The Front Runner (19 page)

"Of course it's true." I was so mad that I could say it, finally.

Bruce and Aldo both studied my face. "You must be out of your mind," said Aldo softly.

"I was, for a while there. I fought my feelings for him for four months. It wasn't doing either of us any good. I finally decided that society has no right to deny me a mate. They all have mates. You guys have mates. Animals have mates. Even the goddamn bacteria have mates. Why should I be alone?"

"Has either of you ever thought of seeing a psychiatrist?" asked Bruce.

"You guys don't read the papers. The psychiatrists are starting to come around. A lot of them don't think it's a mental illness any longer. They look at it as an alternative."

Aldo snorted. "Go tell that to Mr. Track Fan. He pays his five bucks to see the pure red-blooded American boy run the mile. He doesn't pay it to see no fairies."

"Have you had any reaction from Billy's parents?" asked Bruce. "They must be furious."

"The kid's father is gay," Aldo said. "They all know that too."

"Jesus," muttered Bruce. The idea of a gay father was totally new to him.

"And Billy's father approves, if you want to know," I said.

They were silent for a moment. Then Aldo said, "Then the thing at Penn State . . . you gotta pardon me for bringing it up ... but you must have been guilty."

"No, I wasn't," I said.

"Well, they don't know that." Aldo waved his hand at the empty restaurant, conjuring up the men who'd just left. "Their imaginations are just running
wild.

They're wondering how many teams you've slept your way through."

"The only athlete I ever slept with is Billy. But I suppose they won't believe that either."

Was it possible that I was saying these things? Right over this restaurant table? Was it possible that strangers would dare to sermonize to me about my right to love someone?

"No, they certainly won't," said Aldo. "For instance . . ." He started getting all steamed up again. "What really set everybody off was the four of you traveling around Europe together. They just assume, that you're carrying on with all three of them."

"Did it ever occur to them that maybe Billy and I don't merely go to bed together? That we love each other?" I was really getting mad now. "That neither of us wants anybody else? Do they know so little about human nature?"

"You're the one's a dummy about human nature," said Aldo. "They want to think the worst. And then when you got back, that thing in
Time
about that party you were at. To them that was the last straw. They all know about Steve Goodnight, and that he writes dirty books about boys. The fact that you and Billy had the
chutzpah
to appear in public in this guy's company, it was just too much."

"There were a whole lot of straight celebrities at that party, and a lot of society people."

"That's not the point, and you know it."

"Steve's book isn't dirty. It's a work of art."

"What do you know about art?" said Aldo. "You don't know the Mona Lisa from a Marlboro ad."

"I don't know about art. But I know about love. Steve is writing about love in that book."

Aldo shook his head uncomprehendingly. "Harlan, you're beyond me. You're really a changed man."

"I am," I said. "And I'll tell you something else. And you can take it back and tell them. They are not going to stop Billy and Vince and Jacques from going to Montreal. In particular, they are not going to stop Billy. I will fight them every step of the way. The kid's father is one of the best civil-rights lawyers in the

country. That means that if we have to fight them right up to the Supreme Court or something, we'll do that."

We were now alone in the restaurant. The waiters were clearing up, rattling dishes, looking at us, wishing we'd leave.

Aldo was looking at me searchingly. "Harlan, you're a brave, beautiful, Irish fool. You'll be all over the newspapers. You'll be roasted alive."

"I mean it," I said. "Billy and I are fighting for our lives. Nobody is going to take him away from me. He's all I have, Aldo."

"Christ," said Aldo, looking away. The heat of my feeling was beginning to impress him.

"Look," I said, "are they all enemies on the USOC?"

"No," said Aldo. "Not all of them.
Most
of them are. There's a few, like me, like most of the seven athletes' representatives, who feel that an athlete's private life is not the business of the AAU and the USOC. And I do believe that, Harlan."

"All I can promise you," I said, "is that Billy and I are going to conduct ourselves with dignity. If anybody makes fools of themselves, it's going to be those senile old fanatics."

