Page 327 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 297

Love, you see, ambushed them.
They knew they had come to the end of something the Sunday after-
noon they lay in the warm grass of the Eureka School Playground outfield.
Over the rooftops the noisy roar of the Castro Street Fair wafted on the
late summer breeze. Kick had come down from a two-month stay at Bar
Nada. Ryan noticed immediately the change in his face. He was drawn.
He looked tired.
Tired? Evita tired?
Kick’s fatigue broke the brilliant display of his self-defense. His per-
fect body armor of muscle could not hold back his depression. Logan was
wearing him down. Ryan felt sadly triumphant. Kick was experiencing
from the inside out the sadness he had always told Ryan was too gay.
They lay on their bellies at right angles facing each other, their heads
nearly touching. Kick pillowed his chin on his crossed arm. Ryan matched
his move. The Gay Marching Band struck up “If They Could See Me
Now.”
Kick managed a half smile. “Boy,” he said, “if they could see me now.
I’m sorry, Ry. We’re used to ethyl, and I’m only pumping out regular.”
“I can run on regular,” Ryan said.
“I can’t always be the bodybuilder.”
Ryan saw his chance to score one for the home team against Logan.
“You don’t have to always be the bodybuilder. Not with me. I long ago
got around all that.” This was his chance to drive home his value to Kick
in more ways than in bed. “I love our fantasies, but I love the real you
more.” Through the chink in Kick’s armor, he hoped the truth he had told
him so many times would finally, really register. “You’re a person, not a
monument.”
“I love you.” Kick was floundering. “I really do.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you know what it’s like to have everyone wanting to touch you,
and for there to be hardly anyone you want to touch?” He touched Ryan’s
high forehead. “Of course you do,” he said. “I see people touch you when
we’re out.”
“Hardly because I look like you.”
“Not on the outside,” Kick said. Fine tears welled up in his blue eyes.
Ryan had never seen Kick cry. Not even when his father died. Ryan sank
his chin deeper into the lawn. He made the blades of outfield grass taller
than his eye level. Kick’s pain was almost too much for him to watch.
Kick had not accepted his father’s sudden Death. It weighed on him
almost as heavy as Charley-Pop’s lingering Death on Ryan. But it was

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