THE SINS OF REBETHANY CHASTAIN

Daniel Guyton

Comic

REBETHANY, early 20s

REBETHANY is a sweet and syrupy Southern belle, who has just been arrested for murder. She is talking to a TV reporter. Eventually, she does get around to telling the reporter why she did it, after telling them this story.

REBETHANY Hi. My name’s Rebethany. Rebethany Anne Chastain. I know, it sounds British, don’t it? Yeah, my momma was from England. No, not the country. You know, New Hampshire? [Pause.] God, that’s a long ways away. My daddy was Alabaman, born and raised. Except then he moved to Arkansas when he was two, so I guess he wasn’t really raised here actually. Although . . . Well . . . Does that count as being raised here if you were two? I don’t know. Anyway, they were good people, maw and paw. Very good people. [Pause.] Until the drought came. Summer a ’97. I’ll never forget it. Paw came in one day saying, “Who let the dang hose run dry?!?” Of course, I had done it. I was cleanin’ off my bicycle, on account’a it was dusty. You see, we live in a dirt road, all a’ way up in Elmer, nearest to Kentucky? And I was really proud of my bicycle. I was the only girl in Elmer with a bicycle! At least one with wheels on it. Of course Maybelline Ohmer had a bicycle also, but it was just a frame. She found it at the old churchyard, underneath a pile of leaves. The bishop said she could have it if she’d finish cleanin’ up the leaves. Of course she did it. Maybelline Ohmer had to have everything. We were all so jealous. It didn’t even have a seat or nothing. It was just a frame. But lord, she’d sit on that thing for hours. No wonder she got tetanus in her leg that summer? And she lost control of her vagina. I swear, the entire cooch just fell right off of her! Least that’s what her boyfriend Russell told me. And he should know, cuz he was her brother. Anyway, daddy came home one day, and he’d made a bundle, playing poker? And he came up to our double-wide with a brand-new shiny bicycle for me. With a seat and everything! So I used to ride that bike past Maybelline Ohmer’s house every morning before school. And I’d say, “Hey Maybelline! How’s that frame of yours doing?” And she would call me dirty names. I mean, really un-Christian-like things, you know? Until one day Maybelline stopped coming out. I thought, “Surely her momma must be spankin’ her for all them nasty things she said.” But no, come to find out, it was just her vagina fallin’ off.

[She folds her arms.]

I guess that was just God’s way of punishing her for all them nasty things she said.