Just Like Fred Astaire

By Joe Sylvester

All Johnny Manno wants to do is dance and drive his car. But his son Michael worries because Johnny keeps wrecking the car and those young women he hangs with could be taking advantage of the old man. But getting the keys away from Johnny or telling him who he should hang with is another matter.

Johnny knows his son means well, but ol' Johnny can take care of himself. He's only had a few fender benders and they weren't even his fault. And Michael should stop telling him who to be friends with ‒ those young girls weren’t taking advantage of him or involving him in selling drugs. Michael just needs to worry about his own family.

But Michael is in the middle of the generation sandwich ‒ worried about his family, his kids and their problems in school, his struggling business, and his dad, who likely will wipe out entire families with his car, if he doesn't go to jail first from hanging around that Cindi and Maria or burn down his apartment.

Still, Johnny keeps dancing with the ladies, teaching everyone something along the way, even if he is not always in perfect step.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Sylvester
• Release date: Jun 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370844685

Joe Sylvester

Joe Sylvester has been a newspaper reporter and editor in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania for more than thirty years. He also has published satire in newspapers and magazines. Earlier in life, he supported himself laboring in factories, driving taxi and working in the gas station and food service industries. A native of Dunmore, Pa., near Scranton, Joe lived for a brief time in Houston, Texas, but later returned to Pennsylvania and settled in Bloomsburg. Just Like Fred Astaire is his first published novel.

Book preview

1

The Dance

Johnny Manno walked in and scanned the crowd. He and a couple of his friends had come in on the up-valley bus from Jessup, and they were ready to let loose on the dance floor.

The newcomers drifted along the dance floor perimeter like hawks circling a field, scanning the young crowd of factory workers, store clerks, students, soldiers and sailors who were waiting for the band to start playing. They walked once around then settled onto the sidelines while Johnny, a rail-thin young man with jet-black hair and a prominent nose, continued scanning the floor, like a hunter in search of his prey. It didn’t take long. He saw her in the middle of it all, talking and laughing with her friends.

The lights dimmed on the dance floor. Horns tuned up. Then, on someone’s One, two, three, count, the horns launched a bouncy, up-tempo beat, low at first, but then the drummer began pounding, calling the other musicians to action. The horns blared, following the drummer’s call, and the blast of loud, fast music filled the community center auditorium, shaking loose the mass of dancers here to enjoy a night out after a week of work, or too many weeks at war. The swarm poured onto the dance floor, dancers pairing off in couples, guys and girls, girls and girls, bouncing and jitterbugging to the music, ties and ankle-length skirts flying, the music a living thing. A few bystanders remained on the sidelines, but even some of those had paired off to join the mass of swinging and swaying limbs.

Johnny stood planted, seeking her out again. Then, as if he had built-in radar, his eyes locked on his target, now on the edge of the moving mass. Short, cute, with shoulder-length dark hair, Gaetana Palermo stood alone and watched the other dancers, her friends included, tapping her right foot and swaying to the music, her hands folded in front of her. She happened to turn and saw Johnny staring at her. He smiled. She smiled. He walked toward her.

As Johnny approached, Gaetana pretended to watch the dancers. Johnny was within a few feet when another guy appeared from the other side and tapped her on the shoulder. Johnny froze. The guy, tall, blond, handsome and athletic, said something to her and she shook her head. The guy nodded, looked around and then slid off somewhere into a far corner. Gaetana turned toward Johnny and saw him standing there. She gave a small smile then turned again to watch the dancers. She turned toward him just as he moved up next to her. He stood a head and shoulders taller than her.

Would you like to dance with me? he said, smiling.

She smiled back. I just told that other guy no. I’m just watching the other dancers.

I don’t care about that other guy. I asked if you wanted to dance with me.

You seem nice, but why should I dance with you?

Because I’m better lookin’ than that other guy.

Gaetana laughed as she studied Johnny’s face. Are you a good dancer?

They don’t call me Fred for nothin’.

She laughed again.

Well, let’s see how good you are, Fred.

She held out her hand and Johnny took it and led her onto the dance floor. They jitterbugged for what turned out to be the last thirty seconds of the fast song.

The orchestra followed with a slow ballad. Gaetana was about to thank Johnny for the dance.

Whoa, wait. That wasn’t much of a dance. You still owe me a full number.

Gaetana looked scared for a moment, looked around her at other couples now embracing and slow dancing, before she put her right hand in Johnny’s left. She put her other arm around him and he did the same. They danced slowly, cheek to cheek, until they squeezed each other tightly. They danced together the rest of the evening, taking breaks just to get a soda and talk, seeing the friends they came with only in passing.

