Page 240 - Some Dance to Remember

210 Jack Fritscher

“Hit him!” Sandy shouted to Ryan. “Hit him!”
Ryan pulled back still squeezing his nephew’s cheeks. “I won’t hit
him,” he said.
Sandy shouted to him again, as if finally he had come as reinforcement
to her side in this marriage. “Hit him! Some kids deserve child abuse.”
Ryan pulled Abe up by the neck of his shirt. Food covered them both.
Abe was defiant. “Straight,” he shouted into Ryan’s face, “is better
than gay.”
“Not,” Ryan said, “when a faggot has you by the throat, you little
sonuvabitch!”
Abe spit in Ryan’s face.
“You ever do that again, and you’ll go through life, little boy, explain-
ing what a violent fairy did to your face. Sheriff or no sheriff. No court
in the land would convict me of putting all three of you piece by piece
through the blender.”
Bea and Sie were laughing and slapping each other.
“Stop it, you two,” Thom said, “or you’ll get the same treatment.”
Sie looked at her father contemptuously. “Don’t you touch me,” she
said. “I want you to take me to a foster home.”
Ryan, holding tight onto Abe’s shirt, turned to Sie, and said, “Get
your shit together, little girl. You’re sixteen. You don’t need a foster home.
Kids your age run away.”
Bea turned to Sie. “So run away, you little cocksucker,” she said.
Ryan pushed Abe toward the hall. “Go take a shower,” he said, “and
stay in your bedroom until you can come out and act like a civilized
human being. Go on!”
Abe gave him the finger, then shuffled off down the long hall.
“Sie,” Ryan said, “you get your butt off to your room. You started all
this.”
Bea looked at her uncle. “No she didn’t,” she said. “Us kids didn’t start
this. They started it.”
Thom moved toward her.
“It’s true,” Sie said. “They started it.” She pointed at her father and
then at her mother. “That bitch gave Abe forty dollars to get her some
speed on the playground. He didn’t want to, but she made him do it.”
From down the hall, Abe called back, “It’s true. What kind of mother
would make you do that?”
Sandy flushed. “They’re all such liars,” she said. She stood up from
the table and pulled on her coat. “Where’s the car keys?” she asked Thom.
“I’m going for a drive. I can’t take this.” She turned to Ryan and me and

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