The Front Runner

by Patricia Nell Warren

  Another record started, a schmaltzy slow one, and the floor filled up with touch dancers. Vince was holding the girl close, his cheek against hers, his eyes closed. If he had noticed me there, he was being de­fiant. Jacques watched the pair, mournful and silent.

  I got up and left.

  Walking down the corridor outside, I felt deeply depressed. Billy was alone and full of craving. The only feeling he had shown for me had been a hesitant amiability, and a willingness to quarrel about his train­ing. But even if he had shown love for me, I could make no claim on him.

  I didn't fear the girls who pined to creep into his dormitory bed. But I feared the next young stud who would provoke his interest. It could be anyone, any time. It could be Vince, even Jacques. In fact, I assumed that he had lied, that he had slept with Vince. Or if he hadn't, he would do it soon. He had said he was alone, implying he wasn't sleeping with anyone. Sooner or later, his natural urges would drive him to someone, if only for relief. Supposing Vince said, "How about it, Billy?" After four years of friendship, they would discover each other as lovers.

  In my imagination, I saw them dancing the boogie, not with girls, but with each other. They embraced, panting and sweaty, and they kissed. They fell naked onto a bed somewhere and made love with feverish abandon.

  The sensible thing to do was to cruise Billy while he was still available.

  Feeling a terrible, unreasonable jealousy, I trudged on down the corridor with my briefcase and out into the snowy night. He was not mine, and never would be. I would lose him without ever having had him.

  5

  During Christmas vacation, Billy's father came to visit. The case he was working on, which was aiming at a Supreme Court decision repealing all sodomy laws, brought him often to New York to do business there with the gay lib front and the American Civil Lib­erties Union.

  When he came out to the campus, Billy showed his affection for him the way he showed everything. As John got out of the taxi, Billy came racing out of the dorm without his jacket and hugged him. John ruffled his hair and hugged him back.

  "Hey, kid, I've really missed you," he said.

  I was able to appreciate their spontaneity. My dad would have been boiled in oil before he'd have' hugged me, and so would I.

  I had an immediate liking for John Sive, and he shortly became one of the few real friends I ever had. There was much of Billy in his ease and candor, though physically they resembled each other little. John was shorter, darker, more muscular, with straight ebony hair (tinted, in that vain gay attempt to hold onto youth). Billy's mop of brown curls and his blue eyes must have come from that mother of his, Leida, about whom neither of them would speak.

  For many years, John had had a distinguished career as a corporate attorney in San Francisco, without any public suspicion that he was gay. He admitted to me that it took some doing, and some wear and tear on his psyche. "There was always the chance that Frances would lose one of his falsies at a party," he said. Final­ly, with Billy safe in college, he decided that he would come out. He quit his job, but stayed solvent because he had a good income from investments. (Luckily the stock market doesn't consider investors' sex preferences when it goes up or down.) John switched to civil-rights law, and was now, at the age of 51, putting his long shrewd experience to work for the gay community.

  Joe and Marian Prescott invited John to stay at the house a couple of days, and we all had Christmas dinner with them. It was a wonderful evening, with the smell of turkey and the Christmas tree, and nuts to crack by the big fireplace. It made me realize all over again how homeless I was, and how starved I was for some sense of family life. We sat close around the table, with candles and good talk. Billy was quiet and didn't say much, munching at the special salad Marian had made for him.

  The campus was empty, and the weather had turned sharply cold. Nearly everybody had migrated off to see their families. Vince and Jacques had gone home, and planned to tell their families that they were gay.

  Every morning John got up early to watch Billy work out. He sat shivering in his Cardin overcoat, a lone figure on the snowy bleachers, and his eyes never left Billy as the boy ripped off 57-second quarters.

  "It takes a lot of will, doesn't it?" John asked me.

  He had never run a step, but instinctively he under­stood.

  "Will is the main thing," I said. "But it takes other things too. Hard work gets you nowhere if you aren't naturally gifted. The lung capacity, the ability to tolerate high stress, that is partly hereditary, we know. Billy has some good genes in there somewhere. I've put him through the lab tests, and he definitely is international class, physically. Your genes, probably," I added jokingly.