By the end of the evening, Johnny knew just about everything about Gaetana. He asked her if she wanted to go for ice cream sometime. She said she’d have to ask her mother.

The dance over, he wanted to walk her home, but there was only one more bus running that night from Dunmore to Jessup, which was five miles away. Gaetana said she’d see him at the dance the next Saturday night.

Johnny said sure, and then he walked with her the few blocks to her home anyway.

He almost made the bus. He saw it driving away as he ran down the sidewalk to the corner bus stop. He swore under his breath then started walking, turning and sticking out his thumb out whenever a car passed. After about a mile, he got a ride right to his door.

He saw Gaetana the next Saturday night and never stopped. That was the beginning of their story. A story that lasted more than half a century.

A story that was coming to an end.

2

The People In The Basement

I looked over at Ma, staring again through her rose-tinted prescription glasses. But this time, it wasn’t some blank gaze at the floor or the wall. This time, it was straight at Dad; squinting, intent, like some Old West gunfighter, as if the sun were in her eyes as she faced down a gunslinger on a dusty street. Except she was sitting on her favorite red- and white- floral-patterned living room chair. She had her head propped up on her right hand as her elbow rested on the arm of the chair. Dad was in his recliner, within arm’s reach of her, unable to escape her glare.

I’ll fix your ass, my mother said in a low, threatening voice, still glowering at him.

Dad looked confused. What did I do? He acted as if he expected an answer that made sense, even though he knew better.

"You know," my mother replied.

Dad raised his eyebrows, tightened his lips and gave a what-can-you-do-shrug. I’m in trouble again, Mikey.

I wanted to laugh, but no one else seemed amused. I asked Dad what she was talking about.

Who knows? he said. She’s in her own little world.

Something was happening to my mother. She stared more, seeing other people in the house, especially in the middle of the night when no one else was there. She had started referring to the people in the basement. More frequently, she talked about wanting to go home, and despite how many times her husband of fifty-four years told her she was home, she insisted on leaving to go home.

The doctor said it was dementia. That’s why I’d put the deadbolt high on the front door, where my four-foot eleven-inch restless Sicilian mother could not reach it and escape in the middle of the night.

I remember Dad saying that nights were hard on both of them. They would both fall asleep for an hour or two, and then Ma would be up, wandering the house. He would get up with her to make sure she was safe. The weariness in my Dad’s face from worry and lack of sleep was plain to see. That’s when she talked about other people in the house, the people in the mirror, the people in the basement. Dad would help her use the bathroom, get her a drink of water, put her back into bed. She’d sleep, eventually, for a few more hours. Then it would start all over again.

He had to keep an eye on her all day. Every time she said, I want to go home, he’d tell her again she was home. On one occasion, after she kept insisting on going home, Dad realized she meant her childhood home where she grew up, just a mile or two away. He took her and explained that other people lived there now and after pondering that for a moment, she seemed satisfied. Then it would start again that night or the next day. Her mind kept deceiving her and trying to bring her back to reality was impossible.

Dad didn’t want to put her in a nursing home, because, She wouldn’t want that. So he took care of her twenty-four hours a day, every day. After retiring from the casket factory, my seventy-eight-year-old father had worked part-time in a couple of grocery stores as a bagger and then as a school crossing guard. He had to quit the crossing guard job to care for his wife. The growing bags under his eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses, were indicators of the strain on him. He had developed a hunch, as if the weight of his life now was on his shoulders. He had aged faster, too. He no longer looked younger than his age; streaks of gray lined his still full head of dark hair. And his hair wasn’t always neatly slicked back on his head as it had been for as long as I could remember. He didn’t always comb his hair. Like today. He looked unkempt and his hair stuck up toward the back of his head like an antenna. He’d shrunk, too. He was always five-eight, like me, but now it seemed I was inches taller. Even his long-time pot belly had shrunk.

Isn’t there somebody we could call to get you some help taking care of Ma? I asked him.

I don’t want nobody comin’ in here, he said. Your mother wouldn’t want a stranger comin’ in here.

He looked at his wife and she looked at him and smiled.

We been through a lot together, he said, still looking at her. As soon as I saw her at that dance, I knew I was goin’ to marry her. She was a good dancer. We did a lot a dancin’, her and me. Teary eyed, he stared off into a corner as he talked about when he first saw her, back to the days of their youth when dancing was their connection.

