It was a documentary of a revival

of “A Chorus Line,” and he couldn’t

stop crying and didn’t know why.

 

The dog, the Chocolate Lab with the

sad brown eyes, always perceptive

to his adoptive parents’ needs,

 

looked into the man’s tearing eyes

as if to say, “I’m here for you.” The

man loves musicals; his mom,

 

who never got to see many musicals,

loved to listen to Mantovoni’s vers-

ion of classic musicals, especially the

 

song “Bewitched, Bothered and Be-

wildered” from Pal Joey. It was one

of the few times the man saw her happy.

 

They listened together, and as he re-

members, it was over his father’s pro-

testations. His father didn’t like musicals

 

saying they didn’t deal with reality, but

the man thinks they frightened his father’s

feminine side and, actually he had a big

 

compassionate, feminine side which

was hard to see, but it was there.

Well, it was the late fifties and early

 

sixties and his father was a Republican.

But why this? Now? The characters?

Their stories? Their vulnerability, risks,

 

disappointments, longings, hopes, and

all that reality in a musical? His  mom

and dad missed each other so often,

 

that it was like the two proverbial people run-

ning in slow motion toward each other —

arms wide open —  only to run past each other.