  "Who knows?" said John. "Maybe they're his moth­er's genes."

  "I won't believe it," I said. "She crapped out."

  John grinned. "Well, I'd like to think that they're my genes."

  We both watched as Billy tore by again.

  "Billy has it upstairs, all right," I said. "I wish every American father could teach his son that kind of mental toughness. My congratulations."

  "Well, I taught him some of that," said John. "The rest he learned himself."

  "How did he get started running?"

  "Well, he was a weak kid. He was very small when he was born. He was sick a lot. I encouraged him to try sports because I hoped they would build him up a little. In grade school he played a lot of basket­ball, and he finally started to look healthy. Then in high school they had one of those age-group cross­country programs. He tried it, and that was it. He never went near a basketball court again. He'd come home glowing and all excited, and I'd think, he's in love, but no—he'd just had a good run."

  We both laughed a little.

  "Then I changed him to another school, because the coach was putting too much pressure on him, and he didn't know how to handle pressure yet. He'd bomb out in the third quarter of a race." John had never run a step, but he understood the third quarter. I really admired that. "So his junior year I got him to Lou Rambo, and Rambo just let him come along easy, and discover self-discipline for himself. That was the main reason he did such good running his senior year..."

  We watched Billy's slender figure pass again and again, his Tiger flats making scarcely any noise on the frozen track.

  "I want him to be happy," said John softly. "I don't want him to go through what I did."

  "I know what you mean," I said.

  "You know," said John musingly, "I was never much of a sports fan till Billy started running. But I find myself fantasizing about a gold medal in Mon­treal. Of course I realize all the political obstacles in the way of that. And you've been frank with me— you're not even sure he has the speed to compete in­ternationally. But . . . supposing it happens? I can see him standing on the podium with that medal on his neck and the band playing Oh Say Can You See. And you know, it's not the medal for its own sake, or just that I'm proud of Billy. I see it as propaganda too. It would be an incredible moral victory for us."

  He was articulating something that I had already thought many times. I hadn't dared to express the thought to Billy, but I knew that it was on his mind. It, precisely, was what drove him to strive for the trip to Montreal.

  I laughed a little. "The ironic thing is ... to make boys like Billy, we have to fool around with women."

  John laughed too, and lit a cigarette.

  "I've got two boys down in Pennsylvania," I said. "One is fifteen now, the other is thirteen. I haven't seen them since my wife divorced me. I'm thinking that one of these days I ought to go to court and demand my right to see them. I tried to visit them at first, but she made things so unpleasant that I stopped going. But it's probably too late now. I'd be a stranger. And she's probably taught them to hate me."

  John's smile vanished. He didn't look at me, but his eyes were squinting in the winter sunlight. They were full of pain as he watched Billy pass again:

  "What I don't want to be, though," he said, "is the father who pushes his
son to achieve things for his own ego's sake."

  "Listen," I said, "you don't have to push this one to Montreal. I've got all I can do to hold him back. He's like a crazy young horse with the bit in his teeth. Do me a favor, and tell him to be more obedient with his training program, or we're not going to get anywhere."

  We spent a couple of nights down in New York City. I figured that being up late a night or two wouldn't hurt Billy (that's how much I was getting humanized). It was the quiet time of year, with cross-country over, and outdoor track two months away, and we weren't going to any indoor meets. And I couldn't deny John a good holiday time with his son.

  The Saturday before New Year's, we ate dinner at a restaurant downtown whose name I won't mention because we don't want all the straight tourists piling in there. I can say only that it's on the second floor, is dim and comfortable, with old red velvet chairs and fakes of Old Masters in heavy gold frames, and big chandeliers, and waiters who are young studs dressed up in Renaissance tights and jerkins. They serve very good steaks and chops and Italian food. And since my idea of cuisine is a steak this thick, or lasagna at Mam­ma Leone's for a trackwriters' lunch, I really enjoyed this place.

