The Myth of Wile E

Nights Errant (or, Dougie's Enchantment)

When she was thirteen or fourteen, Gladys tried out to play Dulcinea in a school production of Man of La Mancha. She got cast as a "muleteer," which sounded pretty cheery and whimsical to me, like "Mouseketeer." I pictured Gladys wearing donkey ears and singing silly songs.

Mama had bigger plans for Gladys.

Muleteers didn't have any solo lines, but Mama had this vision that on opening night the whole cast (except of course Gladys) would come down with the flu, and the director would rush up to Gladys in the dressing room and say, "You're our only hope!" And then Gladdy would take over all the parts, and Hollywood scouts in the audience would talk about it for years as the greatest one-girl show they'd ever seen.

So Mama bought a used copy of the Broadway production, an actual vinyl record, which she played at dinner over and over to help Gladdy learn the whole musical by heart. I don't know whether Gladdy ever learned it, but I sure did—skips and all. In fact, when I went to Gladdy's show, the songs didn't sound right to me without the skips. (To me, "The Impossible Dream" never really ends, it just goes bull . . . bull . . . bull . . . forever until you nudge the needle.)

I think we all went a little bit crazy from hearing that album so many times. Gladdy would press her hands over her ears and quietly sob whenever Mama put the record on, at least until Mama told her to stop blubbering and eat her rice cakes. I would try to block it out by counting the number of peas on my dinner plate, the little hairs on the back of my arm, anything. Or else I'd try to make up new lyrics for the songs. ("To scream the unscreamable scream" went through my mind an awful lot those days.) I'm pretty sure at least seventeen percent of my young brain contents were replaced by that musical, overwriting a lot of the state capitals; the correct procedure for dividing fractions; the difference between Patrick Henry, Ethan Allen, and Nathan Hale; and what in the world Tippecanoe was all about. At the weirdest times I can still hear the soundtrack in my head, narrating my life, but with specially customized lyrics ("To cross the uncrossable stream," "To sew the unsewable seam," and so forth).

As for Dougie, he stared into space as if in a trance whenever Mama put the record on. At first it seemed he'd escaped any ill effects. Then one day he announced out of the blue that he was taking a break from painting to become a chivalrous knight. He started calling his best friend "Sancho P.," and dubbed himself "D.Q.," which I think a lot of folks mistook for an ice cream reference.

Like Don Quixote, Dougie was in a state of enchantment. (Though in Dougie's case I'm pretty sure the enchanter's name was Mary Jane.) D.Q. and Sancho P. rode around in a primer gray Mustang that Dougie's friend optimistically hoped to restore, despite a lack of funds or mechanical know-how. Dougie named the car "Rocinante."

They committed to righting wrongs and lefting rights and rescuing damsels, and whatever else chivalrous knights were supposed to do. Unfortunately, they couldn't seem to find any damsels who needed rescuing, and in fact on several occasions had to call upon damsels to get them out of jams. One time, they got caught trespassing at the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm. (Wielding plastic lightsabers, they jousted at the shadows of the turbines. When questioned by security guards, Dougie insisted—giggling uncontrollably—that he was just looking for the "Wind Farm Stand" so he could buy some fresh air.) Then there was that time they got in trouble for trying to ride the Cabazon dinosaurs out near Palm Springs. You know: those forty-five-foot-tall roadside attractions that for some reason promote both diner food, and creationism? Well, D.Q. (who was normally afraid of heights, but was surprisingly brave when enchanted) climbed up on Dinny the Apatosaurus, and Sancho P. got up on Mr. Rex, and they prepared to ride into battle against woolly mammoths and sabretooth tigers and, presumably, science itself. The owners of the attraction were pretty cool about not pressing charges, probably because the image of "humans riding dinosaurs" made for a nice Flintstonesian tableau that helped to promote their Young Earth philosophy.

In the end Dougie and his friend spent only a few nights errant, driving out into the high desert to get enchanted by Mary Jane and plan their quests, until Rocinante died of a broken gasket and that was that.