Page 186 - Some Dance to Remember

156 Jack Fritscher

meat on his fork. “Kick’s no savior.”
“You only say that because I told you we’ve promised always to be safe
harbor to each other. Kick told me himself we’re safe persons.”
“There are no safe persons. There are only murderers and lovers. Serial
murderers and serial lovers who are probably one and the same thing.”
“You’re too paranoid.”
“You can never be too paranoid.”
“You’ve got to trust other people.”
Solly clucked. “Don’t be naive.”
“Don’t be cynical.”
“Cynical keeps me alive.” Solly drank down the last of his beer. His
face, under his thatch of brown-blond hair, folded into a purse of his lips
which he wiped studiously with his napkin. The Look was not his usual
Look. The Look did not become him.
“What’s the matter?” Ryan asked.
“You’re my friend. I don’t know whether it’s the heat or this Deutsch-
land marching music. I’m interested, up to a point, in all the antics of
your family at Bar Nada. I’m interested in how Maneuvers is selling. But
the thing I really can’t handle any more of—and you’re not going to like
this—is Kick.”
“I’d have never guessed.”
“He shapes every word that comes out of your mouth. He’s possessed
you. You’re Linda Blair in The Exorcist.”
“That’s not true.”
“Without him drilling his muscle catechism into you, there’d be no
Masculinist Manifesto.”
“You said you liked it.”
Solly looked heavenward. “Sometimes, Ryan, you’re such an ass.”
“You kid me about it. But you said you liked it.”
“It’s a silly document you should be ashamed of.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s as fascist as the sauerbraten you’re eating.”
“Food can’t be fascist.”
“Sex can.”
“Friends don’t talk like this.”
“Wrong,” Solly said. “This is exactly how real friends talk.”
“With friends like you, who needs enemas?”
Solly grimaced and hit a rim shot on his glass with a fork. “You’re
still the innocent little seminarian. Maybe we should wait to talk when
you’ve grown up.”

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