  John and I ate steaks, medium rare, and Billy ate a plate of baked potatoes and a salad. John got a little drunk on red wine, and Billy and I got drunk on milk. We laughed and kidded around. John had on a black Cardin suit and a wide brocade silk tie. I was wearing my very best gray suit bought on sale at Barney's, and a white shirt, and my best black tie. Billy, from somewhere in the depths of his dorm closet, had produced a brown velvet suit and a white silk ruffled shirt. He didn't look at all foppish. Some­how it accentuated his slender hardness and his male-ness.

  After dinner we caught a cab uptown to the Con­tinental Baths on West Seventy-fourth Street

  , to catch the midnight holiday show. It was an all-star bill of gay favorites, Bette Midler and the Sequins, and the new rock singer Jess Collett, who was being called the gay Jimi Hendrix.

  "No picking up anybody now," I teased Billy. "You're in training."

  He looked just a little annoyed with me. "I don't cruise," he said.

  I kept after him. "No middle-aged hustlers."

  I hadn't been to the Continental Baths for years. In fact, this evening would be the first time in four years that I had appeared so openly in gay society, and I was just a little nervous about it.

  I hardly recognized the place. The Baths I remem-bered had been a hard-core refuge for gays who wanted to cruise naked meat. (In bars, everybody has clothes on, which can be regarded as an inconvenience.) In my absence, the straight radical chic crowd had started going there to take in the entertainments. They did this, I suppose, to show how broad-minded they were, but I suspect that they were simply curious and out for kinky thrills. The entrance was so full of women and straight celebrities that we could hardly wrestle our way in The prices had gone way up—seven dollars just to look around.

  "I can't believe this," I said.

  "Neither can I," said John, a little sorrowfully. "It's really changed. Oh well, the Divine Miss M is always good."

  But once we got downstairs, we saw plenty of gays. No doubt a lot of them were getting the thrill of making straights look at their bodies. Most were cruis­ing nonchalantly around wearing the classic towel wrapped around their hips. A few reckless souls were lounging nude in the wicker chairs, among the palms. Or they were swimming nude in the big pool, and the straights were looking at them avidly. Back in the underground days, I had taken plenty of swims in that pool. For a moment I had an urge to defy the world and do it again, but I couldn't do it in front of Billy.

  We hadn't been there five minutes before a famous TV came rushing up to John.

  "Cheri!" he cried.

  He threw his arms around John's neck and bussed him on the cheek. He hugged him and bussed him back. He was a slender black man in his early thirties. He was wearing a black seal maxi coat with rhinestone buttons and a white satin gown. His woolly hair was cut very short, and he had on cascading rhinestone earrings and carried a little rhinestone bag.

  "Cheri, it's been ages," said the TV, squeezing John's hands.

  "In town for a little business," said John warmly. "How's Irving?"

  "Irving," said the TV pleasantly, "is merde. Is this your son? My god, cheri, how he's grown. Comme il est belle." He kissed Billy on the cheek. Billy laughed and pecked him back. "He's ravishing, John."

  "You stay away from my boy now," grinned John. "He's in training."

  The TV raised his eyebrows archly. "Yes, we know all about that. We read the papers too, you know. He's our divine athlete. When are the Olympics, cheri? I fully intend to go."

  Billy and I were laughing now. "The kid hasn't even made the team yet," I said. "But you'd better make reservations now, because they'll be hard to get."

  "This is my coach, Harlan Brown," Billy explained. "Mr. Brown, this is Delphine de Sevigny."

  "Oooooo, cheri, I know who you are," he crooned. "I thought you looked familiar. You're the big bad Marine."

  I actually flushed. I sensed that Billy was looking at me strangely. I had always presumed that Billy knew of my hustling career, but somehow I felt deeply embarrassed. I wanted my runner to forget that his coach had sold his meat for fifty dollars. I wanted to punch Delphine de Sevigny in the mouth.

  "If you're alone, why don't you join us?" John was saying, taking his arm.

  "Cheri, I'm always alone. Toujours. Take me where you will."

