Act 1, Scene 1

            A CLEAN, WHITE ROOM WITH NOTHING BUT A TEACHER’S DESK WITH A CHAIR ON ONE END AND AN OLD LOUDSPEAKER ON A TABLE.

            Meli is sitting on the desk, watching the audience. After a beat, she stands up.

MELI

My mom came from old Monterrey money and my dad came from new money, more than mom’s, but less respected. 

He didn’t care. 

A ferocious businessman –nay, a ferocious man, if he would not be respected, at least he would be feared. Dad was one of those men who were important to the point it was hard to pinpoint if they were good or bad in all.

Since tension was seemingly lacking in my family situation, my mom was also terrifying, but just in the circles she limited herself to. She was raised with high expectations for her life; not wide, but high.

I don’t know how this pair of… of bastards expected that their daughter (yours truly) would turn out to be a docile, agreeable, and peaceful lady –especially docile.

I’m not denying that from time to time I earned a good spanking from time to time but come on. “She didn’t get that from me.” Get real, Mom.

Can’t blame them either. They were people of their time, just as we all are, and this was a time of “listen to your parents, or your bosses, or your teachers, or whoever and shut up”.

Some things don’t change. Mexico is Mexico, but back then rock concerts were forbidden by law. 

Not joking! Look it up.

Here in the North, even the youths were a bit like that. There was no counterculture; we were too comfy for that. Therefore I, Imelda Muer, Meli if you’d like, decided to become an artist with the mission of filling this rebel void no matter what.

I’d do pieces that would shock and awe, I’d study abroad, and I would come back being part of something greater, whatever that would be. I didn’t mind that people would mark me as a lazy pothead (which wasn’t wrong), the friendships I’d lose, or that I didn’t have one single clue of what I was doing.

My aimless, shapeless mission started in the summer of 85’, before college started.

Around this time I was very into punk. I had gotten tattoos that I hadn’t shown to anyone.

            END OF SCENE