Scene Break

Johnny spun Gaetana and pulled her back to him as they jitterbugged. What time you want me to pick you up on Friday night? Johnny asked as they danced closer.

They pulled apart, connected by only their hands, and Gaetana spun again. He pulled her toward him as they kept on dancing.

Friday? I thought you were coming Saturday? Don’t you have to work late?

Just till four. We haven’t worked overtime in a couple weeks. Cabinet orders have been slow.

I get done at three. You can pick me up at seven so you can meet my mother before she goes to bed.

Bed? What, does she go to bed with the chickens?

Gaetana laughed and spun again as the song ended. Johnny pulled her toward him and hugged her. He smiled down at her.

That doesn’t mean I can stay out real late. My mother wanted me home by ten, but I begged and pleaded and pointed out I’m twenty-two years old, and in the end she said eleven.

3

How Did We Get Here?

My mother’s parents had immigrated to this country from Sicily when they were newlyweds back in the early 1900s. Her father died when she was fifteen, leaving her mother with seven kids. She had to be careful. What my mother didn’t tell my father until much later was that her mother didn’t trust those Americano boys. Even a Perugino who lived a few towns away, in Jessup. It didn’t matter that his parents had come from Perugia, Italy. He wasn’t Sicilian and he wasn’t from Dunmore. But my father won over his future mother-in-law by bringing her Dixie cups of chocolate and vanilla ice cream when he took the bus to town to pick up my mother for a date. And he spoke some Sicilian. Smooth operator, that Johnny Manno.

My father won over young Gaetana Palermo on the dance floor. They kept on dancing even after they had me. We lived upstairs in my grandmother’s house when they were younger, and they used to leave me with her and go out with friends to places where they could have dinner, or a few drinks, and dance to their music, Big Band music.

That’s music, not that yeah-yeah-yeah shit they have today. Dad often offered his critiques of modern music when I was growing up.

Dancing to their music was one way they let loose after working all week. They both worked in factories – my mother was a garment worker who sewed all day in dress and glove factories over the years. Until those places began to disappear when the jobs emigrated to where labor was even cheaper. My dad, too, had had different jobs, from making metal cabinets to radio parts to caskets. That last job gave him some new one-liners, such as this gem: At least all of my mistakes are buried.

Jeez-us.

That didn’t seem that long ago. Now, at seventy-eight, they were older versions of themselves, as if transformed with theater makeup to portray older characters, though my mother always looked younger because she colored her hair.

She still had that smirk behind that makeup. She was under there. I looked over at her. She had made only a half-hearted attempt to comb her hair. Part of it stuck up in the middle. Dad tried to fix it, but she slapped his hand away. Whattaya doin’? You’re messin’ my hair.

Dad used to try to argue such minuscule things, but now he let them pass with a wave of his hand.

"It’s no use. She’s a stubborn Sicilian. If she wants to look like a strega, then let her."

She stopped staring at the floor. She looked at me then and asked, Did you see those people when you were coming in, Joe? calling me by the name of her long-dead brother.

Ah … .no, I didn’t, was all I could think to say.

Then she was silent. She had been saying to Dad for weeks now that she saw people and asking if he’d seen them.

I knew she had not been eating very much from what my dad told me. Until recently, she was always in the kitchen on Sundays, cooking pasta and her homemade sauce. Other days she’d create her other homemade specialties, sausage and peppers, chicken cacciatore, polenta with mushroom and ground beef sauce, chicken soup, or meals she created from whatever was left over in the refrigerator. Her homemade pizza was a special treat on Fridays or Saturdays. Then there were the cookies and cakes. There always was a good smell of food in the house.

Now she was growing older. She didn’t cook much anymore. Dad did some of the cooking now for the two of them. And she was seeing people and not knowing where she was. Did she know who she was?

Was this what old age was? You lose yourself and everything you loved doing? I resolved to talk to her doctor. I told myself I would call him the next day and see if there was anything he could suggest to help her in some way, or at least be less paranoid about seeing imaginary people.

But the next day, before I could call, Dad called me at my deli.

Mikey, I’m at the hospital, he said, and my stomach dropped. It’s your mother. Her ankles are swellin’ up like balloons. I think it’s her heart. Can you come?

Saying I’d be there as soon as I could, I left my employees to handle things and drove to the hospital in Scranton three miles away. The drive took forever. I think I hit every red light and got behind the slowest drivers in Scranton. Not knowing in what condition I’d find my mother or, for that matter my father, when I got to the hospital, my legs felt as if they had lead in them as I tried to walk quickly to where my dad said they were.

