Page 358 - Some Dance to Remember

328 Jack Fritscher

himself, on his self, what self he had left, and on Kick. He relied on Solly
who was maybe the most reliable of them all.
No one else stopped at the late Christmas Eve hour to watch the tree.
They rushed past Ryan who stood stock still in close to the tree that Kick
with his carpenter’s hammer had helped erect. Across the two thousand
miles, Ryan sent his Energy toward Kick. He hoped against hope that they
both remained manful measure for manful measure what they should be.
Or at least that they could get their mutual reliance back again.
Ryan stood amid the final swirl of Christmas. He could not help entre-
preneuring strange things the way that he had entrepreneured Maneuvers.
He knew Solly who entrepreneured his boys into big business would enjoy
the fantasy of Bah Humbug, UnLtd. For everyone who loved Christmas,
Ryan figured there was someone who hated the franchised feast. Even if
someone didn’t despise the whole concept, there was always someone to
whom they would rather send a Bah Humbug card. He might develop a
whole line of merchandise: Bah Humbug wrapping-and-toilet paper; BAH
HUMBUG spelled out fancifully in red and green foil letters stylized like
the perennial SEASON’S GREETINGS that stretch like unfolded paper
dolls across windows. He had visions of Bah Humbug buttons and bum-
per stickers, and a Bah Humbug nonprofit organization to help people
resist and be stronger than Christmas, sort of a Christmas Anonymous
Club whose patron saint was Ebenezer Scrooge. Ryan imagined a run on
Fuck-Tiny-Tim buttons. He knew deep down he didn’t mean any of it.
He didn’t need to add anything to make life more depressing than it was.
The third-level story in the day’s Chronicle, after all, said everything: in
Texas, the day before, someone had shot the March of Dimes poster child
in the face with a gun.
Ryan left the tree and walked to a pay phone. He dialed Logan at Bar
Nada. “I called to wish you a Merry Christmas,” he said.
What he meant was that he had called Logan to check for sure he
had not flown back to Birmingham with Kick. That would have been
unbearable.
He hung up and dialed again. This time, Solly.
“Christmas Eve,” Ryan said, without saying hello, “is a last ditch
attempt by the world to make us all go back to being the best little boy we
all once were...and I’m not...and I can’t...and I don’t want to. I don’t know
what I want. I only know what I don’t want.”
At the ticket booth under the brilliant marquee of the Castro Theatre,
he paid $2.50 to see Gone with the Wind for the thousandth time. The
feature was half over.

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