same thing after school and sometimes, right after lunch.

That day he was reading "A Mid-Summer's Night Dream," but I like to think of that day as "The Late-Winter Afternoon's Nightmare."

But even then we have to turn the clock back just a little further.

The true beginning of our end -
A Midsummer-Night's Dream V, I, 111

We had just started lunch here at the first day here at Yancy Street High School, when this junior walked up and took Shakes' orange juice.

I mean there wasn't any growling, threats or shakedown (pun NOT intended), he just walked up, grabbed the 99-cent carton, and walked out of the lunchroom!

He's been doing it every day since.

Now, it wasn't like Shakes ever went hungry (despite all appearances to the contrary), as he always had a peanut butter sandwich with a banana and a Sprite, but this junior strolls on in, takes the juice, and strolls back out.

One day I had even suggested that he get two and hide one in his backpack, but that backfired as he walked, up grabbed the OJ on the table, then opened his backpack and took the other!

I asked him why he didn't stop buying OJ if all it was good for was getting swiped.

He just picks his face up from the book and with this short grin said that he 'didn't want to deprive him his Vitamin C'!

The robb'ed that smiles steals something from the thief.
Othello, I, iii, 208

It was right after that, on March 15th, this all started.

Beware the Ides of March.
Julius Caesar, I, ii, 18

Shakes and I were waiting for the bus home, his nose firmly planted in Act II Scene ii. That's when Dice, the self-professed leader of the Yancy Street Gang, came over to us, then, with a fifth of Thunderbird on his breath (or so I was told), said, "Hey dork, I'm short for beer, fork over some green!"

"But all I have is for the bus," I told Dice.

"You don't need money to walk, dickweed," he remarked then he reached into my back pocket and grabbed my wallet and took out the three dollars I had in it.

"Now its your turn, Poindexter," he sneered at Shakes.

Not even taking his eyes out of his book he produced a 5 bill and handed it to Dice.

"Hey, thanks," he said as he snatched the bill from him. Then that Neanderthal brain started a thought (a dangerous pastime for him, I'm quite sure).

"Hey, if you were so willing to part with a five-spot, you gotta have more. Turn out your pockets or I'm gonna pound ya!"

"That's all the money I have," he told the bully, still nose-deep in the book.

Then Dice grabbed the book and threw it down a sewer main.

Shakes looked like that was his arm he had ripped off.

"You ruined it," Shakes said, the dread finally reaching his voice. "That book has been in my family for eight generations. It is priceless... irreplaceable."

"So's teeth! You gonna fork or am I gonna have ta kick yur ass!"

"That was brought over from Europe," Shakes continued looking ready to die from the loss. "My grandfather brought it with him when he escape the Nazis. It will kill him that it is ruined."

"So what, nerd," Dice touted. "You wanna hit me."

Suddenly Shakes straightened up, struggling to choke back the tears that were welling up in him. "I'm a pacifist," he told the drunk-assed bully. "I will never raise my hands in anger against another human being."

Every man has his fault, and honesty, is his.
Timon of Athens I, ii, 152

This brought a big smile to Dice ...

One may smile and smile, and be villain!
Hamlet, I, v, 108

...That is, if you can call a gaped-tooth leer a smile (I guess that's why they call him 'Dice').

Then he grabbed Shakes by his caller with his left hand and with enough cold to freeze the East River said...

"I'm NOT!"

"Me either, Markinson."

Dice turned around to the voice that kept Shakes from joining poor Ulrich's fate. A teenager in a red Chicago Blackhawks Jersey.

It was the guy that's been stealing Shakes' OJ!

"What you gonna do, fuck face?"

"Only if you swallow, Craps."

That did it.

Dice dropped Shakes and was eye to eye with the guy in the B'Hawks sweater.

O! What a war of looks was there between them!
Venus and Adonis, Line 355

"I'm gonna enjoy stompin' your ass, Zamoro."

"It's gonna be tuff to stomp anything with a full body cast."

While all this was going on, Shakes dove for the sewer main and crawled through the opening. (Oh don't worry about him getting stuck. Remember he's so skinny, he can hula-hoop in an onion ring.) Amazingly, he was able to retrieve the book, although it was now water-soaked to about three times its normal size.

"...And I'll even let you have the first swing," said the drunken Markinson.

"Your funeral, Dice," said the other guy as he cracked his knuckles.

"Wait!" Shakes yelled as he ...

Jumped in between them!

"It's all right, I was able to get it back. Maybe I can get it restored. You don't have to end this in violence."

"Someone has to teach this clown that you can't push everyone around," said the kid in the hockey jersey, "and I'm Just what Dr. Kevorkian ordered."

"NO!" said Shakes with authority I never ever saw in him. "You will not fight another person on my behalf."

"So what's it gonna be Poinsy," Dice taunted. "YOU wanna fight me?"

"If that will keep you from fighting each other, yes. I'll fight you instead."

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
Measure for Measure, III, I, 214

He snapped I tell you.

He's been picked on all his life because he won't ever fight back.

I remember him telling me once that his father was killed when he was four, during a mugging on a business trip in Philadelphia. He made a promise on his grave that he would never hit another man.

"All right, road kill, tomorrow at twelve noon on the football field." he said as he turned and staggered away. "Bring your next of kin."

The guy in the B'Hawks jersey made a move toward him, but somehow Shakes held him back.

"NO!" Shakes told him as Dice disappeared from view. (if not scent) "I will not allow you to fight him. There is nothing worth fighting for."

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
Othello I, I, 124

The guy then grabbed Shakes by the collar and dragged him behind the bushes. As I followed them he let Shakes go rather forcefully, but at least he let him go.

"LOOK!" he started to yell at him. "I don't know what the hell your malfunction is, but if you forgot, that book was a family heirloom. Or was that just a load of shit?"

"No, I didn't lie to him," said Shakes. "My grandfather gave it to me at my Bar Mitzvah last year. His father gave it to him just before ... before the Gestapo took him to Auschwitz and murdered him."

"Look Goldstine, I'm not Jewish, but if someone aced something priceless to my family, the only thing on my mind would be payback, with extreme prejudice."

"It isn't a 'Jewish thing,'" Shakes told him. "I promised my father I would never raise my hands in anger to another human being."

"But you just got yourself into a fight with Lice Markinson."

"Yes, but I'm not going to fight him. Violence never solves anything."

"That's where your wrong, Goldstine," he told Shakes. "I'm a Golden Gloves boxer back in Chicago. I can take him fast and he won't get hurt, well too much anyway, but it will teach his ass a lessen."

"Listen to him, Shakes," I pleaded. "He can snap you like a twig."

"Listen to your friend, Goldstine. People like that push weaker people around. They push, and they push, and they push until someone pushes back! And that someone is gonna be ME!"

"Not this time," said Shakes. "I'm not going to allow you to fight him."

Just then our bus pulled up. Lucky for us Shakes knows the driver, so he let us pay the next day. But the guy wasn't finished with Shakes just yet.

"What are YOU going to do then, Goldstine. Revoke my sparing license?"

Just as we left the clearing to the bus stop, Shakes turned back at the guy and said, "If I have to...

"Yes."

End of Part one

© David D. Amaya 1998