Page 458 - Some Dance to Remember

428 Jack Fritscher

from The Advocate. The “Armstrong” ad was circled. This time it appeared
in the Florida Models column. It confirmed the rumor Ryan had heard
from friends who took no small delight in trampling out the wrath on
the gay grapevine. Kick had last been sighted in Miami. The southern
gold coast was the perfect place to muscle-hustle rich New Yorkers. They
flew down from the dark-skinned island of Manhattan eager to pay for
sex with blond beach-boys and blond bodybuilders. Other rumors said he
had been sighted in Texas along the Gulf Coast, at an evangelical gym,
pumping iron for Jesus.
He was everywhere. He was nowhere.
California, northern and southern, had not worked for Kick. The
Florida Advocate ad was three months old. The blond bodybuilder, after
all his small disappearances, seemed finally to manage his grand disap-
pearance. I once read that nearly two million people in the U.S. disappear
every year. Three hundred thousand are never seen again. They take a
permanent hike. Many of them are gay men wanting to start over with a
clean slate. They are adult runaways. The police call them social suicides.
A horn honked at the entry to the long drive up to the ranch house.
Ryan stood up like a man hoping against hope. The rooster crowed.
But it was not Kick.
It was January in her red Mercedes with Kweenie at her side.
“Darlings!” January said. She walked toward us, all high heels and
rings and bracelets and dark glasses. “You look so, so rural! I love the
peacocks! I love the animals!”
“You sound,” Ryan said, “like Saint Francis.”
“Saint Frances Farmer, maybe,” January said. “This is Maggie
O’Hara.” She introduced Kweenie as if she were a stranger.
“My God!” Ryan said. “What happened to you?”
“Success,” Kweenie said. She walked up to her brother and kissed him.
“Kiss-kiss,” January said. “Isn’t it wonderful!” She turned to me.
“Magnus,” she said, “you look drab as ever.”
“What are you doing here?” Ryan held Kweenie in his arms. “It’s
wonderful to see you.”
“It’s summertime, darling,” January said. “Half of Hollywood comes
to Sonoma in the summertime. The Sonoma Inn is just divine, don’t you
agree?”
“I’ve never been there,” Ryan said.
“You should, mon cher. You should rub shoulders. I’ve always told you
with your talent you should go to pertinent places to power-lunch with
pertinent types.”

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK