Fiction: “SENIORS DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY”

This is the first work of fiction we have published on this website. We’re open to publishing more—if they shed light, as we believe this story does, on aging today after younging in an earlier century.

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I have trouble seeing.  Which means I don’t do well at night.  And as I step from my house heading for the senior center, the old, tired streets are unlit.  Obviously an outage. I stumble along the uneven, thrust-up sidewalks—traps laid by vengeful tree roots.

Old and widowered, I’m lonely.  But no lonelier since Margaret died. Just more aware of it.  After I retired from merchant sailing, trading my brief homestays for endless domestic vexation, I began to harbor dark thoughts.

And then she just died. Likely from her own version of our life together. She fell ill and was gone in three weeks.  I felt far more relief than guilt.  Much as I’d felt each time I’d ordered mooring lines cast off: relief that, whatever shoreside messes I’d made, there was nothing to do for it—all now solely fate driven, fate managed, rolled up in the contracts and charts, and caprice of circumstance forced upon even the strongest willed sailors.

Truth be told, leaving was a high point of each voyage.    Leaving and knowing there’d be no returning until the last of each leaving had played itself out.

I hate bullshit.  Always have.  Yet, whether from loneliness or some unrecognized ache, here I was giving in to one of the most specious forms of bullshit.  The bumptious fantasy of some ditzy social director, conceived and printed in huge letters even my beclouded eyes could read—printed in ersatz, cheerful script on canvas tied to chain linkage walling the senior center off from the polluted inky river slinking off to the sea:

Seniors Dance the Night Away!

Every Saturday!

Live Music!

Golden Oldies for Goldens!

Senior Center—7 p.m. till Midnight

I have tried the senior center a couple of times.  Went to play pool—rhymes with “fool,” which is what I ran into at the poolroom.  “No fools like old fools.”  And they were, indeed, both old and fools.  I’ve sailed with ignorant men from every backwater: stupid men, crude men, brutish men but, take it to the bank, these shoddy opinionated locals are without peer.

I avoided the place same way I do do-gooders.   And yet it was just because of that sign and a do-gooder neighbor that my sorry ass is lurching along by starlight this Saturday evening. Lurching toward a likely dismal meet-up with grizzled Goldens fleeing their empty lives. 

“Dance the Night Away!”  Phooey!

Anyway, here I come, in a pissy mood, curse-stumbling through the blinding dark to dance with God only knows what insipid, grandchildren-extolling, ailment-detailing, cliché-spouting, over cologned, under informed, savorless salt-of-the-earthers.  

Goldens!  Hah!

I walk through the door, now as blinded by the light as by the unlit street.   The heat is engine-room stifling.    Bandstand geezers are blaring out toots, twangs, and bangs.  They’re playing The Wild Goose song.  Crooner Frankie Laine is flopping in his grave, while I hear it as Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. If I had any sense, I’d take wing and go where the wild goose goes.  

I barely have my bearings when a rotund woman, in cracked, caked make-up and flowered chartreuse blouse, rushes up in a swish of crinoline and flouncing green skirt.  On her chest, a stick-on label reads,  “Hi, I’m Dotty!”

Amidst the din, she points to her label, hands me one, plus a marker, and mimes to an apparently simple-minded me that I am to write just as she has and stick it on my lapel. I mime back that she is an idiot, and she either appreciates the joke or idiotically smiles as an idiot might.

It takes but a few seconds to realize it is the latter, because when I write, “Hi, I’m Dotty,” she frowns and mimes that SHE is Dotty and me is…Who? She mimes by pointing alternatively to herself, then to me, extending her arms palms up, shrugging and opening her eyes expectantly….”She, Dotty.  Me, Who?   She, Dotty.  Me, Who? “ 

“Oh,” I mime, as I cross out the “I’m” and write, “Me Tarzan!”

She gives me a “you-silly-goose” arm slap, points to a new blank label and, frowning, mimes for me to quit fooling and follow instructions.

For my part, I’m ready to make wild-goose sky tracks, so I hurriedly write, “I’m Frankie,” and she gives me a “that’s better” mime, to which I mime, ”where’s the fucking bar?”

