Jay Hartman of Untreed Reads just notified me that my fourth story, Song on the Sand, is now live. And it just went up on Amazon. I put an excerpt from it below. This is my favorite of the short stories so far because it's a combination of reality--the bitter memories of an elderly man in a nursing home--friendship between him and a young gay man who visits there, and an old man's last fantasy, set to music.
Untreed Reads, I've just found out, are available in every format there is for all the differing readers. And I swear those blamed things are multiplying like cockroaches in a dirty kitchen. So many different kinds, and some of them do everything excerpt make breakfast. Anyhoo, if you want to read one of UR's books, you'll be able to regardless where you are or what kind of device you have.
Without further ado, here's a bit of Song on the Sand.
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Song on the Sand
(c) 2010 Ruth Sims
“No!”
The old man didn’t expect his vehement refusal to accomplish anything. He knew he would end up doing what they wanted; he always did, just like the rest of the fragile, sickly, old bags of bones who called Sunnyland Acres home. What choice did he have? Those in authority were young and strong; he was eighty-six and since his heart attack his legs no longer held him up. He had no authority or power at all. Verbally contesting their stupid rules and giving the staff derogatory nicknames behind their backs were all he had left. Even so, he looked forward to the daily confrontations; they made what was left of his adrenaline start racing.
He watched their faces, gauging their reaction to his fierce “No!” Which one would reach the gritted-teeth-grin stage first? Would it be Mean Aide? He knew perfectly well the woman’s name was Melba; it said so on her name tag, but he refused to call her that. Or would the aide he nicknamed Big Butt (real name: Cora) beat her to it?
Mean Aide won. She bared her teeth in a death’s-head grimace and said in a voice sweeter than pecan pie, “Now come on, sweetie. You know you got to get dressed.”
“No. I don’t want to. And don’t call me sweetie. I am not your sweetie or anyone else’s. I am Mister Dalby.”
“Well, Mister Dalby, we got rules. You know we got rules. You got to live with them and so do we. And one rule is you get dressed every morning unless you’re bedfast.”
“Only if I get my shoes.”
“Slippers. You know that.”
“I hate those ugly old things. They’re plaid, for Godsake!”
Standing beside Mean Aide, Big Butt didn’t even pretend to smile. She snapped, “Honey, you’re an ugly old thing yourself.”
Tony stared at her with admiration. “You got balls, sister. Don’t you know I could report you for elder abuse?”
Big Butt snorted. She glanced at her co-worker and said, “Do you believe this old goat says he was a dancer? Must’ve been a long time ago.”
“Yeah,” Tony retorted, “And a long time ago you didn’t have a rear end the size of Alaska. Anyway I wasn’t just a dancer. I was an actor, too.”
“In what? Commercials for Attends?”
That was all too true. Stung, his voice rose. “In my last stage role I wore four-inch stiletto heels, not plaid slippers!”
Mean Aide said, “Cora, let’s just get him dressed, slippers and all, and he can stew about it the rest of the day the way he always does.”
He made them sweat to get the ugly cardigan sweater and polyester pants on his thin body and the hated plaid slippers on his feet. Then they put an afghan—more damn plaid!—over his knees and wheeled him out to the sun porch to vegetate until time to wheel him back in. This being Sunday, at noon he would be lined up with the other wheelchair-bound residents for the weekly torture called Hymn Time, during which a skinny woman of great volume and little talent loudly banged out gospel songs on the out-of-tune piano, accompanying herself while she bellowed songs about Jesus, always dragging out the name “Jeeeeesuuusss.” He supposed her heart was in the right place but he wished she’d take it somewhere else.
But at least until Hymn Time, he would be left alone. He sat and watched the people come and go in the parking lot. For a concrete parking lot, it was rather pretty, with shade trees on the perimeter and large ornamental urns that frothed with summer color and spilled over with trailing vines.
His eye was caught by a young man walking toward the building. A very handsome young man. Tony thought, There was a time when a man like that would be waiting in my dressing room. He uttered a bark of sardonic laughter. At least the few times I actually had a dressing room.
The young man wore a red shirt and dark jeans, and his hair was as fair as if Rumpelstiltskin had spun it that very morning. The young man looked in his direction and smiled. Tony knew it was an illusion; the young man could not have seen past the sunlight reflected on the window glass. But illusion or no, it was a pleasant fantasy to pretend the handsome young man had come to visit him. He sighed and slumped a little when the young man disappeared from sight around a corner.