"Look," said Bruce, "I'm sitting here thinking. There's a story here on the whole question of ... of this kind of thing in sports. If I can find just the right handle on the story, and if I can find somebody to publish it, I'd like to try a piece. Would Billy let me interview him?"

"Sure," I said. "He's a beautiful interview. His head is an open book."

"All right," said Bruce, "I'll get in touch with you when I've worked things out."

"If you do a story," said Aldo viciously, "find some kinda way to dispel all the
other
rumors too."

"What other rumors?" I said.

"You really want to know?" Aldo asked. He was furiously tearing up a piece of bread.

He started to tell me. When he'd finished, I'd had one more sociological revelation. Society had tried to teach me that the gay mind was an open sewer. Now I knew, beyond any doubt, that it was the straight mind that was the sewer.

Billy was silent as I repeated to him what Aldo had told me.

"That I have orgies with some of my freshmen that I've seduced," I said. "That you and I go down to New York and pick up chickens. That students disappear off the campus because I take them down to New York drugged and tied up and sell them to pimps."

It was that evening, and we were lying in my big, hideous, Victorian bed made out of Caucasian walnut. Rain rattled against the windows. It was cold already, and the furnace in the little old house wasn't working very well, so we had the quilt pulled up over us. Making love had not had its usual therapeutic effect.

"And of course that I have orgies with all three of you. But what's worse, that you and your father and I ... and that you and your father always . .."

Billy sighed and shook his head. "Wow. I could tell you were upset when you came back from the city."

"Chickens," I said bitterly. "I can't even stand kids that age. And all the grief I had all those years precisely because I was prissy about sleeping with runners, and they've got me balling my whole goddamn team."

"And that one about the pimps," said Billy. "That's a classic. That's straight out of the Saturday-night horror flick. And the crap about me and my father . . . poor Dad, when I think how careful he always was. There's just no pleasing some people, is there?"

He was propped on his elbow by me, and his warm body was stretched out easily against mine. He tried to comfort me, caressing my side. But I could tell he wasn't all that upset about what I'd told him, and this irritated me. I wasn't comforted by his stroking.

"Well, what're you going to do?" said Billy. "We knew that people would react this way, didn't we?"

"They really believe these things," I said.

"Just don't think about them," said Billy. "Rumors like that just dry up and disappear."

"And another one," I said, "that you're two-timing me all the time with Vince and Jacques. That really hurt."

"Why did it hurt?" said Billy. After a minute, he said, "You don't trust me."

"I don't worry a minute about Jacques. But you and Vince are very close. Vince sleeps around. How do I know he's not going to sleep with you?"

"Look," said Billy, annoyed, sitting up, "when will you learn that I never lie? I've told you before that there's never been anything between Vince and me."

"All right," I said. "I'm just a jealous old man."

"Well, don't be," he said. He sat with his knees drawn up against his chest and stared at the foot of the bed. Then he added, "Part of your problem is, you still haven't totally accepted the fact that you're gay. You still want to have things their way."

"I'm aware of that," I said, a little sarcastically.

"You won't be happy until you put your head in order.
We
won't be happy."

"Aren't you happy with us?"

"Don't put words in my mouth," said Billy. "I just meant that your straight hang-ups are gonna get in our way if you don't work them out."

"Are you that tired of me already? Are you about ready to move on?"

Billy got out of bed. "Look," he said, "I know you had a rough time at Mamma Leone's, but this is too much. I'm going back to the dorm."

I lay there under the quilt, watching him pull his clothes on. His face was expressionless, and his movements were deft and precise. He tied the laces of his worn-out Tigers, and pulled on his light red rain parka with a swish of nylon.

"See you tomorrow," he said in a toneless voice and walked out. I heard the front door slam and lock.

I lay there for about fifteen minutes, feeling helpless and desolate. The rain ticked on the windows, and the wind soughed in the spruce boughs outside. The clock ticked loudly by the bed. Automatically I reached out and set it for 5:30
A.M.
I was just about to turn out the bedside light when I heard his key in the door again.