Apparently, she only gets the “fucking” part and exits in a crinoline huff. To be fair, it’s much easier to mime “fucking” than “bar.”  She is gone before I finish pouring from my imaginary cocktail shaker. 

I look around and see one sorry collection of elderly losers: the halt, the maimed, the overweight and the under thin, the slack jawed and the beehive coiffed, some over-talking and under-listening, some preening, others slouching, each and all looking eligible for thought-food donations.    

I decide to find the bar and hole-up with a couple of scotches before taking off from goose hell.  Seeing nothing in the dance area, I walk into an empty adjoining room that is everything a bar should be—low lighting, fireplace, large comfy-looking armchairs, a couple of inviting plush sofas, cherrywood coffee and side tables—everything…..minus the fucking bar!  Still, the music is gratifyingly faint.

I’m just easing myself into a puffy sofa when I hear the unwelcome sound of one crinoline clapping, and here comes “Hi, I’m-Dotty!” with an “Hi, I’m-Rachel” accomplice.  “Hi, I’m-Dotty” shoves ”Hi,-I’m-Rachel”  toward me, turns fat crinoline tail, and swishes back toward the ballroom. 

Hi-I’m-Rachel’s face is deep-wrinkled but warm.  I stand up and hold out my hand, which she shakes once, firmly, and says,  “Dotty sensed we’d be a good fit. And was quite aggressive about it.” 

“You coulda bowled me over with a petticoat,” I say.  “Not because my interest is piqued, but because Dotty has any sense of anything.”

“You just met her.  Why you being so hard?”

“Just some momentary smartassing. I’m anti-social.  And while I would rather not  be, I would really hate it if I weren’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because then I’d socialize. And I hate it.”

Smiling, Rachel says, “Hate’s a pretty strong word for something as benign as socializing, don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah.   But if you lower your standards and quit hating inanities, soon the whole camel is in the tent and, next thing you know, you’re practicing needlepoint with mind-numbing geezers.”

“I thought you were into geese.  And for your info, I, myself, do needle point!  You shouldn’t  knock what you haven’t tried. “

“Maybe.  I haven’t tried uh…say…. Jehovah witnessing, but if they ever come a-knocking, I will knock them right back. ”

“Ha-Ha!  Well, Frankie—

“—Confession: I’m ‘Skip,’ not ‘Frankie’.”

“Is ‘Skip’ short for something? Or a nickname?”

“Both.  ‘Skipper.’  I’m a retired merchant mariner.”

“And ‘Frankie’?”

“Frankie Laine. The I-wanna-go-where-the-wild-goose-goes guy?”

“Of course.  So…sea captain, huh?  My, my!  Well,  I don’t jig, but I do like to dance.  You wanna?”

“Not really.  I wanna fly like Frankie and the wild goose.  And I think I will.  Almost nice talking to you.  Thanks for the effort.”

“Sure.   Though you know what the sad thing is?”  

“Dotty?”

“She’s better than you think.  But no.  The sad thing is that you want to fly the coop because you’re scared.”

  My neck hair bristled. “What the hell you talking about?”

“Exactly!  The ‘hell’ that you’re in.  

“The ‘hell’ I’m in?”

“Yuh. Stand-apart hell. I see the smart-ass, and it doesn’t put me off, because I see the fear behind it.”

“Fear? Listen, sister—

“—Oh, I’ll listen, brother!  But, if you really wanna go all goosie,  you’re gonna have to lose the smart ass and, at least, edge up to the fear.” 

My legs go weak.  Me!—Old sea legs!  Weak like rotten timber.  I thought this outing would be dismal, depressing, but in the ordinary way life is.  This is not ordinary.  This is like staring in a mirror and seeing something despicable staring back. My head is whirring and when I glance at Rachel I see, in shocking, strobe-like flashes, first crone, then witch, then demon, then naked skull. I close my eyes and sink back into the sofa.

“Do you know how to dance?” asks Rachel?

