Dirty Old Man (unfinished)

Shall We Dance
Sitting here, he looked at her. He looked at her, sitting there. Betrayed by his body, he could not speak; would that he could, he again practiced his speech: “huggrumpf” (he would first clear his throat) “I beg your pardon, I couldn’t help but notice you there and wondered if I could have the pleasure of this dance, a foxtrot if I’m not mistaken. My name is Charmichael, Joseph Charmichael”. And that would be that.
But he would not be getting up, he would not be walking across the small space that separated them, he would not speak, could not speak. He would sit in his wheelchair, dumb as a mute. He would look at her.
The days dragged on like the walking wounded except for the time when he could look at her and practice his speech. Every morning he was roused from his bed and changed and shaved and fed something both vile and tasteless. He would be talked to like an imbecile. Every morning. “Good morning Mr. Charmichael, my we’re looking chipper today, ready for a big day? Music in the rec room after lunch…your favorite! Now, lets see what you have for me this morning”.
His night shirt would be lifted to his chest, his diaper would be changed as if he were no more than a rag doll and he would be lifted into his wheel chair like a sack of potatoes. Him, Joe Charmichael --The Dancing Caballero—star of stage and screen; and now being shaved and fed pap by a bubbly, disgustingly cheerful young thing that he could’ve had spread eagled on her back in forty seconds in the old days. Moaning, purring, breath coming fast through bared animal teeth, head thrown back, scarlet painted nails raking his back. It would serve her right if she lifted his night shirt and found a woody the size of Rhode Island winking at her; 'let's see what you have for me this morning' indeed!
She held him from behind as she shaved him, his head between her soft breasts, the smell of soap, perfume and sweet young sweat reminding him of a song. “The very thought of you…and I forget to do…the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do…” He smiled at the thought of her legs wrapped around him.
“Why Mister Charmichael, I do believe you enjoy being shaved, don’t you?” she whispered in his ear. “Here, let’s see what we have for breakfast. Yum yum; oatmeal, buttermilk and look, applesauce!” She drew the words out slowly as if she were describing candy in a candy store. “Here take the straw in your mouth… good”
‘Yeah, take the straw in your mouth’, he thought, ‘yum, yum suck on that, girly’.
Next: a ride to the day room (with Sentimental Journey playing in his mind), past cubicles of unmade beds and smells of stale urine, medicine and defeat. His brain was playing a Strauss waltz as he perused the usual suspects assembled, wheel chairs circled like wagons around a blaring television watching a dandy with dandruff making nice nice with a peroxide blond bimbo in living color. He preferred to stare out the window, plotting his escape. There, in the clock on the wall over the TV it’s just past nine, he thought. The staff is busy doing anything but watching a bunch of old farts around the boob tube tied into their chairs to shake mutter and drool through another morning piece of crap that they call entertainment. Just once couldn’t they show something with class like Fred Astaire (with or without Ginger) or Gene Kelly? Hell, he’d even be glad to see Sinatra and Crosby schticking like the morons that they were.
Just past nine and the doctors don’t show their asses until ten, he mused. Lunch at eleven and it’s downhill from there. Yeah, right about now is the perfect time, before medication. Quietly to the side door, furtive look over the shoulder, open the door only enough to slip out, exit stage left. A confederate in a black limo waiting, motor running and off we roll back to the Hills of Beverly. Dom Perignon and maybe a light pate for the drive back home with some young starlet riding him like Dale Evans on her horse Buttermilk.
But not today. Today was music in the rec room (wreck room, as he thought of it) and, if he was lucky it would be Bob Bentley and The Swinging Six. She would be there.
He had always had the music in him even as a kid. Growing up, it was if he could complete lyrics before hearing them sung, could fully hear the tune completed even upon a first listening, had composed the soundtrack of his life even as he was growing and eventually prospering.
Rough and tumble from dirty streets, he had won a couple of dance contests with his sister in his early teens, had followed his older brother into the service of his country during the great war and had been mustered out in Los Angeles after Japan’s surrender only to find himself behind a lunch counter at Manny’s down the hill from Hollywood.
He was young, tall, strong and good looking when he got his first break in movies