  Arm in arm, they strolled on ahead of us, through the crowd.

  Billy stood looking at me for a moment. His eyes were full of pain, full of questions. For a moment we seemed to be all alone, in the middle of that shoving, babbling, cruising, staring mob.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned away, unable to meet his eyes. Feeling poured over me like a tidal wave. I had always thought of myself—even in the gay world—as a breed apart. The sight of the transvestites had always depressed me beyond words, and I had avoided them. I had always told myself: At least I'm not a freak like that. It was occurring to me now that there was an incredible manly courage in the TV's effort to live as a woman, and that I was still full of straight thinking.

  Billy stood there looking at me sorrowfully. This world was his kingdom, his birthright, and I was still a tourist in it.

  I walked past him. "Let's go, or we'll lose them," I said roughly.

  We sat jostled at a table near the stage. John drank scotch. Delphine drank a champagne cocktail. I drank a Coke. They didn't have any milk, so Billy drank a "glass of water. We heard Bette Midler and the rest. John and Delphine talked, and Billy and I sat silent. When Jess Collett came on and the crowd erupted into frenzied dancing, I was sure Billy would jump up to join them, but he didn't.

  After a while, a dance band came out and started playing vintage stuff: slow jazz and Glenn Miller. It was the kind of stuff that I would have danced to in my youth if I had been irreligious enough to dance. It brought back memories of dances that I didn't dance, loves that I didn't love. The lights dimmed, and the crowd quieted and danced slow. Everybody was plastered together. The straights were plastered to the straights, and the gays were plastered to the gays. John and Delphine got up to dance, and drifted off cheek to, cheek, body to body.

  I sat there feeling more and more depressed. I was thinking about my whole blitzed youth, my blitzed running career, my blitzed romance and marriage, my blitzed summer with Chris.

  Billy sat looking down, playing with a paper nap­kin.

  A toweled boy paused by me, talking in a high excited voice to a friend. He pressed his hip lightly but meaningfully to my shoulder. Out of the corner I could see his lean torso. His towel was draped so that one buttock was half-bare, in hopes I would make a pass. Billy raised his eyes and watched me. He knew about the rooms available upstairs.

  "Get lost," I said hostilely to the boy.

  The hustler looked at me, then at Billy, and said, "Oh dear, pard
on me," and walked off with his friend.

  Finally Billy said, "You going to make a wall­flower out of me?"

  I felt that blow in my stomach. He wanted to dance with me.

  "I don't dance," I said. "You go ahead if you want."

  "Come on, it's a slow one," he said.

  I wanted to take his hand in my right hand, and put my left arm around him, and dance with him, and feel his ruffled breast pressing against my tie.

  "All" we need," I said harshly, "is a little social note in Sports Illustrated about how Prescott track coach Harlan Brown was seen dancing with Billy Sive at the Continental Baths."

  Billy shrugged. A few minutes later, an older man bent beside him and asked him to dance, but he shook his head.

  "You're a very virtuous kid," I said.

  "I go to bed only with people I love," he said.

  "That makes a lot of sense," I said. "I suppose your father taught you that."

  "No;" he said.

  "You're too young to know what love is," I said.

  "I know," he said. "I guess I'll fall hard one of these days."

  "He'll be a lucky man," I said. I was talking as though I had drunk five scotches. "And I suppose you'll get married."

  He shrugged again. "Those marriages don't last. Anyway, if you really love someone, you don't have to formalize it. And Buddhists are supposed to reject rituals."

  I felt like my heart was lying there on the sawdust floor, being pushed around by thousands of dancing feet.

  "Do you love someone, Mr. Brown?" Billy asked very cautiously playing with my empty Coke bottle, turning it around and around.

  "No," I said.

  "But you must have, sometime."

  "No."

  "Not ever?" he persisted.

  I drained the last of my Coke from the glass.

  "But you have to love someone, sometime," he said.

  "True," I said.

  "Look," he said, "don't be embarrassed by what Delphine said. I knew all about you when I came to Prescott."