Page 463 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 433

“This isn’t a movie,” Ryan said. “This isn’t that stupid movie game.
This is my life.”
“Your life,” I trod on eggshells to say it, “is about as calm as a movie
theater during the shower scene in Psycho.”
“Don’t trivialize me. Don’t take away from me what I feel.” Once on
the wheel of fortune and men’s eyes, there is no escape. “I want to feel
everything. I felt the heights. I feel the depths.” He stood and made a wide
gesture across the valley around Bar Nada. “This is my valley of despair.” I
hated it when literature made him operatic. “This is my slough of despond.
What book am I now, Magnus?” He pulled a pen from his flannel shirt
and looked hard at me. “I’m Pilgrim’s Progress.” He reached for January’s
contract and turned to the last page where Kweenie had put a red X.
“Don’t do it,” I said. “Don’t sign it. You can’t.”
“Just watch me! I have one purity left: the innocence of my motive
here!” He scrawled his name across the line. He thrust the contract at me.
“Witness it,” he said.
“I can’t. I won’t.”
“Then you’re no friend of mine.”
“Because I won’t do what you want me to?”
“Because you won’t do what’s right.”
“What’s right?”
“Signing your witness.”
“You shouldn’t sign things when you’re depressed,” I said.
“Don’t call me depressed!” He was angry. “I’m not depressed.”
“You’ve been depressed ever since Logan showed up.”
“Bull!”
“You were depressed before you met Kick.”
“Bullshit!”
“You let everything get at you.”
“Nothing gets at me.”
“Everything gets at you.”
“You’re getting at me. And I don’t think I like it.”
“What I’m saying...”
“What the hell are you saying?” Ryan pointed toward a hedge row.
“Do you need a larger bush to beat around?”
“I’m saying you blame Kick for missing your father’s Death. You
blame him for calling you back to pump him up for that contest of sweaty
men in colored underwear. You blame him because you weren’t holding
Charley-Pop’s hand when he died.”
“Spare me.” He picked up the contract.

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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