The Front Runner (29 page)

The final was run on July 5. This time we avoided the crowd by sneaking into the stadium through a back entrance. But the shrieking admirers and detractors were all through the stands. Outside, a Gay Youth group and a couple of straight youth groups were hawking the
GO BILLY
T-shirts, and hundreds were wearing them now. A YAF group and the Jesus freaks were selling T-shirts that said
STOP BILLY.

Billy posed for photographers wearing a
STOP BILLY
T-shirt. "They'll need more than a rag to stop me," he said.

But I knew he was just a little nervous, and barely keeping his  dharma balanced.  From  what  quarter

would come the political ploy that would try to keep him off the team?

As he went to the starting line with the rest of the field, my stomach was tied in knots.

The tactical problems of this race were complex for Billy, and he was not a genius at flexible tactics. Theoretically he didn't have to run an all-out race— all he had to do was finish third or better. But he had to run fast enough, and smart enough, to stay clear of the others, particularly Dellinger. If they forced the pace and stayed up with him in a group, and if he found himself in this group, he might panic and foul somebody, and be disqualified. If Dellinger fouled him out of the race, the USOC just might not call the foul. Some pretty strange disqualifications take place at the Trials sometimes, but the runners usually accept them. For once I was thankful that Billy was a front-runner—back in the pack, waiting to kick, he would be more exposed to bumping.

As the runners toed the marks, there were boos and cheers. Through a pair of glasses, I studied Billy's face. It was alert, but expressionless.

At the gun, the runners surged down the track, and the ten thousand people in the stands sent up a roar that made my hair stand on end. Roman circus. The survival of the fittest. A runner's blood on the track—that was what they wanted.

I found that my hands were shaking a little as I followed Billy with the glasses. My whole life seemed to hang on those next twenty-seven and a half minutes   arid twenty-four laps that the race would take.

Dellinger made his strategy clear almost from the gun.

He set a fast opening pace, obviously hoping to burn off Billy's finishing strength. Billy coolly accepted the challenge. The two of them bombed through the first mile in 4:23.7, which was near world-record pace. They pulled rapidly away from Stella and the rest. Billy was running a couple of yards in front, as if teasing Dellinger on. Dellinger pushed him grimly. The rest settled into their own pace, sure that the crazy two would kill themselves before long.

Dellinger's strategy had me a little worried. Billy always ran a better race when he could set the pace himself and pick it up later on.

The crowd deafened me, shouting blessings and curses at that distant slender figure. Through the glasses, I could see him close up—his curls lifting, his lips opened, the muscles playing rhythmically in his shoulders and arms, the blue letters
PRESCOTT
on his white jersey. He looked so human, so vulnerable. My lover, out there alone where everybody could stare at him. In my mind, mocking voices whispered, "They're
married.
What do they
do?
Do you think they. . . ? Of course, and they also ..."

It was a hot day, and shortly both Dellinger and Billy were running with sweat. Neither of them was a great hot-weather runner, so that made them even. By lap 14, they were nearly an entire lap ahead of the rest. Then, as I kept noting the lap times, their pace started easing sharply. Billy was still a couple yards ahead, but they both looked as though they were suffering with the heat. I agonized—it was a bad sign to see Billy tiring so soon (later, though, he told me that he had simply felt Dellinger letting go, so he eased up to save himself).

Far back, the pack saw them easing up, and began chasing them. Something in the way Billy moved told me that he was feeling liver cramps. It's a common affliction in thin distance-runners, and they usually bothered him most in the 10,000.

Going into lap 23, Billy and Dellinger were still together, with Billy still implacably ahead. But a group of five, led by Mike Stella, was now closing the distance between themselves and the two leaders. They were sixty yards behind, then fifty, then forty. The noise from the stands grew as the gap narrowed.

"Come on, Bob!" "Hang in there, Billy!" "Go, Mike!"

Both Dellinger and Billy looked very tired now. I would have to hope that we didn't get such a hot day in Montreal.

Halfway along the backstretch in lap 23, Billy and Dellinger came up on the runner in last place. As

they shifted outside to lap him, Bellinger tried a trick that Billy should have been ready for but wasn't. He threw a burst, cut to the inside and tried to pass Billy there. They bumped and tangled feet. And Billy went down.

