Page 66 - Some Dance to Remember

36 Jack Fritscher

12

“I know I’ll never see him again,” Ryan said.

13

One springtime a helicopter high in the Austrian Alps swooped down
to find a pretty girl singing about the hills being alive with the sound of
music. Thus began one of the most popular musical love stories, told like
Cabaret against a background of fascism. In another season, a late summer,
a helicopter, high above the coastal California hills north of San Francisco,
buzzed low along the winding banks of the Russian River, turned and
traveled three air-minutes south, hovering over a small Sonoma County
ranch. The children in the yard at Bar Nada called their uncle Ryan from
the house. He looked up in amazement. “Stay where you are,” he told the
triplets. He headed out to the rolling pasture. The sun behind the blades of
the hovering helicopter blinded him. The noise was deafening. The down-
draft whipped the tall field grass into a frenzy around his legs. He stood
his ground, shielding his eyes, as the chopper slowly descended from the
sky, touching down in a whirl of shimmering grass seed. The door popped
open and out jumped the golden man of bodybuilding.
“Your ranch is beautiful from the air.” Kick shouted over the roar. “I
love you!”
I was visiting Bar Nada that weekend, watching the antics of Ryan’s
brother and his family. Kweenie was with us and so was Teddy. The full
catastrophe. We all gathered on the back deck. The rotors stopped. The
pilot stayed in his cab. We watched the two men talk in a far-off panto-
mime in the middle of the sun-swept field.
“What the hell’s that chopper doing here,” Thom demanded. He was
Ryan’s and Kweenie’s brother, born between them, but he was nothing
like them. “Choppers. I hate choppers. I hate anything that reminds me
of Nam.”
“Maybe they’ll give us a ride,” Abe said. He was the single boy in
Thom’s set of triplets. Ryan’s brother was a man of untender mercies.
He thought it clever to name the boy and two girls, Abraham, Beatrice,
and Siena. Beautiful names on their own, but not if you nickname your
triplets, Abe, Bea, and Sie.
“You’re not riding in that damn thing,” Thom said. He ordered his
children like a drill sergeant.
“Thom,” Kweenie said to no one in particular, “did two tours in

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