Page 162 - Some Dance to Remember

132 Jack Fritscher

“Let me check one more time with the doctor and with my mom. I’m
sure it’ll be alright. He’s gone through episodes like this before. Every time
when he gets better, he always says he wants us to keep on keeping on with
our lives. Mom agrees. Let me call you back.”
“You’re such a shit,” Kweenie said.
“Kick needs me.”
“Your father needs you.”
“My father’s unconscious.”
“So you’ll run off like Thom. His wife and kids need him the way Mr.
Steroid needs you.”
“Kick doesn’t do steroids.”
“You’re an asshole shit.”
“Fuck you! I’m three hours away by plane,” Ryan said. “I’ve been deal-
ing with his illness, crisis by crisis, for twelve years. If I hadn’t left when I
thought I should, I’d still be living in fucking Peoria.”
“So then what does Kick need you for?” Kweenie asked. “Some of
those perverse things you do together?”
“He’s entering the Mr. Golden Gate Contest this Saturday.”
“I forgot.” She was testy. “You’re his coach.”
“He can’t compete without me.”
“Oh! Really! Truly! I’m sure,” Kweenie said. “Just you remember,
Ryan O’Hara, there are sins of commission and sins of omission.”
“I’ve nothing to be guilty about,” Ryan said.
“You’ll get yours.”
Annie Laurie made Ryan’s exit easy. He stayed by Charley-Pop’s bed
for an hour saying things he needed to say, hoping his father could hear
him, glad that he couldn’t, saying them anyway, all those things a homo-
sexual son needs to tell a father sooner or later. “I have to go back, dad. Just
for the weekend. I’ll come back on Monday. You keep fighting. You hang
in there. We’re all close by.” He leaned over the bed rails and pressed his
lips against his father’s forehead. Charley-Pop was so cold he felt he was
kissing the bone of his skull. “I’ll be seeing you, dad.”
His mother drove him to the airport. “Your dad will be okay,” she
said.
“Are you okay?” Ryan asked.
“I’m okay,” Annie Laurie said. “I have to be okay.”
“I love you, mom.”
On the following Saturday, Ryan was cheated. Kick won the Mr.
Golden Gate title with his usual ease, but sometime between the morn-
ing Pre-Judging and the evening contest, when Ryan was unreachable by

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