He came into the room swiftly, lay down on the quilt by me without even taking off his parka and pressed his face blindly against my chest. The parka was wet, and his hair smelled of rain and autumn leaves.

"Harlan, they want us to fight," he said.

He started to cry with strange, creaking sobs, clenching the quilt. He kicked off his Tigers and got under the quilt, pressing his body against me, holding me frantically. His damp clothes made me shiver. I held him as hard as he held me.

"What is really the matter with you?" he said.

"We're sneaking around snatching twenty minutes here and there in the dark. Our lives are passing like that."

"My God, if that's all that's bothering you, I'll move in with you tonight."

"No, it isn't all. Nothing ties us together. There's nothing to guarantee that we'll stay together a year, five years. You have to understand my jealousy. It isn't as simple as sexual jealousy. I'm terrified of losing you."

"Guarantees are for new cars," Billy said with his face still buried in the hair on my chest.

"Look, I'm going to ask you again. I want us to marry."

He lay beside me, quiet now. After a minute, he said, "I'll do anything you ask but that. Does it occur to you that I'm pretty terrified of losing you? Maybe I worry about you cruising off after some other young studhorse, huh? You've been around a lot more than me, how do I know you aren't totally fickle, huh?"

I sighed and nodded slowly. Billy was, in his way, superstitious. He was afraid of tempting fate by tying himself to me formally. He had never seen such a marriage last. At the age of twelve, he had seen his father and Frances break up.

"And another thing," said Billy. "Are you really ready to come out with this? You're so upset about all these rumors. Are you really ready to face the uproar if we married?"

"No, I'm not ready," I said.

"Look, I'll move in here tonight."

"I don't want to live with you without that declaration. I don't want to feel like I'm just shacking up with someone."

"Well, I don't know what we're going to do, then," said Billy.

I stroked his head. "I know one thing. It's stupid of us to fight."

"Maybe we just need more time together," he said. "Maybe once in a while I should spend the night."

"Anything is better than fighting," I said.

"Like tonight, maybe," he said, smiling a little.

He got out from under the quilt, kicked his Tigers over under the chair, and started undressing.

"Just once more," I said. "You've got to get your sleep."

ELEVEN

WE all tried hard to ignore the rumors.

But a number of parents started trying to pressure Joe Prescott. Two forced their straight boys to drop off the team, although the boys and Joe tried to show them that they were seeing ghosts under the bed.

Then the NCAA started making noises, at Joe that either I should be dropped as coach or the NCAA would drop the school from membership. The rest of the team were indignant on Billy's and my behalf, and they wrote a letter to the NCAA that they all signed. Joe took a very strong stand, saying that the NCAA had better come up with solid proof of the rumors and reminding them of the Supreme Court decision. The NCAA finally decided that they were on uneasy legal ground, and they shelved the matter. But they then took a few cheap shots, hurting' me by hurting my innocent team—they withheld the travel expenses that they might have paid us to NCAA meets. Joe covered the expenses himself.

Our little cross-country meet at Prescott was fairly successful, though fewer teams came than I'd hoped for, and it got about one inch of newspaper space.

Then, just a week after our meet, Billy's and my cover got blown in spectacular and painful fashion.

It happened when we took Billy to New York to run in the national Road Runners Club 15-kilometer cross-country championship. It was being held on the famous course in Van Cortlandt Park, known affectionately to eastern runners as the "Vannie." I'd planned the race as a little change for Billy—he'd been doing all that hard track running in Europe, the distance was a good one for him, and not many other top runners

made the effort to get to an odd-distance race like that, so he could just relax and enjoy himself.

Vince and Jacques didn't run that day, as neither of them was avid for cross-country, but they went to watch, as did Betsy Heden.

Three hundred fifty-five runners gathered on the great lawn at the edge of the park, where the start was to be. Everybody was milling around doing stretching exercises and warming up. There were sweatsuits and headbands and shoes of every color. Runners' families and runners' children were underfoot. The officials were cheerfully disorganized.