The Man Who Thought He Was Don Quixote

I once met a man who thought he was Don Quixote. You know, the most famous of all knights-errant—a slayer of the dreadful windmills and hero to the common man.

What a strange sight he was!

He wore armor made from crushed soda cans and cardboard boxes, tied together with broken strands of twine. His sword was the simple, wooden cane that he used as he hobbled around on his way. His golden helmet of Mambrino was a rusted tin bucket with the handle still attached—which he used as a chin strap to keep it on his head. His faithful steed, Rocinante, was an old shopping cart with three bad wheels and a fourth that was just doing the best it could—considering the circumstances. It held the man’s worldly possessions and prizes of his many glorious conquests.

When people saw him making his way down the street, clanking, squeaking, and clattering in his ridiculous attire, they would laugh—as I suppose the characters in Cervantes’ masterpiece laughed at Quixote himself.

Yet the man who thought he was Don Quixote paid them no mind. Nay, he did, but their ridicule did not diminish his spirits. Their ridicule only made him stand taller. Their ridicule filled his sunken chest with pride. For, from their mocking, the man knew his cause was noble and just. He knew that all just and noble causes were met by the masses with scorn.

I met this strangest of men in an alleyway, years and years ago. I’ve since forgotten what alley it was exactly, but I’ve never forgotten the man himself. The man who thought he was Don Quixote saved my life, you see.

It was winter, then. The weather was cold and miserable, but then again, so was I. Snow covered the cracked pavement I sat on in that alleyway, and I shivered, pulling my tattered rags and scraps of blankets closer around my bony shoulders. It provided little warmth, but I’d take what I could get.

My stomach grumbled, complaining loudly to me—as if I didn’t already know I was hungry. The soup kitchen wouldn’t open for at least another hour or so. There was little for me to do but wait, sitting in that alleyway and thinking. Thinking about all the poor decisions I made that led me here. That’d take me at least an hour or so. I’d made a lot of poor decisions.

When I was about midway through that mental list, I was interrupted by the strange sound of clanking and squeaking and clattering, coming from near the mouth of the alleyway. I made a note of where I was on the mental list of my poor decisions and clambered to my feet—ready to move on if a shopkeeper was coming to drive me away. I warily watched the alleyway’s entrance. I’m not sure what I expected to see—certainly not the bizarre sight I did see.

I saw an old man—thin as a rail, with gray hair and a wispy beard—wearing what looked like garbage pulled from recycling bins over his clothes, and a rusted tin bucket atop his head. He was pushing a shopping cart. A wooden cane rested across the cart’s handle.

He looked ridiculous. Crazy, even.

When his bright eyes fell on me, they widened in recognition, and the old man stopped dead in his tracks. I was certain I had never met—much less seen—the man before in my life. I’ve never had a mind for faces, but I figured even I would remember that much.

“Sancho!” the old man cried joyfully like I was a long-lost friend.

Then I knew he was crazy. Because my name isn’t Sancho. It’s Sam. They both start with “s”, I suppose, but still.

The old man hobbled forward excitedly, and I felt a tinge of momentary fear go through me. What was happening? Before I could move, the old man threw his arms around me, sobbing.

“I thought you were gone,” he cried, his voice muffled. “I couldn’t find you anywhere!”

I stood there, frozen, not sure what to say.

The old man pulled back from his hug and looked at me with a frown. “Sancho? Won’t you say anything, my faithful squire? Don’t you recognize me? It is I—Don Quixote!”

I began to put two and two together, recalling a story I read—mostly—back in high school English class, a story about a man who became a knight-errant, calling himself “Don Quixote” and traveling throughout the land, doing “great and valiant” deeds.

This man—for some unfathomable reason—believed himself to be that same knight-errant.

The old man saw my growing confusion, and the light dimmed in his eyes. His shoulders slumped. He took a hesitant step back. He looked sad—at a loss for words. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” he said absent-mindedly. “I thought you were someone else, friend.”

“Er—that’s alright,” I stammered, partly from confusion, partly from the cold.

The old man noticed me shivering visibly, and he frowned. “You’re freezing, lad. Wait just a minute.”

He hobbled back to his cart and wheeled it farther into the alleyway, off the sidewalk. He rummaged through it for a moment before pulling out a heavy, woolen blanket. He came back and handed it to me.

“Here—the fur of a mighty creature I slew to defend a fair maiden.”

I held up my hands in protest. “I couldn’t possibly—” I began, but the old man wasn’t listening.

“Nonsense.” He was already putting the blanket around my shoulders.

The blanket wasn’t much nicer than mine. It smelled slightly musty, but it was so warm and comforting. The old man’s small gesture of kindness just about broke my heart. I felt tears brimming in my eyes.

“Why?” I asked. “Why would you give me this?”

The man who thought he was Don Quixote smiled kindly and struck what I’m sure he believed to be an impressive, knightly pose. “Why?” he asked. “Well, because I’m Don Quixote, that’s why! I am a knight-errant, dear fellow. I’ve taken oaths to uphold justice in the land, to right any wrongs, to vanquish evil, and to defend the common man. What sort of knight-errant would I be if I let a citizen of this fine country freeze to death while I could have done something about it?”

I stared at him and felt a lump rising in my throat. Tears fell down my cheeks. Here was this old man, with next to nothing to his name, nothing but a shopping cart full of random, discarded objects, and he was helping me.

“How can I pay you back?”

The old man saw my expression and smiled again. “It’s quite alright, friend,” he said. “It’s quite alright. No need to repay me. Your thanks is payment enough. I’ve only done my duty.”