The crowd screamed. A jolt went through me—I could feel in every nerve how Billy hit the tartan track hard, on his hip. Roman circus. My runner lying there, in lane 1. I couldn't even go out and help him.

Amid the general hysteria, Dellinger ran on alone. Billy lay stunned for a moment, then scrambled up. Dazedly he started to run again. He was limping. I put my hand over my eyes for a moment, then took it away again and looked through the glasses again. It was so pitiful to see him. His glasses had fallen off. He had lost one shoe—Dellinger must have stepped on his foot. His rhythm and his psych were shattered like thin glass. He was moving along jerkily, drunkenly. He was flapping along like a bird with a broken wing.

All around me, his admirers were groaning and crying. "He's limping!" "I can't look, it's too awful." "That's the end of him." Dellinger's fans were rejoicing, pounding each other on the backs. "Bob's got it sewed up."

Billy was pulling himself together now. But Mike Stella passed him. Then Fred Martinson passed him. He was running with one foot bare, running blind— he could see the edge of the track only fuzzily, I knew. He had stopped limping and was running evenly. But Wilt Boggs passed him. Now Billy was fifth.

But coming out of the turn, Billy seemed to realize his situation. He collected himself, and suddenly he was running like a beast. It was one of those moments when I got the cold chills, watching him wring out of his body the last flicker of response. As the five of them tore into the final lap, the entire stadium was on its feet.

Slowly Billy hauled Boggs down, and in the back-stretch he managed to pass him. Then he was madly chasing down Martinson. Meanwhile, up front, Dellinger was totally exhausted and unable to protect bis

lead. Stella, then Martinson swept past him in the turn. With Dellinger now third, it was him that Billy had to get in front of.

As they raced down the straight, Billy was just coming up on Dellinger's shoulder. But the fall had taken too much out of him, and he didn't make it. He crossed the line fourth.

The screaming of the crowd died off. Stella, Martinson and Dellinger came jogging back. Billy stood beyond the finish line, bent over with the heaves. Then he came walking dejectedly back to where I was, limping again. His calf and the top of his foot were bleeding where Dellinger had spiked him. He pulled up the leg of his shorts and displayed an ugly bruise coming on his hip where he'd hit.

He looked sick with shock and the heat, and I wiped his face and shoulders with a cold rag. His eyes were wet, but he wasn't crying.

"Well," he said, "they better disqualify Dellinger. He bumped me."

Announcer Curt Steinem was reeling off the results to the crowd. "First, ladies and gentleman, is Mike Stella, who records a 28:03.9 . . ." Stella, Martinson and Dellinger were announced as the 10,000 team.

Then, incredibly, Steinem was saying, "Billy Sive is disqualified for fouling."

Billy's fans erupted with boos.

Billy looked at me. "I didn't touch him," he burst out. "He bumped me." An official brought him his shoe, and his glasses, which had been stepped on and crushed. He took them without looking.

"Are you sure?" I asked. I felt crushed. Billy still had a shot left at the 5,000, but who knew if he'd make it, especially now that he was injured? The 10,000 was his best race. And he'd set his heart on the double.

Mike Stella came over and put his hand on Billy's shoulder. "I'm really sorry, man."

"That fucking sexual racist bumped me," said Billy.

My dejection started turning to anger.

As the afternoon went on, John Sive and I visited

the ABC-TV crew. They showed us a playback of the videotape, in slow motion. It was quite clear. Dellinger bumped Billy as he cut to the inside. They tangled" feet, Dellinger stepping on Billy's shoe, and Billy fell.

I was livid. I went to the officials and invited them to view the videotape. They were not accustomed to having their decisions questioned, and they refused. "Billy ran into Dellinger," they said.

The day's events ended, and the press's attention switched to the growing controversy. All the reporters at the meet looked at the videotape. Aldo, Stella and a number of other curious athletes looked at it. They all saw Dellinger fouling Billy.

"This is incredible," said Stella. "It's the crookedest thing I've ever seen."

