A Romeo and Juliet Story

Cast of Characters:
Benvolio = Ben
Tybalt = Ty
Sampson = Sam
Gregory = Greg
Romeo = Romeo
Juliet = Juliet
Mercutio = Mark

Prologue:
Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage—
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

CHAPTER ONE:
“Greg, I swear I’m so sick of all this crap.”
Sam Capulet walked along the busy streets of Verona, California with his brother Greg at his side. Greg shoved his hands into the pockets of his blue and black checkered Hurley sweatshirt and chuckled under his breath.
“What? You don’t think I’m serious about this?” Sam turned his electric blue eyes on his brother, shooting him a threatening look.
“No, I just think that you should focus on staying out of trouble for now. Remember what the judge said? One more fight like last time, and it’s juvie for you.”
Sam rolled his eyes and shook his thick brown hair out of his eyes.
“Whatever, man. Send me to juvie, I don’t care. I’ll just get the rest of the bros to bail me out again.”
Greg drew in a quick breath.
“All I’m saying is, don’t do anything stupid without thinking of the consequences.”
Greg diverted his gaze from Sam’s and looked at his red Converse All Stars, sighing.
There was a moment of silence between the two, until Sam finally spoke up.
“Look dude, I don’t get angry very often, but the only thing that really gets me going is those Montague brothers. That’s all I’m saying.”
Greg chucked again.
“You honestly don’t think I’m serious!?”
Greg snorted and shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll show you just how serious I am!” Sam swore.
“Well, here’s your chance. Here comes a Montague now.” Greg pointed down the road at a small, blonde, freckled boy about the age of thirteen.
Sam, being a strong, tall fifteen year old smirked at the sight of him.
Greg noticed his hesitation and gave him a small shove.
“Go ahead. I’ll back you up.” Greg snickered sarcastically.
Sam sensed his brother’s sarcasm and fired one right back at him, “Right. You’d back me up by running away.”
Greg dished out a weak “whatever” and then made a suggestion.
“Why don’t we wait for HIM to pick a fight? That way we can stay innocent.”
Sam highly doubted that this scrawny bag of bones would pick a fight, but he agreed.
Sam’s eyes widened, “OR, I could flip him off… just to rile him up a bit?”
It was obvious that Sam wanted SOME action, so Greg reluctantly complied.
As they neared the boy, Sam started sweating excitedly.
It had been a while since he had beaten someone up, and he was craving that thrilling rush that came with the collision of his fist against some Montague’s face.
As soon as he saw them, the boy scowled, his skin turning red all the way up to his blonde roots.
Without any hesitation, Sam flipped the kid off, with a satisfactory sneer.
All of a sudden, the little boy turned around, and growled “Hey, did you just flip me off?”
Surprised, but not frightened, Sam responded cavalierly, “Why no. Of course not. I’m simply stretching my finger.”
Greg stuffed his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. He turned away from Sam and the boy and pulled out his phone.
He flipped it open quickly, and thumbed the touch screen

TO: ALL CONTACTS
MESSAGE: WANT SOME ACTION? FIGHT @ CHERRY STREET AND OLYMPUS. CAPULET VS. MONTAGUE. COME 1 COME ALL. 

