Page 133 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 103

make peace with your master, whatever you consider him to be:
Hell’s Angel biker or Sugar Plum fairy. With all its talk of gyms,
real estate, and rising consciousness, the world continues to fuck
up. You may as well fiddle as Rome burns. Be happy. Do what you
must and call it by the best name possible. Fist yourself, jack-off,
and try not to drool. And, above all, remember that if wrinkles
hurt, you’d be screaming. Be thankful you were ever laid in the
first place. (This inscription was found in the 8th century carved
on the wall of the first gay bar at Stonehenge.)

5

Once upon a time, when Kick was graduating college in 1967, he
broke off his engagement to Catharine Holly, the Third Runner-Up in the
Miss Alabama contest. He was straight arrow. He leveled with her about
his preference for men.
“But we make love,” Catharine Holly said. “We’ve made love since we
were juniors in high school.” She stared at him incredulously. “How could
you do that? How could you do that if it were true?”
“Yes,” Ryan said. “How could you?”
“She liked my body. I got off because she dug my body. The same as
I get off because you like my body.”
Miss Third Runner-Up had been riding in Kick’s red Mustang con-
vertible when he told her his secret truth.
“How could you?” Catharine had repeated. She had been in no mood
to understand that his truth was no personal rejection of her as a woman.
Hysterical, she had opened the door of his car and thrown herself into
the road. She had skidded on her beautiful face across the gravel on the
shoulder of the highway.
When Kick’s parents, to whom she had long been the daughter they
never had, came to visit her, Catharine had wasted no time, crying her
truth from behind her bandages that it wasn’t Kick’s fault, it was her fault
and she was so sorry.
At first Kick’s parents had thought Catharine Holly meant the acci-
dent. Then, finally, through the girl’s sobs, they heard what parents hope
they will never hear.
Kick’s mother confronted him in the hospital corridor. His father
hung back, sheepish, as if he had heard nothing, but had heard too much
to even find his voice. His mother’s only visions of homosexuality were the
prancing sisterboys she had seen in downtown Birmingham.

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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