Don Coyote and His Beloved Dulcimer
After a brief morning talk with Tucker (Keira close behind him, listening intently with ever widening wags), I reluctantly padded down the hall alone to Dad’s studio to negotiate a resolution to a couple of problems that didn’t even involve me directly.
The pack’s main concern (me included) was that Dad would want to get personally involved with Tucker and Keira’s project, and that would kind of ruin their “creative independence,” as Tucker put it.
I found Dad intently scanning through the pages of a book. He reflexively patted my head and rubbed my ears without looking.
Me: Dad, can I pull on your ear about something?
Dad: Haze, I’m trying to transpose on the fly here?
Me: Does it hurt when you do that?
Dad: Does what hurt when I do what?
Me: Flying transposed.
Dad: (rather pronounced sigh) I’m trying to transpose an intricate movement of music into another key without writing it down, so let’s get back to the question of what is it that Hazel would like to talk about BRIEFLY with me this morning?
Me: Do you know where my shark toy is?
Dad: (back to squinting at his book) Your plush shark toy is on the floor next to Mom’s side of the bed. Anything else?
Me: …and a t-shirt or bandana or towel?
For some reason, that second request made Dad peer up from his book with a look of deep suspicion – to which I responded to with my (perfected after years of practice) blankest look.
When Dad set down his book and leaned towards me, I knew, I just knew, that I was about to lose the battle of keeping Dad from getting too involved.
Dad: Ok Hazel, who wants this t-shirt bandana towel and for what purpose, and how exactly is your shark toy involved?
I decided to pull the band-aid (so to speak) in one quick effort that went something like this:
Me: Tucker needs my plush shark to use as a sword so he can till up the windmill in the garden as a knight currant like that guy in the musical you watched last night. Tuck wants to play Don Coyote, and Keira needs a skirt so she can do Dulcimer’s speech when she says all that gushy stuff about Don Coyote Man of La Munchausen, hence my request for something to use as a skirt because she feels she can really get into character if she wears a skirt and the shark is the longest toy and would be most like a sword but still safe to use while Tuck does his stomp dance to intimidate the windmill and if you could just get those for us you could get back to your book.
Dad kind of blinked a couple times. While looking up at the ceiling and speaking to no one in particular, he said, “I’m so glad I didn’t watch West Side Story last night.”
He jumped up, leaving me with a quick pat, and returned in a minute with both the shark and a green bandana. He then told me to go round up the cast while he waited.
Moments later Dad gently and quietly wrapped Keira in her skirt and gave Tucker tips on holding the sword… uh shark… to look imposing to any foe.
As Tuck and Keira made a beeline to the back door, Dad insisted I watch from the door and help Keira deliver her final line by calling her Aldonza at the end of her speech.
Hazel: Why is the name thing so important that I have to get involved?
Dad: Aldonza led a very rough life and saw herself through the lens of the circumstances of her low station and believed in only meager possibilities. In the original book, and in the musical, Don Quixote sees her in a different light. He addresses her as a woman of regal bearing, worthy of his adoration and attempts at bravery and failed heroism. She thinks so little of herself and her future that she angrily rebuffs his tenderness and the term of endearment he calls her – Dulcinea. Your part, Haze, is to call her by her old name one more time as she is realizing that somewhere deep, deep, inside her…there is a Dulcinea waiting to come alive.
I trundled out to the back door while practicing my line Alpaca, Alpaca…only to find Keira had swiped the sword and was effectively keeping it away from Tucker as he chased her back and forth across the back yard.
Tucker, exasperated, deftly caught Keira’s skirt and swung her in a half circle arc. That caused her to lose her hold on the shark, sending it over my head through the open door and into the living room.
Tucker then decided to read Keira the riot act, to which she replied, repeatedly, “I AM DULCIMER.”
Deciding that perhaps chivalry was indeed dead, I returned to Dad in the studio.
Dad: How’d it go, Haze?
I explained what I had just witnessed and narrated the play-by-play.
Dad: Not quite the author’s original intent, but I do see some parallels….
Me: I think they’re writing a sequel.
Dad: Man of La Mancha: Part Duel
Me: Dulcinea vs. Zombies
Dad: Quixote’s Revenge
Me: Windmills of Terror
We had fun making up COMING SOON TO A CINEPLEX ODEON THEATER NEAR YOU! titles until the Not Ready for Prime Rib Players barged, all panting and hot, into the studio.
Later that night, I thought about that woman’s story in the play. I was happy that she met someone who was kind to her and helped her find a way to wag through life.
I wish now I had watched the musical with Dad.
