If It Didn't Suck....

When I was in my playwrighting class at Brooklyn College, I decided to bring in an old play I had written from a woman's perspective. It was entitled "Reunion" and dealt with a letter that arrives one day, out of the blue detailing the young woman's 10th year High School reunion. The play then goes into flashback and tells the story of how she had gotten pregnant in her senior year and made the very hard decision to give her baby up for adoption. Since then she has not spoken with either of her parents, and has always regretted her decision.

In my program we had to bring in a piece and read it out loud in class. The only woman in the class was usually burdened with reading many female roles, and on this day was no exception. After the play is read there is usually a critique session. And on this day, Madeline (names have been changed to protect the guilty...Namely me) finds umbrage with one of the lines. The line concerned the protagonist who was a virgin, saying that she believed him when he said he was wearing a condom. In actuality he was not. She, the protagonist. Not the woman from class, got pregnant as a result of that encounter.

Madeline said that she would be able to tell if he had on a condom. Now, I know when I have one on, but I was now curious so I pressed the issue.

"So you are telling me that she would be able to tell."
"Of course, you can see him put it on."
"It was dark, she was a virgin and nervous, she wasn't watching him."
She thought a moment. "Well she can tell, you can feel it."
That confused me.
"Can you?" I asked.

She flashed me a look like she was goosed by an umbrella that then opened as it slid out.
"Can you tell?" I pressed on.
"Are you asking me this?" she asked.

Damn it seemed as though I would have to spell it out for her. I was curious and now I was on the spot, so I figured what the hell.

"Yes, Madeline, as a woman, can you tell if a guy is wearing a condom?"

There I said it. Damn was that a mistake she went off.

"Oh my god, I don't believe this...." and many more things that I am not going to write here at this juncture.

The professor, the late Jack Gelber, decided it was the perfect time to have a break.

She seemed to be more calm when we returned and we didn't talk much the rest of the evening, and during subsequent classes she was all right about things, though when we read my gangster script, I made her read the part of the prostitutes.

I guess I am a bastard, but I never actually got my answer.