Sonny, Are You Still Dancing?

To The Editor:
Sonny…Salvatore Maresco, the “Music Man,” playing the organ for our Vaudeville troupe.
“Are you still dancing?” he asked from the hospital bed. We’d watched him critique our numbers, reacting to missteps and timing, he’d encourage through paying attention. He’d wince or grimace, laugh or raise his eyes, ‘Do it again” or “That’s better.” Week after week till we got it right, he didn’t give up.
Sonny told us stories of playing the Hammond organ for 800 skaters. “Those were the days! Every week they’d be out there.” He played live, while they moved and gyrated to his sounds, round and round, swaying in sync; country, pop, oldies, and jazz, anything you could skate to. He’d change tunes to blend with a good rhythm, getting the skaters moving and grooving. He’d add endings, beginnings to flow from one piece to another.
Now, he lay in disbelief at the doctor’s pronouncement, a tumor in the stomach. Sonny couldn’t swallow his own spit. He couldn’t comprehend his helplessness. Intravenous ran into his arm, his strong arms, used to movement and rhythm, suddenly swollen with being punctured. He had ice cubes he sucked, helpless for hope.
He’d helped us, song after song, together with canes, top hats and bow ties. “I’m not wearing a costume,” he exclaimed. He lugged the music equipment, the CD tapes, set up lengths of wires taped to the floors, so, we wouldn’t trip. He sat behind a table pushing buttons pin pointedly with perfection. Microphones and sound systems, he’d set up to create the feel and fun for others, nursing homes, vet hospitals, stages all over Cape May.
He talked about the “Old Days” when people really enjoyed getting together on Fridays and Saturday nights. They were alive, leg over leg, dancing the skating steps for hours.
Now, his costume was a hospital gown off the shoulder, topped with a baseball cap covering his bald head. Radiation and chemotherapy attacking his spots of cancer. No spotlights now, just a big hard lump at the top of his belly, swollen and uncomfortable. Painkillers dripping in at three-hour intervals, the timing and beat of life. He’d been used to drum beats and strumming patterns, conscious of changes in tempos, up beat, down beat. Now, beaten with thoughts of what to do. The doctor said that if it were him, he’d go off into the sunsets and storms.
Sonny’s options with intravenous tubes, he could control his bed, push buttons, ask for pillows to be rearranged. His sunny disposition…Now pained and bored, he lowered his eyes in discouragement, “What’s this hospice mean?” He had things to do, to take care of, to control. He’d created worlds of fun and excitement. Now, how was he going to direct from his bed?
Will you come tomorrow? “Sure Sonny, we’ll be here.” He was always there for us…”Sonny, are you still dancing?”
He’s still directing.
JANET McSHAIN
Dennisville