Chapter Thirteen: Over the Moon
Note: I did change some of the dialogue from the movie version to the musical version, because I liked it better.
Other Note: This is probably my least favorite song in the movie, so it may come out like that, sorry.
Disclaimer: I do not own RENT.
So after all the excitement, and given that I was already thinking of Mimi as my girlfriend, I supposed that I really should go out and find her and make her my girlfriend. I found her with The Man. Of course. Let's see if I can handle this in a nice, mature…
"I'm gonna celebrate tonight," Mimi was telling him.
"All right, cool," he replied.
"The usual," she ordered. And, for the record, you know you have a drug problem when you have a 'usual.'
"Cool," he said. Goddamn, does he ever saying anything but 'cool', I mean, I know Mimi's young and all, but I'm guessing she's moved past the 'I do drugs because I'm so stupid I think they're cool' phase. Especially now that she's got a 'usual'.
"Hey," I said, coming up behind her.
"Hey," she said, a bit nervously.
"Can I talk to you for a sec-" I begin. And even though I don't approve of her drug habit, I am perfectly willing to wait for her to conclude her transaction before asking her out.
"Hey lover boy, cutie pie. You steal my client, you die." Apparently The Man has a lot of faith in me, though, because he sees where this is going and, instead of assuming that the junkie will draw the ex-junkie back into using, which is the norm, assumes that I'll get her to stop using. His faith is touching, it really is. Although, I think he just hit on me, so…Yeah…
Oh, and he shoved me, too. Now I just can't have that, not in front of my almost-girlfriend! I shove him back and say, "You didn't miss me, you won't miss her; you'll never lack for customers!"
Then Mimi practically dragged me away. She just looked at me expectantly so I took a deep breath and said, "Look. About last night…I'm sorry. I don't know what the-"
But she interrupted me. Real classy, by the way. And yes, I KNOW I'm not exactly the best at apologies, but I'm kind of out of practice. I mean, the only one I was in regular communication with was Mark, and, no matter what you do to him, if you glare at him long enough, he'll end up apologizing.
"Just forget it," she said. Hey! My apologies can't be that bad that you just want to forget about the whole 'let's get together' thing. I mean, you were all over me JUST LAST NIGHT! God, she's fickle.
Still, I was determined to see this through. "I was out of line," I told her. "Can I make it up to you?"
"How?" she asked. That means she's considering it and that's always a good sign.
"Bunch of us are getting together tonight," I said. Then I realized she'd probably need more information. "At the Life Café. After Maureen's show."
"Yeah?" she prompted, grinning. She's enjoying my pathetic attempt to ask her out far too much, I swear. Well I'm sorry I didn't write a whole song for you, Mimi. I'm still working on it!
"Would you like to come with me?" There. It's out. My God, that was like a bloody root canal. No wonder Mark's still single. He has this thing about pain.
"Sure, I'd like that," she acquiesced and she took my arm as we went to go find my friends. "So, you're a tough guy?" she asked, mock-punching my shoulder.
"No, not really," I laughed. But I'm always ready to brutally murder Benny.
"That's pretty good," Mimi complimented my earlier violence against her drug-dealer.
Finally, I spot Mark. Good little Jewish white-boys stand out everywhere. "Over there. The guy with the glasses, right here."
Mimi must have seen them as she cried out, "ANGEL!"
"MIMI!" Angel hollered back.
"Oh my God, you look so good!" Mimi gushed. Well, I guess they already know each other. Small world. And they both came into our lives on the same night in two completely unrelated manners. Weird…Well, not completely unrelated, because if Collins hadn't have gotten beaten up, he wouldn't have come across Angel and if Collins had been in the loft, Mark wouldn't have left either and I would have made one of them deal with Mimi. Plus she probably wouldn't have hit on a room of guys.
Before we could say more, though, we heard a motorcycle. And the music started playing. That can't be right, though, where's Maureen?
Oh, wait, Maureen is RIDING the motorcycle. We all waved and cheered dutifully and a few people began to chant her name. Not me, though, as I am far too emo to do that.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm surprised that Maureen rode a motorcycle through a crowd of people to get to her protest. Late. What really shocked me was that she wore a helmet. Must be Joanne's doing. And speaking of Joanne, I can see her operating the lights.
People began chanting her name again and she started attacking the audience with her clothing. But apparently the audience didn't mind. Maybe that's because the guy who got hit with her helmet is now unconscious. But anyway.
Maureen snapped her fingers and the lights turned on. Not surprising, she snaps her fingers and she can get ANYTHING.
"Last night, I had a dream," Maureen began. Wait, last night? When did she write this? No wonder I didn't see her today. And here I thought she was just being a lousy girlfriend to Joanne and making her do all the work for her sound check. And by her, I mean me, of course. Joanne still doesn't know what she's doing.
"I found myself in a desert called 'Cyberland'," Maureen continued. So, was there a sign in this desert, or how did she know what it was called? And why would you name a desert Cyberland? It really doesn't make much sense. Plus, aren't most deserts called 'the whatever desert'? So is this the Cyberland Desert? Because that sounds even weirder than before.
"It was hot." Really? You know, most deserts are. In fact, if you don't specifically say that it was cold, we all kind of assume that it was hot. "My canteen had sprung a leak and I was…thirsty." Why didn't she just drink the water from the canteen when it first started to leak, rather than just let it drip all over the place?