I did not want this to be happening. I did not want my mother to be in hospital or be sick or be old. I wanted things to stay the same with her laughing and teasing me and asking me about my family.

My mom looked so small and frail lying in the hospital bed in one of the Emergency Room cubicles. She had her eyes closed and at first, I had to look closely to see that she was breathing. My dad sat next to her, holding her hand; her hand looked swollen. My dad looked drained and worn out.

The doctor came in and said there wasn’t a whole lot anyone could do. My mother’s heart and kidneys had been going downhill for some time. It was something my mother had been living with by taking medication and watching her diet, though later on, she wasn’t eating right. At the onset of her dementia, the doctor had told us what was going on, and we realized it was just something new we had to accept. It was a gradual thing, and we figured we had some time. Everything seemed under control. But now this, the sudden extreme swelling ... it made it all too real. Especially when the doctor suggested one option was to put Ma in a hospice unit. Dad and I did not want to believe that she was that sick. We did not want to believe that Ma was dying.

But we had to face it. We decided the hospital’s hospice unit, rather than some other place, was the best choice. We liked the hospital and it was easier for everybody.

The next day, they moved her to a room in the hospice unit. Now it was just a matter of time.

My father spent his days and a good part of his nights by her side. She told him she wanted to go home. If not for the heavy sedation, she might have tried to get up and leave, to go back to wherever she believed her home was. It was just the same as when Dad cared for her at home. She still wanted to go home. At least now he could get some rest. The nurses would take care of Ma.

After he had quit his crossing guard job so he could be home with her, he found that tending to his wife’s needs was exhausting. She didn’t always make sense, and tired and frustrated, sometimes he yelled or argued. And she argued back.

Many days, he got by on just a few hours of interrupted sleep. She’d wake him to say she wanted to go home, or she’d nudge him to say she needed help going to the bathroom, confused about how to get there. She wasn’t eating, so he gave her liquid supplements, at the doctor’s suggestion.

Now that she was in the hospice unit, Dad slept a little bit more at night when he went home, though still not enough because he was worried about his wife, his best friend, the love of his life.

He spent his days in the hospice unit, sitting by her, holding her hand, trying to get her to eat. She barely ate. She wasn’t talking. He sat there, talking to her, reminiscing about when they met, the dances, their friends. Sometimes she looked at him with a look that seemed to say she understood. She would smile, and Dad would chuckle. His Tana was back.

But a minute later, she would stare at him, looking worried, as if he were a stranger telling her bad news. Dad would stop talking for a moment, sigh and maybe stroke her forehead or touch her face. He’d tell himself she understood when he told her how much he loved her. He’d kiss her before he left, and kiss her when he arrived early the next morning. He slept off and on in the chair next to her bed while she slept.

One evening when I went to visit, Dad, as usual, was sitting in the chair beside her bed. He looked at her as she lay quietly, her eyes half open, facing the ceiling of the dimly lit room as the daylight faded outside. I felt a knot in my chest, a heaviness all over me: I hardly recognized my mother. She looked so frail and old. Her colored reddish-brown hair was now almost white, even her eyebrows had turned white. I saw life draining out of her and I didn’t think she knew me anymore. If there was any recognition, she didn’t show it.

About a week earlier, I called her when Dad was there. He said it was a good day for her and that she was talking a little bit to him. He gave her the phone and she seemed to know who I was. But then she said she would give the phone back to the nice man.

I don’t know, Mikey, Dad said to me later, in the room. It doesn’t look good.

I went over to his side of the bed and put my hand on his shoulder. He put his face in his hands and took deep, choked breaths. I patted his back. He sat up and took a deep breath and exhaled.

Life is gonna be different without my Tana, he said. I been preparing myself. But I dread it … I don’t know if there is any way to really be ready for this. We been together so long that it will be like losing half of me. Tears welled up in his eyes as he tried to keep his composure.

I tried to prepare, too, but I couldn’t imagine my mother not being around.

She held on for about another week. It was on a Saturday evening that Dad called. Can you get here pretty soon? He sounded panicked. I think your mother’s goin’.

I hung up the phone and stood and stared. I had difficulty breathing. I had to get to the hospital, but my legs just would not move. Grace and the kids pretty much figured out what was going on. We all stood looking at each other.

It’s Ma, was all I could say over the lump in my throat.

Before anyone said anything, Dad called back. I heard his voice say the words I did not want to hear. My