And with a tap of the send button, his message was release into cyberspace, calling all his Capulet brothers, and anyone else who simply wanted to see some bloodshed.
Greg shoved his phone back into the pockets of his jeans, and turned back to the other boys.
“Well were you ‘stretching your finger’ at me?” the little Montague boy asked, crossing his freckled arms across his chest and planting his feet firmly on the ground.
Sam sneered down at the boy and responded, “No. Of COURSE not. I would never DO such a thing.”
Greg strolled up to the little boy and stared deep into his eyes, “Why? Are you trying to start a fight?”
The little boy looked slightly taken aback, but nevertheless, he remained steadfast, “Of course not.”
Sam was getting impatient. “Look, if you want to fight, let’s do this. My family is just as good as yours.”
“Maybe just as good, but not BETTER.” The little boy fired back.
Sam was struck for words. Just then, the low rumble of wheels on asphalt was heard in the distance.
The Capulet boys turned their attention away from the Montague boy, right in time to see Ben Montague skateboarding his way right up to them. Sam shot Greg a confused look, and Greg made a motion with his thumbs, indicating that he had texted everyone about the fight starting.
“Well you didn’t have to tell the freaking MONTAGUES, idiot!” Sam hissed.
Greg shrugged.
A look of disdain spread across Sam’s lips as Ben popped off his black and purple skateboard, clutching it tightly in his tanned hands.
 “Well, well, well, look who’s ‘better’ now!” the little boy smirked from behind their turned backs.
Sam whipped around, his face red with rage, hair flapping in his eyes “Say that to my face, punk!”
And without another word, Sam, Greg and the Montague kid started to fight.
Ben held back at first, out of hesitance, but once he saw blood splattering the sidewalks, he raced to Sam and Greg and tried with all his strength to pull them off the kid.
“Stop it! Break it up, guys!”
Greg eventually pulled back, but Sam stayed, unmovable.
He kept throwing punch after punch, each one sending a resounding THUD as his chiseled fist made contact with the kid’s freckled face, sending swells of blood flying.
“SAM, STOP!” Ben yelled, “You don’t know what you are doing!”
“Oh I know what I’m doing!” Sam snarled through clenched teeth, “I’m giving you damn Montagues what you right deserve!”
 Ben continued in his efforts to pull Sam off the kid, until they saw a figure running towards them from two streets over.
The kid was dressed in black skinny jeans, a black tee shirt with a skull and crossbones plastered on the front, and black Vans sneakers. His black hair was flopping in his face, and he pushed it out of the way with one silver ring covered hand, as he continued running.
“Dude, it’s Ty!” Greg pulled on Sam’s tee shirt, hoping this would get him to turn away from his poor victim.
It didn’t.
“Crap.” Ben muttered, as Ty Capulet drew nearer.
“BEN?! How dare you fight with my brothers, you bastard! I thought I warned you last time! Look me in the face, you coward!”
“Dude, chill. I’m just trying to keep everyone from killing each other, here.” Ben out up his hands in a surrendering manner.
“God, get over the whole stupid ‘keep the peace’ thing! You’re just making excuses to hide the fact that you and your lousy family are WEAK!” Suddenly, without any warning, Ty grabbed Ben’s arm, and flipped him to the floor, kicking him madly.
Watching the scene unfold, Greg inhaled sharply and squeezed his eyes shut, diving into the pile of violently fighting boys and blood, flinging his fists left and right.
The boys were making such a raucous that some neighborhood kids started taking notice, and coming out of their houses.
A small ten year old boy with a Yankees baseball cap was clobbering an eleven year old with glasses and braces. Two sixteen year olds had a hold of each other’s throats and were fighting for complete and total domination. Even a little five year old boy started hitting a young blonde pigtailed girl with his red plastic dump truck.
Everyone was fighting, and the ones who weren’t were standing on the sidelines cheering them on.
Eventually, parents got involved, and tried to split their children up, but to no avail. The only parents who weren’t trying to solve the problem were the Montague parents and the Capulet parents.
Richard Capulet stood on the doorstep of his two story red-brick house with his wife Linda and sneered across the street at the house of Edgar and Christine Montague, “Damn those dirty Montagues! Linda, don’t hold me back.” Richard rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and started down the steps, but Linda grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him to a stop, “Oh Richard! Stop this foolishness.”
“Let me go, Linda! That old Edgar Montague is leering at me from across the street! Let me at him! I swear I outta-“
“NO Richard.”
“HEY CAPULET, I SEE YOU OVER THERE, YOU DOG!” Richard heard Edgar call from his house, His wife was holding him back too.
Just then, a piercing sound rand through the entire neighborhood. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to the source of the noise.
What they saw was a big, burly police officer looming over them all by at least a foot.
“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!” he yelled.
Everyone was silent.
Children weren’t wiping the blood off their faces. Parents weren’t lifting their kids off the ground. Nobody moved a muscle.
“I SAID… WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!”
Still nobody answered.
“Well, from the looks of it, I would say another Capulet-Montague fight! AM I RIGHT?” the cop growled.
Nobody responded. The drop of a pin could be heard.
“Well, since no one’s talking I guess I’ll just have to assume you are ALL responsible. I’m done with you Capulets and Montagues fighting like this! You have now dragged the entire town into your shenanigans. Now if any of you ever cause a disturbance in my street again, I will send you ALL TO JAIL. Now everyone else, you can leave for now. EXCEPT, you Richard Capulet. You come with me. And YOU Montague? I’ll see you in court this afternoon. Everyone else… LEAVE!” And with that, the cop gave a final blow of his whistle and frowned at everyone one last time.
No one needed any further convincing, and all the people of the neighborhood quickly filed out of the street and back into their various houses, except for Edgar Montague, Christine Montague, and Ben Montague.
“Listen to me, son. Who started this fight? I need to know.”
Edgar put his hands on Ben’s shoulders and stared deep into his eyes.
Ben hesitated, biting his thumbnail, “Well… my brothers were fighting with those Capulet boys. I started to break them up, but then Ty showed up and started beating ME up, so I fought back. And more and more and more people showed up until finally that cop came and broke everyone up.
Edgar rubbed his temples and groaned.
Christine finally spoke up, “Where is Romeo? I haven’t seen him all day.” She twirled her shoulder length, auburn hair around one finger and turned her pert nose to the air.
Ben shrugged and tugged at the fray of his jeans, “I dunno. Maybe he is up at the park again. He likes to sit and think in the big tree when he is upset about something or another. He’s been there awhile… crying. Or he locks himself up in his bedroom or the den or whatever. I swear, he is depressed.”
“EVERYONE has tried to talk some sense into the boy, but nothing seems to work.” Edgar responded.
As if on cue, a deep, depressing sigh came from behind them, and they turned around to see Romeo meandering down the road.
“Good. Ben, you try to talk to him. See what’s up. Christine, let’s go.”
“Hopefully I’ll get something out of him” Ben mumbled.