"Out of the abyss walked a cow. Elsie." Okay, first of all, what would a cow be doing in a desert? Maureen's dreams don't make sense! Mine always do. It's kind of depressing, really, but if something happens that doesn't make sense, then I point out that it doesn't make sense and it goes away. I haven't had a weird dream in a while, though. I think that my subconscious has finally given up on me. And why does she know the cow's name? Wait, don't tell me it's a…Hey, is that Benny? And his father-in-law? Wow, this protest must be a bigger deal than I though, if they're here personally.
"I asked if she had anything to drink. She said, 'I'm forbidden to produce milk. In Cyberland we only drink Diet Coke'." I knew it! And is there any point in wondering how exactly you can forbid a cow from producing milk? I mean, it's not like they can help it or anything. And why Diet Coke? Why not regular Coke? Or Sprite? Or any other beverage by Coca-Cola?
"She said, 'Only thing to do is jump over the moon.'" How is that the only thing to do? I mean, that's kind of out there, isn't it? Even if she is a cow. "They've closed everything real down. Like barns and troths and…Performance Spaces." Ah, and now we've gotten to the real reason for the protest. Her performance space. I bet she told everyone it was a historical landmark or something. And…did she just say troths? As in, a promise of fidelity? Is she blaming her inability to stop cheating on me and, I guess now, Joanne on Benny? Unbelievable. Who is she, Roger?
"And replaced it all with lies and rules and Virtual Life…But there is a way out!" Such as, I don't know, couples counseling?
"Leap of faith, leap of faith, leap of faith, leap of faith…" her back-up recordings sing.
"Only thing to do is jump over the moon," Maureen repeats. "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII gotta get out of here!" Good lord, that I went on so long, her eyes started bulging. "It's like I'm being tied to the hood of a yellow rental truck being packed in with fertilizer and fuel oil, pushed over a cliff by a suicidal Mickey Mouse." Wow, that's oddly specific. And how would you get into a situation like that in the first place? And did I mention the whole time she was singing that, her head was going up to down by her…knees non-stop? Very distracting. And not just because I'm her ex-boyfriend.
"I've" Maureen sings that single word for far longer than necessary "gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta," at this Maureen took a breath, "gotta, gotta, find a way to jump over the moon." And more distracting hair-flipping here.
"Yeah, go Maureen!" Mimi cheered.
I guess Maureen must have noticed Benny's presence, too, because he next words were, "Then, a little bulldog entered. His name, we have learned, was Benny." But now he has apparently changed it. And Maureen pointed to Benny and Joanne turned the spotlight on him. I wonder what she would have done if he hadn't have been here? Either way, he is and the crowd is now booing him. Poor guy.
"And although he once had principles, he abandoned them to live as a lapdog to a wealthy daughter of the revolution," Maureen pretty much summed up how Benny went from roommate-material to root-of-all-evil. Collins shut me a look, silently asking me what was up with the whole Benny situation, but I shook my head. For once, I actually did not want to talk about it.
"A one, two, three, 'That's bull,' he said." What's bull? Elsie is allowed to produce milk after all? This song doesn't make any sense. And how is this protesting anything? "Ever since the cat took up the fiddle, that cow's been jumpy." Well, maybe the cat just sucks at the fiddle, have you ever considered that? "The dish and the spoon were evicted from the table and eloped." How did they afford to get married if they were getting thrown out of their apartment? Oh God, this better not be another gay joke about Mark and I. You know, I think that might be part of the reason they broke up: She thinks he's gay.
"She's had trouble with that milk and the moon ever since, maybe it's a…female things." You know, I'll be the first to admit that girls often confuse me, but I've learned that just because you can't understand something someone is doing and that someone happens to be a female, it does not necessarily make it a 'female thing.'
Benny looked amused at this, and Mr. Grey glared at him, so he pretended to be scratching his nose. " 'Cause who'd wanna leave Cyberland anyway? Walls ain't so bad." And they don't care about such things as grammar. "The dish and the spoon, for instance, they're down on their luck. They come konckin' on my doghouse door and I say, 'Not in my back yard, utensils. Go back to China.'" Okay, she is totally talking about us. But Benny came to us, not the other way around!
" 'The only way out is up,' Elise whispered to me," Maureen shouted. " 'A leap of faith. Still thirsty?' " Well, unless she somehow got a drink in a DESERT while all this was going on, I'd imagine so. " 'Parched.' 'Have some milk.'" Wait, I thought that was illegal? Now it doesn't matter because you're song-buddies? I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS SONG! "And I lowered myself beneath her swollen udder and I sucked the sweetest milk I had ever tasted." Well, that's a hyperbole if I've ever heard one. I mean, how do you measure that objectively? Anyway, then she throws her head back and starts making sucking sounds and Mark starts looking incredibly uncomfortable.
" 'Climb onboard,' she said. And as the harvest moon rose over Cyberland…" And at this, the moon they made rose behind Maureen. "We reared back, we sprang into a gallop…" And Maureen had to pantomime all of it. "Leaping out of orbit. I awoke, singing, 'Only thing to do is jump over the moon.'" Well, that must've scared Joanne. After repeating that a few more times, Maureen made a strange noise with her nose and bid us, "Moo with me." Um…what? Is that what she was doing?
Eventually, someone did. "Yes, who is that? Come on. Moo with me. Yes, come on sire. Don't be shy, let it go. Moo with me. Let it rip. Yes!" Maureen cheered as more people began to moo. But not me, I'm too cool for that. "Let it go, New York City! Yeah!"
And then mooing became considered a 'mob action' and we protest got broken up by a riot. Ten to one Mark got it all on film.
To Be Continued…
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