Page 281 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 251

some high-rise on the spot. I think this is the end of Folsom as we know it.”
Tony struggled in the bed. Staring at the ceiling, he grappled with the
pencil on the paper and wrote the word, “Good.”
“Good?” Ryan asked. “Good?”
Tony nodded.
“Ah, I see. You’ve had it with Folsom?”
Tony raised his hand, cupped his thumb under his four fingers, and
flat out chopped three times at his throat.
“So. You’ve had it up to there?”
Tony nodded yes.
Later, in the corridor, Ryan asked Dr. Mary Ketterer, “What’s the
matter with him? I mean, what’s the diagnosis?”
“Your friend is a very sick man.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Right now? Pneumonia,” she said. “Did he smoke much?”
“Yes. Did that cause it?”
“No.”
“He used poppers. We all use poppers. Did poppers cause it?”
“I can’t say poppers caused it. I can say poppers are an insult to the
lungs.”
“He’s not going to live, is he?”
“He’s going to die.”
“What caused this?”
“Diagnosis? No. Prognosis? Yes.” She shrugged sincerely. “Frankly, we
don’t know what it is.”
“How long does he have?”
“That’s hard to say. To be truthful, we’ve never really experienced a
patient so distressed. According to his vital signs, a week, maybe more,
maybe less.”
Ryan sent Kick up to the barn at Rancho Bar Nada. “I’ve got injured
and sick people here,” he explained. “Solly and Tony. Take Logan with
you. Besides, you need some rest between contests. But don’t take Logan
near the house and the killer triplets. I think he’ll like staying out in our
barn. I’ll call Thom and tell him you’re driving up and to leave you alone.”
Ryan planned to see Tony every day, but Solly required more attention
at home.
“You are a regular Florence Nightingale,” Kick said on the phone.
“Make that Lawrence Nightingale.”
But Ryan had not seen Tony every day. He knew that Tony’s longtime
lover, a bisexual married man, was always with him. He knew that Solly

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