A lifeline!  “Well, yeah.  Actually, when I was a young able bodied seaman, I was pretty good on the dance floor.  It got me lotsa… friends in many ports.” 

“Well, I’ll make you a deal.  Dance two dances with me.  One fast, one slow, and I’ll help you with your goose option.  And you can go or leave whenever you choose.”

“I don’t think I can dance right now,” I say, while thinking, not even sure I can stand or walk.   

“Okay, let’s sit out a few,” she says, sitting down beside me.  “But before it gets too late, you need to dance two dances.  One fast and one slow.  After all, isn’t that what you came for?”

“To tell you the truth—"

“—Do you often not tell the truth?”

“Just an expression!  Truth is—"

“—Expression of what?”

“Hey! Grand Inquisitor!  Gimme a break, will ya?”

“Sure, if that’s what you want.  But I don’t think it is.  I think you really do want to fly the coop.  But your problem is that the coop you want to fly isn’t the coop you’re cooped in.”

“Wait a minute...”  I was getting dizzier.  Something was happening, and I was loathing it!  My upper lip broke sweat.  I was scared, moving toward panic, and not knowing why.

I’ve stared down North Atlantic winter storms, sailed through them standing upright gripped fast to the helm.  Well, to be honest….DAM!... I AM honest!...in one of those storms I was white-knuckle scared. Up-chucking scared.  But that was because we…because I…was staring into death’s black maw. 

So, I had been here before, but that was real, looming death, and this was…this is….Jesus!  Exactly what IS this?   What in God’s name is going down here, and why didn’t I follow my first instinct and never walk through that door.  And why once I heard the Wild Goose warning, didn’t I turn tail and fly like a bat out of hell? 

My eyes are squinched tight and Rachel is calling through the swamping fog in my head…“Hey, Skip! Skip!  Where are you?  Come back.  You’re okay.  We’re right here.   Listen, Goosie—slow down your breathing.  Take some deep breaths.  Deeeep breaths.”

She lays the gentlest, most welcome hand on my arm. I do deepen my breathing. Her hand is stroking my arm, and I suppress desire to embrace her.  Everything slows and settles before she takes my hand, stands up, and says, “Come on, Goosie, let’s dance.”

That’s all I need.  I push up, pull her to me and she slowly rubs my back and shoulders.  Soon, we are swaying to Stardust, whose pointed, languid notes are seeping in from the main room.    

Sighing, she says, “I don’t know if it’s dying or something else that scares us.  I just know that there’s something so scary out there, or inside, that the fear blinds us from seeing it. “

Dying!? I’m thinking, How is she reading dying into this?  Although it does feel like the threat of dying.  What I  felt during that monstrous storm; the ship hurled about and taking water; slicing seas shearing through lines and deck rails; all control faint and tenuous; the gray, heaving ocean, infinitely vast, pitiless, relentless;  the ship ever so small, vulnerable, finite, and alone.

We barely dance, sway mostly, her chin on my shoulder, her cheek against mine.  I want to clutch her forever.  After a bit, she nods toward the main room, “Let’s you and I keep dancing. But with the other geese.”

The fear has ebbed. A thin, ashy coat lines my chest and throat.

Sometime soon, I think, sometime soon, but not now.  For sure, later, I’ll search out this fear, turn into it, face it head-on.  But not now.  Not right now with this wonderful woman to dance with.  And the dancing! The dancing!  I forgot how good it feels to dance.

A jitterbug begins, and Rachel and I twirl and slide into the main room, where we dance continuously.  I notice the other couples, some changing out, some remaining paired, and to my weak eyes they appear contoured, soft, with faint yellow auras blending everything together.  I spot Dotty.  She looks earnest and innocent.  We smile and wave. 

When midnight comes and the center closes, Rachel drives me home. She parks, turning a friendly face to me.  Almost whispering, I ask if she might not want to come in, maybe even dance a bit more.  She tilts her head, her wrinkles expanding backwards and up into an all-encompassing, receptive smile.  My eyes moisten.

Inside, I put on some music, hold her to me and, believe it or not, we dance right through to dawning.