Author's Note: This is actually a modern version of Romeo and Juliet I wrote a long time ago for English, but never finished as I only got done with the first act. There's a lot more after this, but I'm just putting this up to see if anyone's interested.
I set the story in the Civil War era, somewhere near the Mason-Dixon line, and did my best at dialect. Now, I don't want any flames because I put in the accents. I'm from the South myself, and I have nothing against African Americans or white people. But I'm writing it according to the times.
Disclaimer: Will Shakespeare is one of the greatest and well known playwrights of all time. Do you really think I can get away with stealing his work, even if my version isn't in prose and is in a different time era?
Two sides. Two different stories. Two ways to look at things.
On one side, there are the cold and windy cities of the north, years ahead in industrialization and in pollution, with hard streets and hard workers, equals and superiors sometimes molding into one. To survive, you work together, you fight for right, or you fight for yourself. Whatever you do, you never stop fighting.
From seemingly nowhere in the windy, overgrown and crowded scene comes a visionary from a simpler upbringing. He speaks of justice for all people, but through that violence, the other side, which before was just separate from the harsh and swarming masses of the North, will become an enemy.
On the other side, in a land of lush surroundings and plantations that can go for miles, full of elegant people who socialize often and use their upbringing to the fullest, there comes the second argument. Here work is done by the lower class, and the two classes could not be more clearly distinguished. They detest the, as they see it, useless and tiresome bustle of the Northern city, and relish the simpler places and times, with foreigners as their work force. Tempers have flared further as the Northerners have declared war on them over their tradition that has lasted for ages, saying now such practices should be outlawed.
Neither side is to socialize with the other. Both point fingers and say the other stands in the wrong. Both are quick to judge. War tears at both their lands, and the closer to the line between the two you are, the closer your perception of the damage becomes, and the closer two stories come to becoming one.
"Damn Yankees." Sam growled to himself as he re-folded the day's newspaper, hitting the front story with a great deal of anger in his voice. In the few towns bordering the Mason-Dixon line, life was growing incredibly horrible for the hot-tempered and mild alike, and the waiting for news, for the few newspapers that came in to Harpies Springs weekly from Philadelphia…and adding to the sting, having to hear it from a Northerner's point of view, was making many of the resident's blood boil. Sam once again slapped at the headline, talking to the usual gatherers at the drug store for a thread of news or rumors to carry home. "Can ya believe it? Atlanta! Burned! Why those insolent little –"
"Language, Sam!" A wife in the crowd warned, glaring as she motioned to some little ones nearby, staring innocently and sucking on hard candies bought from the drug store.
"An' when it happens here, not just in the main cities, ya worry abou' language." He muttered darkly as he unfolded the newspaper again and began scanning the article again.
Another man, dark haired and lanky with quick satirical eyes laughed. "Them Yankees won't bother us, Sam, you ought not worry about that."
"What's more than that, as if they hadn't infested us enough, their comin' into Maryland! Livin' here!" Sam exclaimed again, losing himself in the passion of it all, the indignity. "Coming here to tell us how to live while they kill our men and burn our lands and free the niggers and—"
"Sam!" The woman exclaimed again, trying to calm him before he last himself in his rage.
"Oh, let him fuss, Myrna. He'll tire himself ou' eventually." Greg laughed.
"Well, it's God's truth and you know it! Those slaves are ours by righ', an' they come and free 'em by secret, take 'em 'cross the border and then we can't touch 'em! As if our lives weren't enough! It's no' a matter of justice, Myrna, it's a matter that we got the better lands first an' they know it."
Several of the crowd murmured their agreement, but Greg just raised his dark brows in a questioning manner, raising a crooked index to point a mixed group of African and white companions. "Well, if ya feel so strongly, Sam, go take it ou' on them. I'll back ya up, if ya like."
"Back me up or make a fool o' me?" Sam questioned with a dismissive wave of his hand, and then turned his angry mahogany eyes on the cluster of people moving down the street, talking and laughing. An African young man to the front was making jokes, causing the laughter as he walked backwards to face the moving crowd. Sam picked a smooth rock from the ground, feeling the weight of it for several moments before launching it, hitting the other in the side of the head and causing him to start, turning his dark eyes toward the others near the drug store with surprise that soured to anger.
"What'd I do t' you, Mister?" He called out, indignant manner crossing his strong features.
"Show up in our town, that's what!" Sam called back, his eyes flashing, challenging the group to make a move toward a fight.
"It don' belong t' you, suh, no offense meant!" The other said in retort, and several of his fellows glared daggers at the group rallied around the drug store. Such skirmishes between the groups of Northerners and escaped slaves and the loyal Southerners were becoming more and more common, especially near the Line.
One of the ones in the crowd near the drug store picked up another rock and launched it toward the same young boy. Before any could tell what was happening, the two were fighting, Sam and the boy, Abe, punching and kicking, several others joining into the fray. The women gathered the children away from the street fight as several others came running from their homes, yelling and brandishing rifles in the air. A sheriff emerged from his office, sleepy eyed and half drunk, confusion quickly going to indignant anger as he tried to break things up. Another man, with light brown hair in natural tight curls and a light tan complexion made it to the fray first, breaking up Abe and Sam. His voice hinted at both Yankee and slave dialect.
"Easy, suhs, easy…Mayor'll be on both of us if we act like this." He edged himself between the two groups, flashing a smile to Sam and the other men, trying to calm them. "Jus' take it easy. The heat of the day's jus' gone to all of our tempers, that's all…"
"The heat o' the day or the heat o' indignity?" Called a voice from behind the group. A man with longish blond hair and piercing blue eyes had sauntered up, eyes clearly speaking that he regretted missing the beginning of the fray. He smirked in an unpleasant way, as if he knew that the peacemaker's answer would assure him victory no matter what the response.