He folded his spindly arms across his bony chest and looked at me curiously. “But tell me—what brings a fellow such as yourself to such a lowly state?”

‘Look who’s talking,’ I thought to myself, but I refrained from saying it. After all, the man had shared his blanket with me. The least I could do was have a conversation with him.

“My poor decisions led me here, and like a fool, I followed after them,” I said.

“Ah,” the old man nodded wisely. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first. I’ve seen many a young man chasing after dreams of fortune and glory, only to have it all slip through their fingers because of bad luck and misfortune. What dream were you chasing after, friend?”

I sighed and told him. “I wanted to be a musician. I played the guitar, you see. I was pretty good too. At least, I thought I was.”

I shook my head. “I packed up my car with everything I owned and set out for this city to make a name for myself. I practically lived in that car while trying to get gigs and stage time at bars and coffee shops. But I guess every other aspiring musician had that same thought.”

I laughed bitterly. “I thought it’d be so easy—that people would line up to hear me play. But the gigs weren’t coming, and I was running out of my savings. ‘No matter,’ I said to myself. ‘I’ll keep at it because this is my dream.’ So, instead of admitting defeat, I stayed. Like a fool, I stayed. My savings ran out, and I had to sell other things just to get by. Nice clothes, other possessions—my car, even.”

I fell silent for a moment. The old man didn’t say anything. He merely waited.

“My guitar was the last thing I sold. I didn’t want to, but I did.”

Just thinking about that painful memory caused me to tear up again. My voice shook.

“I took it to a sleazy pawn shop. I couldn’t get enough for it to even get a hot meal and a roof over my head. By selling it, I lost the only way left to me of making money.”

I shook my head wearily and grimaced at the old man. “So you see, I can’t blame bad luck or misfortune for my present circumstances. It’s all my fault that I’m here with nothing. There’s no one and nothing to blame but me.”

“Seems like you’ve learned something from all this,” the old man observed softly.

“Yeah,” I laughed bitterly again. “Don’t chase your dreams because that’s all they are—dreams.”

“No, that’s not it at all.”

I didn’t understand. Seeing my confusion, the old man turned away from me. I thought he had grown bored of our conversation—that my “sob-story” hadn’t interested him. But he was just rummaging through his cart again, muttering to himself.

“Where is that confounded thing? I know it’s in here somewhere.” Then, “Aha!”

Triumph was in his grin as he turned back to me, holding out a small, familiar object. It was a child’s practice guitar—no more than a toy, really. It was cracked and worn, and missing a string, but other than that, it looked playable.

My vision blurred with tears at the sight of it. Dimly, I realized that the old man was saying something.

“A grateful shopkeeper presented this to me as tribute for driving off a fearsome giant. I had hoped Sancho would be able to play it and perform awesome ballads and songs about my great and valiant deeds, but alas, the poor fellow doesn’t have a musical bone in his body! Which reminds me, when I find him again, I’ll have to reprimand him for abandoning me and Rocinante!”

The old man who thought he was Don Quixote rambled on and then trailed off into silence. He looked lost for a moment and then came to himself. Smiling, he held out the broken child’s guitar.

“Here. Sancho won’t need it, and goodness knows I can’t sing songs about myself!” He laughed and then let out a raspy, wheezing cough.

I took the instrument with a trembling hand and cradled it in my arms lovingly. I held it up to my ear and strummed the out-of-tune strings lightly with my thumb. The dissonant noise was the sweetest music I’ve ever heard. I wept.

“There, there,” the old man said. “We’ve all encountered hard times. We’ve all made mistakes, my dear fellow. No shame in admitting that. The only thing to be ashamed about is not learning from our mistakes, not accepting help from others, and not picking ourselves up and moving forward.”

The old man patted my back roughly. “Keep chasing your dreams, lad. Just go about it differently this time around, alright?”

I nodded, understanding what he meant at last.

The old man nodded back and patted my shoulder. Without so much as a wave of farewell, he began hobbling away, pushing his cart back out of the alleyway, clanking, squeaking, and clattering as he went.

“Wait!” I cried, stunned by his abrupt departure. “How can I thank you?”

The old man paused in the alleyway’s entrance and looked back at me. He grinned. His smile showed off his cracked and yellowed teeth, but I saw more. I saw a knight-errant’s triumphant grin.

“When you’ve taken hold of your dream, sing a song or two about Don Quixote. That’ll be thanks enough, friend.”

With that, the old man who thought he was Don Quixote strode out of sight, leaving me standing there on that cold, wintry day, with a borrowed blanket wrapped around my shoulders and a gifted instrument in my hands.

I never saw him again. I don’t know what became of him. I asked around and I tried to find him, but it was as if he had simply vanished. I gathered stories from those he had helped, and from those stories I wove together a narrative of his great and valiant deeds.

As for me, I left that alleyway behind as well that day. I never looked back. It wasn’t easy, but with my newfound guitar, I played for spare change on street corners and sidewalks. I played for anyone who would listen. Some liked what they heard. Others didn’t. But I didn’t care. I just kept playing.

And now, years later, I’m still playing. No longer with a broken, child’s guitar, but with one similar to the one I was forced to sell years ago. No longer on street corners, but in bars and coffee shops. The money I make isn’t much, but it’s enough to get by. And for me, that’s more than enough.

There’s a song that I sing, every time I perform, without fail. A song I wrote about a man I once met. A song about the most famous of knights-errant—a slayer of the dreadful windmills and hero to the common man. A song about the man who—to me—was Don Quixote.

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