Tony scowled at nothing for a while, ignoring the occasional residents, visitors, and staff who entered and left the sunroom. He studied his hands, resting upon the arms of the wheelchair. Thin, spotted, hideous. Goddamn, but he hated being old! Maybe the ones who forgot everything were lucky. He could remember all too well when he was young and a real head-turner. Nature, or God, or whoever the hell invented this getting old shit is a vicious sadist, he thought.
Somewhere behind him, in the main part of the single story building he heard moans and inarticulate cries for help. They, like the smells of urine and disinfectant, were constant. The aide Tony had nicknamed Nancy Nitpick came in to check on him. She straightened the afghan, and asked if he needed anything.
“I need to be forty years younger,” he said. “Can you pull that off? Say, did you know I starred in movie musicals?” She shook her head. “I did,” he insisted. “I danced with Ginger Rogers and Rita Hayworth and Gwen Verdon. I was younger than they were, but I was better than Gene Kelly. I was handsomer than Kelly!”
“That's good, honey,” she said. “Me, I’m Madonna on my days off. Now then. Why don’t you let me help you walk to that chair? The doctor says you need to make an effort or you’ll never be better.” She strong-armed him to his feet and helped him shuffle the four short small steps to the thickly padded chair beside the window. Then she tucked his afghan in around his legs again. “Now you sit there like a good boy and I'll be back to get you in time for the church service.”
“I'm not a boy!” Tony said loudly to the aide's back. “And don't call me ‘honey’ or ‘sweetie’ or ‘sugar pie.’ And I’m not senile so don’t talk to me like I am. And for God’s sake let me skip the blasted church service!” The aide half-turned, shook her head again then walked away. “You don’t listen,” he shouted. “None of you listen.”
Later he saw the young stranger emerge from the blind spot of the wall and walk toward the parking lot. Beautiful young man, he said silently, why can’t you visit me? Who are you here to see? Will you return?
The next day the young man reappeared. And the day after that as well. The fourth day, having convinced himself that he would see the young man again, Tony surprised the aides by insisting on his best shirt and V-neck sweater. As usual he lost the battle over the plaid slippers.
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Tony invented a name and a life for the stranger. He decided the young man’s name was Leon because that had been the name of his only real love a long, long time ago. The new ‘Leon’ was in his late twenties, just like the first one. He was a homosexual. But wait—nowadays only nasty preachers used that word, dragged out into five syllables. The ho-mo-sex-u-als themselves said “gay.” Leon, then, was ‘gay.’ He was a writer. What else could he be? He looked like a writer. He had left his home in San Francisco to come back here to the Midwest to visit his grandfather in the nursing home. That idea brought Tony up short. Grandfather? He himself was old enough to be “Leon’s” grandfather. Maybe even his great-grandfather! Ugh.
In his accustomed chair beside the sunroom window, Tony threw the afghan aside and looked with loathing at the legs that once upon a time had carried him across stages with strength and agility and grace. His dance teacher had told him he had the talent and ability to be another Fred Astaire or Gene Kelley. With his fists he struck those thin, weak, old-man’s legs, wasted by inaction. The once-a-week therapy accomplished nothing! Nothing! They told him he should try walking with a walker and an attendant. He had so far refused because if he couldn’t walk alone he didn’t want to walk at all.
Now, a crafty expression crossed his face; he’d try it alone. He’d show them.
He concentrated on the elbow-high bright orange rail that lined the wall in front of him and which, like a monstrously long snake, led from there in both directions all around the walls of the institution, being interrupted only by doors and woodwork. He planned his moves: use the solid arms of the chair to leverage himself to his feet. Lean forward and balance with both hands on the rail. Stand for as long as possible. Sit down. If he did it everyday he would soon walk sideways holding on to the rail. And then… time enough to worry about what came next. First he had to stand. Without help from any of the paid busybodies.
He glanced quickly around to make sure no one was around to stop him. He braced his hands on the arms of the chair and experimentally put a little weight on his feet. He flinched a bit at the pain in his arches. Then slowly, slowly, slowly he stood and bent forward to grasp the rail. He was distracted from his goal by the reflection in the window: a bent-backed ancient … thing. The dancer’s grace he’d been so proud of was gone and would never come back.
“No!” he cried, this time directing it at the traitor that was his body. “No! No! No!” He glared hatred at the reflection. In that moment of distraction, he lost his balance and took a tottering, uncontrolled lurch toward the window. Panic surged through him; his heart pounded wildly. He would hit the floor if he was lucky, hit the window ledge if he was not—
……………..End of Excerpt……….
