Page 231 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 201

homeless and Central America.
“They only depress you,” Kick said. “I never want you to be depressed.”
If the golden man of bodybuilding could train the depression out of
him, then for all the Energy Ryan put into him; they would be more than
even.
“If you don’t think about certain things,” Kick said, “They don’t exist.”
“That’s the vice of the versa?” Ryan said.
“Exactly,” Kick said. “The more we think about muscle when we play
together at night, the more muscle we cause to exist.”
“What kind of rebels are you southern boys?”
“The kind that tells you northern boys you think too much.” Kick’s
every intention was good. To be a bodybuilder takes incredibly dedicated
single-mindedness. “If you’re depressed, Ry, we can’t get on with all the
Energy we need to do what we can only do if we do it together. Your
depression over Vietnam didn’t save Saigon. It won’t save El Salvador.
You can’t help anyone but us. Your depression is a no-win situation. We’re
winners! I want us to win!”
“Kick was so sisboombah,” Solly said much later. “He was always up.
Like a one-man pep rally for a school that never existed.”
“Let’s hear it for the home team,” Ryan said.
Kick’s southern aloofness from all social concerns only made Ryan
love him more. Kick’s view was consciously simple and he was happy.
Ryan was more complicated and he had always been unhappy. He wanted
to learn Kick’s upbeat lesson. He reached for Kick’s hand. “You’re every
inch a man,” Ryan said.
Kick was Ryan’s shelter from the rain. Their night games held back
Ryan’s priestly pain. That was not enough for Kick. He wanted more. He
wanted to stop Ryan’s acquired pain.
“You don’t have to save the world,” Kick said. “Save yourself.”
“I have so much to learn from you.”
“Wrong,” Kick said. His steely blue eyes were intense. “You’re the
coach.”
The Look in Kick’s face was silent command never to be down. Ryan
locked the Look away and denied his sadness. “I’ll be happy,” he said to
himself. “I’ll make myself happy. Molly Brown hated the word down. She
loved the word up. Up means hope.”
“Why do we want everything all the time?” Ryan asked.
“Because,” Kick said, “we’re worth it.”
“Then I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Ryan as a child had believed by clapping his hands he had made

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