The Night We Danced – Short Story Rewrite of “My Papa’s Waltz”

            As the tired father sat at the table, he tipped his cup up and finished the bit of whiskey that was left. His long, hard day working in the field showed upon the rough lines in his skin. Upon seeing the young boy, those very lines wrinkled around his eyes as a large smile came to his face. The twinkling of the father’s eyes caught the look of the son, as the son began to waltz in time with the light music his mother was playing in the kitchen as she finished cleaning up after dinner. The aging man began to tap his foot to the beat, egging the boy on as he whirled around the kitchen table. The mother warned the youngster to get on and play somewhere else, but the young child could not resist his father’s cajoling foot, tapping away. Soon, after his father finished another shot of the whiskey, he began to clap in time with the beat, raising his foot to a stomp, instead of just a tap.

            The mother turned up the music a bit, just to try and hear the waltz as the father raised up from the table. The father went to the son and put the child’s feet on top of his own. He told his son to hold on, and the smell of whiskey wafted down to the child, almost stinging the boy’s eyes. The child did hold on, though keeping up with the big work boots of the man was not easy. As the father and son started to stomp around the kitchen, some of the pans actually slipped from shelf in the kitchen. The mother was not happy that the dancing had caused more of a mess to the area she was working so hard to clean, and her mouth was fixed downward at their romping.

            The hard working father’s hands were rough, and one of his knuckles were battered in, yet his hand carefully held the boy’s wrist as they waltzed their way back and forth through the kitchen. The man’s whiskey was meeting his tiredness, and he would miss a step here and there. The young boy was only as tall as the man’s belt, so that whenever he did miss a step, his right ear would scrape right over the belt buckle brushing the boy’s hair back as he did. With the kitchen work done, the mother let the last song play towards the end, as the father wound the dance down. The son’s laughter began to calm down to a giggle, and then the song faded out. The father continued to sway back and fro, lifting the boy and holding him.

            The boy’s eyelashes began to meet, and the father’s heartbeat kept time in the boy’s ear. The father beat the same rhythm with his hand, his palm caked hard by the dirt he worked in the fields. He swayed back and forth, and headed down the short hallway to the boy’s bedroom to lay him down. The young boy clung to his father’s shirt as his tired eyes finally shut, the child falling asleep in his father’s grasp before the child made it to his bed.

            One of the major changes made with this rewrite is the addition of the mother’s presence during the dance. In the rewrite, the story goes into what she is doing, and her placement around the father and son during the time they are dancing. In the poem, she only has a small part “My mother’s countenance – Could not unfrown itself.” This short story gives her more of a presence, and motive as to her displeasure.

            The other addition is in the beginning of the story. There is more of a lead in which brings the reader into the situation, and gives them more of a description of how the dance gets started. Also, this section brings a bit of the father’s face into the story, which is not given any description in the poem itself.

            Another description that the story provides in which the poem does not is the room in which they are doing the waltzing. The poem gives one the idea of the dance being in the kitchen, when the reader sees the first two lines of the second stanza, “We romped until the pans – Slid from the kitchen shelf;” The story actually goes into more detail, as it describes the father sitting at the kitchen table drinking his whiskey, and when the two are dancing around the kitchen table. Also, the mother is playing the waltz music as she is cleaning the kitchen after dinner, so the reader is clearly given the impression that all of the action is taking place in the kitchen.

            The last of the story pretty much goes along with the poem, except that it goes into more detail about the son getting sleepy, and the father taking him to bed, while the poem leaves the child still “clinging to (his) shirt.”