"Maybe a lil' of both, Mister Tyler." Answered the light skinned man, face going carefully blank and guarded.
"An' why shouldn' we be indignant?" The man called Tyler said, eyes flitting between the two groups, though clearly speaking to Sam's side. "Slave's escapin' when they shoul' be workin'; Yankees takin' over our land…" He eyes cast unpleasantly over the light skinned man, who went by the name of Ben. "…An' creatures like him runnin' 'round…half white, half slave…"
"I am wha' I am." Ben said in his defense, his tone calm but his eyes flashing in anger.
"O' course…doesn' mean the res' o' of us should have to put up with ya. Gentlemen, Ah think it's time we ran these Yanks off our land. They been here long enough!" Tyler smirk widened as the men behind Sam gave a resolute shout and started the fighting once more, some going hand to hand and some using the rifles, gunshot echoing across town, stirring people from their homes and chores. A man with graying hair and steel eyes emerged from a local tavern, surveying the fight for a few seconds before going off in its direction, obviously intent on joining in. A woman from the pub put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from moving further on.
"Woah, there, Mister Connors, what'd your wife be sayin' if Ah le' you get hurt?"
"Ge' off me, Belle! Ah've got kinsmen in that fight!"
In the opposite street corner, from a run-down hotel came a tall, older African gentlemen with kind eyes but a beaten and weathered face. His wife, short and thickset woman grabbed his arm before he could go off in the direction of the fight.
"You won' be goin' over there an' makin' a fuss, Mike."
"Lawd have mercy, if you don' lemme go, Margie…"
All of the commotion came to an abrupt halt as a loud rifle went off in the dead center of town. Sam was paused in the middle of throttling Abe, Tyler in the middle of trying to force Ben to fight. Heads turned simultaneously to see where the loudest of the gunshots had come from, seeing the Mayor with the sheriff alongside him, both of them wearing a grim face, though the sheriff's expression may have just come from his bleeding nose.
The Mayor surveyed those responsible for the fight for several long moments before speaking, his eyes roving over everyone from his perch on a tall black stallion. "Now, lissen hear, all o' ya! Ya'll keep carryin' on like this, an' someone's gonna get killed! Ah can't risk the lives in this town over this war. If ya'll wanna settle this dispute, then ya'll go sign up for the war like everyone else." His eyes went to the Northerners first, lingering on Mike and the boy, Abe. "If Ah catch any more word o' fuss outta ya'll, then ya'll can pack up and go back to Philadelphia." Next his attention went to Sam, and Mr. Connors. "If ya'll can' keep your tempers under control, then keep yourself outta my town. Either one o' ya'll fight any more, it better be on a battle ground, or ya can spend your time in the town jail—indefinitely."
With grumbles, the men began to separate, taking their different paths home. Sam went back to the drugstore to be scolded by Myrna, who had the children gathered around her, and Abe gathered with the rest of his friends, sporting a black eye as a prize.
Margie, the large and warm spirited woman who helped run the town hotel, and also helped slaves escape, gathered Ben out of the group and quickly pulled him inside, tutting and sighing over his appearance after the scrape. The African woman took care of any that came under her wing, and her attitude had earned her the nickname of "Aunt" which is what everyone but her husband,Mike, called her by.
"Lawd, if it ain' enough, all this fightin' and squawlin'…enough to drive a woman mad…you got yoursel' good, this time, Benny boy, make no mistake…gettin' in the middle of it like that and worryin' an ol' woman like myself…outta be ashamed…" She prattled on as she tended to the minor wounds Ben had gotten, just a scrape across the arm and a swollen lip. "An' top it all, mah Robbie ain' shown his face all mornin'…dunno where in Lawd's name that chil's got to…it's enough to give a woman a heartattack, I tell ya…it ain' righ'…"
Ben began to laugh. "Don't you worry abou' Robbie, Aunt. He's alright…saw him down by the creek earlier this morning. He's probably just a bit upset 'bout the crossing." The "crossing"—the time when Aunt, Mike, and their son Robbie had made it over to Philadelphia—had happened ages ago, long enough that most freed slaves had made their adjustments by now. It just wasn't that case for Robbie. Mike, who came in a little later, smoking a pipe, his face shrouded with the intensity of his thoughts, illuminated on what he caught of the conversation.
"Boy's been mopin' too long. 'Bout time someone talked to him…he's free, ain' he? Ain' no reason on God's good earth to be feelin' like he does!"
Aunt wagged a finger in his direction. "Now, you be easy on the boy, Mike. He had a hard crossin' and you know it. Leavin' behind all his friends like that, thinkin' of 'em back on that plantation, slavin' away when he don' have to…gotta leave the boy with a sense of guilt."
Mike frowned deeper and sighed. "We're workin' on gettin' everyone out, Margie…what more can we ask for bu' time?"
Ben stood, waving off Aunt's insistent buzzing and twittering about, worrying about the state of his arm. "I'll go talk to him, Mike, if ya wan' me to."
Mike nodded and set into a deeper set of thought. Ben started walking out the door just as he heard Aunt go off fussing at Mike for trying to join into the fight from before in the first place.
"Break my hear' to loose ya, Lawd knows it would, an' you go off tryin' to get yourself killed anyways! Why, the things a woman has to endure from her husban', I tell ya, it just too much! Wha' if one of those plantation folk hit ya with one of 'em rifles? Ya can' be doin'…"