Billy and I made a statement to the press calling for a reversal of the decision and disqualification of Del-linger. This would automatically move Billy onto the team. John Sive and I then informed the meet officials that if they didn't act before the end of the meet, we would get a court order that would make them act.

"I can promise you," John said, "when a judge sees that film..."

USOC official Frank Appleby responded with some remarks about John being a "goddamn meddling parent."

That night, Stella and his fiancee Sue Macintosh had dinner with us. Billy was sore and disgusted, but Stella finally cheered him up and had him laughing. With his musketeer's mustache and his long, black hair in a ponytail and his dancing hard-boiled eyes, Stella was picturesque. He was a tough, casual, raspy-voiced individualist. He could be brusque and sarcastic, but also gentle. The other athletes had learned to respect his integrity, and the AAU to fear his clout.

"I told you, you gotta have a bodyguard," said Stella.

Having him on our side was a real coup.

The next day, the meet officials were still sticking to their decision. It, and our threat, were aired on

the sports pages and TV news nationwide. Never before had an athlete threatened court action to get a Trials decision reversed. Aldo told us that the USOC had a lawyer checking into their position.

Meanwhile, the Trials ground on. An overflow of athletes was camping on locker-room floors, living on hamburgers.

Billy had a very sore foot and hip, but he wasn't badly injured. He ran his 5,000 heat conservatively, and placed third, qualifying for the final. No one tried to bump him—possibly the guys were worried about all the talk of courts and lawyers.

All this time, I was being the behind-the-scenes paranoid.

Every angle had to be thought of. The dope" tests, for instance. After every event, the officials took a urine sample from each athlete. Supposing they alleged that they found traces of amphetamines in Billy's urine? Billy's trancelike look in races had always brought comments that he must use dope. Some runners do take bennies. Billy scorned them. (The dope tests were partly ineffectual anyway, because the blood doping and a new caffeine-derived drug that was around both left no traces.)

So I contacted a respected athletic physician in Los Angeles, George Hofhaus, and he made a show of collecting extra specimens from Billy. The USOC must have gotten the message. While two other athletes were disqualified for doping, Billy was not bothered on this score.

All during the Trials, I was the shield that everybody else was bouncing their bullets off. I worked with John on the legalities, and made myself just a little unpopular with the press by restricting their access to Billy. Behind that shield, he had the peace to compete, work out, rest and think only of running.

At night we consolidated that peace in bed. We had carried it away from Prescott with us, and we sheltered it avidly. I felt angry as I looked at his bruised hip, his torn foot. How could anyone dare to hurt him?

Stella and his girlfriend were around a lot. A few of the other runners were dropping around too, and they would sit around on the beds in our room and gab about running. Mike worked out with Billy, and was busy showing everybody that he didn't give a goddamn what they thought.

"You're a weirdo-lover," said Dellinger to Mike.

Mike looked him right in the eye. "I'd rather be a weirdo-lover than get on the team the way you did."

For the first time, we began to feel that we weren't alone against the world.

On July 12, the last day of the Trials, the 5,000 final was run. The stands were jam-packed again, and scalpers outside were selling tickets for fifty dollars. Billy's people were chanting:

Billy, Billy He's our man Catch him, Bobby, If you can.

Once again, Dellinger chose to force the pace. He knew that Billy's injuries were still hurting him, and he counted on the pain to erode at Billy's ability to hold the pace. But he hadn't counted on Billy's ability to block out pain.

So it was the two of them again, a front-runner's race, slugging it out far ahead of the rest. Stubborn, furious, Billy stayed in the lead. This time he made no mistakes. He burned Dellinger off, and won by twenty yards, for a 13:22.8. Stella came forging up for third place.

It seemed like half the stands went wild at Billy's victory. A lot of young people spilled down onto the track. Billy took a grinning victory lap, jogging in their midst while they jumped up and down and pounded him on the back.

So the 5,000 team would be Billy, Dellinger and Stella.

Then the announcer said, "We also have a special announcement. At a meeting of the officials, it has been decided to reverse a decision in the 10,000 meter event.

On viewing the videotape, they found that the foul was caused by Bob Dellinger, not Billy Sive ..."